#soulmate timer au

[quadrantadvisor]

DPxDC Danny/Jason Soulmates AU WIP

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Jason's timer read 044389:21:08, when the display suddenly went dark. 44,389 hours. Five years, 24 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, and 8 seconds until he was fated to meet his soulmate.

Or not. Because the time stopped.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. He did his research, and with the resources at his disposal (namely, a batcomputer,) he knew for a fact that there should be no way to defy the fate of a timer. People had tried. Avoidance, isolation, putting a hit out on your own suspected soulmate. Nothing worked. Trying to delay the inevitable put you on the path to meet it. Sure, there were people who lamented the unfairness of their own situation, who were devastated they never got time with their soulmate, famous deaths on opposite sides of a battle, etc. But soulmates always, always met eachother, face to face.

Not him, though. His soulmate was dead. Five years early.

Bruce didn’t get it. Dick wouldn’t talk about it. Alfred only looked at him with pity in his eyes.

Jason wasn’t sad that he was the only person on the planet who’d never meet his soulmate. He was fucking angry, because it wasn’t fucking fair. It was another person in his life who was supposed to care about him that he’d never get to have.

So when he found out he had a mom, somewhere out there, who he’d never had the chance to meet… he had to go. How could he not?

-

It was Sam who noticed, when it happened. Danny had just finished a stupid fight with Boxy, and he, Sam, and Tucker were finally ready to call it a night. Danny de-transformed and grinned, shaking the thermos proudly. “Gonna get these guys back into the Ghost Zone,” he said, when suddenly-

“Danny!” Sam yelped, and snatched at his arm.

Danny stumbled, nearly dropping his precious cargo. “Whoa, Sam, what-?’ he stopped, looking as she turned over his arm, baring his wrist.

His timer was dark, like people who’s soulmates were dead. The numbers still showed, faintly, but they were stationary. The countdown had stopped.

Ice spread through Danny’s veins, like the cold that rushed through him when he went ghost, but worse, so much worse.

Danny’s ghost form didn’t have a timer, which honestly freaked him out, but as a human it had always behaved completely normally. When he turned back, it would be there, the time having elapsed just the way it was supposed to. It had been so reassuring. He was alive. He’d make it at least five more years, and be able to meet his soulmate, who would hopefully be able to accept him the way he was. He wanted that so badly. He wanted someone beyond his friends to talk to, to know him as a person and a ghost. He wanted to not be afraid anymore.

He’d just passed the five year mark, not that long ago. He’d been so excited to be that much closer to someone so important.

And now something was horribly wrong.

“Dude, that’s jacked up,” Tucker said, noticing the problem with wide eyes.

“Did anything happen today?” Sam asked, her expression hardened with determination. “Did you notice anything weird while you were transformed?”

Danny shook his head. “No, no it- it was running while we were at school, and we’ve been fighting ghosts since then. I don’t know when it would’ve…” Danny could barely make himself speak. “Is it my fault?” he said, almost to himself. “Did I spend too much time as a ghost and it just-”

Sam gripped at his hand. “No, Danny, it isn’t your fault. Whatever the problem is, we’re going to figure it out, okay?”

“Yeah man,” Tucker added, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe your parents can actually help this time? Weird magic science is kinda their thing, right?”

Sam looked less sure, but nodded all the same. “You’re going to meet your soulmate. Okay?”

“Okay,” Danny said, quiet, looking down at the stopped numbers on his wrist.

-

Edit: Added a readmore

[miryum]

The Canary and the Robin (Jason Todd x Reader)

Summary: You find Jason being tortured by the Joker and decided to take him in, imperfections and all. If he happens to be your soulmate, so be it

Warnings: I know reader acts like a white person in a horror movie but bear with me, OOC Talia, descriptions of torture, Joker hurting Jason, descriptions of flashbacks of torture, allusions to sexual assault from the Joker unto Jason but not descriptive at all, panic attack, ignore locations and timelines, timer soulmates once they turn 8, swearing, a lotta angst (literally starts out with Jason’s funeral), but happy ending, hurt/comfort, Jason doesn’t have guns or an autopsy scar in this cause he’s Robin still and lemme tell you it’s so unnatural for me to write him without those, perspective switching, conscious wording (so everything is written like that for a reason), Jason’s awful parents and their drinking and harassment (just descriptions on them yelling and drinking and smoking), spoilers to Great Gatsby, kinda open ended, but also not at all? if that makes sense, lemme know if I missed anything

Word Count: 12k so grab some snacks and tissues

Canary in a coal mine is a common term meant to describe something that’s unusually sensitive to conditions that make it a useful early indicator of negatively changing circumstances.

Jason’s funeral was on May 16th, just eight months after he had been taken by the Joker. Alfred had chosen daisies, lilacs, and lotuses for the flowers, but Bruce brought a bouquet of hyacinths to lay on his son’s casket. As much as Bruce Wayne liked to flaunt his wealth, these hyacinths were hand pulled from his own gardens. Roots and dirts still clung to the end of the stems when Jason’s coffin was lowered into the ground. 

Dick had come in from Bludhaven. When he had heard the news, his timer stopped and reversed itself until it added a year and a half onto his time. He had just gotten a brother and had been learning how to be a role model when his brother was dragged away from him, kicking and screaming. It wasn’t fair, Dick kept repeating to himself. A teenager shouldn’t be targeted just because he eagerly trailed on Batman’s heels, snarky comebacks and smirks ready to fire.

There was a public funeral where paparazzi clicked away at their cameras and Bruce stood stoically in the front row, clearing his throat at the podium when he had to make a eulogy. There was then a private funeral where the casket was actually lowered beneath a gladiolus bush. There were no eulogies for none of the family could bring themselves to say much. It was just Bruce, Alfred, Dick, and Barbara. Selina Kyle showed up that night in Bruce’s room and Dick pretended not to hear Bruce’s sobs. Alfred stood in the doorway of Jason’s old room, feather duster in hand. After a couple of minutes, he hung his head and walked off, closing the door behind him. Nothing was cleaned.

The next day, tabloids displayed the pictures of Bruce Wayne standing by a casket. Bruce stopped investing in any companies that did. His own stock dropped, but Bruce wasn’t answering his financial advisor’s calls. He wasn’t answering any calls. 

It was late one night and Dick couldn’t sleep. He had been wanting to return to Bludhaven, but whenever he opened his suitcase, he couldn’t bring himself to pack. He found Alfred in the kitchen, pouring some hot tea. “I figured you would join me one night,” Alfred commented without looking back. 

Dick couldn’t help but chuckle, rubbing his eyes. “Your sixth sense is never wrong, Alfred.” 

Alfred slid a cup over to Dick who took it thankfully, not caring that the tea burnt his tongue. Perhaps it was what he deserved for not being there to help Jason. “I should’ve-”

“Mister Grayson,” Alfred cut him off. “The Joker was ten steps ahead of Batman. Not even the powerful Nightwing could’ve helped. And you could not have flown to Africa in time.” 

“It was closed casket,” Dick whispered out. “I didn’t even get to see my little brother before he was gone.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. 

“It was closed casket because Master Wayne couldn’t find Master Jason’s…” Alfred exhaled and corrected himself, “He couldn’t find Master Jason.”

Dick’s head lifted and his hands clenched around his cup. “What?” he breathed out. Desperation filled his voice, “but Alfie, he could still be out there! Jason could be alive!” Alfred simply gave him a stern look and Dick’s stomach bubbled with nausea. “Yeah,” he muttered bitterly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” His jaw tensed and after a moment, he decided, “I’m going to go back to Bludhaven tomorrow.”

“Safe travels,” is all Alfred said.

It was then that Bruce woke from a nightmare of his dead son screaming out for him.

~~~~

You hadn’t meant to be passing by Arkham Asylum. It wasn’t something one did intentionally; in fact, many people went out of their way to avoid it. But it seemed as if fate wasn’t on your side today, for when your car broke down right outside Arkham Asylum, you didn’t notice the watch on your wrist ticking down quicker and quicker. You swore to yourself and took the mace out of your glove compartment before sliding your keys in between your fingers. Arkham Asylum had been practically abandoned for years, but perhaps there was a janitor or receptionist who could help you get service. Then you could call a mechanic and get the hell out of there. 

The gates to Arkham had rust creeping up the edges and the lock clanged sharply against its chains. Maybe there wasn’t going to be a receptionist in the building… But perhaps there would be a phone you could use. In order for the gates to creak open, you had to force your bodyweight against the metal and try to shove the lock out of the way, praying you didn’t get tetanus in the process. 

The door to Arkham, however, swung open without a sound. It seemed as if someone had been regularly visiting the Asylum, even if there was no one to visit – or love – in the building. “Hello?” you stage whispered, phone flashlight on, and finger on the button on your mace. 

There was clearly a reason why the public wasn’t exposed to Arkham. All reports were classified and no photographers were allowed in. Wide-eyed and mouth slightly agape, you stared around at Arkham Asylum. The halls were long and dark, meant to cause paranoia and confusion. It was certainly working on you. The only light peeking through was from the grime covered windows and your flashlight. The ceiling was crumbling slightly and you were pretty sure Arkham had been under construction when it had been abandoned; otherwise, how could you explain all the dust, debris, and graffiti? You didn’t even want to think of the disease-carrying rodents that were surely scurrying underneath your feet. 

“Is anything here? That can help me?” Your voice echoed down the cell block, vibrating off the metal bars and old bunks. 

You reeled back when your foot kicked a pebble, sending it ricocheting off your sneaker. After the pebble settled some yards away, you took in a steadying breath. You heard a faint sound, one that didn’t sound at all like a pebble. “Hello?” you asked again. Shadows danced around as you shone your flashlight down the hall, messing with your mind. 

When you strained your ears, it sounded as if a faint wail could be heard. Your brows furrowed with worry and instinctively, you started towards it. Your watch ticked down faster as disquietude and anxiety rippled through you like snakes, biting and twisting in your veins. Your flashlight bounced over empty, desolate cells as your pace quickened and the screams got louder. You contemplated calling the police, but when you checked your phone, you didn’t have any service. And who knew if the police would help or not? Arkham was a place only the brave or stupid went; right now, you were pretty sure you were the latter. 

The screams took you deeper and deeper into the Asylum and you prayed that you would be able to find your way out. If you ever got out… your mind immediately thought. 

It wasn’t long before the blood curdling howls shook you to your bones. They seemed to be coming from a cell, yet when you pointed your flashlight towards it, heart thumping at what you might find, there was nothing. But the screams were there. You weren’t making them up. Where the hell were they coming from– oh.

A shiver ran up your spine when you noticed the comical trapdoor in the corner of the cell. You wondered if the Arkham architects intentionally put it there when they were designing this horror house, or if an inmate had scraped a hidden passageway with a spoon they stole from the cafeteria. 

Nonetheless, when you pried open the door, a wall of whimpers and cries from torture hit you full force. You shook your head, steeling yourself, before swallowing down the queasiness. The goosebumps on your arms were full-time residents now. 

Your feet carried you down the dirt steps of the trapdoor. Your mind wasn’t particularly your own. Your brain was foggy. Your body felt like a child had taken your hand and was leading you down the steps. Later in your life, when you thought back to that moment, you knew the universe had been guiding you. But even if you didn’t make it out of Arkham Asylum, you knew your life was going to drastically change. The nonexistent hand squeezed yours in comfort as your heart jumped and pounded when the faint light at the bottom of the stairs grew brighter. 

A small chamber resided under Arkham Asylum, as you found out that day. In the chamber were two people. One held a crowbar dripping with blood. His back was turned to you, but any citizen of Gotham would recognise that pastel green and purple suit anywhere. The Joker was alive. 

But the second person caught your eye. He was strung up from the ceiling, crusty, brown chains trapping him midair. The red outfit he was wearing was being held together by tatters, but you didn’t know if the outfit was originally red or covered with blood. A black and yellow cape was clinging onto the victim’s back, burnt and torn. A green utility belt had been thrown in the corner, its pockets overturned and emptied. 

And your timer buzzed against your wrist.

You didn’t register it at first, but after a moment of incessant buzzing, you tore your horrified stare away from the ruined man and to your wrist. A crude joke bounced into your head: so either my soulmate is the Joker or someone who wronged him… Either way, not ideal. 

The Joker stood proud and tall, shoulders thrown back and grin wide. “Come on, Robby,” he taunted. “You and I both know these little excursions of ours go better when you make noise. How I love to make you sing…”

It was then you registered the Robin symbol on the man’s breast. You slowly pieced everything together, realising that the person in front of you was the presumably dead Robin. You couldn’t help the little, amazed curse word that slipped out from between your lips. 

The Joker slid out a syringe from his pocket and slunk up beside Robin, injecting the green serum into his neck. Joker chuckled as he pressed the liquid further into Robin’s neck, whispering into his ear, “now, now, you mustn’t leave me, Robby. But whatever would you leave for? Now that the Bats has forgotten you.” Joker was mercilessly teasing the sidekick, spit flicking onto his cheek. Robin whimpered, a parched and cracked noise from the back of his throat. 

“Louder, Robby, louder!” The Joker coaxed in a cooing voice. You grimaced and wanted to crawl out of your skin at his voice. Once you realised your mace wasn’t going to do you any good, your eyes darted around the small torture dungeon. Eventually, they landed on a discarded, bent pipe that had a disturbing red colour coated on. You willed yourself not to think of what the substance was. 

Even though Robin’s limp, swinging body was facing towards you, you doubted he could see you. With the drugs running through his veins, his vision would surely be blurred and his mind muddled.

It was just your luck when, as you were inching towards the pipe, your phone decided to work and began buzzing loudly, indicating a call from your friend, Talia. The Joker whirled around, crowbar in hand and you squealed, grabbing the pipe. Before the Joker could react, his eyes widening in shock, you swung the pipe at his head. With the clang of metal against skull, the Joker collapsed, unconscious. You stared down at him, disbelief flooding your body. Oh my god, I just killed the Joker. Or, at the very least, gave him a good concussion. Your hands shook as a little pool of blood seeped out from Joker’s head. You dropped the pipe and it clattered to the dirt floor. A little groan that escaped Robin and your still-ringing phone brought you back to Earth. 

“Shit, shit, I gotta get outta here,” you muttered, looking around frantically. Your phone kept ringing and with a swear, you brought it to your ear. “What?” you growled out. 

“Wow, what has your panties in a twist?” Talia asked back snarkily. 

You held your phone between your shoulder and your head as you hurried towards Robin. “Nothing, nothing, sorry,” you muttered as you attempted to free him from the chains. “Why’re you calling?”

“Why are you so stressed? You sound like you just ran a marathon,” Talia said through the phone. You could envision her checking her nails while doing so. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” You finally got Robin’s wrists to slip from the chains and he fell down onto you. You grunted under his weight. Apparently, just because he had been starved and tortured for months didn’t mean he had lost his superhero muscle. 

Talia paused for a moment and you could practically hear the gears in her brian turning. “Do you need me to help hide a body?” she asked suddenly. 

You laughed nervously as you shifted Robin to your shoulder and began dragging him towards the steps. “No?” you finally answered. “Though if you wanted to meet me by Arkham Asylum with your working car and a cure for an almost dead superhero, that would be great.”

“I will be there in twenty minutes.”

~~~~

“How did this happen?” Talia demanded, more curiosity in her voice than malice and anxiety. You were in her passenger seat, staring at the wounded Robin who was laid in the back. Talia weaved through traffic with ease, headed towards the Yuyan Building.

“I don’t know!” you cried out, panic infusing itself into your blood. It felt similar to the way the Joker had infused serum into Robin. You clutched at the seatbelt, hoping it would take some of your dread. “My car just stopped working and then I was just going into Arkham Asylum like an idiot and I found the dead Robin! He was supposed to be dead, right? It was all over the news!”

“And then Batman got another Robin,” Talia added, almost bitterly. You shot her a confused look and she glanced over at you. Her eyes flickered down to your wrist before you yelled at her to focus on the road again. “You are a rational person, Y/n,” Talia began as the car screeched to a halt outside an imposing, ornate building. You stared up at it as Talia got out of the car. You scrambled to help her with Robin. The two of you each had one of his arms over your shoulders, his feet scraping along the ground, head lolling to the side, as you carried him in. “I do not think you would go into Arkham Asylum without something else guiding you,” Talia continued. “Do not think I did not notice your stopped timer. He is your soulmate, is he not?”

You nodded, not trusting your words. You were worried you would start crying if you actually had a moment to process all of the day’s events. “Will your dad help?” you asked finally, voice wavering.

Talia chuckled dryly, eyes narrowing on a fixed point ahead of you. She led you and Robin deeper into Yuyan Building. “If it gets on Batman’s good side? Absolutely.”

“I’ll take him after you’re done healing him,” you added quickly. “I’ll take him back home and care for him if you and your dad help me this one time.” You realised it sounded like you were begging for help. Briefly, you wondered what had happened in such a short time to make you care so much for Robin. Part of you decided it was what any rational, kind human being would do – help someone who was badly hurt – but another part of you knew that wasn’t the case. You felt tied to this boy you didn’t even know the name of. Whether it was through your soulmate bond or not, you knew you were connected to Robin. You felt his pain and terror. Even though he was unconscious, you could feel his resistance tugging against you. He didn’t want to go with you. He was scared of what you might do to him. His emotions dug into you and you felt a whimper crawling up your throat, begging for escape. 

It was then you steeled yourself and decided one thing: you weren’t going to let your soulmate die. 

Yuyan Building held deeper secrets, you realised. Talia directed you down long hallways and steep stairwells and you felt bad for the custodians who had to clean up Robin’s trail of blood. It was long minutes, full of you groaning under Robin’s weight and Talia looking unaffected, before Talia stopped at a large, ominous door. 

You couldn’t look Ra’s in the eye as he slung Robin into the Lazarus Pit. You could only watch the bubbling green liquid as Robin slowly sunk to the bottom. Agonising minutes ticked by, halted only by Ra’s and Talia whispers to each other. 

You hugged yourself tightly after five minutes passed and you called anxiously to Talia, “do- does he need help? Is he hurting? Why is it taking so long?”

“He had a lot of injuries, Y/n,” Talia reassured you, coming to place a hand on your shoulder in comfort. “He will be okay.”

Yeah. He’ll be okay.

~~~~

Jason’s eyes burned. Green was all that he could see. He tried to breathe in, but the only thing that filled his lungs was the green surrounding him. When the liquid filled his lungs and he coughed out, bubbles trailed up to the surface like a safety rope guiding the way. 

Jason stretched a hand out in front of him, muscles aching at disuse. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to run away, would we, Robby?” The Joker’s voice called after him as Jason kicked his feet futilely. “Not our little prince!” 

A flitting feeling coursed through Jason: curiosity and concern, but he was too weak to form a thought. His arm, reaching out towards the bubbles that led him upward, didn’t look like his own. He remembered the scars criss-crossing along it and he remembered the dirt and grime infecting cuts and burns, even digging its way underneath his nails, but he didn’t remember looking so… strong. Since when did he have the muscles and veins that looked like years of exercise had paid off? Batman had kept him fit – Robin needed to be able to hold his own, but he didn’t quite remember it working so well. 

His hand finally breached the top of the green waves, grasping up towards breathable air and safety. 

Green. Like the Joker. Another one of his charades. A playing card, to show Jason he wasn’t free yet. He was never free.

Everything was disillusioning. His vision veered sideways before becoming foggy and nausea crashed through Jason, like the waves in which he was trying to fight against.

“Stop struggling!” he heard someone cry out, “you’re making your own waves! You have to swim.”

He saw someone reaching out towards him and without a second thought, Jason extended his bandaged hand, clinging onto the buoy in the storm. Their hand was soft and comforting and dragged him out of the water. Jason allowed himself to be dragged. He didn’t have the energy to fight the Joker. He had given up much too long ago. 

“What did you do to him?” someone asked once Jason fell to the ground. The world spun around him and he couldn’t recognise whomever was speaking. He gasped in desperate air, filling his deprived lungs. 

“Take in a good, deep breath, Robby. Smell that blood? It’s yours. A reminder that Bats isn’t gonna come save you. Doesn’t it smell delicious?” The Joker hissed at him, inhaling himself. He cackled and licked his lips. “You’re a sweet little bird, aren’t you?”

“Why does he look like that?” the same voice asked. Jason heard a small thud over the ringing in his ears. 

“The Lazarus Pit not only receives, but it returns, ten times stronger,” a deep voice explained. “It takes what it has been given, and it blossoms it into its full potential. What it needs to become.”

Jason flinched away from the hands that rested on him. The hands retreated and Jason wondered what new tactic the Joker was trying. The Joker never retreated.

The voices were getting more frantic and his heartbeat seemed amplified. As Jason was slowly lifted up, he passed out.

~~~~

The next time Jason woke up, the first thing he noticed was the clock. There was a digital clock on a small table beside him, green numbers staring unblinkingly up at him. Green as in the Joker. Clock as in a bomb. Does he want me to defuse the bomb? Or is it all a trick? The Joker never let me see any clocks. Time was a valuable construct, one the Joker used to his advantage. If Jason didn’t know how much time had passed, the Joker could stretch the days and the torture. 

It took Jason a moment to blink the sleep from his mind. Then, he let his eyes flick around the room as his body stayed perfectly still. It was a tactic he learned from Batman – never let anyone know you were awake. He could categorise helpful information for later, such as possible escape routes, and if the Joker didn’t know he was awake quite yet, there would be less time for torture.

The former Robin was in a room. He didn’t recognise it and that scared Jason more than he would ever admit. There was a dresser opposite him with pictures on it. He couldn’t quite make out who was in the pictures, but it didn’t quite matter yet. A closet door was closed and next to it stood a tall mirror that had a blanket thrown over it. A small bookshelf sat beside him and when Jason had the mental capacity, he couldn’t help but feel the pull to read the titles. It smelled better than anything in a long time. Instead of urine and festering skin, this place smelled like lavender and vanilla. 

It was only then Jason realised he was laying on a bed. And there were no restraints tying him down to it. 

What new tactic was this? What scheme was the Joker pulling? What game did he want Jason to play? What was the objective? The trick Jason had to uncover to live another day? 

Green and purple and yellow whirled around Jason and he gripped his head, begging the colours to stop. Carnival music played loudly in his ears, that same damn tune for the past thirty six hours. 

Strapped to a chair, there was nowhere to escape the Joker’s mind games. Jason had been sedated more times than he could count and dragged to new locations where the Joker found new ways to torment him. Today’s lucky special was the Joker’s old hideout at the abandoned carnival. 

It wasn’t long before the Joker’s voice rang out from within hidden speakers. “Show me those street smarts, Robby! Play with me. Maybe I’ll let you go…” he jeered and inveigled. 

The spinning stopped and Jason planted his feet on the ground. His head dipped and his mouth hung open, eyes crossed and half-lidded. The Joker stood before him, leaning on his crowbar. “Ah, ah, ah,” the Joker tsked. “You're losing your touch, Robby.” The Joker ran his tongue over his teeth, lips curling up in a tantalising grin before lifting the crowbar back. 

Jason didn’t hear anything before he blacked out.

It had seemed that he had blacked out in real life too, for the time had advanced three hours and the sun had sunk in the sky. Next to the clock was a tall glass of water and a small plate of crackers. Two pills of unassuming tylenol sat nearby.

Someone had been in here, Jason realised. The thought made his skin crawl and he quickly flung off the sheets, not used to the feeling of cotton. After a quick analysis of his body, even though his skin was already wrecked and flayed, there weren't the telltale nail marks on his thighs that the Joker had been there in his sleep. The only thing out of the ordinary were the bandages and cleaned wounds. His armour was nowhere to be seen and he had been stuffed into pyjama pants and a shirt that seemed a bit tight. 

Panic flashed through his spine and Jason flung his legs over the mattress. He promptly collapsed and his knees ached at the impact. It took a moment of forcing his lungs open and letting oxygen flow through his system once more until he was able to crawl pathetically towards the covered mirror. His fingers twisted around the sheet and dragged it downward, letting it pool on the floor and around his legs. 

Staring back at him wasn’t his face. It was the face of someone who had lived ten more years and seen fifty more years of battle. 

