#soulmark

[silver-pieces]

prisoners

Pairing: Cassian Andor x fem!reader

Word Count: Almost 8.7k

Synopsis: You never expected to find your soulmate here.

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, smut (unprotected p in v sex, slight breeding kink), physical pain & trauma, depression, nightmares, prison, prison labour, open sea & dark water

A/N: For the prompt ‘Nightmare/Soulmark’ in Andor Bingo, created by @sw-andor​ This fic features major spoilers for Andor S1. Keef = Cassian. Divider by the amazing @firefly-graphics​.

“What’s she doin’ ‘ere?”

“I think that’s obvious.”

“Yeah but, she’s a woman.”

“What do they care? Man, woman, we’re all just slaves - ”

“Oi! Table five.” Kino barks from behind you. He stalks over, meeting everyone’s eyes with a glare. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeh’ve given us a woman,” the redhead says. “No offence, love, but why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with the other birds?”

“Shut it,” Kino growls. “It doesn’t matter why she’s here. She is. Now stop wasting my time and get back to work. Unless you want to get fried.”

Your feet shift nervously at the memory. Hot, electric pain. Everyone else stiffens too, a shared sense of dread filling the sterile air.

He takes you by the shoulders and pushes you towards one of the men. “Keef.”

A man with dark hair and even darker eyes looks up at the sound of his name, his gaze falling on you as he pauses mid-crank.

Your lips part, and your gaze lingers on the sight of his sleeves rolled up, his arms tensing with each push so hard, that, in any other circumstance, you might find it appealing.

“Show her the ropes.” Kino lowers his voice to a menacing growl. “And make sure she understands what’s at stake.”

The man gives him a subtle nod.

“You’re down four now, boys,” Kino says, his gaze shifting to you, “... and girl. No more distractions. Let’s get this done!”

They get back to work - a synchronised effort that you struggle to follow, only adding to the chaos happening around you. There are lasers and cranks and drills and pieces of machinery that they have to manually fit together. And the sounds are overwhelming - hardened voices overlapping with the whirring and clanking of the machines.

“I’m Jemboc,” the older one next to Keef says. “This is Ham, Xaul, Melshi, and Taga.” He goes around the table, pointing at each one.

You say your name in return, but it comes out feeble, your throat still not working properly. Xaul, the redhead, pins you with a look. Melshi mutters something to himself, shaking his head.

“Here,” Keef grunts to get your attention, beckoning you to his side. There's a lilt to his voice that pleases your ears. “Watch what I do closely. You have to pull your weight around here, or we all get fried, you understand?”

You manage to nod.

He removes the crank from the machinery and sets it aside, his hands moving deftly from one task to the next. You’re drawn to his hands, the display of skill and strength sending heat down your spine. His brows are lowered, his gaze focused.

Each part requires something different - to pull, crank, lift, reach, press, load. It's heavy labour, but he proves himself more than capable.

"It's easy once you get into the swing of things," Jemboc's voice taking you out of your trance as he steps beside you.

"Right.” You’re not sure you want to get into the swing of things.

The older man frowns at you, but there's a kindness in his eyes.

"Are you getting it?" Keef growls to you as he lifts his hands and backs away from the table.

You nod.

He draws near and ducks his head down, a patient look in his eyes. "Any questions, you can just ask me."

Your heart flutters. Heat rises to your face, though you're not sure why. "Thanks."

With a nod, he turns back to the table and starts loading alongside the others, letting you stand by his side and watch.

No more words are exchanged apart from the occasional barked order from the others - push!, lift!, and hands away!

They get more frantic as time passes. Kino calls something out and your table groans in response.

You realise that they're falling behind.

Get back to work. Unless you want to get fried. Shit. There is no way you're taking that punishment again if you can help it.

Stomach in knots, you step up beside Keef. "I've seen enough, let me help."

He eyes you, a muscle feathering in his jaw, before handing you the crank. As your hand closes around it, he mutters, "Be careful."

A shiver runs down your spine. His voice is low and smooth and it does something to your body that momentarily distracts you from this hell.

Hesitantly, you take the crank from his grip and fasten it to the piece of machinery.

"Table five, your productivity levels are unacceptable. Proceed to the centre of the room and remain on program."

The soles of your feet tingle with each step on the floor. Your head is spinning, heart pounding, mouth drier than a desert.

The others at your table stand with you in the centre of the floor. For a second, you allow yourself a glance over at Keef.

He’s staring straight forward, a dead look in his eyes, but the tiniest shuddering expanse of his chest betrays his fear.