Jason promptly swung his fist at the glass, shattering the mirror and letting the shards rain down. But he could still see his reflection. Jason forced his eyes away from the unfamiliar face and the scars he could feel burning into his skin.

Just a trick of the Joker. That’s all it ever was. He was never free and never more would believe so. Everything was consumed by that pale skin, green hair, and purple nails. Everything was a mind game followed by excruciating pain. 

His gaze drifted back to the water and crackers. It could be tainted. But the Joker also needed him alive to continue their games. There was always a grace period for Jason to heal before the next session began. 

He limped back to the bed, downed the water, not daring to touch the pills, and fell back onto the pillow. He shifted and adjusted the pillow. It felt uncomfortable. He threw it to the other side of the room before rubbing at his aching wrists. His skin there was red and irritated, not used to being out of chains. That was unusual, when Jason truly thought about it. The Joker knew how powerful Jason was. Jason had even managed to escape his chains once, back when he was healthy and convinced Batman would come and rescue him. But a bullet to the malnourished stomach was enough to stop anyone. 

He kept massaging his hands until his fingers skirted over the bare skin of the inside left wrist. It felt like something should be there. Something was missing. 

“Well well well,” Joker’s voice crooned in his ear. The man’s fingers curled around Jason's wrist. Long fingers tapped a tune on the proud watch that sat on Jason’s skin, ticking like a heartbeat. “Does our little Robby have a soulmate?” 

The boy’s muscles tensed, protesting against the Joker for the first time in weeks. He had been trying to keep the watch hidden for as long as possible, but he should’ve known it was futile.

“But who on earth could love you?” The Joker questioned deridingly.

Jason’s cracked lips parted and he forced a “no” from his parched throat. “Don’t.”

The Joker giggled – a high pitched, ugly sound that would haunt Jason’s nightmare’s for years to come. “Oh… and have you met your true love yet?” 

“Stop it.” Jason wiggled away from the Joker’s searing grip but nothing helped.

The psychopath’s nails embedded crescents into Robin's skin as he forced his wrist around. “No no no,” the Joker tsked as he watched the clock inch down towards zero. “You haven’t met them yet… what?” He turned back towards Jason, eyes wide with fake innocence. “You think they’re gonna come save you, Robby?” A burst of laughter bubbled from the murderer. “Never,” he hissed in Jason’s ear, making the boy cringe away, his chains swinging with him. 

A sob crawled its way up Jason’s lungs as the Joker grabbed his chains, steadying him, before licking a stripe up Jason’s cheek, leaving behind saliva and horrid breath. The Joker then licked his lips, relishing in the taste of Robin’s blood and tears. 

“You really think you deserve anyone?” The Joker whispered in his ear, more serious than Jason had ever seen him. His fist clenched around Jason’s watch and the boy let out a whimper. “You don’t.” The glass cracked under the Joker’s force. “Deserve shit.” He ripped the soulmate watch from Jason and threw it to the ground. The delicate watch sprang open and the timer stopped in its tracks. 

Jason let out a guttural scream as the Joker ground the glass into the dirt with his heel. 

~~~~

A loud thump yanked Jason out of sleep. A sharp feminine yelp followed and Jason was instantly on his feet, no matter the spots that danced in his vision. 

A small voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Alfred chastised him for not staying in bed and letting his body heal. “Master Jason, how are you supposed to fight crime if you can’t even walk straight?”

Nevertheless, Jason pushed open the door, raggedly breathing and clutching his side. He was sure he looked like a serial killer of some sort, blood staining through his bandages and hair sloppily matted to his forehead from sweat. 

A girl stared at him from across the room. She was smaller than him, was what Jason noticed first. He then noticed her eyes. They were a striking colour and seemed to bore into him, knowing his every want and desire. They were cautious, yet Jason thought he imagined excitement running deep within the girl. 

“Who’re you?” Jason mumbled out, leaning heavily against the doorframe. 

The girl took a breath and said, “I’m Y/n.” A blanket was curled around her feet, much like the blanket that Jason had snatched from the mirror hours earlier. Her hair was a bit messy and Jason categorised a pillow propped up against the armrest of the couch. 

“How’re you—” Jason cut himself off and shook his head. “What’re your… Who…” he struggled to find a question that encapsulated everything while not giving too much away about himself. 

Y/n took a step closer, almost as if he was a wild animal that she didn’t want to startle. It didn’t work; Jason stumbled back over his feet and back into the bedroom. Y/n didn’t follow. “I was at Arkham Asylum three days ago and found you.”

“What were you doing there?” Jason demanded, his words slurred. 

“My car broke down,” Y/n explained easily, though Jason didn’t believe her one bit. “I was looking for help and… found you instead. I had to call a friend for help.”

Jason was done with pleasantries. Alfred had frowned upon swearing, and the boy had quickly learned not to use the words he had heard on the street or the insults villains spat at Batman once they were in handcuffs. But he wasn’t standing next to Batman in bright spandex anymore. He was bleeding through someone else’s clothes and he wasn’t in his own body and there was a girl who was wearing a dark green sweatshirt and green reminded him of the Joker. “Bullshit,” he growled out. His voice didn’t have that prepubescent squeak to it anymore and his veined hand reached up to massage his throat. 

Y/n’s brows stitched together and she stared up at him, slipping the cuffs of her sweater over her hands. “No. It’s not bullshit. I promise,” she said, her voice saccharine. “Look, you’ve been sleeping for almost three days, trying to sleep off that poison the Joker put in you, I’m sure.”

Jason flinched back so hard that he stepped back onto the glass shards from the mirror. It cut into his heel and he winced, blood already leaking from the wound. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Y/n exclaimed, crouching down and then standing back up quickly. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to help you with that? Why don’t you sit on the bed and I’ll grab some bandaids.” Y/n hurried away out of the bedroom and Jason stood still. 

Help. 

Help you. 

“You’re gonna help me win back Batman, Robby,” the Joker whispered in his ear, spit flicking on his face. “You are vital. You will be his downfall.”

Help.

Help me.

Y/n came back, shaking Jason out of the parallels. “You’re not on the bed,” she commented. Jason’s feet automatically moved towards the bed — he knew better than to argue with the Joker, but then he remembered he wasn’t with the Joker. This was a girl who looked like one strong look would have her cowering beneath him, especially if he actually had the physique he saw in the now-broken mirror. 

“Who are you,” he repeated his question from earlier, turning back to look at her. 

“Y/n,” the girl reiterated, head tilting slightly. 

“No.” Jason shook his head. “Who are you. Who do you work for?”

Y/n’s brows scrunched together in confusion and she said, “well, my boss is named Marlene, if that’s what you’re asking. But I don’t see how that’s particularly relevant.”

Jason’s chest rose and fell and he brought his hand up to claw at it. “Liar,” he hissed out. “You… you liar!” A yell curled its way up through him and his nails scratched at his throat, trying to tear this unfamiliar voice from him. Who was he? This wasn’t Jason Todd, the broken boy from Crime Alley. This was someone much more dangerous and unpredictable. Batman had always taught Jason how to analyse plans and choose the one with the highest success rate. But this was a different Jason. This Jason was a tornado, sweeping through every emotion he didn’t know how to handle. 

He saw green. And that only reminded him of the years spent under the Asylum.

Jason tore the sheets from the bed. He shoved things off the bedside table and consequently the lamp fell, its bulb shattering and then flickering out. The room was plunged into darkness. The only source of light was from the barely rising sun, peeking its rays into the window and bathing the edges of the room with pink and orange and yellow. 

The light danced across Y/n’s face as she stared around at the damage Jason was inflicting. Pity and guilt ran rampant on her face and she didn’t stop him.

Jason moved throughout the room, the only things he spared being the dresser and the bookshelf. 

After some time, he collapsed onto the floor, heaving in breaths. It wasn't long before he slowly leaned back to lay down. Y/n carefully sat down next to him, staying a good couple feet away. "I know you don't trust me," she said. She slipped her sleeve down her wrist, tucking in her hands. The outline of a watch pressed against the fabric and Jason stared at it numbly and unthinking. "But my name is Y/n. I work at the Gotham Gazette. My boss's name is Marlene. She's pretty nice and I'm up for a raise soon. I've lived in Gotham my whole life, even while my brother moved away the first chance he got. I've contemplated leaving for a long time, but I could never bring myself to do it." She pointed to a picture that sat on her dresser – one of the only things Jason hadn't destroyed. "That's him. My brother."

Jason didn't move his head to look. His green vision began to fade. 

“When I was growing up I had a fish. His name was Captain Sparkles,” Y/n kept on talking. “He was pretty cool and lived a long time for a fish. Two years, if you’re interested. I’m going to Gotham University and studying English so I can hopefully move up the line of command at the Gazette. My parents are chill and are empty nesters with two dogs out in the countryside. My dad always pledged never to get a dog, but now I’m pretty sure they’re ahead of me in the will.” She chuckled and tugged at her hair. 

Jason turned on his side away from her and he missed her eyes trailing after him sadly. Y/n swallowed and blinked away the sting of impending tears. 

“I have a little routine going,” Y/n continues, her voice cracking slightly. “You know, wake up, go to class — I’m a sophomore — come home and do homework. When I don’t have class, I go to work.” The girl wraps her arms around her knees and tucks her chin in. “What I’m trying to get at, I guess, is that I don’t work for the Joker.”

Jason flinched and cradled his head in his hands. Everything Y/n was telling him seemed true; she didn’t seem like an agent of the Joker, but his mind screamed at him to not trust anybody. Each syllable she spoke seemed like a reminder of how normal he was supposed to be. Day in and day out, when the Joker was pushing Jason’s limits, pulling him to the brink of death, Jason had wished to be normal. To not have met Batman that fateful day. To not have accepted the Robin pedestal. To go to high school and college and live in a dorm and get drunk and then regret it the next day. 

What he would give to be normal. 

“I’m sorry,” Y/n muttered. “I didn't mean to say his name. I know it must be triggering.” She exhaled and was silent for a moment. “I’ll go,” she eventually whispered. “If you need anything, let me know.”

Jason heard her stand and move to the door. No! Please don’t go. I- I can’t be alone. I don’t know how to be alone. But the words didn’t come. 

The door clicked shut behind Y/n. Tears made their way down Jason’s face and his body shook with the effort to keep silent. 

I would rather you torture me than make me be alone, he thought. My thoughts are more dangerous than any weapon.

~~~~

For all of Jason’s life, soulmates had always been in his realm of knowledge. Like bombs. He had heard the word in the news, playing with whatever he had scavenged off the street, his mom smoking on the couch behind him, TV blaring. 

But children are oblivious and it wasn’t until later in his life that he figured out what the words meant. ‘Bombs’ became synonymous with Gotham City and ‘soulmate’ became a word Jason held close to his heart. 

Everyone had a soulmate and it was common for the kids on the playground to compare their numbers ticking down. Younger children, who had yet to get their timer, gazed wistfully at older kids’ watches. Rumours of someone’s timer speeding up or slowing down blistered around the jungle gym and it chilled young Jason’s blood with the thought of not getting to meet his soulmate soon enough. 

But besides those insignificant bouts of worry, Jason was very proud of his soulmate. He would be running around the playground and when he heard someone bragging about how soon they would meet their soulmate, Jason would stop the game of tag and go over to compare numbers. 

Not everyone was as lucky as him, however. Some kids would be teased because their timer estimated that they wouldn’t meet the love of their life until they were on the brink of death. While Jason never stood up for the victim, he would never be the one to bully them. His own mom had smashed her timer when she met Jason’s deadbeat dad, wanting to defy the universe and choose her own lover. It had only led to jail time, alcohol, and negligence. Sometimes, late at night, Jason would wonder what happened to his mom’s true soulmate. Were they still out there with a paused timer, wondering who didn’t think them good enough? Did they also think they could find answers at the bottom of a bottle or did they pick themselves up and reroute their life?

What would’ve his life been like if he had two parents who loved each other and were destined to be together? 

But whenever Jason was feeling down, or he got a bad grade (which didn’t happen often), or he was beaten up in the alleyways of Gotham, or his mom smashed a bottle by his head and screamed at him, he would cast his eyes down to his soulmate timer and just remember that someone out there was for him. That someone was fated to love him. And very early on, from the moment he realised what having a soulmate actually meant, Jason decided that he would wait for however long it took and go through whatever it meant to find them. 

“Whose clothes are these?” Jason whispered, his voice cracked and desolate the next time Y/n came into the room to offer him the little food he could stomach. 

“My brother’s,” she answered easily, setting down the plate of toast and some other easy food. “I thought they would be a bit big on you, but then the Lazarus Pit made you ginormous, so they’re a bit tight now. Sorry.”

“Lazarus Pit?” Jason pushed himself to sit up, muscles groaning in protest. 

“I don’t know how much you remember,” Y/n admitted. “But once I got you out of Arkham, I brought you to my friend Talia. She has some… powerful connections to some influential people and was able to help heal you in the Lazarus Pit. I just didn’t know how much it would alter you.”

“That explains a lot,” Jason admitted dryly, thinking of his new physique, emotions, and tinted vision when he had gotten mad. 

Y/n leaned against her dresser. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to help, but I needed to. You were going to die and I need…” she trailed off and her eyes flicked down to her wrist.

“You need what?” 

“I couldn’t let someone die,” Y/n finally decided on. 

Jason accepted her answer. He felt a small tug at his chest, almost as if something wasn’t right and he wanted to correct it. “What’s…” His eyes trailed to her lap where she held her hands. His jaw twitched and he shook his head. “Never mind.” 

“You can ask me anything,” Y/n offered, a smile lifting the corner of her mouth. Jason’s eyes widened when he saw her smile and his heart fluttered. Jason decided that, even if he didn’t trust Y/n yet, he would do whatever it took to keep that smile on her face. 

“No, I have nothing– I’m good– no–” 

“Spit it out, Robby. What do you want to tell your darling Joker? What are your… worries? Your concerns? Your dear Uncle Ace?” The Joker circled around an exhausted Jason. “Trust me. You can tell me anything…” His speech was slow and intoxicating. Alluring, was the word Jason would use to describe it. It was tugging him in. Jason’s eyes slipped down into sleep just as another needle pierced its way into his skin, courtesy of the Joker. 

Jason dug his nails into the palm of his hand over and over, fingers twitching over his cuticles. His face started to heat up and he swallowed roughly, blinking slowly. “I’m okay,” he mumbled out, even though Y/n didn’t ask. 

“Do you need me to leave?” she offered. 

Jason dragged his head back and forth, attempting to shake it. Eventually, it lolled back and banged against the wall. “Sorry, what?”

Y/n stood up on instinct. “Robin?” 

The title sent lightening up Jason’s spine and his gaze snapped up to stare at her, fuming. “Don’t- don’t call me that!” he screamed out. “I’m not! Stop it!”

Dearest Robin. How Batman will miss his little protégé. 

Robby… 

Robby… 

Robin!

“Let me go!” Jason shrieked. He wiped his hands on his shirt before reaching up and pulling at his hair. Everything felt wrong. “Why won’t you let me go?! Just give up,” he pleaded desperately. His eyes, wide and frantic, swept around the room until they settled on the shards of the mirror he had smashed.

His body was a graveyard.

It was only then that Jason truly comprehended how imperfect he was. 

Scars trailed down his arms and legs and he could even see a smattering of them peeking out of the collar of his shirt. Each scar and bruise was a reminder of each thing the Joker had done to him. 

Each scar is an adventure, Batman’s voice resonated in his head. An image of Batman patching up young Robin’s bloody nose flicked through Jason’s mind.

Each scar is a reminder you were never there for me, Jason thought bitterly. Each scar is a reminder that I’ll never be free of him. I’ll always be tied to the Joker. And that’s what terrifies me the most. That’s what makes me hate you, Batman. 

“Okay, okay,” Y/n surrendered, holding her hands up. “I’ll leave. But I can’t let you go. It’s not safe yet.”

It was then that Jason drove his fist into the wall. Y/n made a little squeak of surprise and seemed to flinch. 

She quickly left and Jason didn’t have time to feel bad before he crumpled onto the bed in exhaustion, bits of plaster now on the floor and sheets.

~~~~

Time after time again, the Joker visited him. The Clown Prince of Crime had grown bored with the relentless torture. There had been new tactics — he had to keep it interesting, of course — but even waterboarding hadn’t quelled the ache that the Joker felt after the boy had grown used to the whipping of chains against his skin, leaving the boy bruised and internally bleeding.

So it was time to pull out all the stops. The Joker strolled into the makeshift dungeon. Robin didn’t even look up at this point. “You look grim,” the Joker stated, pouting theatrically, even though his audience was a despairing one. He strolled over to the table where he kept all his instruments. “Which one, which one?” the Joker sang, running his fingers over the knives, corkscrews, ropes, and other devices to land on a pitcher of water. 

Jason inhaled and exhaled slowly. The Joker poured a generous amount of water into a glass before lifting it to Jason’s lips and tilting it back. “There you go…” the Joker cooed, caressing Jason’s cheek. “Drink it all up like a good little boy.”

Jason’s chapped lips searched hungrily for the water, not caring what the Joker’s motive was. He was too thirsty to wonder.

It was only the first in a long line of drugs. 

“I don’t know what to do, Talia,��� a lilting, frustrated voice came from the other room, stirring Jason awake. He was sure that whenever he heard Y/n’s voice, he would snap to attention, ready to throw himself to his knees and execute whatever she commanded. 

Woah. Where did that dedication come from? 

Even when Jason assumed the title of Robin, there was never such blind complaisantness to what Batman ordered. He would always have some street-kid spunk in him.

So why was he feeling so utterly protective over Y/n? It had to be the fact that she saved him from the hellhole the Joker had carefully curated and manipulated. Didn’t it?

Or was it something else?

“No, I’ve been trying to do all my work online, and it’s been working, but I can only go so long before I have to go into the office or go to lectures.” Y/n listened to her friend for a long minute on the phone and Jason strained to hear them. “No, but I feel responsible – that’s the wrong word – but protective of him.” There was a pattering of feet as if Y/n was pacing. “This is kinda a big deal. There are movies and books written about this connection and yet, mine is huddled in my room, sleeping off drugs and the evidence of torture!” Her voice cracked up at the end and Jason physically stood up. 

Bile rose up in his throat and Jason’s knees slammed to the ground, pain shooting up his bones and reverberating in his muscles. He cursed under his breath and pressed his head to the cool hardwood, trying to overcome his nausea.

Stars swirled in his vision and laughs echoed in his head. Jason mumbled words of encouragement to himself, but they were distorted and ugly. Like the Joker. Oh, how Jason dreaded the thought of becoming him. His forearms hit the floor and instead of the Joker’s words stabbing at his brain, it was a static frame of white noise, blocking out everything. Vision was the first thing to go, eyes squeezing out the late afternoon light. The second thing to leave Jason, as everything does, was time. Was it minutes or hours he sat on the floor before the door burst open? 

Words were muted and Jason nodded when Y/n asked if she could touch him. Warm palms encased his jawline, thumbs brushing along his cheeks. “He’s not here,” Y/n whispered. “I’m here. Robi- no, tell me your name. Please.”

“Jason. My name is Jason.” Somehow, Y/n had eroded away his concern and distrust, replacing it with ease and invulnerability. He would never have thought it possible in such a short time, even without his history with the Joker. 

Y/n exhaled a small laugh and a bright smile came to her face. Jason looked up at her, brain still buzzing. “What? What’s funny about that?” he managed to get out. 

“Oh, no no no,” Y/n was quick to reassure him. “I didn’t mean to laugh. That was rude of me. I’m sorry.” One of her hands guided down to rest on his back, rubbing soft circles. In his anxious stupor, Jason curled up in front of her, instinctively resting his head on her lap. If he could see her face, he would’ve seen Y/n’s eyebrows shoot up with hopefulness. However, he definitely heard her intake of breath. “It’s a very nice name.”

“How- how does your boyfriend feel about me staying here?” Jason finally asked after a minute of him slowing his breathing. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Y/n said, sounding amused. 

“But you have a soulmate timer,” Jason pointed out. 

Y/n tilted her head, curiously. She didn’t think he had noticed that. One of her hands moved to Jason’s hair, gently brushing it back from his forehead. She ran her fingers through the white stripe which she had come to find very attractive. Tension left the boy’s shoulders and he tucked his head into her lap. “Everyone does,” Y/n replied. “It doesn’t mean I’ve found my soulmate yet.”

“Have you?”

“Yes…”

“Oh.”

Jason laid in her lap for a long minute and eventually asked her, “is he nice to you?”

Y/n laughed lightly, sighing a bit before saying, “he’s still getting to know me. He’s a very reserved and tentative person and we only met a little while ago. However, he’s been opening up pretty quickly and I’m very proud of him.” Her fingers tapped against Jason’s hair, curling the strands around her fingers before lightly scratching at his scalp with her nails. She noticed how his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when she did that. Tucking that information away for later, Y/n added, “he’s gone through a lot in the past and I just want to make him feel safe.” 

Deep in his bones, Jason could almost feel her sadness and dedication. He wasn’t sure what magic had given him the power to be so in tune with this girl, but he wasn’t going to let anyone take it away from him. Not even her soulmate. 

Turning the conversation away from something that would surely wound him if he pried any deeper, Jason declared quietly, “I’m going to install some deadbolts and locks on your front door and windows soon.”

“Pardon?” 

“It’s not safe for you to help me.” It never is for anyone. I’m a poison, infecting everyone I touch. “I want to make sure you’re safe before I leave.”

“Leave?” Y/n exclaimed, staring down at him. “No, you’re not ready to go yet.” A part of her was worried she was being selfish, wanting her soulmate as close to her as possible, but one look at the bandages she had just replaced the night before said otherwise. There was less blood than there had been days prior, but Jason was not in any condition to leave bed, much less leave the apartment. 

“You can’t keep housing me forever, Y/n,” Jason muttered. “And I’ll be damned if I’m the reason you get hurt.” His head was still in her lap, but he couldn’t meet her eye. It was imperative that he play with the seams in his shirt. 

Otherwise she might see him beginning to cry.

“Please leave,” he begged, voice breaking pitifully. Y/n couldn’t bring herself to argue, gently slipping out from her place underneath Jason and resting his head softly on the ground before closing the door behind her. 

The nightmares were worse that night. ~~~~

True to his word, Jason ventured out into the apartment the next day like a zoo animal inspecting its new habitat. He crouched his shoulders, bowing his head in an attempt to diminish his size. He still wasn’t used to being so large and accidentally bumped into the kitchen counter and a lamp. 

He was able to install the majority of the new locks and deadbolts until he slid the deadbolt of the front door closed. It whined and creaked beneath his fingers and his mind flashed back to when

Jason awoke slowly. A small groan left his lips, but he stayed still. It was a tactic he learned from Bruce – never let anyone know you were awake. He could categorise helpful information for later, such as possible escape routes, and it was quite possible that he was one movement away from death. He had to be careful. 

But this wasn’t Africa. This wasn’t where Jason was desperately searching for his mother when Batman ran into the warehouse, seconds before the Joker let loose a bomb. 

That’s all Jason could remember. 

Blood was sticking his hair to his head and Jason clutched his side. It ached from bruised or broken ribs that pressed to his skin. However long he had been unconscious, it had been quite a while. His body was already malnourished and crying out for medical care. 

Jason attempted to crawl to a standing position, but when his ankles and wrists caught against metal, restraining him, he knew something else was at play. 

The whine and creak of a deadbolt unlocking caused him to turn his head towards a door he hadn’t noticed. A man in a pinstripe suit stepped through, a long crowbar in hand. Jason didn’t need the upturned red lips to know who was there. 

“Oh, don’t worry, Robby,” the Joker coaxed as Jason stared up at him, pure terror gripping his veins. He had never been so close to the Joker without Bruce. Where was Bruce? Why wasn’t he here? The Joker squatted down to Jason’s level, running a gloved hand over the boy’s bloody hair. Jason flinched away, but it didn’t deter the Joker. “You and your Uncle Ace are going to have some real fun.” 

“Where is he?” Jason sobbed, scared when he didn’t feel the blood on his hair. Why wasn’t he bleeding? What was the Joker’s new game?

“Where is who?” An unfamiliar voice asked despairingly. 

“Bru— Batman,” Jason corrected himself in his stupor. “B-Batman.”

Y/n stuttered, “I don’t know Batman. I’m sorry.”

Jason groaned in pain before a hysterical laugh bubbled from him. He clutched his stomach, on all fours, eyes wide and clouding over with green. Must he always be connected to the Joker? If he could eradicate that damn colour, he would. His fingers ghosted over the place that the Joker threatened to brand him. 

“Maybe I’ll make it permanent on our five year anniversary,” the Joker hummed, knife gently poking into Jason’s cheek. The faded scar of last month’s ‘J’ was what prompted the Joker to re-carve it into the boy. Blood dribbled down Jason’s cheek, joining his salty tears. It didn’t hurt, the wound being surface level, but just the thought of more things tied to the Joker made him gasp for air, crying softly. 

“So you’ll always be reminded of who was the one to beat you. The Clown Prince of Crime!”

Y/n had barely noticed the ‘J’ until Jason dug his nail into his cheek, tracing the scar. The path was imprinted into his memory. 

The skin turned red at the irritation and Y/n caught Jason’s wrist the next time he moved up to trace it again. “Stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

Jason muttered things under his breath at her, but he didn’t pull away from her hold. “He branded me,” he finally spit out. “And it’s only because you found me that he didn’t carve it into my skull,” he said sarcastically, malice in his voice. His eyes blazed a fervent green and he shook his head. “But at least I knew what was coming. At least I knew that a month had passed when he redrew his initials.”

Y/n opened her mouth to argue, but Jason spoke before she could. “I… I’m worried,” he began slowly. “I’m becoming more of the Joker than I am Batman. I was supposed to look up to Batman, but what if he and the Joker are one and the same? Both hurt me. One abandoned me and the other took that for granted.”

“He didn’t mean to abandon you, I’m sure,” Y/n whispered. “No one would ever willingly abandon you.”

Jason grumbled out, groaning at her words. His lips twitched downwards and his biceps flexed. “No one? Everyone did!” he screamed out. “My parents, Batman, Alfred, Dick! Everyone abandoned me!”

Y/n ignored the last name Jason listed off, before murmuring, “I haven’t.”

“Not yet,” Jason whispered after a moment. “But you will.”

~~~~

A couple days later, Jason peeked out of Y/n’s room, one of her blankets in hand. “You deserve your room,” Jason mumbled when Y/n looked up from her book, astonished. 

“I– Jason, you need the most comfort,” Y/n said, gently closing her book. “I’m fine on the couch.”

“You need to get back to work soon,” he said, hugging the blanket close. “You said it yourself. I can’t be the reason that you’re putting your life on hold. You- you need to get back to normal.”

“You are my nor–” Y/n cut herself off before exhaling slowly. “Don’t worry about me,” she began. “I’ve slept on the couch many nights when I had papers to complete or binge-watched too many episodes of The Good Place.” 

Jason’s features softened slightly and he took a step forward. Y/n took the hint and scooted over on the couch, placing her book on the small coffee table she had. “What’re you reading?” he asked as Y/n turned on the television, opening up to the first episode of The Good Place. 

“The Great Gatsby, for one of my English classes,” Y/n said. 

“Really?” A smile slowly grew on Jason’s lips, something he hadn’t experienced in years. His muscles ached a bit from the disuse, but Jason was now addicted to the feeling. 

Y/n decided that she was now also addicted to the sight of Jason smiling. “Yeah. We’re covering the symbolism of water that spans throughout the book. In fact, in the first couple of pages, Fitzgerald references the White Star Line, which is a boat that sank on the same route as the Titanic. Gatsby, obviously, dies in the water, sinking, just as those boats did. Fitzgerald really is an excellent writer.”

Jason was pretty sure he was in love. Or maybe he still was on drugs. Whatever the feeling, it was nice and unexpected and new. 

“I do think you’ll like The Good Place,” Y/n continued. “I won’t spoil anything, but it has some pretty amazing underlying themes.”

“I’m sure,” Jason replied quietly, burrowing under the blanket. It didn’t quite manage to hide his large frame, but it managed to hide his quickening heart and blush that was slowly spreading. 

Just before the first episode started, Y/n quickly hurried to make some popcorn. She plunked the bowl in between the pair and then snatched some blanket away from Jason. “You run hot,” she explained when Jason shot her a bemused look. 

The Good Place was a wonderful show, as Jason soon learned, but what was more wonderful was when Y/n’s cheek pressed against his shoulder and her knees curled up and her eyes fluttered closed. When her breath slowed with sleep, subconsciously trusting him enough to be at her most vulnerable, that, Jason found out, was what was truly wonderful.

Bruce Wayne had never before seen a street rat more excited to see Batman, especially when that street kid was trying to steal from him. 

But what was particularly amusing was that the boy wasn’t particularly excited to see him, but more excited to show Batman his soulmate timer. 

“No! No, you don’t understand!” the boy cried ecstatically. “It just fast-forwarded! Meeting you means I get to meet my soulmate sooner!” He bounced on the balls of his feet, eagerly shoving his wrist towards Batman’s cowl, showing the vigilante his timer. 

“Yes, very… exciting,” Bruce hummed out, not sure whether to laugh or reprimanded him for trying to steal the Batmobile’s tires. 

The boy laughed, a big grin covering his small features. “I wonder what they’re like. Have you met yours yet, Batman?”

Bruce raised his eyebrows and a chuckle slipped through. “Yes, I have. It’s a wonderful thing.” 