You close your eyes and wait.

No no no no no no no no no -

It slices through your body and your muscles seize with pain. A cry escapes your lips. Your knee hits the floor painfully hard as your legs give way, and the cries of the others violates your ears, inescapable.

It's over in seconds, but it feels like hours.

Your lungs draw ragged breaths. Tears leak from your eyes, and you wipe them away before anyone sees.

Stand. The others are already getting up - you need to follow, quickly, before they decide to punish you again. But your legs are too weak.

A familiar outstretched hand enters your vision.

Your gaze trails up the veins in his forearm, to the sleeves bunched up over his biceps. "Come on," Keef urges softly. "You have to get up."

With all your willpower, you reach up and grab him by the forearm, his hand closing around the inner side of your forearm, bracing you there to help you up.

"Ah!" you hiss, pulling away as a sudden burning sensation flares where his hand touches you.

“Shit!” He grits out, exchanging a confused look with you, and then looks down at his own arm, where you touched him.

Your breath halts as you see it - the symbol burned into your skin, on the inner side of your upper forearm. It’s a simple slashing of lines, but the meaning it carries is far more significant - a soulmark.

He’s staring at the same symbol on his own skin in stunned silence.

“Keef,” you breathe.

Then the deep warped voice of the prison interrupts.

“Prisoners on program. Proceed to your quarters.”

He takes one frantic look at you, and then turns his head forward, following the prison directive and raising his hands behind his head on program. The sleeve, you noticed, he pulls down to hide the mark.

You quickly do the same, assuming the position, even though every fibre of your being is flooded with shock.

As you file through the doors with the others, you can barely hear anything over the pounding of your own ears. Your mind struggles to make sense of what just happened, let alone process everything else that’s happened to you in the last twenty-four hours.

Keef falls in line behind you.

Instantly, you feel his eyes on you, the heat prickling at the back of your neck.

The line of prisoners shuffles along through a long corridor, passing the night shift, stopping and starting up again until you're at your quarters.

"Jemboc, give her the orientation," Kino directs the older man, before leaving you behind to deal with another group of men.

Jemboc turns to you. "Come on, I'll show you your cell."

As he takes you down through the hallway, you see Keef emerge out of the corner of your eye, and when he reaches his own cell, so do you. Directly opposite from each other.

Your eyes meet.

Stars. Finding a soulmate is rare, practically unheard of for most. But he’s here, and the mark is burned into your flesh, still throbbing with fresh pain as you run your fingers over it.

Jemboc starts explaining what the lights on the floor mean, but you can’t seem to take your eyes off of Keef, raking your gaze over his tense form, brown hair mussed and grown out, dark eyes you could lose yourself in, even as you listen to Jemboc listing all the various rules.

“You understand?” Jemboc asks you.

Not really. “Yes,” you reply with a nod, dragging your eyes away.

“What are you in for, anyway?”

“Loitering.” You’ve grown numb to the anger.

“I see.” Jemboc pats you on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay, sister. We all will be, soon.”

“Hey!” The bark of another prisoner cuts him off.

It’s Xaul, pushing past the others, stalking towards you with a deadly glare.

You take a step back on instinct, and Jemboc folds his arms defensively, but it’s Keef who gets in his way.

With a growl, he pushes off the wall, getting in Xaul’s face before he can reach you. “What’s your problem, huh?” he growls. “You’re scaring her.”

Xaul growls, jabs his finger in your direction, and shifts his glare to Jemboc. “Not her.”

They exchange unreadable glances.

Jemboc scowls and takes him by the shoulder, leading him out of earshot from you. The two of them begin talking in low, urgent tones, Xaul shooting you another glare.

Your hands curl into fists at your side.

Hesitantly, Keef turns to you, his head ducked low in sincerity. “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice coming out softer than you’ve heard before.

“No,” you say, even as warmth fills you at the concern in his devastatingly brown eyes. Stars, but the sight of him pleases you. “I think we need to talk.”

“Agreed,” he nods, holding his forearm with his other hand, his eyes briefly glancing down, “but we don’t have the time or the privacy in here.”

You draw nearer. “How long is left on your sentence?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

His eyes dart to Xaul and Jemboc. “I wish I could tell you. I - ” he cuts himself off as the floor lights start flashing.

In seconds, the hall clears as the rest of the inmates scramble to get into their cells. Keef pushes you towards yours. “Go.”

With his push, you step up into your cell before the lights can turn red. What was it Jemboc said? Seven seconds when the lights start flashing, then they turn red. And if you’re caught in the red light, you die.