As the child kept rambling about his soulmate, Bruce knew that he had just found the next Robin. 

~~~~

Y/n sat on the kitchen counter, legs crossed. She had a textbook in her lap and was mumbling out phrases for memorisation of an upcoming exam. A small smile couldn’t help but expand on Jason’s face as he listened to her mumbles. He paused from his work in the small kitchen, back muscles rippling as he reached for the marinara sauce. When he went to dump the pasta into the strainer, the pot clanged against the metal faucet. 

The Joker rattled his crowbar against Jason’s chains.

“Jay?” Y/n said softly, guiding him out of his memories before he could get too lost. “You can stop straining the pasta. All the water’s gone.” 

“What?” he choked out, turning his head so he could see her.

“The pasta.” Y/n shifted forward so her legs hung over the edge of the counter. “It’s okay. It’s been okay and it will continue to be okay. You- you can let go.” The euphemism wasn’t lost on Jason.

He let the pasta pan drop in the sink and faced Y/n, eyes shining with unshed tears. “No. That’s not what I meant.” Swallowing down the feeling, Jason continued, “what did you call me?”

“Jay,” Y/n whispered. 

The Joker paced around Jason after a few days without any torture. “It’s been too long, Robin,” he said, shaking his head. “I think it’s time to make you sing for your Uncle Jay.”

“Is that okay?” Y/n asked softly. 

Bruce shouted from the other room, “Jay! Come on! The gala’s starting soon.”

“Jason,” Y/n repeated. She reached out and touched his shoulder and the boy came to stand between her legs. Jason dropped his head on her shoulder, beginning to sob quietly. Immediately, Y/n brought her hand up to rest on his head and the other arm to curl around his back. “Don’t you dare,” she shook her head as Jason began mumbling his apologies. “It’s okay. I’m here.” 

And suddenly, everything was okay. Because Y/n was there. “Bruce called me Jay,” he murmured out. “An- and then he called himself Mr. Jay.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trigger-“

“No, it’s okay,” Jason looked at her, eyes shining with tears. “I like it when you do it. When you call me that.”

“You do?” Y/n asked, hands on either side of his face, cupping them closer and when her hands trailed to hold his neck and then one brushed back his hair oh this must be heaven, Jason thought, eyes fluttering shut. What he would give to live within her arms, always feeling safe and always feeling loved. She had that strange power over him and while Jason usually didn’t like people having power over him, he decided that when it came to Y/n, he didn’t mind. Not at all.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his voice lilting up with an infliction of infectious love. 

Jason stood there, comfortable in her arms and secretly hoping that Y/n would never have to go to work and would always just stay here. Where he could just keep… holding her and touching her and making sure she was safe because if Y/n wasn’t safe, Jason was pretty sure he would go on a rampage. If Y/n wasn’t safe, if Jason wasn’t holding her, then it was only because the Joker had found him and ripped him away from the only thing he had ever loved. 

And that would’ve been the cruellest method of torture. 

No amount of chains would hold him back. No amount of drugs would make him forget Y/n. And no amount of hate would make him forget the amount of love he felt when Y/n held him close and he could hear her heart beating steadily. In that moment, Jason could pretend her heart beat for him. 

He knew his heart beat for her. Then his mind flashed back to it all.

The boy’s muscles tensed, protesting against the Joker for the first time in weeks. He had been trying to keep the watch hidden for as long as possible, but he should’ve known it was futile.

Jason’s cracked lips parted and he forced a “no” from his parched throat. “Don’t.”

“Stop it.” Jason wiggled away from the Joker’s searing grip but nothing helped.

Jason let out a guttural scream as the Joker ground the glass into the dirt with his heel. 

“Oh, picky picky picky,” the Joker teased. “Sensitive, are we?”

“Lemme go! Don’t touch her! Don’t you dare!” His voice cracked and blood began to trickle down his arms as the chains rubbed against his irritated skin and broke the surface. But he would take the pain a thousand times over if it meant he could get to his watch. 

His soulmate. His love. It was all gone.

“Yes!” the Joker cried out, exclaiming loudly. His hands began to shake and a large grin spread on his maniacal face. “Yes! Emotion, Robby! This is what I want! Give me the fucking emotion! If I had known, I would’ve smashed that watch a long time ago.”

Jason lunges towards the Joker, face contorted with rage. “Don’t you fucking dare! Get- stay- no! No!” 

It was the most he had ever fought against the Joker. And the Joker adored it.

“You… you’re my…” Jason choked out, jaw tensing slightly as the dots began to connect.

He didn’t know when Y/n had begun to cry, but as tears streamed down her face and she nodded desperately, things seemed to all click into place. “It took you long enough,” she joked pathetically.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jason breathed out, his hands tightening on her thigh, a protective instinct washing over him. “Oh, no, no, no,” he shook his head and brought her head in his hands, brushing away the tears. “I didn’t mean- I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s not that,” Y/n’s voice cracked. “I’m not unhappy, not in the slightest—” Jason was so sure of their bond that it hadn’t even crossed his mind that she might reject him or not love him due to his past. “—but I just never thought that you would- that I would-” She hiccuped and Jason’s eyes darted across her face, wanting to somehow help, but so unsure of himself.

Slowly, Jason sank to his knees. Y/n still sat above him, on the counter, staring down, baffled. Her eyes were red from crying and her lips were parted, but she had never seemed more beautiful. “What- what are you doing?” she murmured. 

“I’m showing you how much you affect me,” he answered simply. “Quite literally, you saved my life, Y/n. And if that’s the only way you touched my life, I would consider myself the luckiest man on Earth. If no one has told you those words before, then everyone else is a fool. If you allow me to stay around and cherish the best thing that’s ever happened to me, gladly, I will.” Y/n slowly slipped off the counter, standing before him. “But that’s a lot of ‘ifs’. And I’m not willing to potentially lose you over some ‘ifs’. I know I’ve made you uncertain and I’ve wrecked your apartment and I’m so sorry,” he chuckled dryly. Jason’s hands were shaking as he slowly slid them up Y/n’s legs. She shivered under his touch, backing up until she hit the counter behind her. Jason lifted his hands from her, giving her a moment if she needed, but one look in her eyes led his hands right back to her body. “You’re like a drug,” he whispered, pressing his face to the side of her thigh. 

“Drugs are very very bad,” Y/n managed to get out. 

“I know.” A small smirk appeared on his lips. His lips suddenly looked very kissable. “The Joker taught me that. If I could go back and kill him, I’d do it in an instant, but… I’d also thank him. And I’d thank Batman. And Nightwing. And my mom. And everyone else in my life because they all led me to you.” Y/n’s knees buckled and Jason helped ease her down so she was sitting in front of him. He choked on his tears slightly before saying, “so many people believe in equality in the universe. So if all of that is true, then perhaps every bad thing that ever happened to me was just leading up to you. You… are so good that the universe needed to even it all out.”

Y/n began shaking her head vehemently. “Then let me damn the universe,” she whispered. “Because clearly, it’s been unfair. You were gifted to me, Jason. It’s not fair that you went through so much shit while I lived a fairly light life.”

“Maybe I’m not good enough…”

“Don’t you dare suggest that,” Y/n cut him off sharply. 

“Then perhaps I took the hardship you were supposed to endure,” Jason offered the explanation. Before Y/n could argue, Jason said, “and I’d do it again.”

Y/n laughed lightly, drying her eyes with the heel of her palm. “I don’t want you to go through that again.”

“Then it’s a good thing I don’t need to,” Jason muttered, leaning forward slightly to nuzzle into Y/n’s neck. He slowly, as if testing the water, pressed a kiss to her skin. Feeling her inhale, Jason grinned and repeated the gesture, wondering if he would get the same reaction. He did. After a moment, he exhaled, his breath tickling Y/n. “I’m going to need time,” he muttered. “I’m not going to be the perfect soulmate you deserve right away.”

“I don’t expect you to be. You’re already perfect to me.”

“I’ll work on it,” Jason compromised. “I want to deserve you.”

“You do–”

“Y/n,” he pleaded desperately. “Let me do this for you. Let me be the best Jason Todd for you.”

Seeing that he wasn’t going to back down, Y/n nodded after a minute. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll get through it all together.”

“Maybe we should seal the deal with a kiss.”

A bubbling laugh filled Jason’s ears and he couldn’t help the large grin that came over him. “Hmm,” Y/n conceded. “Alright.”

And so they did.

“Mom, why’re we here?” A small hand gripped onto her mother’s. 

“I signed us up for a soup kitchen,” her mom explained. “It’s coming to the holidays and we should be doing something good for others. Gotham isn’t always the nicest place to live and we’re fortunate enough that we can help when needed.”

“Hmm,” the girl conceded. “Alright.” She puzzled a bit over the thought that some people weren’t as fortunate as they were, before asking slowly, “do we need to help them any more than usual?”

“What do you mean, Y/n?” the mom asked, checking the street names as they passed. The girl frowned, her hair in small pigtails. “Well… Should we have brought clothes? Or blankets? How… How much do they need help?” She struggled to find the right words.

“No, they’re not homeless,” her mom said. “They just need a bit of help bringing food into the family, you know?”

“Okay,” Y/n accepted the answer easily. 

“Just, hold my hand, will you?” the mom said, even though her daughter was already clutching her hand. “This isn’t the safest part of town, though nothing bad will happen. The sun is out, so there’s nothing to be worried about.” 

Out of nowhere, a small boy barrelled out of an alleyway, shouting at some other boys that were running behind him. He crashed into Y/n, who’s mom scooped her up on instinct. “Oh, I’m sorry!” the boy cried out, head whipping from the two females back to the people chasing him. The boys behind him carefully came to a slow once they saw an adult with her daughter. “Uh, where are you two ladies going?” The boy asked, eyes darting back and forth between the groups. Ultimately, he decided that a stranger was more safe than those kids, simply because she was a mom.

“To the food kitchen,” Y/n supplied before her mom could shush her. 

“I can show you the way!” The boy jumped at the opportunity, beginning to walk backwards away from the group of bigger boys. Y/n’s mom looked between the malnourished boy who was silently begging with his eyes to the group who had a smearing of blood on their knuckles.

“Okay…” she decided. “Show us the way.”

The young boy jumped up and began striding away, beaming with the safety of an adult. Y/n’s mom set her down carefully, gripping her hand tighter than before. “Stay close by,” she demanded. Y/n nodded. 

The boy had dark hair that was cropped slightly at the sides with a tuft of it that fell over his eyes. His eyes were blue and he wore a red hoodie that fell just a bit too long over his jeans. “Wow,” he chirped as the trio got farther away from the alleyway. “Thanks. Let’s just say I’m not exactly on those guy’s good sides.” He kept rambling, Y/n’s mom shooting him cautious looks every once in a while, but he didn’t seem to notice. “What’s your name?” he asked Y/n, skipping over to walk by her side.

“Y/n,” the girl replied. “Y/n L/n.”

“That’s a nice name,” the boy grinned. “How old are you?”

“I’m five.”

“I’m seven!” The boy placed a haughty hand to his chest. “But my birthday’s tomorrow.”

Y/n’s mom hummed. “Oh. Are you excited to get your soulmate timer?”

“Yeah!” The boy beamed up at the woman, turning a corner. “Super excited. But this is the soup kitchen. You know, my mom should be stopping by soon. But thanks!” He began jogging off, waving goodbye. 

“Wait! What’s your name?” Y/n called after him. 

“Jason! Jason Todd.”

[withacapitalp]

Countdown Pt 2

Follow up to this thing I wrote yesterday

People always acted funny when they saw his timer. They usually reacted in two ways- either they tried to pretend that they didn’t see it, or they said how sorry they were. 

That’s not enough time. 

Oh I wish you had more time. 

Only a few days? I’m sorry honey. 

But Steve had never been upset about it. Sure, he only had less than a week with his soulmate, but that only meant that their time was more treasured. They understood that they had to make every second count. 

Wasn’t that a good thing? 

“You’ll understand someday, Steven,” His mother had said quietly into her wine glass one night when it was just the two of them at home. She was sitting on the couch, flipping through their photo album idly, holding Steve hostage with stories about how good things used to be. How in love his parents were, once upon a time. How happy they used to be before the job, before the promotion, before the big house in Loch Nora. 

(They really mean before they had him. Not that either of his parents will ever admit that) 

“You’ll understand,” She repeated in a whisper, taking another long sip. 

“What will I understand?” Steve replied. Usually he tried to stay as still and silent as possible on nights like these, did his best to pretend like he didn’t exist, waiting for her to finally wave a hand and release him to his room. But this time he didn’t get it. 

“You’ll understand that this? This is a curse,” She spat out, holding up her right arm and showing him her timer. All zeroes. His mother’s soulmate had died when he was ten, but her timer had counted down. She had met him at some point in her life though. She knew him, but she hadn’t lived a life with him. Whoever he was, he had died alone.  

Steve had always wondered about that, always wanted to ask. If she knew who her soulmate was, why not be with them? If she had found that person, why not make every second count? 

“It’s a curse,” His mother had said, continuing when Steve didn’t say anything in response, finishing what was left in her glass, “Especially yours. I remember the first time I saw your timer. It was right after you were born. I was holding you against me, you were so little then, so sweet, and I looked down, and I saw it. Five days. What kind of God would only give my baby five days? Not a good one,”

Steve wasn’t exactly sure what kind of God was out there. If he was being fully honest, he wasn’t sure he believed in God at all. 

He believed….in the universe. He believed in something linking them all, something that knew them and wanted them to find the person that completed their lives. The Universe knew that Steve and his soulmate were strong enough to handle five days, four hours, and twenty two minutes. That unnamed unexplained universe knew that they would know what to do with that time. 

Steve had plans for his five days, four hours, and twenty two minutes. 

When he found that person, the first thing he was going to do was hold them for at least five of those minutes. Steve loved hugs, and his parents hated them, but his soulmate would love them too. He knew that for sure. 

So a five minute hug, and then he’d ask where they wanted to go. The two of them would travel to wherever his soulmate wanted. Steve had the money, he’d been saving every single birthday and Christmas check he had gotten since he was nine. By now, it was more than enough for two tickets to anywhere in the world. 

They would spend the whole plane ride talking and getting to know each other. They would laugh, probably a little too loudly, and annoy everyone else around them with how infatuated they were with each other. 

Maybe they’d go to Paris. Stroll through the city, eat pastries, stuff like that. Maybe they would end up in some remote part of the world where it felt like they were the only two people on the planet.

Maybe they’d just stay in Hawkins. Hole up in his house, listen to records, swim in the pool, or lie in bed all day. 

A hug, possibly a trip, and after that it was up to his soulmate. Steve wasn’t going to monopolize their five days with just his ideas. He had a bunch of suggestions if they didn’t know what they wanted, but those were the only two things he really cared about. 

He didn’t hug his soulmate when they finally laid eyes on each other. Steve didn’t even realize his timer had started counting down. 

He was too busy thinking about the broken bottle being held against his neck. 

By the time he and Eddie both realized that their timers had started, they were already in the thick of things. Steve had seen it while Nancy was wrapping her sweater around his waist to try and stem some of the blood coming gushing out of him from the bat bites. He had put both hands in his hair just to try and give himself some other pain to ground with, and his timer caught his eye. 

It was already on three days. 

He had only met one new person in the last two days. One new person who always hid his timer under a leather cuff around his wrist. 

Steve did go through with his plans, but it was a funhouse mirror version of them, twisted and wrong. 

They did hug, but it wasn’t something soft or intimate. Eddie had woken Steve up from a nightmare on their second to last day, and Steve had laid in his arms shaking for two of their final forty eight hours. 

They did go on a trip of sorts, if stopping the apocalypse in an alternate dimension counted as a trip. They went, but they didn’t stay together. 

God, if Steve had a chance to do it all over again, he never would have let Eddie out of his sight. 

There was no avoiding fate, no changing what The Universe had planned. Steve has always been aware of that. He’s known that as fact his entire life. But still. Maybe things would have gone the way they were supposed to if they had been together. 

Because it was supposed to be him that died. 

His entire life he had known it was going to be him. 

Steve has imagined it a thousand different ways. A random heart attack, or a freak accident, maybe even saving his soulmate’s life somehow. He had never even thought to consider it might be his soulmate saving him instead. 

It was perfect. Dustin and Eddie would be far away from the danger, and Robin and Nancy were going to be just fine. Steve had no idea when it was coming, but it was going to happen in this final fight. They would win and he would have to do something stupid to make sure they did. Something off plan that would end up killing him. 

Except, he didn’t do anything that wasn’t in the plan. 

It went off without a hitch. Well, there was a pretty scary moment where there had been vines around his neck choking him, but the rest had gone exactly as they wanted it too. He and Robin had torched the monster, and then Nancy shot him in the head. 

Vecna was dead, burning to ash on the floor in front of them. They did it. They actually fucking did it. 

The elation of that was unlike anything Steve had ever experienced. The bone deep relief of knowing everyone he loved was finally safe, that this was finally over. That he had somehow lived to get to see it all. 

He had lived. 

He…..he was still alive. 

Steve hadn’t even thought to look down at his timer. He had been so busy just reacting, being in the moment of the fight. The fight was over. They had won. Everyone was safe now. 

Steve was still alive. 

He looked at his timer. All zeroes. 

How long had it been all zeroes? 

Steve took an experimental breath, and then another. Still breathing. Still alive. He looked down at his wrist. Still all zeroes. It was like he was looking at a puzzle with only one piece left, holding that last piece in his hand, but unable to make it fit for some reason. There was just something that was so wrong. 

There were two options when it came to Timers. You died, and your timer vanished, or your timer hit zero, and your soulmate died. There were two options. 

Steve had just never considered the other one. 

And by the time he ran out of the Creel House, it was already too late. Steve knew that. He was running anyway. He wouldn’t believe it until he saw Eddie for himself. His mother’s voice filled his ears the entire time. 

“You’ll understand that this? This is a curse,” 

Steve had promised himself he would never think about his timer that way. Promised that he would never be like his mother. 

But she might have been right about this. 

[singsweetmelodies]

Hello Katie 👋🏼👋🏼 :D

For the 50 romance prompts ask meme, I'll like to request for 44: soulmate AU: timers <3

but if possible... with a twist...? (you don't have to include a twist if it's too difficult to work it in!)

The twist being, for whatever reason, their countdown timers for each of them to the time they meet their soulmates doesn't match, so they think "we're not each other's soulmates. that's cool. (no it's not)" but it turns out that they're each other soulmates anyways. or they choose to be with each other in spite of not being each other's soulmates. idk. *nervous laughter*

hiiii charlotte 🥰 first off, i am SO sorry for the incredible delay with this answer!! i saw this prompt and i absolutely LOVED IT (and the twist!! 🙏 *chef's kiss*) but unfortunately i got struck with a horrible case of writer's block/work deadlines, and just couldn't get to it at all.

until yesterday: i decided to just open my inbox and see what came to me. no thinking, just following the vibe of a prompt and writing. and uh. this happened... not only did it get ridiculously long (oops?) but it also somehow became a mini "investigate montreal" fic?? so in that vein, i'm tagging @1016week and submitting a belated entry for Day 6 "Montreal"... ❤️

i love this one. hope you love it too!! 👀⌚

~

Charles' soulmate timer stops when he is seven years old, and he meets the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen.

He's been vibrating with excitement all weekend - not just because it's a karting cup, but because his soulmate timer has been ticking down to this day for months now. Well, not just months, not really. It's actually been his whole life, but Charles doesn't remember all of that. He only remembers the past few months, when the little numbers had been getting smaller and smaller, until there were only ten days left and Charles gasped when he realised that the day would fall on the same day as the Bridgestone Cup.

"Of course the girl I marry is going to like racing, too," he'd told Maman and Papa, confidingly. Not a lot about soulmates made much sense to him, but this did.

His Maman had tried to smile, and Charles had hugged her tight to let her know it was going to be okay. He would find his soulmate, and then everyone would be smiling, because that's what people do when you meet your soulmate.

(Later that night, when Charles had been too excited to sleep and he'd gone to the bathroom quickly, Charles had heard his parents having an argument in their room. The door was closed, so their voices were muffled, but Charles could still make out his Maman saying "I just don't think it's a good sign, to meet your soulmate so young!" But Papa had countered, "Many people do, and they have beautiful stories. You have to trust that our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow." And then there had been an icky noise, like kissing, and Charles had flushed the loo quickly and ran back to his room.)

Now, with the beautiful blue eyed boy standing in front of him, Charles thinks of Papa's words again. Our Charles will meet his perfect match tomorrow.

Charles thought it would be a girl who really liked karting, but this is even better. This is a boy who wins at karting, because he's holding a trophy in both hands and grinning like he couldn't be happier.

Of course Charles' perfect match would be someone who wins at karting. It's only right, because Charles also wins at karting.

Charles clears his throat. "Hi," he says shyly, and the blue-eyed boy jumps.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there," he says apologetically, and then he laughs. He has a nice laugh, Charles thinks - like he knows how to have fun. "You are a bit short," the blue-eyed boy adds, and hey.

"Hey," Charles protests. "I'm tall for my age. I'm seven."

"Well, I'm nine," the blue-eyed boy says, like that's the most impressive age in the world.

It is a bit impressive, but not very, because Lorenzo is much older than that. Still, it is a little scary - Charles is only seven. What if this blue-eyed boy doesn't like him because he's only seven? Older kids can be mean like that.

No, he is your perfect match, Charles reminds himself. This blue-eyed boy won't be mean to him, because that's not how perfect matches work.

Charles takes a deep breath, then he sticks out his hand. "I'm Charles," he says.

The blue-eyed boy takes his hand, and it feels... weird. A little bit like when you get shocked by static electricity.

Charles giggles, unable to stop himself, and the blue-eyed boy smiles, as though he likes that.

"Hello, Charles. I'm Pierre," he says, squeezing Charles' hand. His eyes widen a moment later. "Oh! You've met your soulmate?!"

Charles doesn't understand what he means. "Well, yeah," he says. "It's y-"

And then he notices it.

Pierre's soulmate timer, right there on his wrist, right above where Charles is gripping his hand - it's still ticking.

Now, Charles doesn't know a lot about soulmates yet, but he knows that that's not good. Not good at all.

"I, um," Charles stammers, and then he does the one thing Maman and Papa said you should never do to your soulmate. Charles lies.

"I met so many new people today. I don't remember who it was."

Pierre's face falls. "Oh," he says, and he sounds unbearably sad for Charles. "But..." He chews his lip, shaking his head with a deep frown.

Then, mid-shake, Pierre's expression changes to one of determination. "I will help you find them," he says, with the kind of confidence Charles can only dream of when he's not on the racetrack.

He tugs on Charles' hand - which he still hasn't let go of - and Charles is helpless to do anything but follow.

~

They don't find Charles' soulmate anywhere, of course, and then Charles has to go win his race - but Pierre makes him promise that they will find each other at the next French karting event, and Charles will tell him all about his soulmate.

Charles promises, even though the idea makes his stomach feel all funny. I shouldn't be lying to my soulmate, he thinks, guiltily.

But Pierre's soulmate timer didn't stop ticking, and... that's not how soulmates are supposed to work.

The moment he's in the car with his father after the race, heading back home, Charles asks him about it.

Papa is quiet for a long moment, then: "Are you sure there wasn't someone behind Pierre, Charles?" he asks, in his careful, kind way. "Someone who's timer stopped at the same time as yours?"

Charles thinks about it for a moment, but even the idea of that feels - wrong, somehow. Like going into a corner and knowing you braked too hard, and you're going to flip the kart.

He shakes his head decisively. "No," he says. "It's Pierre."

He hears rather than sees his father blow out a soft sigh. Charles catches his eye in the rearview mirror, feeling confused and a little shaky inside.

When Papa sighs like that, it's never good news - it's usually something about sponsorship, which is a word Charles is already coming to dread.

It doesn't make sense how this could be about sponsorship, though. It probably isn't.

Charles waits for his father to gather his thoughts, like he needs to do sometimes to make sure he says exactly what he means. (It's something Maman keeps telling him he should try doing as well, but he's not so good at that yet.)

"You know how even the greatest racing drivers make mistakes sometimes?" Papa asks.

Charles frowns, but he nods. "Yes?"

"Sometimes the universe is like that, too. Sometimes the universe makes a mistake, and stops the timers too soon," Papa explains.

Charles frowns. He hasn't heard about that before, but he guesses it makes sense. It's true what Papa said - not even Senna was a perfect driver who never made mistakes. It makes sense that the universe is the same.

"But this doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate, okay, Charles?" Papa says before Charles can spend too much time thinking about the whole thing. His voice is firmer than Charles was expecting, and he reaches up to tilt the rearview mirror to see Charles better.

"It doesn't mean you don't have a soulmate," he repeats, like he doesn't want Charles to ever doubt that. "It just means it's going to be a little harder to find them."

Charles frowns, and he can't help but be a little annoyed. Isn't the whole point of soulmate timers to make it easier to find your perfect match?

It's just his luck that his soulmate timer doesn't work properly.

"I understand," Charles says, though, because he can tell it's important to his father.

Papa nods, but he keeps watching Charles in the rearview mirror for the rest of the drive, like he sometimes does after a race where Charles crashed the kart badly and he needs to keep making sure that Charles is fine.

Of course Charles is fine. He doesn't think this is comparable to a bad race at all! It's a little annoying, yes, but it's not that bad. It's just a bit of extra work, isn't it?

Charles shrugs his shoulders, glancing quickly down at the stopped soulmate timer at his wrist.

Whatever. Racing is more important than soulmates, anyway.

~

Almost twenty years later, Charles still says that to himself almost every day, even if he doesn't believe it with nearly the same careless seven-year-old confidence anymore: racing is more important than soulmates.

It is, because it has to be.

The thing is this: his father's explanation to Charles' seven-year-old self had been true - if a little oversimplified, and painted with an overt layer of kindness.

The truth Charles knows now is that there are two reasons, two categories, for people whose timers stop when the other person's keeps running.

One is, like Papa had said all those years ago, a simple case of mistaken timing - cases where the universe or fate or whatever controls it all stopped one person's timer a little too soon, or the other's a little too late.

It's harder to find each other in those cases, but it's still quite possible.

And then there's the second category. The unrequiteds. People whose timers stopped at the right time - when they met the person who would be their perfect match - except that they are not that person's perfect match in return. It only goes one way.

It's rare, but it happens sometimes. No system is perfect, after all - not even a system of soulmates.

For years and years, Charles tried to convince himself that he fell into the first category. His soulmate timer simply stopped too early, by some cosmic accident - but it's okay, Charles insists to everyone who asks and to himself as well, because what it's done is given Charles more time to focus on his racing instead. He's not constantly glancing down at his wrist and wondering when his timer is going to stop ticking - he can just get on with the racing.

He'll find his soulmate eventually, but on his own terms. There's nothing bad about that, surely.

Charles believes that. Really he does.

Except.

Except, if it's true and Charles falls into the first category - the mistaken timing category - then it would mean Pierre isn't his soulmate.

Pierre, who kept the promise he'd made to a seven-year-old who wasn't even his soulmate (because, yes, he had found Charles at the very next French karting cup, and he'd asked to meet Charles' soulmate - and when Charles had to admit that he still hadn't found them, Pierre had hugged him and told him not to give up and that he would find his soulmate someday. Pierre had held Charles' hand and explained that his parents almost didn't find each other, but they did. So it might take Charles some time, but that was okay, because it had taken Pierre's parents some time too, but now they were happier than ever. He'd been so convincing, firm but kind and absolutely sure of himself, and he'd made Charles believe it. He also made Charles smile, genuinely and truly, when he promised he'd stick by Charles' side no matter what anyone else said or whispered about his stopped soulmate timer.)

Pierre, who kept that promise about sticking with Charles, too. Pierre who never stopped being kind, and loyal, and the best friend Charles could ask for, whether he was seven or thirteen or nineteen or twenty-six.

Honestly, how was Charles supposed to not fall hopelessly in love with him?

He tried to deny it. For years and years, Charles tried to deny it - I will find my soulmate someday and it will all make sense, he'd tried to convince himself - but the thing was, what made more sense than Pierre being his soulmate?

It was roundabout the time of Pierre's first win (when Charles was standing under the podium in Monza with an aching back but a heart soaring with joy for his best friend despite the disaster of his own race) that Charles resigned himself to the truth: Pierre is his soulmate.

He has to be. Isn't a soulmate meant to be your perfect match; the person who understands you better than anyone and makes you happier than any other person in the world?

There's nobody else who could make Charles as happy as Pierre does. Nobody, nobody. There's no point in even trying to deny it anymore.

Pierre is his soulmate. But he is not Pierre's.

And that's okay. It's okay.

It has to be.

~

It isn't okay, not really, but that's true of a lot of things in Charles' life, and he's learned how to deal with them. He can deal with this, too.

On the whole, Charles thinks he does a pretty good job of dealing with it. He gets to be Pierre's best friend, after all - isn't that just a different kind of soulmate? True, Charles might want more, but it isn't like he has nothing. He has Pierre, and he will have Pierre for the rest of their lives.

Not in the way he wants, but - at least he will have Pierre.

The one thing he tries never to think about is Pierre's actual soulmate. Because Pierre has one, he knows, and he will meet them at some point.

Charles doesn't know how the hell he's supposed to look at some soulmate of Pierre's, and smile at her, and not be hopelessly, heartbreakingly jealous.

(He will do it, though. He will learn to smile at Pierre's soulmate - for Pierre's sake. He'll do it for Pierre.)

But that's a bridge he will cross when they get there. He doesn't have to worry about it yet (or at least, that's what Charles keeps telling himself even as the months tick by, and he knows there aren't year figures left on Pierre's soulmate timer anymore. Just months now, and then... weeks.)

Charles isn't thinking about it. He's put it out of his mind completely - which is easy enough to do, thankfully, given everything that's been happening on-track this season.

That's probably why he accepts Pierre's invitation to dinner in Montreal without thinking twice about it. (Even if he had realised, though, Charles doesn't think he would have been able to say no, either. He would give Pierre everything, if he only asked.)

So they go to dinner in Montreal, and it's perfect, and wonderful, and laughter-filled, and all in all exactly what Charles needed to distract himself from the fact that he has yet another engine penalty, and the sinking feeling that the championship is beginning to slip out of his reach.

Pierre seems to realise it, because he's in even finer form than usual - teasing Charles and tickling his ribs playfully and making him laugh at every possible opportunity.

Even on the drive back to the hotel: they stop at a red light, and Pierre steals Charles' cap, and Charles is giggling and filming it while Pierre is giggling back, and he's pretty sure neither of them are thinking about it at all, until-

Until Pierre's face changes from laughter to something almost ashen. "Charles," he says, and for all the years Charles has known him, he's never once heard Pierre's voice like that. "My soulmate timer just stopped."

For a few seconds, the words don't even register in Charles' mind.

Then they do, and Charles can feel his heart drop. "What?" he breathes.

His hands shake, and he doesn't even register the fact that the light has gone green as he glances all around them, craning his neck to see if there's anyone behind the white Ferrari, or around to the side.

Just a few minutes ago, their car had been surrounded by fans on all sides, all jostling to try and get pictures of them. But now, somehow, they're all alone in the Montreal night.

(The irony of it all is not lost on him - is this how Pierre felt all those years ago, when he was trying to look for Charles' soulmate at a karting cup, but not finding anybody it could be?)

"Are you sure it stopped just now? And not earlier?" Charles asks, willing his voice not to shake.

"Yeah," Pierre whispers. He sounds... devastated.

"But," Charles says, and then he has to take a deep breath. "But there's no-one else here, Pierrot."

"I know," Pierre says, somehow even softer.

Charles' fingers clench reflexively around the steering wheel, and he's moving in blank autopilot as he puts the car into gear and starts driving forward again.

He doesn't even realise he's shaking his head until Pierre says softly, "Charles." There's something wounded about it.

Charles stops shaking his head and slams on the brakes instead, jerking the car into something he hopes is a parking space at the side of the road.

"I don't understand," he says, far more calmly than he feels. "You can't - I can't be your soulmate."

Okay, maybe he's not so calm after all. But he doesn't think... he doesn't think anyone would be calm, in this situation.

Pierre makes a sound that could almost be a laugh, except that it sounds too strangled. "Do you know," he says, "that I have spent half my life wondering if the soulmate system got something wrong in my case? Because if you're not my soulmate, then who is? Who could possibly..."

Pierre does laugh this time, shaking his head. "You know, I asked to go out with you tonight for a reason. I knew - I knew it would happen tonight, so I needed to..." He swallows. "I needed to see you, one last time. Before I wouldn't be allowed to love you anymore."

It jolts through Charles then, what Pierre is trying to say. "Pierre," he breathes, and now it's his turn to say his best friend's name in a way he doesn't think he's ever said it before.

But Pierre's not finished yet. "I thought I could have one last night with you," he says. "One last night, before I had to say goodbye to my feelings, and try to love someone else."

My feelings. Try to love someone else.

Charles Leclerc is a lot of things, but an idiot is not one of them. He knows what Pierre is saying. He's...

Pierre loves him too. All along, Pierre has loved him too.

Only, he never had the option of thinking we're soulmates, Charles realised, and his heart twists in his chest.

Because Charles, for all that he accepted his soulbond toward Pierre was unrequited - at least he'd had the option of them being soulmates. Yes, it was in a twisted way, but at least he'd had that.

Pierre didn't. And he still fell in love with Charles.

The thought hits him like a shell-shock, and it's enough that Charles can only sit there for a moment, staring blankly, as Pierre continues talking beside him.

"I meant for tonight to just be a quick dinner together, something fun but normal for us," Pierre is saying, wringing his hands. "But I lost track of time. I always lose time when I'm talking to you, Charlito, I could talk to you forever - but the point is, I forgot to tell you I need to go back. I forgot that I was meant to meet my fucking soulmate tonight, because I was spending time with you, and - "

He takes a deep breath, and then he laughs again, leaning forward to drop his head into his hands. "I felt it happen, you know? I knew exactly when my soulmate timer stopped, because I could feel it, and it's - it was when I put that fucking cap on my head, Charles."

The cap that he's still wearing. Charles' 16 Ferrari cap.

Charles' hands shake as he reaches out to touch it, just the brim. "Your soulmate timer stopped when you put my cap on," he says, because a part of him still can't believe that this is real, that he's not living in some kind of heartbreakingly wonderful dream.

Pierre straightens up so fast that Charles is left with his fingers dangling awkwardly in mid-air. "Yes," he says, suddenly looking wild, "but this doesn't have to change anything, Charlito, I promise. I will still help you find your soulmate, and I will - I'll learn how to live with an unrequited bond, it's -"

"No!" Charles interrupts, half-throwing himself across the car to catch hold of Pierre's hands. "No, no, no, no. No more unrequited bonds, Pierrot."

Pierre starts to shake his head, but then he stops in the middle of the movement. "What do you mean," he asks, very carefully, "no more?"

And suddenly, Charles feels giddy, of all things. "I mean, your timer didn't stop when mine did. So for years, I have thought that we can't be soulmates, or at least that you couldn't be my soulmate. But now your timer stopped when you put on my cap, so -"

"Stop, stop, stop," Pierre says, squeezing Charles' hands tightly. "What do you mean, my timer didn't stop when yours did?"

"Oh," Charles says, and then he winces, the weight of the only real lie he's ever told his best friend (the only real lie he's ever told his soulmate) settling onto his shoulders with uncomfortable heaviness. "Um. Well. Do you remember when we met, and you thought I already met my soulmate?"

"No," Pierre breathes, but it's not the kind of no that says "no I don't remember." This no is more like "no way."

"Yeah," Charles says, and he can't help but look down at his own wrist, where the soulmate timer has been stopped for years and years. "My timer stopped the moment I met you, Pierrot."

"You..."

Pierre doesn't look like he knows how to finish that sentence, but Charles understands him anyway. "How was I supposed to tell you? I was seven, Pierre, and your timer didn't stop. I thought it was a mistake for years."

"But?" Pierre asks, like he can tell there was a but.

Charles beams at him. "But, I realised that there was nobody else who could be my perfect match. So I thought you were my soulmate after all, but it was unrequited."

"Never," Pierre says with a fierceness Charles doesn't expect. "Charles, never. If I knew... if I thought I had even half a chance, I would have been with you anyway."

Charles tries to laugh, but it comes out all breathless. "No you wouldn't."

"Yes, I would," Pierre argues, and his voice is heartbreakingly sincere. "I don't care. I would have chosen you."

Charles hears a punched-out noise, and it takes him a moment to realise it came from him. The next moment, he's unbuckling his seatbelt and climbing awkwardly over to sit on Pierre's lap.

It's not quite comfortable, because for all its luxury, the white Ferrari does not have a lot of leg space - but Charles doesn't think either of them give a single fuck, in this moment.

"I love you," he tells Pierre, reaching up to cup his cheek. "I've always loved you, but I never would have stood between you and your soulmate."

"Funny," Pierre says, his hands coming up to grip Charles' hips, "because that's exactly what stopped me from kissing you senseless."

"Well," Charles says, and if he grinds down just a little on Pierre's lap, he'll swear to everyone who asks that it was accidental. "It doesn't have to stop us anymore."

"Never again," Pierre agrees, tightening his grip on Charles' hips. "Never."

"So kiss me senseless, please," Charles whispers, and then he adds "soulmate," and that's what does it. Pierre surges up and kisses him, wild and desperate and more than a little clumsy, but without question the best kiss Charles has ever had. His own cap digs into his forehead a little, but Charles can't even bring himself to care about that - they owe too much to this cap now, honestly.

Maybe the universe does know what it's doing after all, Charles thinks. Maybe the universe just wanted to write a good story for them. A story that goes like this:

Charles' soulmate timer stopped when he was seven years old, and he met the boy with the bluest eyes he'd ever seen.

Almost twenty years later, Pierre's soulmate timer stopped in a white Ferrari in Montreal, and Charles finally got to kiss the boy with the bluest eyes he's ever seen, the man who is his best friend and his soulmate.

The odds of it working out this way have to be... a million to one, probably, or maybe even less.

But then again, what are the odds that two boys who met at a French karting cup and became friends with a shared dream would both make it to Formula 1?

Maybe the answer is just that Pierre and Charles have always liked beating the odds.

~

(50 Romance Prompts Ask Meme) <- not currently taking more prompts, sorry!

[britishassistant]

Soul Searching (Is Harder If You Have Different Maps)

Riddle (meeting timer) - Yuu (heartbeat match)

When you’re escorted back into the Hall filled with floating coffins and at least four hundred people all turn to stare at you, your heart makes an odd skip-flutter-ker-thump.

You’ve had many, many anxious responses to crowds of strangers scrutinizing you throughout your life.

That was not one of them.

Well. Great. Wonderful! You’ve somehow ended up at a school for magicians after dreaming about (maybe actually?) dying to a, a monster, and nearly being barbecued by a talking, fire-breathing tanuki. Of course you’d meet your soulmate here as well! In a crowded room where you have zero idea which of the many, many people it is! Sure! Why not?

It’s almost enough to distract you from the talking magic mirror telling you that you have no magic and that Japan apparently doesn’t exist.

You’re so busy trying to find a way home, then defeating ghosts, then trying to catch Ace, then Grim, trying to get the magistone, not dying to the weird ink monster, then trying to keep Grim in line and make him attend classes, that you all but forget about your soulmate conundrum.

Until you’re at lunch with Ace, Deuce, Clover-senpai, and Diamond-senpai, and Ace complains, “What the hell crawled up his ass and died? Seriously the dorm head’s as narrow minded and strict as they come—he bit my head off for eating just one slice of tart!”

Clover-senpai and Diamond-senpai trade a Look.

“You know Ace-Chan, everyone’s fighting a battle that you can’t see!” Diamond-senpai chirps. “Plus Riddle really, really likes eating the first slice, so…”

“He can be a bit…” Clover-senpai trails off, dropping a hand to his wrist. His thumb smoothes over the fabric there. “But he’s also dealing with some…personal issues on top of all of his responsibilities, so try to be understanding, okay?”

Your mind is racing at the sight of Clover-senpai’s hand on his pulse, wondering, half-hoping, half-dreading—!

“What did his Timer drop off or something?” Ace scoffs, lifting his arm and twisting his hand so his sleeve slides down. “Because, newsflash! He’s not the only one to have his Timer reach Zero at the entrance ceremony! I’m pretty sure most of our year did!”

Deuce is also saying something, disagreeing you think, but you can’t concentrate at the sight of what Ace has exposed.

On his wrist, right over his pulse, is an ornate clock face. It looks like a weird cross between a tattoo and an actual stopwatch, if stopwatches had intricate detailing, five hands, and mostly Roman numerals except for a O replacing the 12.

“What is that?” You breathe, peering closer at it.

Ace gives you a bewildered stare. As do Deuce, Diamond-senpai, and Clover-senpai. And Grim.

“…That’s his Timer, Prefect.” Deuce says, at last. At your confused look, he continues, “You know, how you find your soulmate? It counts down until…yeah.”

“It counts down until you meet your soulmate?” You ask, equally unnerved by the concept and the Looks you’re receiving.

“Usually it’s until you and your soulmate lock eyes.” Clover-senpai says tactfully. “But yes, that is the general gist.”

“That sounds…” You try to digest this. “…that sounds awful. Like, how does the clock know when you’re meant to meet, let alone who? Is it watching you? Is it sentient somehow? And you don’t even get any explicit confirmation when you do meet? How do you know it’s actually your soulmate? Is it just picking the most convenient placeholder? How do you not go mad second-guessing everything?”

There’s an unsatisfactory silence from the boys around you.

“I—wh—?” Clover-senpai’s glasses have gone slightly askew. “Prefect, do you not have a…?”

You tug your sleeves down a bit, showing off your bare wrists. “That’s not how soulmates work where I’m from.”

Your heartbeat picks up.

“Wait, wait, time-out for a hot sec.” Diamond-senpai holds up his hands to make a t-shape. “You said that’s not how soulmates work where you’re from. But you do have soulmates?”

You nod. “Well, yeah.”

The idea of a place existing where people don’t…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

“So how do you find them?” Deuce asks. “If your world doesn’t have Timers.”

“Our heartbeats.” You rest your fingers over where your pulse is growing faster, trying to take deep breaths and think calming thoughts. “When you lock eyes with your soulmate, your heart begins beating in time with theirs. You’ll feel their joy and fear and love until the day you both die. Though it’s hardly a failsafe method either…”

“Whoa.” Grim gasps, a tiny paw resting on his own chest.

“…That is creepy as all hell.” Ace says with a shudder.

“No it’s not!” You protest, scandalized, heartbeat quickening yet again in spite of your efforts.

“No, you look at somebody and one of your organs gets a signal to begin acting like it’s not even in your freaking body anymore!” Ace argues. “And, oh yeah, it’s the one that kind of controls whether you live or die.”

“Oh, and I suppose some creepy voyeuristic watch embedded into your skin is so much better.” You retort.

Ace opens his mouth, ready to fire back—and freezes. You notice his face paling, his expression going from irritated to terrified.

Your heart is pounding like you’re running for your life again.

You slowly twist around on the bench.

Dorm Head Rosehearts is standing behind you.

“Off With Your Head!”

The benches for the cafeteria tables should have backrests, you reflect from your new position on the floor. It’d make it much harder for undignified, flailing backwards falls to happen when surprise collars are magick’d onto your person.

Dorm Head Rosehearts doesn’t even explain what you’ve done to merit this punishment.

Just storms out of the cafeteria, you and your racing heart in prime position to view his (tall) (sharp) (step on meNO) heels clicking away from you on the tile.

Ace and Deuce help you struggle back upright in time to see Diamond-senpai and Clover-senpai exchange another Look.

You’ve got a sinking feeling that’s only partially inspired by their plan for you and Ace to “make it up to Riddle” by baking him a Mont Blanc.

So the Mont Blanc tart doesn’t go well.

The probably-not-custodian of the greenhouse laughs you out of the building when he sees the collar around your neck. Grim eats far more raw chestnuts than can possibly be good for him, even after saying they “taste bad”. Ace almost puts in oyster sauce because he’s not entirely convinced Clover-senpai was messing with him. You give Deuce an existential crisis over unfertilized eggs.

And that’s before you even get to the Unbirthday Party.

At the sight of you, Dorm Head Rosehearts’ lips thin. But he continues directing the Unbirthday Party as though nothing’s happened, so you take it as win.

That is, until the tart is presented.

It could be you imagining things, but you’d swear for a moment that after you and Ace present the Mont Blanc that his eyes flicker to you and his expression is almost…pleased?

Things go downhill from there.

Rules are quoted. The tart is rejected because of a particularly idiotic one. The words “idiot” and “tyrant” may get thrown around, though in fairness you didn’t mean to say it out loud at first. You all end up with collars and exiled from the Unbirthday Party in disgrace.

The attempted duel doesn’t go well either.

As it turns out, even with the plan you, Ace and Deuce tentatively workshopped to try to subvert his insane levels of magic power won’t work if he’s too fast for them to even put it into action.

Your pulse remains calm and steady throughout the entire “battle”.

“Huh.” Dorm Head Rosehearts says brightly. “It didn’t even take five seconds. And you thought you could challenge me with those skills. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

His expression darkens as he folds his arms across his chest. “This just proves that rule violators are always in the wrong. Just as mother said.”

When you were little, you’d often wonder about what your soulmate would be like. Whether they would make your family like you more, make every day more bearable to the point of being fun, or if they would just like you for you, giving you the chance to escape together.

You never thought it would be possible for you to experience such intense feelings of dislike towards the boy you’re (at least 80%) sure is your soulmate.

Admittedly, most of it is towards his mother, and the fact that he had to develop this mindset to survive in the first place. You can even sympathize with that, hold it as a potential point of rapport between you, though the two of you diverged in your coping mechanisms. But the collar that’s hanging heavy around your neck and the way he insists on flaunting his presumed superiority over those he’s beaten leaves a bitter, ugly feeling in your stomach.

You’re brought out of your musings by Deuce proclaiming, “You’re right that rules should be followed. But enforcing absurd ones left and right makes you a tyrant!”

“Ha?” The sneer on Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face has no right to make your blood boil like it does. “Rule breaking has consequences. And in this dorm, I am the rules. Those who refuse to obey don’t have the right to complain when I take their heads!”

You can’t keep your scoff inside any more. “You don’t get to do whatever you want because ‘it’s the rules!’ That’s the kind of logic a child uses.”

Especially, you think to yourself, as that mindset will only go so far before a bigger fish comes along and the “rules” change to benefit them instead.

You learned that the hard way.

“A child’s logic? I could say much the same of how you choose to behave.” He turns to you, eyes thinning as a cruel smirk grows. “If you can’t even follow a simple rule, just what was your education like? You were probably born of parents that can barely use magic, if at all, and didn’t receive much in terms of schooling before coming here. Not worth anyone’s time to correct, because how can you nurture talent in the talentless? You’re utterly inadequate.”

It doesn’t hurt.

You tell yourself it doesn’t hurt. Even as your nails bite into your palms. You’ve been told this before. You’ve been told worse before. It doesn’t hurt, coming from him. It doesn’t.

“Someone magicless like you.” He hisses, venemous, “Could never hope to pretend to be partnered to a soul like mine.”

There’s a sharp, fierce pain in your chest.

You suck in a breath, because this doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t, you’ve had worse, you have, you’ve spent your meager life getting rejected, not being enough, who cares if the other half of your soul does it too, you, you can’t—!

“SHUT THE HELL UP!!”

You don’t quite understand what you’re seeing at first, too caught up in the sensation of a slow tearing of your very being.

A flash of black uniform, ginger hair. Your soulmate stumbling, nearly falling from the force of the blow that’s snapped his head to the side.

Grim cheering on what is admittedly a beautiful right hook while the rest of the dorm screams about Ace punching out the dorm head.

“Aah, I don’t give a shit. About the dorm leader, about the duel, about your sad upbringing, none of it.” Ace growls, shaking out his fist. “Kids aren’t their parents’ trophies, and a kid’s achievements don’t define their parent’s worth, but you refuse to get that. I finally understand that the reason you’re such a bastard isn’t just your parents’ fault! It’s because you push away anyone who could tell you what you’re doing is wrong! This whole situation is your own damn fault! You’d even fuck over your own soulmate, just because you’re still scared of the impossible standards your mom set! ‘Mama this’, ‘mama that’, try thinking for yourself for once! You’re no leader, you’re just a baby who’s good at magic!”

“You—You don’t know anything…You don’t know anything about me!” The way your heart is pounding in your chest is making you slightly worried about his blood pressure.

“Like anyone could, with that attitude.” Ace backs up until he’s level with you and Deuce again, slinging one arm round your shoulders. “I do know that even the Prefect deserves better than a whiny baby tyrant.”

“Ace!” Deuce hisses, admonishing, in the same breath as you mutter, “Even?”

“ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!! SHUT UP!!” Rosehearts howls, and oh, you’re not sure people are meant to go that red in the face. Especially not when he’s leveling a magic pen at the four of you. “My mother was in the right! That means that I AM DEFINITELY IN THE RIGHT!!”

“Riddle, calm down. The duel is already over!” Clover-senpai barks.

“Th-that’s right!” The useless bird of a headmaster finally steps between you. “It’s as Mr. Clover says. The challenger is disqualified for his outburst! Continuing to escalate will violate school regulations!”

Which is when the egg hits the side of Dorm Head Rosehearts’ face.

To say it’s horrifying to watch your soulmate turn into the same kind of monster that broke your ribs and nearly killed you in the Dwarf Mines is an understatement.

It’s like a nightmare come to life. You watch as the foul, inky substance—blot— swallows Riddle Rosehearts whole, a grotesque shadowy thing looming behind him and almost puppeting his movements.

You feel the thorns from the rose trees bite into you. It’d be stupid to pretend you didn’t, that you were so consumed with devotion to the other half of your soul that all physical aches and pains seemed to vanish. No, you definitely feel it when an extra-thorny briar wraps around your ankle, hoists you into the air, digging in and tearing before Trey-senpai can vanish it with Doodle Suit. At least one of Cater-senpai’s copies catches you before you hit the ground.

But even with all the powerful magic flying around, and your injuries that you’re certain will put you back in the nurse’s office again, you can’t deny that you throw yourself headfirst into coordinating Ace, Deuce, and Grim against the overblot, yelling out directions even as Crowley, Trey-senpai, and Cater-senpai tried to get you to run, before the latter two stopped fussing and started helping.

Especially as through the entire battle, you notice that your shared heartbeat is gradually slowing, as if the life is being leeched away with every pump.

Your soulmate may not like you. He may hate you. The moment Riddle Rosehearts comes to his senses, he might reject the bond anyway, cast you asunder. And it will hurt. Of course it will. But it’ll at least be him doing it.

You’re not going to lie down and die quietly to the monster eating through his magic and life any more than you’re going to let it take him.

It’s kinda weird to see him cry.

Dorm Head Rosehearts has spent all the time you’ve known him (which is admittedly only a few days) being this indomitable force terrorizing Heartslaybul dorm. Prone to flying off the handle, yes, but you’ve come to expect anger and yelling more than tears and apologies.

It makes you feel weirdly disarmed, wishing you had a tissue or a handkerchief to offer or something.

Still. It’s better than kneeling there, waiting for his eyes to open with one hand pressed to your chest so you’ll know if his heart’s still beating.

You’re almost glad when Ace yells, “‘I’M SORRY’ CAN’T FIX THIS MESS!! THERES NO WAY IM JUST GONNA FORGIVE YOU LIKE THAT!!”

Even though most of you wanted to forgive him the moment the waterworks started, having Ace complain about all the stuff you’ve gone through and wrangle a tart in return helps settle the part of you that’s still sore and aching from the rejection you received.

You and Dorm Head Rosehearts are told to go straight to the nurse’s office, as you suspected. Trey-senpai is all but carrying Riddle, while what you think is one of Cater-senpai’s clones supports your weight and helps you hop down the path out of Heartslaybul and towards the mirror that will lead into the school.

You leave Grim with Deuce, Ace, and what you think is the real Cater-senpai to help clean up, with strict instructions not to let your monster-cat-tanuki eat any more of the lawn.

For most of the journey, you’re turning over the information you’ve learned almost feverishly. So, what you fought was called an ‘overblot’, and it happens when a magician reaches a certain threshold of magic use or stress. So was the monster you, Ace, Deuce and Grim fought in the mine also a person at one point? It produced the same black rock that Grim ate off the ground then too. Was there anything left of the original person at all that could’ve been saved? But when it happened to Dorm Head Rosehearts, it was killing him, you could feel it. So what—?

“I, I am sorry.”

You blink, momentarily stunned.

Dorm Head Rosehearts—no, Rosehearts-senpai?—is staring at you in earnest as he says this. You think you see his gaze flicker down to your bleeding ankle, your blank wrists, but it’s on your face again by the time you blink.

“I’m sorry for what I said, before…before.” He actually hangs his head. “It, it wasn’t appropriate for me to say, and, and it was. Untrue. And cruel. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I regret it. I always will.”

“Riddle…” Trey-senpai’s getting the coddling look in his eye again.

Cater-senpai’s copy stares meaningfully at you. If he weren’t supporting your weight right now, you think he’d give you an elbow nudge.

“Well.” Your breath hitches as a misplaced hop jars your ankle again. “I’d like to say that I’ve heard worse, but. It did…it did hurt. Coming from you.”

“O-oh.” Rosehearts-senpai—no, Riddle-senpai’s shoulders round, as though you’ve added a weight to them. If you’re being emotionally honest with each other, you’ve earned given-name status, you think. “That’s…that’s fair.”

You all get a little further down the hall, before you blurt. “I, I’m sorry too. For calling you, you know. An idiot. At the Unbirthday party. It was uncalled for.”

You hear Riddle-senpai make a small huff that you think might be a laugh. “But not a tyrant?”

“Well if the shoe fits…” You shrug before catching a glimpse of his indignant face. “I’m kidding. But, I will let you know if you start getting, you know. Like that. Again. We all will.”

“That’s fair.” His voice sounds much quieter than before. “Thank you.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Cater-senpai making a gagging motion to Trey-senpai who rolls his eyes in response.

Your motley band continue down the echoing stone corridors.

“Sakura mochi.”

Riddle-senpai twists to look at you past Trey. “I beg your pardon?”

“My favorite food is sakura mochi.” You say, keeping your eyes forward as you limp towards the nurse’s office.

“I’m not going to ask you to make it like Ace, because I don’t know how and I’m not sure you even have all the ingredients here. But if we’re…” You make a gesture that’s as inexplicable to you as it must be to your audience. “…going to try doing…this, whatever this is, it’ll be better to start with a clean slate. Or, well. As clean as we can make it. So. My favorite food is sakura mochi. What’s yours?”

There’s a long silence.

You’re kicking yourself, opening you mouth to say that he can forget about it, he doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to—

“Strawberry tart.”

His voice sounds small, almost timid.

You snicker a little. “Really? No wonder you got so mad when Ace ate your slice then.”