On instinct, you turn back around to see Keef again.

Your soulmate.

He stands in his cell across from you, an unreadable expression on his face, his mouth in a grim line, as the lights begin to dim.

The floor lights turn red a second later.

There is no way to get to him now, and no way of talking across the hall without everyone in the surrounding cells hearing you. That’s not an option.

He lingers at the edge of his cell, and so do you, for a time, struggling with this new feeling inside you - this urge, compelling you towards him. Even if you don’t know him yet, you want to.

So you’re paralysed in silence; staring at each other across several feet of deadly flooring.

The murmurs of the other inmates eventually peter out, and as the snoring starts to rise, you feel your eyes growing heavy.

You curse beneath your breath.

Keef must hear it, because he raises his chin and nods in understanding, retreating from the edge of his cell and into darkness.

Grimly, you turn away from him, towards your bunk.

They're everywhere. They're watching you. They know what you've done. You're going to be punished -

You wake up in a cold sweat, gasping for air.

"Hey, hey, breathe." Keef's hushed voice carries across the cell.

Your eyes dart around until you see him, a broad mass in the shadows, sitting on the edge of his bunk across the way.

The soft sound of the other men snoring in their cells settles over the silence.

"It was just a nightmare," he whispers across the corridor. "I'm right here."

You blink back tears, and push yourself up by your elbows. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I couldn’t sleep.”

You run your hand down over your face. There’s been a lot of that lately.

A few shifts in, you found yourself staring at the ceiling of your cell counting the seconds going by, running your fingers over the soulmark on your arm, unable to stop thinking about him.

You’ve memorised his form and features with almost no effort - the cut of his jawline, occasionally peppered with stubble if he hasn’t shaved, being your latest obsession.

And you can feel when he looks at you, too. Devouring glances out of the corner of your eye that set your cheeks aflame.

It’s like your body is on high alert at all times. Working alongside him throughout the day, barely able to exchange a few words without anyone overhearing, passing by each other, brushing past each other so close your skin hair raises, but not touching, never touching, just savouring the few small moments in his presence and then trying to go to sleep every night knowing he is a only few feet away from you.

But it’s worse, somehow, when you do manage to turn your brain off. That’s when the nightmares come.

It’s relentless and repetitive; nothing but the Empire and memories of pain, torturing you through your sleep.

Keef’s been developing shadows beneath his eyes as well. You wish you could talk to him about it, but he doesn’t seem to want anyone else to know about your soulmarks, and shit, neither do you. It's hard enough to even admit to yourself, let alone have the others staring at you, judging you more than they already do for being the only woman here.

And if the prison ever found out, they could take you away from each other. Your gut clenches at the thought.

Fuck. Trying to drag your emotions out of the gutter before you break is becoming harder everyday. The weight on your shoulders is crushing you, and you can’t see any light at the end of this tunnel.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” you confess, wrapping your arms around yourself.

He stands, coming to the edge of his cell in the low, red lighting. “Don’t say that,” he whispers. “Don’t let them break you.”

You fiddle with your mattress. Don’t let them break you? They already are, and it isn’t your choice.

“Listen to me,” he says, raising his voice to a low growl.

You look up at him, drawing in a shaky breath.

“You had a nightmare, but you woke up from it.” The urgency in his baritone voice calls to you, and you stand, approaching the edge of your cell as he continues. “That’s all this place is. It’s a nightmare. You don’t realise it while you’re inside, but you’re in control. All you have to do is wake up.”

“What are you saying?”

He meets your gaze, an intense, unreadable look in his eyes. “I'm saying, hold on. Just a little while longer. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” you breathe, before you realise what you’re saying. You blink and look away from him, frowning. “I can.”

His words paint a picture in your mind, one of you, years from now, out of here. On some beach planet or forest town, enjoying the sun on your face. This place, a distant memory in the back of your mind.

Just a nightmare.

A slight smile finds its way onto your face at the thought. You meet Keef’s gaze again, the fierceness in his eyes amplified by the red of the floor, and nod in gratitude.

“I’ll try.”

His shoulders relax slightly, and he nods. “That’s all we can do.”

You sleep.

There’s a warmth in you when you wake, a buzz from the memory of last night. That was the longest conversation you’ve had yet, and even if you couldn’t talk openly, it still felt real.

When you first open your eyes, you’re drawn to his cell on instinct, drinking in the sight of him every chance you can get.