“Well,” He shrugs, leaning more against Trey-senpai. “A lot happened that day. Someone desecrated the statue of the Queen of Hearts. I tried to go and talk to the magicless person who made my Timer Zero out, but they were nowhere to be found and Headmaster Crowley told me he was preparing to expel them, along with two first years from Heartslaybul for breaking a chandelier. And then one of the second years forgot his pink while feeding the flamingoes, and Crewel-Sensei gave us more homework because Floyd Leech played up in Alchemy, and Draconia-san didn’t show up to the Dorm Heads’ meeting again, and—and then I went for a midnight snack.”

You let out an undignified snort. “You know that doesn’t excuse everything that came after, right?”

“I know that!” Riddle-senpai shouldn’t be so pretty when he blushes. It’ll be no good for you whatsoever. “Now. Now I know that. It was just. It was a long day.”

“It sounds like it. Still. At least you’ll get to have another one soon. With all of us, this time.”

You smile at him, heart pounding.

And, miracle of miracles, he smiles back.

[betustamorla]

Jason Todd x Helena Bertinelli-Timer Soulmark Soulmates AU-Short story part 3

Here are Part 1 & Part 2, or read it fully at Ao3

The warm sunlight on his face dissolved the darkness of sleep into the red blurriness of his eyelids. Jason groaned and shifted, his body immediately resented the movement, and he turned and hugged the pillow at his side. It smelled fucking nice. Nicer than anything he’d wash any bedclothes of his. Then the smell of coffee and bacon reached him. Finally, he opened his eyes.

He didn’t recognize the white wall to the side of the bed, nor the way the light entered through the window at its foot and other side. Jason incorporated himself slowly and moved the bedding away. He looked down, the only thing of his clothing remaining were his boxers.

“Fuck,” He muttered. His guns, his knives, everything was gone and nowhere in sight. And someone was making breakfast on the other side of the half-closed door. Memories of last night flooded him and he breathed out, passing a hand down his face.

His soulmate, huh? What did he know of the Huntress? Not much. She worked with Birds and sometimes Batman. He didn’t know her civilian name or anything else for the matter. And it seemed like she knew more about him than he of her. He didn't like this at all. And the fact that she had seemed unfazed by him being her soulmate. Hell, she’d even brought him to what he assumed was her place, and not only that but right up tucking him in bed right beside her. What. The. Fuck.

Had she done something to him while he slept?

The door opened and a pair of dark blue eyes peered at him with curiosity. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders as she cocked her head to one side and leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed.

“Feeling better?” Her voice was smooth and her tone firm.

“I—Yeah…” What the fuck was wrong with him? Yes, she was pretty—fucking gorgeous—but it wasn’t his first time seeing a beautiful woman before, so he attributed his surprise to the beating of yesterday.

“Good. You can take a shower before eating breakfast. I cleaned what I could from the blood and rubble with a towel, but it’s not the same as a bath—Oh, and here—” She moved out of his sight for a second then reappeared and tossed a bundle of clothes at him– “I went to buy some clothes for you, I don’t think any of my clothes would fit you.”

“Where are my things?”

“Over at the laundry. They’re a dirty mess and I won’t be washing that.”

“No one asked you to.”

“No.” She smiled at him, and Jason wanted it to drop because his mind had gone blank again. “Shower, over there. Then we can talk over breakfast.” She didn’t wait for a response and walked away.

Jason didn’t know what to do. This was simply put, extremely fucking weird. To feel at ease and nearly trust someone you just met—come to think of it, he didn’t even know her name. Fuck damn. He shook his head and took the bundle of new-smelling clothes. A bath sounded good to him and the purplish and greenish hues appearing all over his body would start hurting more as time went on, so—

Great, now I smell like a girl. He thought sourly walking out of the bathroom at having nothing else but flowery sweet stuff to wash with.

“Someone could figure out your secret identity by this smell,” He said sniffing. It had come out more naturally than he’d been expecting— because it was.

“Oh, it fades by the time I finish at school so it is fine,” She answered after raising her eyes shortly from the newspaper she had been reading. “Sit down, before it gets cold

“School?” He asked dubiously. And almost chose to remain standing, but the bacon, fried eggs on toast, and glass of orange juice called too much to his hunger.

“I’m a teacher at St. Ignatius High School.”

Jason took the seat opposite her and took a piece of bacon. “Shouldn’t you be in school by now then?”

“It’s Saturday.” Finally, she folded the newspaper and put it to the side, Jason glimpsed at the headline “Nuclear explosion wipes Blüdhaven”. Fuck. Wasn’t that unlucky if not wholly unsurprising? He wondered if the Golden Boy had made it alive. Bruce must be going nuts if he didn’t, or maybe not, for all he seemed to care—

The realization that he was being intensely stared at hit him immediately. He looked up at those piercing dark eyes and irritation replaced the anger.

“What?” He snapped.

“Nothing. Your sudden change of intense emotions is distracting.”

Jason leaned back into his chair and looked at her up and down, then said slowly, “Stay away then.” He had read and heard what finding your soulmate entailed, you kind of formed a link or some bullshit like that. Something that allowed you to feel to some extent what the other was feeling, and he remembered the calmness and the steadiness that had surrounded him last night, it hadn’t been his. He passed his tongue over his teeth uneasily, mainly because he didn’t hate it as much as he wanted to.

She, for her part, answered his rudeness with a sweet smile then a light shake of the head. And Jason felt like a child in the classroom after giving a stupid answer to a question. Meanwhile, Huntress had started to fill her plate with food, but before starting to eat she crossed and tilted her head slightly while he guessed made a quick prayer then started eating.

Jason shifted uncomfortably for many reasons. His body aches for being too long in one position, how she was so condescending and calm, and her religious inclinations, or the fact that she seemed to be able to pick more of their link from his emotions than he could.

Maybe if you weren’t trying to reject it you could get the hang of it. Yeah, right. His mind supplied.

“What’s your name?” He finally asked after shoving an egg on a toast into his mouth.

“Helena Bertinelli.”

“Hm.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me yours?”

“Nope.”

“That’s mean, Jason.”

“Yes. I’m mean, so what?” Of course, she already knew who he was.

“Well, I think you’re cute.”

Jason choked on his toast.

“Did you do something to me last night?” He said after drinking juice and reaching for another toast.

Now it was her turn to choke, then she followed with laughter. Jason stared blankly for a moment, she really was beautiful, then looked away when he realized his thoughts.

“I’m not attracted to minors.”

“I’m twenty,” He growled.

“You could have fooled me with all that angsty-edgy-rebellious vibe you get going.”

Fuck damn, he’d walked right into it, hadn’t he?

“You reaching your forties?” He shot back and felt like he’d played more into her hand.

Her smile widened and winked at him, “Fifties.”

“Ha. Funny,” He muttered into the glass of orange juice, then put it down and asked, “Then why put me in your bed?”

“There’s no other bed here, and I wasn't sleeping on the couch or the floor. Besides, you became too restless when I separated from you.”

Jason felt his face heat, in parts embarrassment and parts anger. Again he was being controlled by something he couldn’t choose. He glared odiously at the zero marks on his wrist.

“So what will you do now, Baby Bat?” She–Helena asked after a moment of silence while both of them ate.

“If you call me once more that, I’ll—”

“Kill me? Go ahead and try, Baby Bat,” She taunted him.

He growled but somehow he didn’t feel too much against it anymore. And the more he showed dislike the more she would call him that it seemed. Jason started to worry that this calmness and control was not his own, was being forced on him, was keeping him complaint and—

“Calm down. I wasn’t being serious.”

“No—I know… Listen, this—whatever this is, it’s not going to work. Whatever sick force is trying to bind us, we don’t have to let it control us.”

Her demeanor visibly softened, “I’m not forcing you to stay, Jason. Or maintain contact with me in any way. You seem to have gone through a lot, and while I don’t condone many things that you’ve done, I can’t say I don’t understand them. But if you keep down this path you’ll just end up self-destructing and whatever good you might be trying to achieve—it will corrupt and twist. Spilling blood when you may choose not to spill it, just taints you, whether the one you kill is evil or scum, it still will leave its mark on you. And if you chose to stay, you can’t keep that up.”

“Then so be it. I will see all those fuckers in hell if needed.” Jason shrugged. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. But now that she’d said that, it was the closest to whatever he could have pictured if he’d had more time.

“I don’t think that’s what you really want,” She said after a pause and examination of his face.

“And how would you know?” He snorted.

“Because you’re still a baby in many respects. Even if you’ve seen more than most. You need time to grow and find joy in life. Wouldn’t you rather find that than Hell? Life is tough enough as it is, you don’t need to make it more so.”

Jason didn’t answer, he should have felt insulted, being called a baby—except she hadn’t said it mockingly, nor pityingly, nor patronizing, and she just sounded— tired and a little sad. “So you won’t try to make me stay nor follow me,” He guessed, not a twinge of disappointment there…not at all. 

“No.” Her answer was firm.

It’s not like it surprised him, why would she want a soulmate like him? Just someone else in the long list of people who rejected him. He passed his tongue over his right sharp teeth and asked—challenged, “And what happens when I keep going the way I am? What happens when we come face to face?”

“I’ll stop you if I can.” Then she smiled sadly. “I can’t save you from yourself, Baby Bat. That’s not in my power. But I can accompany you on your path if you want to walk another one.”

That answer deflated him somewhat, he’d been expecting a definitive clean-cut where she’d state to pretend to not know him, or completely ignore their bond. This was so confusing. And he felt a twinge in his heart, a flake that held hope and trust… And it wasn’t his. 

He looked up and asked, “And what would that be?” He asked quietly and the most earnest he’d been all this late morning. How would that look?

“Who knows? Perhaps somewhere far away. Have you been to Italy?” Jason shook his head. “Perhaps you’d love it, the small villages and the countryside… Or maybe just traveling around—there’s enough injustice around the world where they could use some helping hands. The world is wide and many good can be done—many atonement as well…”

They fell into a lull of silence and both drifted into their thoughts. Jason wondered at the last part, he knew she wasn’t speaking just of him. He didn’t know what her story was in-depth, but doubted he’d search more about it. A future day, a different future—could he have that? He hadn’t stopped to think, to even think about thinking. There was something in the back of his mind always nagging to keep moving, don’t stop, don’t look, don’t listen, or the air will run out, or the soil will not give. The laughter won’t stop.

“Baby Bat, you really need to do something about those mood swings.” Helena’s comment pulled him to the present again. “I have to leave now,” She continued looking at the clock over the fridge, “I have to help in the Parish kitchen. Saturday stew night for the homeless, God knows there are too many in this damned city—” She trailed off and got up from her chair.

Jason reached for an apple and bit down on it while following her movements around in silence. It still was odd to think that he really had a soulmate after all it was a fifty-fifty chance you got to be born with a timer, and some timers froze—which meant your soulmate had kicked the bucket. Jason had been expecting that to happen, but it hadn’t and now here they were. For good or for bad he still hadn’t quite made up his mind yet. She didn’t seem about to go and tell Batman about their connection so that much was a win on his books…

“Alright, I’m off. You can eat whatever’s on the fridge, and be a darling and wash the dishes, would you? Thanks. If you leave, make sure everything stays closed.” All these, she said while putting on her purple jacket and pulling her dark hair free from it after finishing adjusting it. Jason had just hummed in response to all, and when he thought she was finally leaving she paused sighed, and walked to him. Jason had to fight the urge to move away from her as strongly as part of him wanted to allow her to reach for him, in the end, he stood still, not wishing to show her how much she affected him, even if he was sure she could feel it to some extent.

Helena took his chin and made him look up at her gently, then after their eyes locked she leaned down and kissed his forehead. The warmness and softness of her lips seemed to envelop his body for the longest of seconds. Then her lips were gone, and she said softly, “Be careful out there, my Soulmate.” He felt her warmness move away and he opened his eyes, he hadn’t even noticed when they had fallen shut.

Jason saw her take her purse and walk out the door, yet he stayed in the same spot for who knows how long, it could have been minutes or hours. My Soulmate. Resounded in his head. Those two words had been uttered with so much fondness and joy–he’d felt it as she had felt it–, it still took some of his breath away, because he hadn’t thought—he hadn’t believed whoever his soulmate would end up being would be glad to have him after they knew who he was, what he was. But she knew enough of his ugliness and debased things he’d done and still seemed happy to have him. It was unbelievable, he couldn’t—

He let out a shaky breath and passed his not-less shaky hand through his hair. Then he snapped out of it and got moving to find his gear before leaving this place before his mind got any muddier. Or more clear, something whispered in the back of his head.

[acanthus-literary]

“What does your timer say?” Eijirou asks softly.

Katsuki turns to him. “I’ve got a little longer to wait,” he says, pulling his sleeve up to show him. “I wonder what kind of person I’ll be.”

“You mean what kind of person they’ll be?”

Katsuki shakes his head and for some reason he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from Eijirou. “No, I mean I wonder what kind of person I’ll be. When I meet them. I hope I’m worthy.”

Eijirou smiles sadly, gently taking Katsuki’s wrist and brushing a thumb over his timer. “You don’t have to worry. You’re already worthy.”

- Till the End of Time by Madame_Hatter.

[ezlebe]

What are the premises for your other soulmate AUs, if you don’t mind sharing

Greg drags his hands down his face, leaning back in his chair with a creak. He swallows hard, peering at the drop tiles between his fingers, then lets one of his hands fall to rub hard at his collarbone.

“Fuck,” he whispers, slumping deeper into the chair. He has to sign, at this point, right? It would be sort of fucked up if he didn’t do it. Or he could bring Tom into the… No, that wouldn’t work.

He looks down at the pastry basket, Tom’s half-eaten leftover muffin crumbling and squished, and curves forward until his forehead hits the desk. The worst part is like how unsurprised he is about it; like, he is pretty shocked, but it doesn’t feel like he is enough. He’s heard so much come out of Tom in the time he’s known him that him declaring himself some vague embodiment of Greg’s tat halfway through a breakdown is sort of… baseline? He didn’t throw anything, really –

Oh, except the coatrack.

Greg peeks at the coatrack over his arm, then feels his nose scrunch, and shoves himself up from the chair. He picks it up and straightens his coat, tugging it to hang even, and stares at it, until eventually he’s leaning hard into the wall next to the door.

Okay, so it just took it a few minutes to fully hit him.

He stares at the floor next to the coat rack for a while, until he blinks finally and it burns, then stands back up while awkwardly smoothing his hands down his shirt. He swallows thickly, as he takes a step back, then another, and reaches for his phone at his desk.

He isn’t really sure what to say, or what he does eventually say, but Kerry seems to understand it. He nods, almost forgetting to answer aloud, when she offers an approval of the decision, a confirmation of where to courier documents, then drops the phone while it clicks to hang up. He realizes blankly that they really, truly don’t seem to realize that he was who got Kendall the papers. He wonders, consequently, if maybe anyone thinks it was Tom, or something, since he knows that would have to be the next assumption after seeing the hearings; after the way he seems to have resigned to prison.

He doesn’t want Tom to go to prison. He kind of doeswant to stick him in like another mail room, maybe, which feels a bit like a cell, but that’s pretty much the end of it. He definitely doesn’t want him any sort of gone, not now, even though he can’t like know for sure that Tom is really the reason why he’s got a tat of the name of an emperor slash Star Trek villain slash Italian word for black across his collarbone.

It is sort of nice to know what it actually is supposed to mean, if he is? Greg’s mom thought it meant his soulmate was going to be some full-of-himself tyrant, which isn’t… totally wrong, really, but it’s also not that abstract, because Tom said he was Nero, so Greg didn’t have to figure it out. And Tom just mostly wants to be a tyrant.

He doesn’t manage see Tom the rest of the day, though he does try peeking in the office and even lingers around Shiv from a distance, but it’s maybe for the best; he might say the wrong thing, when he isn’t even sure he wants to say anything at all. It’s not an ideal circumstance – Tom is married, is his boss, and already like has a lot on his plate. He doesn’t want to be like the final straw that breaks Tom. He can’t really handle crying very well and Tom already got way too close.

He picks up pizza on his way home, a few hours later, then stares mindlessly at a television that he realizes is muted some twenty minutes after he turns it on. He winces, then turns it back off, deciding it might just be simpler to go to bed early; he’ll feel less heavy in the morning.

He stares at the mark on his chest, after he takes off his undershirt, shower already spitting water behind him. He wonders what Tom’s must be, as he forces himself to turn around, if it’s just Sporus, or if it’s something else he might associate with Greg; hopefully, it’s just Sporus. He’s sort of wary of what Tom might think of him, even if it’s fond to Tom, it might not be all that great, like a silhouette of a sasquatch, or a paper shredder, or like… who knows, not something great to recreate for a vow ceremony.

Not that they will do that.

Or have one.

Tom is pretty married.

He nearly falls against the edge of the drain when his phone starts to buzz at a familiar tempo, and is thankful he’s mostly rinsed off, as he rushes out from under the water. He hurriedly turns off the spray, as he reaches for his phone, thumb slipping and slipping across the screen until it finally opens under the damp wet.

“Hey,” Greg answers, fumbling the phone, then setting it down and tapping speaker, while reaching out for a towel hanging on the bar; fuck, it’s damp – he really needs to do laundry. “This is Greg.”

“Obviously,” Tom says, sharply, then falls quiet, breathing in and out loudly into the speaker. He clears his throat, low and rough, “Just wondering what part of my humiliation convinced you to sign?”

“Oh, uh,” Greg fumbles, staring at his bare chest in the mirror with a nervous laugh. He touches at the letters, slowly tracing what he once thought was just messy handwriting, but turned out to be some kind of Roman. “Just… all of it?”

Tom breathes loudly into the receiver for a long while, then croaks out an unhappy laugh. “Great.”

“I-I, like meant –” Greg stutters into silence.

“Fuck off,” Tom snaps, then abruptly hangs up.

Greg sighs quietly through his nose, then rolls his eyes upward, as he taps at Tom’s name to call him back.

“What?” Tom demands, pitchy and defensive, but he did pick up, so can’t be that upset.

“I’m just like kind of bored, now… ” Greg says, glancing from his bed inviting him through the door. “Are you doing something?”

“I’m trying to choose the fed camp I want to be sent to.”

Greg runs a hand up his forehead, briefly staring up at the ceiling. He exhales a sigh, as quietly as he can, and drops his head. “Do you even choose it, not like… the jury, or whatever?”

“Judge, Gregory,” Tom says, followed by a low, harsh, unintelligible mutter, then a shallow clear of his throat. “No, I’m not doing anything, but I’m making myself available; apparently, Kendall nearly killed Logan.”

“What? But, I – I like just saw him?” Greg says, pulling his shirt on and trying not to be too annoyed that no one called him. “Unless you mean in some… business sense?”

“Nope, definitely the ol’ classic sense. They went on a hike and your dear uncle is old.”

Greg blinks rapidly down at the phone. “Uh. My grandpa goes on like a lot of hikes?” He says, though he wonders if it counts as a hike or just transportation, on those instances Ewan just won’t drive. “Kendall went on a hike?”

Tom offers a short, raspy laugh. “I do assume it was a pristinely groomed trail, Greg.”

“I could like come over,” Greg says, “Is Shiv there?”

“Have you looked at the time, lately?” Tom says, low and snide, and it almost feels like a jab at the watch thing, though Greg hasn’t yet managed to tell him the specifics about it. He’s run through it in his head, because Tom would get it fixed, if just to make himself look good, but he’d be a dick about it and Kendall the whole time. “She’s in her room.”

Greg blinks twice and furrows his brow, as he looks down at the phone.

Tom sighs a loud wash of static into the receiver. “You really want to come laugh to my face?”

“I’m not laughing at you, Tom,” Greg says, injecting a spare bit of hurt into his voice, as subtle as he can manage, though he’s really just sort of tired.

“I wish you would,” Tom mutters, not picking up on it, seemingly firmly stuck in his determined self-pity.

“I’m like not,” Greg insists, slowly, relaxing his voice with a low sigh. “So?”

Tom is quiet for a few beats. “Whatever, if you insist.”

~

Greg uneasily stands by, close but not quite embroiled, as Tom digs new depths for his prison problem; he talks about this guy who’s probably scamming him about preparing for it, and even takes Greg’s suggestion about shouldering all the responsibility, which is nice but not really like him, at least not to even joke about it. It’s not like he should even be a Christmas tree, really; the only bauble he should have is the one that like he technically gave Greg to begin with, not any from some slippery jerk in Sales.

He does kiss Greg out of nowhere, though, after sweeping through his office like a storm when the dam breaks, so maybe Greg just isn’t on the right wavelength to understand the plan. He isn’t really sure he wants to be? But he can tell it’s moving in some direction. He just has to watch and wait for the right time to pull out the tat, once Tom has evened out a little more steady, and… Yeah, after Greg has handled this thing with Kendall turning into a jerk about him going back to Waystar.

Like, Greg needs his job? It’s not like Kendall was offering to pay him.

~

Greg ends up asking out Comfry because it is hopefully, maybe a good position to appear extra gentlemanly, so she might not put out some exposé on him. He’s not exactly sure what that would entail, but he suspects his before-Waystar life, and while that’s mostly a lot of doing nothing with his mom, it perhaps includes like him shotgunning with shirtless guys and a YouTube video where he pretends to review a coke bottle bong. He doesn’t technically have a reputation to ruin, but he also doesn’t want to start one up that he has to improve.

The whole angle also, in a way that probably shouldn’t feel good, makes Tom this total mopey jerk that Greg can’t help poking at every chance. He spends combined days and kilometers across an ocean looking up at Greg like he wants to stick him in another mailroom, only it’s a windowless closet in his penthouse, and that’s not like great, but some sick part of Greg is ready to sign up. He’s been preparing how to lift his chin the right way, if Tom tries to kiss him another time.

Either way… It can’t be any worse than whatever is going on with this wedding. He actually suspects the guy is Caroline’s soulmate, but that she hasn’t told him, or anyone else, and he can empathize with it; he’s just not in a position where he can entice an unknowing Tom and spring it later in a similar way, not when Tom’s other option is Shiv. It would take a lot of finessing for Greg to get Tom any kind of anything, talking to the right people, propping him up with some light to heavy fibbing, and a lot of time, too, but Shiv… She just asks her dad.

He doesn’t have any castles, either, which he suspects would equally attract Tom.

He idly switches tracks halfway through the trip to courting the Contessa, who does have castles, and while he knows it won’t like actually go anywhere, it’s sort of nice to pretend that he could get one in a divorce. He manages to even shift Comfry to the Contessa, since he knows she hates working for Kendall, so that’s technically two birds, and then, as the night winds down, tries for a third by embellishing his affections a bit to Tom, who listens to it all with an expression like he’s legitimately contemplating a murder.

It’s a pretty good look on his face, somehow, stern and square, and Greg finds himself absently reaching up and scratching against the tat under his shirt.

“Greg, listen,” Tom says, an odd tone to his voice, as he jerks a chair from behind Greg in a pointed gesture. It’s easy to sit without thinking at all.

Tom asks him to make a deal with the devil, which could be Logan or Kendall, at this point, but Greg knows for sure that it’s Tom, so he does; it’s not really that hard, after Tom tries to guess what Greg could want most in the world, and it’s just Greg, as if that’s how he feels about it. It makes him feel fluttery and off-balance, getting another acknowledgement of the tat, and ends up eagerly grasping back at Tom for a hug.

It’s less ideal when Tom walks away, leaving Greg standing awkward. Greg looks around, contemplating if he should follow, but he ends up sitting back down while rubbing into the back of his neck, then jumping when a nearby server asks if he’d like a drink. He would… Yeah, but he really just wants something cheap and familiar? And it’s pretty unlikely Molsons exists in Italy.

He ends up with something called a Peroni, which isn’t really hitting the home feel he’s suddenly looking for, but it’s close enough. He’s mostly just holding an empty bottle by the time he gets the fortitude to wander up the stairs that Tom had disappeared up, darkness settled comfortably around the castle, and he stumbles into an evident aftermath in a room off the courtyard.

He peeks in and sees his cousins and Tom, Gerri, and Karl working in something, and no one especially looking at each other. He thinks Roman might be sort of crying, while Kendall is staring hard at a window, and Shiv… is the one now who looks murderous, but it’s not at all the same sort of murderous as Tom had looked earlier, because it’s directed like a laser at Tom. Tom, who is pretending not to notice, who’s posture is smug and self-satisfied, who’s talking mostly at a visibly annoyed Gerri.

The devil was probably Logan, then…

“Are you drinking fucking beer?” Roman asks, wetly, sour expression daring Greg to mention it.

“I was?” Greg says, looking down at the bottle, then shaking it to show its emptiness. “What happened?”

“Dad killed us,” Shiv says, tightly, hands wrapped tightly at her elbows where she stands at the edge of the room. “He… He somehow knew we were coming up here.”

Greg does his best wide blink, nodding and looking down at the papers at the table. “Huh. You could sue him, right?” He asks, peeking down, as Kendall flexes his hands to fists. “I’m doing that with my Grandpa.”

Roman practically growls beneath a sneer. “I’m not suing my fucking Dad.”

“He like would you,” Greg says, rolling the bottle in his hands. “Turnabout, you know? I mean, if he doesn’t act like he loves you, why, like… act like you do him?”

Kendall grimaces with a bite at his cheek, eyes sweeping down, as he lifts a hand to rub at his head.

Shiv suddenly looks like she’s not breathing at all, paling and maybe more furious, but her face is half turned away.

“What the fuck does love have to do with it?” Roman demands, stumbling up from the floor, then sinking into a nearby chair.

Greg straightens but manages to smother an impulse to step back. “Isn’t that why you wouldn’t?”

“Fuck off,” Roman snaps, expression twisting with a sullen scowl, while he voice gets worryingly throaty. “He loves us, assface; it’s the business.”

“…Right?” Greg says, looking away from Roman, before the reflexive urge to ask it he’s okay gets him like tackled. “So li-like do the business thing?”

Roman exhales an angry wheeze. “Shut up, you don’t know shit, Cousin Cuck.”

“Where’d you get that beer, bud?” Tom interjects, voice oddly soft, then sharply clearing his throat with a swift cough. “That wasn’t at the ceremony.”

“Oh, uh?” Greg lifts it to look down at the label with a low grunt, then he shrugs and peeks back up to Tom. “I asked and someone like found it… in the kitchen?”

“Let’s go get a couple more,” Tom says, stepping around the squat table in the center of the room. He walks past Greg to the door, plainly expecting him to follow. “Could use them, huh?”

Greg exhales a pitching hum, then looks around, for a trash can, hurrying toward one to drop in the empty bottle. He turns to catch up with Tom, seeing he’s disappeared around the corner in the courtyard, but he might be waiting just beyond it to scare him.

“Sporus,” Shiv says, all of a sudden and barely above a breath.

Greg looks over his shoulder with a blink, reacting to the name before he can really think about it, and incidentally makes eye contact across the room. He sees her face somehow pale further, turning her particularly corpse-like, minusing a pair of high spots of color against her cheeks.

“Is that a code word?” Roman demands, after a horribly tense few seconds, looking between them with sweeps of his red-rimmed eyes.

Shiv drops her head with a shake. Her voice is some weak attempt at snide, trembling at the back in a way Greg has never heard. “Shut up, Roman.”

Greg nearly trips over his own feet in haste to leave the room, as his pulse grows to a thud between his ears. He nearly runs into Tom, who was definitely waiting to scare him, but now looks at his face and immediately just seems comically resigned.

“You’re not taking their side already, are you?”

“Oh, uh – what?” Greg says, rubbing at the back of his neck with a glance over his shoulder. “No.”

“Ever the champion at playing dumb,” Tom tuts, eyes rolling plainly, even in the dark, and his shoulders spread while an elbow angles out almost wide enough to dig in Greg’s side. “You know, part of me appreciates your instinct to play both sides, as small as it is compared to the part that just hates it.”

“I’m really not,” Greg insists, then drops his voice, mostly joking, as he mutters under his breath: “This time.”

Tom huffs out an angry sort of snort, as his hand making solid contact with Greg’s shoulder in a shove.

The server is oddly eager about taking them to the kitchen and showing off the beer. They speak in low Italian blended with choppy English, and gesture until Tom and Greg both have a number of bottles in grasp, then laugh loud and escort them straight back to the courtyard, smiles wide and abundant, and Greg assumes they think it’s celebration for the wedding.

Tom sticks a bottle in his jacket, as he covers the neck of the bottle with his other hand and pops the cap.

By magic, or something.

Did he do that with his ring?

Greg stares for another beat, then offers his own bottle.

“How’d you open the other one?” Tom says, pretending to be put upon, even as a wry smirk sweeps his lips while he takes the bottle.

“They did it for me,” Greg says, watching as Tom, again, opens the a bottle like it’s nothing with the ring. “How do you – Were you married before?”

“You don’t need to be married to wear rings,”  Tom says, dismissive, holding the bottle out with a wag. “You can even wear one just to open beer.”

“Oh,” Greg says, taking the bottle back, as Tom seems to palm the cap in a similarly practiced manner into the pocket with the other bottle. “How much did you drink?”

Tom opens his mouth, like he’s thinking about snapping something, then simply shrugs while lifting the bottle to his mouth. He pulls back after a beat, looking at the label. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, it’s like…” Greg looks at his own bottle with a sigh. “Italian?”

Tom shakes his head and lifts the bottle again for another drink.

“You’re not, like – we’re not actually going back, right?”

“Would rather not, no,” Tom says, scratching at the edge of his chin with the back of a knuckle.

“Cool, uh – ” Greg nods, scratching up his hairline, as he scratches the lip of the bottle with his thumb. “My, like – my accommodation isn’t that far?”

Tom turns to look with a wide eye roll. “Your accommodation? Someone’s been watching travel vlogs.”

Greg shrugs and scratches at the bridge of his nose. “It has a pool?”

Tom mutters something under his breath, then lifts the bottle while tipping his head. He follows Greg without further argument, as he turns toward the stairs down toward the waiting cars.

Greg is relieved when no one else is at the little villa, when they pull up, probably all still back at the reception. It means he can slip into trunks and a less scratchy shirt, slump onto a lounger to finish beers that he halfway is drinking just to watch Tom do the ring trick, and suffer no witnesses when he stares after Tom decides boxers are good enough for swimming. He is not super into swimming, not like in the doing laps way, but Tom really seems to be, moving back and forth under the water and the dark sky. It’s mesmerizing in some kind of way, and he sets an empty bottle aside, lifting his head when Tom pulls himself out of water, then opens his mouth, not quite thinking, while Tom shakes water out of his hair.

“Did you like – uh, did you tell Shiv about the Sporus thing?” Greg asks, and realizes all at once that maybe he wasn’t really waiting for Tom to be ready, but that he was, perhaps, scared it was only him. He wishes he could swallow the words back into his throat.

Tom looks up with a start, markedly stepping wrong over the edge of the pool. He winces, as he looks down, halfway laughing in a pitch with no humor. “Wha-Why?”

Greg feels his mouth twitch, looking away from Tom, dripping with pool water and boxers plastered to his… thighs. “She like maybe called me that?”

Tom is quiet for a solid beat, then croaks out another laugh. “Oh. She… Well, she must have seen me watching the documentary?”

“Okay, sure – ” Greg says, nodding with a drop of his chin, remembering though that Tom sure had said book. “I-I was wondering if maybe it was…” He leans up and starts to yank at his shirt, movements jerky, until his shirt is gone and his tat is plain across his collarbone. “Uh, maybe?”

Tom openly gawks, lifting a hand and swiping it down his face. He stumbles forward and reaches out, then yanks his hand back, staring wide down at Greg like he’s waiting for a punchline.

Greg finds himself hunching, breathing out a tight, stuttered laugh. “If-if it’s not –”

“Shi-fuck,” Tom says, as he pulls down the band of his boxers with tetchy fingers.

Greg scrambles at the lounger, then feels heat flare in his face and satisfaction bloom against the back of his mind at Sporus scrawled against Tom’s hip. It’s in a similar writing as Greg’s, messy and with funny letters, and inarguably matching him.

“How did you like know?” Greg asks, dragging his eyes up from the tat. The light from the pool and the deck casts Tom in two shades, and he lets his eyes drop, staring at the dark writing peeking on his hip, where the waistband has half curled up. “About how mine said Nero?”

Tom wets his lips, as his eyes dart away, keeping that way for a pair of seconds before they sweep back. He exhales a weak croak, “I didn’t, I really didn’t, bud. I just…” He gestures widely with a jerk of both hands. “I wanted it to be.”

Greg feels a brief tightening behind his sternum, shifting his jaw with a swallow. “You did… Really?”

Tom blinks and a brow quirks up, dropping his hands to his hips. “Yes? Should I fucking apologize – did I trap you in some – ?”

“No, Tom,” Greg interrupts, shifting on the lounger and wondering if he should like maybe get up, or something, but Tom might push him in the pool. “It’s just… like, flattering?”

Tom stares for a solid beat. “Oh,” he intones, blinking a few times, then glancing away toward the lit hill beyond the pool in front of them.

“Like, I never… thought of that as an option, you know,” Greg says, jumping slightly and heat flushing his body, as Tom abruptly drops to sit on the edge of lounger and stare down at him. “Cart before the horse, or however that might go.”

Tom narrows an eye with a sharp turn of his head. “You didn’t think your soulmate would like you before you were their soulmate, Greg; is that how you felt about me?”

“Oh, no? I mean, I never thought about the soulmate angle, no, but not, um…” Greg tightly shrugs with a turn of his head into his shoulder, crown rubbing the coarse weave of the chair. “You’re not like exactly an unattractive individual, really.”

Tom slowly turns his head, brow climbing his forehead, as a smirk plays around his mouth. “Did you want to fuck me, Greg?”

“It could be, perhaps, put that way,” Greg mutters, heat flooding further up his neck.

Tom hums lowly, tilting his head with a markedly considering look. “More or less than either of your vapid courtiers?”

“Yeah, I don’t, uh – ” Greg wets his lower lip, breath hitching, as Tom suddenly, lightly touches against his tat. “That was a – I thought of that as a business-type match, more than a bed-type –”

“Hold on, you tricked those poor nice ladies, Gregory?” Tom interrupts, shifting his hand and his thumb presses hard and warm to Greg’s lower lip, along the damp spot where his tongue just peeked through. “Absolutely unconscionable, courting yourself an ignorant beard.”

“I don’t think they, like…” Greg swallows shallowly, craning his neck up, as Tom leans further in and over the lounger, practically on top of him. “Re-really expected otherwise?”

“I do,” Tom says, as his lashes drop with a plain glance down Greg’s body, then the pressure of a familiar hand in an unfamiliar place – settling low on Greg’s stomach. “Which is rude as fuck to say, but you are also hard as iron, buddy. I didn’t know you were so easy.”

“Yeah,” Greg agrees, weakly, as his dick jerks in some attempt to reach the foreign pressure against his waistband.

He wants to blame the soulmate thing but he’s just as sure that it’s really mostly Tom. He looks at him sometimes and sees something in his eyes, not quite harsh, in a way, but definitely in that vicinity, and just… He’s wondered at limits, somewhat, and is accidentally stumbling into his own.

Tom looks up, just briefly, toward the doors into the villa, and Greg would swear he feels the sweep of eyes like a physical thing, but that could just be the thumb along his cheek. “You done peacocking out here, you big turkey – we could solve this problem inside?”

“Could ju-just stay out here?” Greg counters, wondering if there’s any way he could roll his hips in a subtle, non-desperate way.

“I don’t think so,” Tom says, his tone some odd blend of steel and amusement. He does drop his hand another few centimeter or so, plainly taunting, while his smirk gets wide. “I’m not going to risk sharing you.”

~

“Do you think it’s like reincarnation?”

Tom rasps out a wheezy laugh into a bottle of mini fridge Perrier. “God, I hope not. Nero was not a nice fucking guy, to put it mildly.”

“Well, like,” Greg says, looking across the pillow with a turn of his head and a rub of his chin into the seam. “No one really, you know, knows anyway since the only records left about him were written like way after he died.”

“I cannot believe,” Tom snaps, tone lilting with familiar, amused ire, as he rolls over to set a hand against Greg’s sternum, pressing him into the mattress while he angles up in a loom. “You lied to me about – What did you say, the IP?”

“Yeah, um…” Greg says, dragging his teeth along his lip while he feels his cheek twitch against a smile. “You like really… romanticized it, it seemed like.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Tom says, abruptly slumping, bare chest smacking against Greg’s and halfway knocking the air from him. “You try growing up with a mutilated sex slave on your hip.”

“People, uh – ” Greg stutters, as Tom stretches out against him, elbows and knees settling against his in crooked, unyielding positions. “People think Nero was the devil?”

“Nero is not the devil,” Tom says, as he digs up through Greg’s hair with curling, scratching fingers. “He just works for him. Big difference.”

Greg huffs out a laugh, quickly smothered by Tom’s own smirk.

[person-behind-books]

lucas' is clutching his wrist as max hovers above him. her timer still is long enough to wrap multiple times around it.

how can her eyes be squashed into her skull and her limbs be broken like a doll, her life seeping out of her, when there's still so much time left.

how can he feel her breath fade away and her heart stop when the timer is still so far away from reaching zero?

part 2

[smilysstuff]

Smily, pleasepleasepleeeeease can we have some more of the superpowers au?

It's only one post old and I'm already invested XD

Honestly the Superpowers AU is still in progress with a solid storyline, but I'd love to share small tidbits of the AU when I drew some more of it! Funfact : The Superpowers AU is actually a Soulmate timer au w/ powers 💀 I never really got to mention that because it'll sound weird without context.

The au is just one giant Tuckington fanfiction in disguise I'll tell you that. It originally started with "imagine, enemies to lovers Tuckington Soulmate au. BUT WITH SUPERPOWERS AND THEY ARE IN OPPOSING SIDES" I just went wild with this idea with a friend. But then I also went to have fun with the other characters in this AU too. I should definitely draw The Criminal!Reds and Blues with a pleased smile while in the background there's a burning Baskin Robbins. When I have the chance I'll share some more info bout this!

[undertale-writing-times]

For the soulmate thing, "5. Timer for when they first meet" with Calamity please?

Here you go! Thank you for asking :3

You know, it's a little ironic. Given the fact that he would check his timer almost every few minutes, you wouldn't expect Calamity to be surprised when he first met his soulmate.

But he was!

It was a simple day, but a busy one. He had to go around and drop off a lot of paperwork that Envy gave him to give to people, threaten a few others, and then he would have to go back to get his next set of jobs.

It was a bit of a stressful life, you know, but he loved it! He loved the fighting, he loved how he felt so useful. Envy needed him and, truthfully? He needed Envy.

If it was just him, and he didn't have anyone, he wouldn't know what to do. He was a willing pawn, someone that would do whatever he's told without question. It's what he's always been, and that's what he wants to be! He needed people to tell him what to do, without that he feels... weird.

He met someone today too! They caught his interest; he wasn't 100% sure why, but they sure as heck did! It was one of the people that he needed to give paperwork to. He thought that they were nice! The two of them spoke for a bit, then he left.

His soul felt strange...

He decided to check that out later.

By the time that he got home, and he checked his timer, it had been a few hours. His sockets widen when he saw the 00:00 making his mouth open a little, “What?” He mumbles then holds the sides of his head, his sockets wide “What?!” he repeated to himself, louder than needed.

Tragedy turns his head to look over at Calamity, “What are you shoutin' about?” he asks, a little annoyed sounding. So much for the calm quiet he had before this asshole got home.

“I met my soulmate sometime today” he holds up his arm, waving it, “I don't know when though! I forgot to check it today!” He holds up his arms, “That's so not fair!”

Tragedy snorts, putting his hand over his mouth grinning, “Oh that's amazin'” he hasn't met his soulmate yet, something he was pretty happy but also upset about.

“You shut your mouth, bone pile” Calamity points at Tragedy, huffing and puffing, “You aren't allowed to tease me”

“We're both skeletons, and screw you, I can totally make fun of you. Ha ha” he said, sticking out his tongue out. The thing is, they're skeletons, he literally had to summon that to do that.

The other skeleton shakes his head quickly and hurries back out, grabbing his jacket as he ran out. Okay! He'll just go back out and think about it. Maybe it's that one person that he met that caught his attention? He's pretty sure that that was the only one that really made him remember them.

Hehe

He's all excited.

[withacapitalp]

Countdown Pt 3

Part One Part Two

Tw: Slight suicidal ideation and general grieving

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

They only carry a couple things with them on the run. 

Surviving the apocalypse isn’t pretty, and it’s easier to make a quick escape if they’re always traveling light. Essentials only, with a few sentimental items so they don’t completely lose their minds. 

Nancy had her journals, Max had her skateboard (even if she couldn’t use it right now), Will brought a pack of colored pencils, and Steve was pretty sure Hopper had somehow saved a half a pack of smokes. 

And Steve….Steve has a shoebox. 

It’s an old thing, held together with duct tape and decorated with sharpie doodles. Wayne had given it to him right before he left town, along with the necklace that Steve kept around his neck every moment of every day. 

He’s never let any of them look in it. They think he’s insane, but they’re not the ones with zeroed out timers.

This shoebox is all he has left of his soulmate. 

What’s inside would seem like junk to most people. A handful of rocks of varying size, shapes, and colors. A leather cuff with spikes that Steve had immediately put around his timer wrist to hide it from view. A matchbook from a gay bar in Indianapolis, a Spalding bouncy ball. Some hand-sewn patches with logos he didn’t recognize, three different mini figures, a dozen faded beautiful photographs, and a single mixtape. 

Only Robin knew about the mixtape. He had only told her in case they needed a song for him. That mixtape was the only thing in the world that had the song that could save his life. 

But the most important thing in that box was the letters. 

He read one every night. He had promised himself he wouldn’t read more than one. It was routine. When it was his turn to be on watch and the rest of their family was sound asleep, Steve would open his shoebox, pull out a letter, and read it. 

The first one is probably his favorite. It was written in dark red marker on yellow construction paper, the edges ripped and torn with age. The marker bled through the back of the paper where the child who wrote the letter had pressed down too hard, and Steve could imagine the way his fingers must have stained from the ink. Blood red. The same way his fingers were stained when he died. 

7/4/1971 

TWO SULMAYT,

HI.

I AM EDDIE MUNSON. I AM FIVE YEARS OLD. I LIKE TRUKS. YU SHUD LIKE THEM TO. WE CAN WATCH THE BIG TRUKS! 

WHAT IS YUR NAMY? 

BIE

LUV EDDIE

P. S. I HAD A NANA FOR BRIKFEST. YUM. 

There was a picture of two giant monster trucks under the words, and a tiny thing Steve assumed was a banana under the postscript. Steve keeps that one tucked in his jacket pocket, just in case he ever loses his bag or his precious shoebox. 

He keeps the first in his side pocket, and keeps the last one in the breast pocket right above his heart

6/13/1986

Hi Love,

The first one says ‘Two Sulmayt’ but every one after that starts with ‘Hi Love’. 

Steve can’t help wondering if Eddie would have eventually called him ‘Love’ if they had gotten more time. 

Well, if you’re reading this, then I guess my plan to be the one that lived really didn’t work out. Damn, that sucks. Probably a little bit more for you than for me. 

I don't know how you dealt with knowing we only had five days, but I thought it was kinda fucked. Like damn, really? Five? The universe sure has a funny sense of humor, doesn’t it, Love? Or maybe it just hates me. That is also a very real possibility. 

Maybe. But if the universe hated Eddie, then it must hate Steve more for making him continue to live. For giving him other people to love, people to care about, people to force him to not give up. 

Anyways this is how I dealt with it. If you only get five days to have me, I’m going to make sure you know me. Or know who I was at least. One letter a month for the last 12 years, and a bunch of random one off ones from when I was little. Before I lived with Wayne it was kind of catch as catch can with paper and stuff, and I was also like seven, so how many letters do you really want from a seven year old who still can’t spell ‘Difficulty’?

I know how to now, by the way. Mrs. D, Mrs. I, yada yada. Do you ever wonder why all those women are married? I think that’s stupid. Forced conformity, even in our nursery rhymes. 

That joke always made Steve laugh. He’s read this letter so many times it’s starting to come apart at the creases, but it still made him pause and chuckle. 

Anyways. This is yours. Eleven letters a year for twelve years is one hundred and thirty two. Adding in the ones from before, it’s probably around a hundred and fifty. It’s not the same as having me around, but if you spread them out, you might get thirteen years or so before you have to start rereading them. 

Or read them all in one sitting. Do whatever you want. 

Steve had counted. It was one hundred and forty one. He read one new one a night, because every single day they survived seemed like a miracle right now. 

He only had seventy three more left. 

Not like I can stop you, haha. 

That’s probably not as funny to you as I want it to be. Sorry, Love. 

It wasn’t funny. Not in the slightest. Steve wanted Eddie here, wanted him to tell him to wait. He wanted Eddie to write him more letters. 

Oh, I also included a bunch of stuff I thought was too cool to lose, and a mixtape with songs that I wrote for my band. I thought you might want to get to hear my voice. It’s probably stupid, but you don’t have to listen to them if you don’t want to. 

Steve listened to it. They had been forced to scrounge up new batteries for his walkman three times because it kept dying. 

Everything in this box is yours, Wayne has strict instructions to give it to you. And, anything of mine Wayne doesn’t want is for you too.

Wow. A whole trust fund of trailer park trash. Some people leave their soulmates huge inheritances. I left you rocks and pictures and a shit ton of letters. Aren’t you lucky, Love? 

He was lucky. He had seventy three more letters. Seventy three more reasons to survive another day. 

After that…Steve wasn’t sure if he would be lucky anymore. 

Now if you’re good at math- which I hope you are, because I’m terrible at it- then you might be saying to yourself ‘Is my soulmate an idiot? Does he not know there’s twelve months in a year?’ 

No. I’m actually incredibly smart, even though my grades don’t really show it. I rewrite this top of the box letter every year on my birthday, and then I burn the last one. It’s a fun, extremely morbid, tradition. 

I’m 20 today, Love. I wonder how old you are a lot. I hope you’re close to my age at least. Maybe you’re like fifty years older than me, and I meet you when you’re on your deathbed, and that’s why we only have five days. 

They had only gotten five days because Steve hadn’t just taken Eddie and run. He should have just told Eddie to go as far from Hawkins as possible the second he realized. Fuck the rest of the world, fuck stopping the apocalypse. The best part of Steve was already dead. 

Two whole decades, but somehow I’m still in high school. I failed. Again. I wrote a lot about it in my letter last month, so I’m not going to talk about it again. Suffice to say I’m pretty bummed. I mean, c’mon, even Steve Harrington managed to graduate last year, and that guy barely even went to class during senior year. 

That part of the letter always made his stomach turn. He hated the reminder of all the wasted time, the little nudge that always told him it was his fault they barely had any time. 

If he had only looked up. 

Oh, well. This one is it. ‘86 baby! I’d say I want this to be the year I meet you, but I really want to graduate, so maybe hold off for just one more year? Stay wherever you are for just twelve more months, Love, just to be safe. Then I can put a picture of me flipping off my principal in this box for you. I’ll add my diploma in too, just to prove to you I did it. 

Eddie wasn’t going to get a diploma. 

If you wait a year, I’ll give you twelve more letters. So just wait one more year. By then, I think I’ll know what to say to make this better. I’ll know what to do to fill the gap I know you’re going to have. I’ll have something to say that will fix all this. I say that every year, and I never do, but hey, ‘86. 

Nothing anyone said would fix this. Nothing Eddie could write would fill the hole left in Steve’s soul. Nothing. 

I’m sorry. 

I say that every year too. 

Steve didn’t want apologies. He didn’t want letters. He didn’t want a hard to hear voice on a single mixtape. 

He wanted Eddie. 

Well. Happy birthday to me. One more year without meeting you. Eleven more letters. You better be doing something just as nice for me in case it's you that bites it, or I’m bringing your ass back just to kill you again. 

Steve didn’t care if Eddie killed him. Eddie could reappear right now and immediately shoot Steve and he would die happy. He just wanted one more minute. Just a little more time. 

…Wait just a little bit longer. I’ll have better words next year. 

Can you do that for me, Love?

P.S. You should read the first letter I wrote to you, just to appreciate how eloquent and charming I am in this one. 

Eddie called him ‘Love’. Eddie asked him to wait. Eddie wanted to have the right words. He wanted to live long enough to save Steve from his own broken heart.

Steve wishes he had waited.  

[jamiethebee]

You know what I miss.... Soulmate aus.... Like the most stupid, nonsensical ones: timers and sayings and color vs black and white.... Like damn 2013 was a time

[aparticularbandit]

🌹

🌹🌹🌹

...

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

(I'm being aggressive and I'm only a little sorry)

for every “🌹” received in my inbox i’ll post one random sentence of a random WIP i’m currently writing

oh, fuck you. (affectionate)

READ MORE BECAUSE YOU GET NINETEEN OF THESE. JOKE'S ON YOU. HAH!

...but also a table of contents for anyone else who might want to creep in on these:

Dark!Eve

Agatha Birthday fic

Take A Sad Song and Make It Better Ch. 3

Post-Finding Family Agatha - Stephen Encounter

The Haunting of Westview Manor

What Dreams May Come Ch. ???

Mexican Stud (Epic Superhero Crossover Book 1)

Collateral Damage (Epic Superhero Crossover Book ???)

The House on Ridge Road (Epic Superhero Crossover Book ???)

Dottie as Sin Rostro

Love is Not a Victory March (Roisa Soulmate Timer Book 4)

Clara Ruvelle and the Heir of Slytherin (Roisa HP AU Book 2)

A Christmas Hideaway (Roisa Hallmark Holiday Special Reversal)

Roisa Grinchmas Special (this one’s in rhyme!)

On Myths and Hideouts Ch. ???

On Myths and Hideouts Jess Prequel

Paradise Lost post-canon

Timeless/Noir fusion

The Story of a Girl (Noir fic; Title pending) Ch. 3 - “Shielded by Black Robes”

Dark!Eve:

It’s boring when they don’t struggle.

Dottie’s let her practice on her some, let her bind her hands together, made sure she’s tying her victims down properly, grinned around the gag pressed into her lips, and just stared without making any noise as Eve’s explored. She’s learned – you can’t just rip someone’s fingernail off.  That hurts, sure, but you want to extend the pain.  Start with something small and then build.  You shove splinters and nails under their fingernails first, then you rip them off, if you want, provided there are other nails that you can do the same thing with.

Dismembering usually isn’t necessary.  The people they send her after break long before then, which is good, because she’s never actually gotten to try the dismembering thing. She can’t just cut one of Dottie’s toes off.  Besides breaking a bone is better than cutting it off because then you can still peel the skin back with a knife later.  If you remove stuff, it should be teeth, pried out with pliers.  Sure, they can’t grow back, but there’s not really much more you can do with teeth.

The thing about playing with Dottie is that she doesn’t break, which is fine, really, although she’s pretended to break so that Eve gets the idea of what that’s like, but Dottie is intentionally unbreakable so that Eve can deal with her own frustration when torture just doesn’t seem to go the way it’s supposed to go.  But also playing with Dottie usually ends up in—

She can’t think about that right now.  She needs to focus.

Eve picks at her teeth with the tip of her knife, fitting it carefully beside her canine with a little creak.

Maybe it’s the gag.

Agatha Birthday fic:

It literally goes wrong from the moment Eve wakes up.

Agatha refuses – absolutely refuses – to answer her phone.  Which, you know, on a normal day, that’s just fine.  Agatha has a life.  She has a job.  She’s juggling a lot of things all at once, and sometimes it takes a bit before she can call Eve back if she missed her call.  Usually, when she knows it’s going to be a while before she can call back, she shoots Eve a text to let her know, to check and see if the conversation is something that can happen over text (most of the time, yes, but not always).

But on her birthday?  None of that. No returned phone calls.  No texts.  No texts back, either, when Eve texts her. Just very clear and complete avoidance.

Now.

Eve likes to consider herself a good girlfriend.  She isn’t particularly worried that something has happened to Agatha; she’s too aware of the date for that and figures that Agatha is just hiding. (On a normal day, yes, she would be worried.  This is not a normal day.)  It isn’t like she didn’t do the same on her worst day ever, when Jane wasn’t available as a distraction (for very good reason), but even she had reached out to Agatha.  Eventually. When she’d desperately needed someone there and hadn’t—

Look, Eve understands needing to hole up and mourn, but it is Agatha’s birthday, and Agatha needs her, and Agatha would never admit that she needs her, so she’s going to go pound on Agatha’s door and barge in and make her feel better.  As soon as she gets off of work.  With the hope that Agatha is actually home.

Take A Sad Song and Make It Better Ch. 3:

The thing about hospitals is that—

Well.  There’s a lot of things about hospitals, and we really don’t have quite the time to get into all of that.  Andi’s still out, which does give us a fair amount of time, but I highly suspect that you would prefer to get back to the action, back to the fam, back to the search for the envelope to determine whether or not that they might find it.

Give me a moment.

The thing about hospitals is this: If you have an emergency contact listed with them, then when something happens to you, they call your emergency contact. Regardless of whether or not someone else is there with you, your emergency contact is the person who has the right to make decisions about your life when you are unconscious, the way that Andi currently is.  It’s just simple protocol.

And here’s the thing about that – up until just recently, Claire was Andi’s emergency contact.  Claire knew that.  Claire knows that.  It hasn’t crossed her mind, however, that when Andi reached the hospital they did not call her.  Duke did, but the hospital didn’t.

Because once Claire lied on the stand, Andi took some time to herself. Reconsidered a few things.

And changed her emergency contact.

Post-Finding Family Agatha - Stephen Encounter (because it got prompted):

She told herself she would never actually go in the New York Sanctum again, after that last time, but the problem with telling herself that is knowing that, well.  As long as she literally had an apartment right next door.  Inevitably.

But honestly, she had a rent controlled apartment in New York City.  Sure, sure, she could use magic to override her landlord’s mind and make it completely free (and, sure, she might have already done that once or twice over the past few decades, when whoever inherited the building tried to fuck around with her (How can you be the same resident from over a century ago?  That’s not possible! – Dear, you live on a planet of superheroes that gets visited by aliens, and you think you have some normal human being just hanging out in this apartment?  That you can boss around?  This is why New York gets attacked by every new wannabe villain; it’s not the Worf Effect or a symbol or anything – it’s entitled landlords not remembering that people with powers exist and can punch the ever-loving shit out of them when they get pissed off.  Almost as bad as working in customer service.  Yeesh)) – but what would be the fun in that?  She’s not Wanda, after all.  She doesn’t need everything to go her way all of the time.

Admittedly, Wanda is the reason she’s here in the first place.  Something about America and Wendy being part of this new Baby Vengeance team or something like that (she knows the real name, but she enjoys seeing the frustration in Wanda’s expression when she refuses to use the right term, loves seeing her pinch the bridge of her nose, delights when, eventually, Wanda says, “I’m not even going to correct you anymore, Agatha; I know you’re doing this on purpose” and still sighing with exasperation anyway); something about how they’ve been gone for far too long this time. That thin tremor under her voice that suggests just how worried she’s trying not to be.

For a witch able to control the very fabric of reality in this universe, Wanda has gotten surprisingly good at not sticking her nose into everybody else’s business.

Why would she need to do that when she has Agatha to do it for her?

(In most cases, Agnes would be better, but they can’t get Agnes without having America open a portal to that universe she and Ash are shacking up in, so she’s the next best thing. Besides.  She has centuries of being the New York Sanctum’s nosy neighbor.  It’s just a shame that Cian is no longer here to see it.)

The Haunting of Westview Manor (aka THOHH/THOBM and WandaVision infusion):

She’d always had a hard time sleeping in Westview Manor.

Or.

Well.

She’d always had a hard time sleeping starting with Westview Manor.

She remembers, in flickering fragmented memories, moments before her family had moved into the not-yet-decrepit manor, but they’re few and far between.  Her time living there had so shaped and shifted everything else that it is hard to reach back to earlier, simpler, happier times.  Times when she could sleep and dream of something good – like flying into a sky full of stars and reaching out to each one in turn, hoping to make friends with them. Times that she hadn’t had since—

Well, since Westview Manor.

She’d always had a hard time sleeping in Westview Manor, even before things went bad, and she’d always had a hard time sleeping after Westview Manor, even now when things could almost be called good.

It’s the closest to good she’d had in a long…in a really long time, actually.