But it’s like he hasn’t moved all night. He’s leaning one shoulder against the wall at the edge of his cell, arms still folded, and he’s staring at you, his dark brows furrowed, the slight stubble peppering his clenched jaw telling you he hasn’t shaved since yesterday. Movement draws your gaze to his arm, where his knuckles shift back and forth, running over that small mark on his arm.

Heat slowly rises to your face.

The floor is still red. The others are awake too, the few you can see from your cell having breakfast or pacing around their small cell. The slight murmur of muted voices blending together.

“Did you sleep?” you ask him.

He gives the subtlest shake of his head.

Your heart sinks.

It’s not just being around him that you can’t bear, it’s also seeing him suffer and not being able to help. You have to keep holding back these strange, rising urges to comfort him. It doesn’t help that he has those big, soulful brown eyes that could melt you down into the cracks of the floor.

You’re not in love, but he matters to you more with each passing day, and that feeling is killing you.

Damn, you thought you’d grown numb to everything, but suddenly the despair is back with a vengeance, and you have to look away to blink back sudden tears.

“Hey,” he calls to you. “You okay?”

Shaking your head, you blow out a breath and chant in your head, don’t break, don’t let them get to you.

He curses, and then he’s pushing of the wall to pace his cell. His shoulders tense with each breath.

You draw near the edge of your cell, watching him try to walk out the tension in his body, your heart caught between desire and despair.

It’s a vicious cycle of suffering between the two of you.

Then the floor lights shift from red to white.

“On program!” Kino calls out.

Prisoners load out of their cells, slowly getting into their line with murmurs and sluggishness.

Keef is already on the floor when you tentatively step down, enduring that moment before your feet touch the metal with your heart in your throat every time. White lights means it’s safe, but -

He approaches you suddenly, closing his hand around the nape of your neck, tipping his forehead against yours. Warm electricity floods through your veins and over your skin at his touch.

“Keef,” you stutter out, shocked at his public display, even as you sink further into his touch. The sounds of shock and angry voices from the men around you start kicking off, but you ignore them.

“Please,” he breathes, his forehead pressed firmly against yours, his face inches away, “it’s killing me. I know you’re scared - I know. What can I do?”

You shake your head. “I - ”

“What the fuck are you two doing?”

Kino.

You pull him off you and step away.

He shudders at your touch, and you realise with a jolt that you took his arm right at the soulmark. For a brief moment, he cradles his arm, before Kino approaches and the two of you join the others in line.

“Hm?” The man raises his eyebrow at the both of you. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“It was nothing,” Keef responds. “Just making sure she’s okay.”

Kino glances at you, an unreadable look on his face. “Are you?”

“I’m fine,” you say, but even you can hear the shakiness in your own voice.

He blinks, searching your gaze. Then he grabs Keef by the arm and leans in to whisper something in his ear.

As Keef listens, he sets his eyes on you, before giving Kino a firm nod.

Apparently satisfied, the older man steps away and raises his voice to the rest of the men.

“Time to face another day. Everyone, move.”

As you begin walking forward, you turn your head to whisper back to him, “what was that?”

“Don’t worry,” Keef whispers. “He’s on our side.”

The tension is high at table five.

“I don’t think they should be next to each other today,” says Taga, eyes darting nervously between the two of you.

“Why?” Keef growls.

“Does he really have to say why?” Xaul interrupts. “You like her.”

“It could be a distraction,” Ham mutters.

“No.” Keef glares. “She stays by my side. Kino’s orders.”

“Oh, ‘Kino’s orders’? Fuck that. We don’t want to get fried 'cuz of you,” Xaul growls.

Keef turns his ire on Xaul. "And when was the last time that happened? If memory serves, not since she started here, under my guidance."

A mutter goes around the table.

"Table five, get moving," Kino warns as he passes by.

"Let's get this done," Keef growls, and that's the end of the discussion.

The next days feel different, and the same.

You try to hold on, like you promised him, but the nightmares and the sleepless nights are getting worse.

You touched each other for the second time ever, felt the warmth of his hands on you, breathed the same air, the memory of seeing the depths of darkness in his brown eyes up close is carved into your mind, and now the yearning inside of you has developed; a deep ache in your bones.

The others can sense something more is up between you. You feel their eyes follow you; but you can't bring yourself to care whether they notice the way he always rushes to your aid, or the soft exchanges of words, or the way the two of you never move too far apart. You can't fight this growing need to be around him. You're soulmates. Whatever that means.

"Doctor! We need the doctor!"

Your ears prick at the commotion at table two. Everyone keeps working, but out of the corner of your eye you watch as Kino goes over to investigate.