But we’re not there yet.  We’re still looking at Westview Manor, we’re still looking at her, slumbering, trying to slumber, and shifting beneath her blankets, unable to stay still, turning this way and that, tangling herself in them, hands gripping her throat until she sits up, gasping for air, blankets falling to her waist.  Back then, she was only a child, brown hair nearly down to her waist if it was ever let free, although she cut it off a few days later, not liking the way it could so easily catch on anything – everything – around the manor.  She always felt like something was reaching out for her, grabbing and tugging on her hair with thin spindly fingers, and it didn’t matter that she would turn and see a statue with a bow or something like that, she still felt like it was someone and not something.

What Dreams May Come Ch. ???:

You are you and you are aware of yourself and you are aware of nothing at all.

Your name is Viola Lloyd, nee Willoughby, or something like it.

Your name is Viola Lloyd.  The year is 1680.  You are at Bly Manor.  Your daughter, Isabel, is five years old.  Your husband is gone on one of his business trips.  The money is running out.

And your sister wants you dead.

You have lived in this room – in your room, you know this room, you know it well, you know it from the way you have paced it so often, so often since you have taken up space within your host’s body – and yet you do not have a host.  You are you and you are yourself and you are nothing at all.

For the past five years, you have been stuck in this room, barely leaving it and being forced back into it when you do by family who are afraid that you will infect them or even more afraid that you will somehow ruin the image your daughter has of you.  This angers you – a rage that has been building over the past five years, not just from this alone – a rage that, it appears, has not left you, even in death. Your daughter remembers you as nothing else but this.  Why should seeing you at your worst make her hate you?  She has only ever seen you like this.

And this?

You know now.

This is not your worst.

Mexican Stud (Epic Superhero Crossover Book 1):

Joan clasps one hand over the hollow where her left eye once was – or she tries to, but it isn’t as hollow as movies and books would lead her to assume.  The bulb that was once her eye is splattered, blood covering her face, the sheets, probably the face of the woman who had been lying above her – but none of this matters.  The only thing that matters is the nerve she now holds in her hand and the popped vessel at its very tip and the incomparable pain pulsing behind where her eye once was.

She doesn’t scream.

Her throat is torn raw, but she doesn’t scream.  She shivers as the pulsing slows down, sparks flying about her fingertips. The rings she’d been wearing – the rings the other woman made to ground her – are smashed, shattered much in the same vein as her eye is, and their metal edges feel shoved into the flesh of her thumbs, her middle fingers.  There’s probably blood there, too.  She can’t tell.

Joan takes a deep breath and sits up in the bed, still cradling what was once her eye in one hand, trying to clasp it to the hollow where it once lay, and it’s only then that she notices how far the electric jolt has carried Rose.  No longer is the redhead on the bed with her; instead, she has been thrown across the room by the force of the blast, and she sits crumpled on the floor beneath a wall that looks cracked by the weight of her. One of her hands cradles her head.

“Was it worth it?” Joan asks, her voice raw, rasping.  She can’t keep the venom, the bitterness out of her voice, even as Rose looks up with a blood-spattered face.  “Was this what you wanted?”

Rose doesn’t say anything at first, and Joan is certain that’s because there is nothing left to say.  With her free hand, Joan tries to prop herself up so that she can move from Rose’s bed, but the hollow where her eye once was throbs.  She takes a deep breath, her free hand gripping the edge of the mattress so tight that her knuckles turn a bright white.  A tile from the ceiling drops with a loud clang between them, but neither of them jump.

“I can fix this.”

Joan starts to whirl to face Rose, but the movement makes her stomach clench.  Her teeth grit together.  “What?”

Rose struggles to her feet.  “I can fix this.”

Joan stares over the other woman’s naked body with her one remaining good eye, and she chokes back a sound that could either be a laugh or a sob. She intends for it to be the former, but she’s in so much pain that the latter wouldn’t be unimaginable at this point. “You can fix this?” she snarls.  “I’m missing an eye!”

Collateral Damage (Epic Superhero Crossover Book ???) (Luisa/Wendy backstory/interlude/etc.):

“Rose?”

It has been three months since the accident.  She didn’t like to think about it in public if she didn’t have to, and for those first few days, she had holed herself up in what was their apartment, because no matter where she went it felt like everything playing on every television in every restaurant or train station or anywhere that had a television on playing in the background was that recurring footage and the big white letters on the blue background: SUPERVILLAIN THE GHOST KILLED IN EXPLOSIVE FIGHT WITH—

The rest didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter who had killed Rose (it was an accident, the reporters said; there were no witnesses), only that she was destroyed so completely that all that was left of her were her teeth and an imprint of her on a wall otherwise covered with shadow and ash.  There hadn’t been any body for her to identify, hadn’t been any call for her to come to the morgue, hadn’t been any funerary arrangements or urns or anything – just POOF! and then the love of her life was gone.

Luisa stared at the redheaded woman standing just in front of her, and her breath catches in her throat because Rose was dead.  But, then, maybe that was why Whitney had directed her to this hair salon to get her hair done instead of her normal one. Maybe Whitney knew something she didn’t.

But, no, before the girl could even say anything, Luisa was convinced that this couldn’t be Rose. She was too young.  Far too young.  (Okay, maybe not that young – she looked the same way, perhaps, that Rose should have when they first met, if Rose hadn’t been changing her appearance to fit how she thought she should look.)  Her blue eyes were brighter, calmer than the tempests that had often been in the midst of Rose’s, and the freckles on her face stood out more starkly beneath her make-up.  Rose had always tried to change her face enough to cover them up, to not have them at all unless Luisa specifically requested them, but this girl didn’t seem to mind hers at all.

And she was—

“No, I’m Wendy,” the girl said, and her voice made Luisa’s heart ache.  “But if you’d like to see someone else, I can arrange for that. You had an appointment, didn’t you? You’re Miss—”

“Alver, yes, I had an appointment, a friend of mine set it up for me, and no, don’t get someone else, I….”  Luisa took a deep breath to steady herself and looked up to meet the younger girl’s eyes. “You just look so much like someone I used to know.”

The House on Ridge Road (Epic Superhero Crossover Book ???) (Dottie Backstory):

You run a hand through her hair.

Present tense – run – when it happens, you’re present; when you remember, you’re present – you understand the past and the future as detached concepts, but you are present in them and within them; you remember and you relive.

You run a hand through her hair.

It’s soft, softer than her hair has any right to be after hours, days, years of being pinned up, sprayed into place, not one strand moving unless you – you, yourself, or someone like you, but there is no one like you, only weak men who fail beneath your own prowess – force them to move.  Her hair is soft and smells of roses.  That’s the bathwater.  You scented it, before—

You scent it and run your fingers through the warm water as you sit on the edge of the tub, rippling, rippling, rippling.

There are no candles.  She doesn’t like candles.  She caught you once playing with the flame – baby lightning in a bottle – sometimes you burn your fingers – Peggy doesn’t like candles or maybe she just doesn’t like it when the skin of your fingers feels raw from playing with them, doesn’t like the way your skin grows back and heals all too easily and the rawness is gone in only moments, doesn’t like the abilities your people stole from vials they were never meant to have.

You’re weaker, in that regard, than the boy she lost years ago.  You know his name, but not because she wants you to know it. She tore it at you, screamed—

She tears it at you, screams it, louder than anything – “He’s a better man than you will ever grow to be” – and you let her say it because she means it and because she needs to say it and you brush the dust of broken plaster walls from your dress and wipe a track of blood from just above your right eye and pop your right shoulder back into place and you stare at her, chest heaving, face all rage and hate, and you know it’s just redirected at the nearest person and that person just happens to be you—

You can take it.  She needs to get the venom out.  All out.

When you look again, her hands are no longer clenched into defensive, aggressive fists; her fingers brush those loose strands of hair back into place; she’ll be sore tomorrow, but she’s not bloodied the way you are.  If you were a normal person, you would have a black eye, but you aren’t a normal person, no matter how much they force you to act like one until they need you.

You rotate your shoulder and it hurts but not too terribly.  You like the pain.

“Are you done now, Peg?  Get it all out?”

Dottie as Sin Rostro:

Time off.

The words are a nuisance for Dottie Underwood, who would far prefer to be sitting in a lair waiting for instructions or set up on location, gathering intelligence or preparing for a hit under yet another alias.  Even the name she used now wasn’t the one she was born with, not that it much mattered.  Crime lords and their best associates rarely used their real names – Elena di Nola was Mutter and her second-in-command was Sin Rostro, whoever happened to be wearing the name on any given day.  Sometimes it was Elena; sometimes it was her son, Derek; sometimes it was her daughter, a woman Dottie had never met; and sometimes, on the rare occurrence that the other two were not available and Elena wanted a proxy, Dottie herself would wear the name.

Names on names on names.

She wasn’t even Dottie anymore now.  When the word slowly grew more and more associated with insanity, she’d needed something a little more sane, a little more…consistent.

Not that it mattered during time off.

She’d painted her hair a bright red to match the blood of her nails and her lips, heightening and contrasting her pale skin, her ice blue eyes.  Some might use smaller terms to describe her – attractive, pretty, hot – and she hated that last one in comparison with the others she’d grown accustomed to in the earlier years – alluring, magnetic, mesmerizing.  Hypnotic.  But she wasn’t looking for words when she walked into the bar, as amusing as the murmurs and the collective hush were.

It was the eyes suddenly trained to her that made her blood rise, the heads tilted in her direction and following her every move that started the bubbling giggle clasped in the back of her throat, the turning of bodies open to her every whim that assured her control.

But it’s to the mostly empty bar that she made her way, the crowd parting for her like hot butter for a knife, and it was at the sole occupant that she paused, brightly painted nails tapping on the counter.

“Is this seat taken?” she asked, her voice soft and full of the innocence and wonder she’d been trained to exude.  “I wouldn’t want to intrude if you’re waiting for someone.”

Love is Not a Victory March (Roisa Soulmate Timer AU Book 4):

Michael Cordero, Jr. had never had a strong fascination with hotels like the Marbella.  He knew they existed, but to him, they had always seemed like tourist traps, destinations for people who didn’t live in Florida, meant for an elite sort of people that he and his family had never and would never be part of.  That made it sound as though he had a strong distaste for them, and maybe, to some extent, that was true, but for the most part, he just didn’t think about them.

That was until his timer went off for one of the waitresses who worked there.

At the time, Michael couldn’t have guessed that’s what she was, and in the years since, years he’d spent watching her from afar while he tracked down a crime lord who had grown mysteriously silent until, finally, he’d been connected to the very same hotel where his soulmate worked, he’d found that distaste slowly growing.  His soulmate deserved better, and he couldn’t wait to see her grow into whatever that better would be.

Mostly he couldn’t wait to spend his time watching something other than this stupid tourist trap hotel and its absolutely unattractive current manager with his rippling muscles that looked like they could burst out of his shirt at any moment or his leggy blonde wife who seemed to have no sense of propriety and wore bootie shorts everywhere like she wanted to be seen as a piece of meat. Not that he was one of those misogynistic assholes who thought that women couldn’t wear whatever they wanted, because he was not that.

He was just growing very, very tired of watching all of it.

Until Roman Zazo fell from a window on the twelfth floor and landed with the sharp point of an ice Marlin piercing through his chest.

Then everything seemed to suddenly grow a lot more interesting.

Clara Ruvelle and the Heir of Slytherin (Roisa HP AU Book 2):

“Hey!”  Clara pushed back against Hermione, shoving her over.  “I told you I didn’t want you to sit with me!”

But Hermione stayed where she was, refusing to get up, refusing to move even after Clara shoved her.  She just turned and gave her a flat stare.  “You’re not supposed to be fighting on the train.”

Clara’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re not supposed to set professors on fire either but—”

“Wait, wait, wait.”  Ginny held up her hands, palms out, and stared at Clara.  “Hermione set a professor on fire?” Her eyes widened, and she looked at Hermione.  “You really did that?”

Hermione gave Clara a blank stare and then turned to Ginny.  “No.  Of course not.  Good students don’t set their professors on fire.”

“Yeah, well, you must not be a very good student, then.”  Clara crossed her arms and leaned back against the plush back of the train bench.  “Since you definitely did that.”

“Clara.”  Hermione elbowed her harshly as she whispered through gritted teeth at her.  “Stop.”

Ginny just turned to Luisa with wide eyes.  “You’re the Hufflepuff!” she exclaimed and grinned.  “You’ll tell me the truth, right!”

Luisa just looked from Clara to Hermione and then winced.  “I, uh, I—”

“Quit making house assumptions,” Janet interrupted, voice flat.  Cat the cat had made his way out of her arms and woven around her neck, his head resting on his paws on the shoulder closest to the window so that he could stare outside with his one remaining eye, his tail on the other end, occasionally flicking against Clara as it moved.  “Just because Luisa is in Hufflepuff doesn’t mean that she’s a pushover—”

“Hey!” Luisa interrupted.

“—just because Hermione’s in Gryffindor doesn’t mean she’s brave—”

“Hey!” Hermione echoed Luisa.

“—and just because Clara and I are in Slytherin doesn’t mean we’re going to kill you or try to take over the world.”  Janet’s wand tapped against her arm a couple of times.  “Although, now that I mention it, taking over the world does sound like fun.  We may try and do that anyway.”

“Janet,” Clara hissed, elbowing her. “We’re not going to take over the world. That is way more work than either of us wants to do.  And you would have to pretend to get along with people – all that hand shaking and playing nice and everything – and I don’t think you’d like that very much.”

Janet sighed and nodded once.  “You’re right.  I wouldn’t. Maybe we postpone the taking over the world thing.”

A Christmas Hideaway (Roisa Hallmark Holiday Special Reversal):

“No, Daddy, I won’t be home for Christmas.”

Luisa has perfected the art of lying to her father about mundane things, particularly over the phone.  It started years ago when she was in high school, lying about stealing liquor from his cabinet whenever he asked with eyes that had initially shifted to look towards the ground and then eventually grew to facing him directly with a strong jaw, and continued through college, lying about how much time she was spending studying for her classes when really she was spending most of her time out with her friends doing almost anything except studying.  At some point, he stopped calling (or she stopped answering).  His time was – and still is – much better spent working on his company than inquiring into his children’s life.  Not because he doesn’t care.  He does. Luisa is certain he does.  That just isn’t how he shows it.  Mostly he shows it by staying out of her life or by giving her whatever she needs, money-wise, whenever she asks for it.

The not being home for Christmas part isn’t the lie.  The next part is.

Roisa Grinchmas Special:

Down at the hotel, far from their harsh glances, lived the other woman, whose drunken dances on tabletops naked with far too much glee were probably not meant for you or for me, especially since she had gone off the drink, tore it from her bar, and poured it down her sink. Yet still in her form she held both style and grace and often used these to make others’ hearts race. Her smile lit the room far better than fire and her heart burned like it would on a pyre for people and family who she held most dear, for whom she would shed far much more than a tear.

On Myths and Hideouts Ch. ???

City Hall feels like a bad marriage between Greco-Roman architecture and modern, streamlined, minimalistic design.  The former is a bad habit of all American political buildings; the latter is likely Storybrooke – or Regina – specific.  There are columns and a lot of black and white, which Rose hopes is not indicative of Regina’s way of thinking or her morals (she doubts this), and some wallpaper of trees, which should be rustic, but because it’s in black and white, it isn’t.  It works a little better than most people would think, but Rose – who spent way too long as Emilio’s interior design decorator for his hotels – doesn’t think it works at all.  She likes the black and white better than the Miami beach vibes that the Marbella put out, but only because she’s gotten plain sick of the Marbella after the last several years.

Regina stops at the secretary’s desk before heading into her office, leaning over just enough to give Rose a good view of her ass.  This is intentional.  At least, if Rose had done it, it would have been intentional, and she suspects that Storybrooke’s mayor runs on the same general wavelength that she does.  She can’t say just why she suspects it, but she gets that general vibe.

“Jessica, dear, clear out my meetings for the rest of the day.” Regina glances over her shoulder at Rose as though she hopes to catch her staring.  Her expression falters and quickly fixes itself when she realizes that she isn’t.  “I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Regina’s secretary – Jessica, apparently – lifts her head and glances over to Rose.  The two of them look quite similar, although Jessica is, for the most part, thinner and more angular than Rose is, with the exception of her chest, which almost seems impossibly big for how small the rest of her is.  Her Crayola red hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, and she pushes thin black frames up her nose, brilliantly cerulean eyes peering out at Rose with a lack of interest as she takes her in.  “Of course, Ms. Mills,” she murmurs, and her voice is at once both demure and alluring.

Regina Mills might try her hardest to seduce Rose Alver, but she will not get anywhere near as close as this Jessica does within the first five seconds.

Rose swallows once, and her gaze flicks back to Regina.  Maybe that ass view wasn’t for her at all.  Luisa had thought Regina had something going on with the sheriff, but at this moment, she’s pretty sure that she actually has something much more interesting going on with her secretary.

On Myths and Hideouts Jess Prequel:

Jessica Krupnick sees a lot that she does not mention.

Well.  This would mean more if she had someone to mention it to.  She has no friends in this little town, although she is certain that she could if she tried.  She has never felt that impulse to try.  People seem to think of her first as Mayor Mills’s secretary, the woman the mayor chose not as her right hand woman – the closest person in Storybrooke who came to that was Sheriff Humbert, who insisted that everyone refer to him as Graham (or at least, he insisted that to Jessica every time they spoke, and she consistently pretended as though he didn’t) – but as the protector of….

Well, her, if you wanted to think of it that way.

Sheriff Humbert protected the people.  He was a physical failsafe.  Jessica protected her office.  She was a mental failsafe.

And sometimes, Jessica considers as she sees Henry speeding into the office, skidding across the marble floors on his shoes with the biggest grin on his face she has ever seen, she protects her heart.

Paradise Lost post-canon:

Francis tapped the steering wheel of the U-Haul with the pad of her thumb. The air conditioner rattled a little too loudly as she drove, overwhelming the soft tunes crooning through the radio.  Davis sat in the middle seat, belt tight across his waist, and Reynolds sat in the passenger seat, elbow resting on the door and staring out the window at the passing landscape.

“It’ll be cooler once the car warms up,” Francis remarks, reaching over and tousling her youngest son’s hair.  He’s sticky with sweat; U-Hauls were nothing more than metal boxes, and in the Southern humid heat, it had cooked itself until even touching the seats felt like it would burn through their skin.  It was only made worse by the shorts they were all wearing, pushing exposed skin against burning fabric.  At least she had convinced the boys to wear t-shirts instead of tank-tops.

Davis was easy enough to convince, but Reynolds….

Reynolds wasn’t wearing a t-shirt the way Francis wanted.  Instead, his shirt was stretched so that it hung about him more like a wife-beater than a shirt, and the sleeves were stretched so that they might as well have not been there at all.  She was certain if he was wearing a normal shirt, the sleeves would be rolled up to feign a tank within seconds.

This was all just the influence of the football team and his father’s friendship with Dickie.  That may have fallen lax in the past few months as the divorce dragged on, but Reynolds had maintained his friendship with Dickie’s son – and no amount of Francis telling him it was a bad idea did anything.  In fact, she’d refrained from saying much at all, outside of suggesting that he should choose his friends wisely and hoping that Yates suggested the same.

Considering the fight he’d allowed between the two of them, Francis sincerely doubted he had.

Timeless/Noir fusion:

It happened at the end of her last class of the day.  Lucy felt the vibration of her phone – a longer buzz indicative of an email instead of the shorter one for a text – where it rested in the left pocket of her slacks.  She stepped outside of the lecture hall, shuffled her students’ papers and folders (it was essay day, and some of them still used folders although she’d said multiple times that she preferred they didn’t), and pulled out her phone.

Emma Whitmore.

Lucy didn’t recognize the name, but it could be from a student wanting into one of her classes or a professor asking for her expertise on one of their projects.  This wasn’t too unusual.  Probably a student – she knew most of the professors on campus by name; even if she’d never met them, she’d likely heard about them from one of the other students in passing.  She’d never heard of a Professor Whitmore, though.

Her eyes scanned the email.

Standard fare for a professor help request – doing a bit of research, wanted to speak with someone more knowledgeable about the subject (mostly time period, maybe some political history), etc.  There were a few lines that felt a little off, but Lucy chalked that up to what she expected was likely a new hire who was unnecessarily intimidated by her own pedigree.  And while it was odd that Emma hadn’t used her school email, given the more professional setting, it might be that she wanted to keep everything involving her research organized separately from her student emails.  Lucy couldn’t fault her for that, either.

She sent a quick reply – yes, along with perhaps meeting for coffee or drinks Friday afternoon – and then promptly forgot about the entire thing as her phone rang, another incessant and immediate buzzing.

“Amy?”  Lucy braced the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she moved her pile of essays and folders once more.  “Slow down!  What happened this time?”

The Story of a Girl (Noir Fic; Title Pending) Ch. 3 - “Shielded by Black Robes”:

The attackers dodged.  That was the first thing she noticed, the first of many problems with this scenario. They dodged.

The second problem was when one of them somehow caught the knife she threw at his forehead.  He smirked at her and threw it back so fast she barely dodged it herself.  These mooks were good.

But Chloe was better.

Whereas before she stood her ground next to the pillar with only the occasional dodge, now she began to race forward, a knife in each hand. The men pulled out their guns, finally finished reloading them, but she was upon them before the first trigger could be pressed.

Below.  Sweep the leg.  Beneath, behind.  Knife to the side, the neck.  Catch and hold while shot at – meat shields are the best kind because the shots go both ways.

Throw him away.  Dodge.  Roll. Bite.

The blonde stepped out from behind the pillar, aiming and shooting and moving, all one fluid motion, she a panther, lithe and strong, and Chloe a cheetah, swift and deadly, spotless.  She saw the shot from the gun, aimed toward the blonde, fast, too fast – the blue eyes once so icy now so warm and wide—

No.

Her teeth dripped blood that day.

[betustamorla]

Jason Todd x Helena Bertinelli-Timer Soulmark Soulmates AU-Short story part 2

Part 1 here

Everything fucking hurt. Especially his neck, it throbbed. Where was he? The explosion, the fucking clown, Batman. His blood suddenly boiled and was about to open his eyes when a hand slid through his hair. It should have made him bolt, to lash out at the person attached to the offending hand, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because it felt so nice, so good, so right. It sent a tingle that moved down his back, then ran through all his body filling him with calmness and relief from the boiling anger.

Finally, he cracked his eyes open. Jason couldn’t make much out, the night was dark, and even though he was sure it was a full moon night the sky must be clouded. The hand moved to the side of his face then slipped off his cheek and fell into his chest, heavy with sleep. Obviously, there was someone lying beside him, but it still surprised him. Even though now he knew to feel the warmth of the other person, who was not just beside him but very well glued to him. He kept his breathing even—not that it was very hard. Had he been drugged? He wasn’t tied nor restrained unless he counted the light weight of the person sleeping at his side, she—yes, he could tell now that it was a woman— had half of her body on top of him.

Jason knew that he should move now, to know where he was and get the fuck out. But—he’d never felt so at ease since he’d dug himself out from his coffin. Then his sluggish mind recalled the last moments before he blackened out in that alley. His heartbeat picked up and now he did tense. To be honest, he hadn’t fully believed he’d find his soulmate even when the timer reached zero, and then he really haven’t thought nor glanced too often at it. It made his skin itch.

It was just another way of life kicking his choices away from him. He didn’t want some mystical bullshit dictating who’d be his partner, hell, he didn’t even think he’d ever get to want a partner. And now of all people in the fucking billions of humans in Earth, he’d ended up tied with one of the fucking bats.

“I can feel you thinking, baby bat.” A quiet yet hoarse voice made him flinch.

“Don’t—call me that.” For some reason, he couldn’t bring his anger to grow enough to grasp. Jason realized he was very tired.

“But I like—how it sounds…” She trailed off in a breath. He thought she had fallen back asleep, but her hand reached up and passed through his hair again. “Sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

Fuck. It shouldn’t work, he didn’t want it to work. But it did. Her fingers made slow circles on his scalp, and it was the nicest thing he’d felt in so long. His eyes grew heavy and he breathed out the last bit of resistance in him. Jason fell asleep and didn’t have any nightmares disturb his sleep.

[dragonofthedepths]

A few mis-aligned Sonic x Gawain x Percival x Lancelot soulmate AUs

Faulty Wiring 25.1.23

Sonic and the Black Knight. Sonic x the Knights of the Round.

Everyone is born with a timer on their wrist. It counts down until either the moment they first meet their soulmate, or the moment they die, with no way to tell which it is until it comes to pass.

Sonic's timer beeped when Mephiles killed him. Even once reality is rewound it stays at zero. Each of the knights' timers beep when they meet Sonic.

(However, considering he was supposed to die before they ever met him...)

Catnaps 25.1.23

Sonic and the Black Knight. Sonic x the Knights of the Round.

On Mobius, you can tell who your soulmate is because you share a sleep schedule; under all but the most extreme circumstances, you can only fall asleep at the same time as eachother. (Kinda like minecraft!) In the world of Camelot, this is... Not So.

The Knights find out about this because Sonic complains to Nimue that he wishes his soulmate would just friggen sleep for once.

Because especially given that it's considered generally a good idea to have at least one of the Knights of the Round awake and available at any given moment, the combination of Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival has been giving Sonic major insomnia his entire life.

That’s Too Much Chill Put Some Back 25.1.23

Sonic and the Black Knight. Sonic x the Knights of the Round.

You can sense your soulmate's emotions, and they're harder to ignore the closer you are. But Sonic, who has no formal education, and is platonicly soulmated to basically all of his friends, has managed to miss this fact. Given the sheer number of people he can sense the emotions of, all of whom are unusually strong, he honestly just assumes it's a Chaos Power thing. That those of a certain level of strength kinda 'project' their emotions.

Add on to that that his first soulmate was Tails, who was maybe 5 when they met. And while Sonic found it incredibly useful to be able to sense his little brother's emotions all the time, he discovered pretty quickly that allowing his own fear or excitement to get into a feedback loop with Tails' could quickly get out of hand. So he learned to just be and project calm and confident all the time, no matter the situation, making it almost impossible for anyone to figure out that he is their soulmate either.

(In other words the blue boy has a lot of repression going on.)

Fighting Gawain is even less fun in this AU.

Fancy Flight 25.1.23

Sonic and the Black Knight. Sonic x the Knights of the Round.

On Mobius everyone has wings, but they're too small to do anything and can only be seen by the mobian themselves and their soulmate. On top of only being visible to them, the feather's at the very tips of the wings are the colour of their soulmate as well.

Of course their are exceptions to every rule, such as winged mobians like Rouge, who just get colored tips on the wings they have.

And Sonic, who’s wings are plenty big enough for him to fly with.

None of the Knights have said anything about Sonic's appearance, and as such none of them have mentioned that they can see the large wings on his back.

In the world of Camelot you can only see colour while touching your soulmate anyway. And considering Sonic didn’t show any reaction when nearing them in combat, they’re all assuming their soulbond with him is unrequited.

Day (605/100) in my #∞daysofwriting @the-wip-project 26th of Jan