"Is it another panic attack?"

You push down on the drill.

"...he's not breathin'"

You lift it up and inspect the results.

"Shit. I’ll call the doctor."

Your table begins to lift the cog off the table to load it on the rack. You step away, watching them move. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the man keeled over on the floor.

A little bit of your soul cracks.

Keef returns to your side, and it’s brief, but his arm brushes against yours.

He doesn’t even need to say anything - you meet his brown-eyed gaze and all the hurt in your lungs evaporates.

“Unit Five-Two-D on program.”

He flicks his gaze up to the entrance, a gleam in his eyes.

You put your hands behind your head and turn to face them as the doctor is lowered onto the floor.

The man is dead.

There’s a strange anticipation in the air, like the way the air gets dry before a storm hits.

You watch them carry the man away in a bodybag. You catch Xaul and Jemboc exchanging a look. You catch the way Kino nods subtly to Keef as he walks past.

Everyone goes silently to their quarters - not even a whisper.

“Fall out!” Kino yells.

You turn to Keef. “What is going on?”

He pulls you aside, leaning in with his voice down low. “Do you trust me?”

“Why?”

“Tomorrow, whatever Kino says, I want you to follow immediately. No hesitation. You understand?”

“What - ”

“I can’t explain. I wish I could, but - ” His eyes catch on someone over your shoulder, and his mouth closes in a grim line.

You glance back and see Xaul, watching from a distance, arms folded, jaw tense. He’s never seemed to trust you, and you don’t blame him, but the way he watches you at all times is hard to get comfortable with.

“I don’t understand,” you turn back to your soulmate and search his eyes, “but... I trust you.”

An unreadable expression flashes in his eyes, and then everything is swept away as he takes you by the waist, cups your chin, and sweeps you into a gentle kiss.

For a nanosecond you freeze, before the rush of adrenaline fills your veins and you melt against his lips. The soulmark pulses on your arm, and the most amazing feeling overtakes you, of drifting high up in the clouds and watching the sun rise. You pull him closer, threading your fingers through his hair. The bristle of his five-o’clock shadow makes itself known with each movement, desire pooling in your core as you move your body against his. He feels so real, solid and alive, and it’s breathtaking.

The sounds of the world around you only vaguely registers in your head. Men, shouting at you.

Fuck them. Nothing else matters. You’re in the arms of your soulmate and you never want to leave again.

Then one voice, Kino’s, pierces through your haze. “Oi! The floor!”

Your eyes fly open as Keef breaks off the kiss and pushes you towards your cell with a growl.

You barely have time to react. Between the flashing lights, you lunge for the safe zone, leaping up into it seconds before the place is bathed in red.

“Fuck!”

You turn around.

He stands in his cell across from you, panting, his hair mussed from your attention. His eyes are wild, staring at you like he’s waiting for you to drop dead.

The instinct to reassure him overwhelms you. “I’m okay,” you say, stepping away from the edge. “I made it.”

He closes his eyes, running a palm over his mouth, and his shoulders rise and fall with a deep, shuddering breath.

You look down at your soulmark. That heightened feeling is fading, fast, each second you’re not back in his arms. A vision enters your head, of you, throwing yourself across the hall, even though you know that ends in death.

“You two lovebirds have a death wish?” Kino yells from his cell.

Shit.

“I told you they were distracting each other.”

“Gonna get us killed.”

Murmurs ripple down the hall. Heads, poking out of their cells.

Keef shakes his head, eyes swimming with anger. His voice is low, but you still hear it above the din. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that risk.”

His words should fill you with regret, but a part of you, a small, stubborn part, thinks that maybe it was worth it anyway, just to touch him again, to feel his arms around you, the dominance of his kiss.

You close your eyes, a hand going to your mouth on instinct, fingertips trailing where he had his mouth on yours.

“Enough!”

Kino’s bark gets everyone’s attention instantly. The chatter dies down.

You open your eyes, and Keef is staring at you, a hungry look in his eyes. Heat rises to your face.

“Everyone knows what the plan is. Yes?”

Mumbles of men in agreement echo through the hall. You tilt your head, trying to discern any information you can, but pick up nothing. Nothing except that Keef looking towards Kino’s cell with fire in his eyes - tense, almost like hope, but darker.

Anger.

“Good. Now’s the time to rest. Tomorrow, we fight.”

A chill runs down your spine.

He’s shirtless in the morning.

Instantly pushing yourself up, your gaze locked on his chest, his stomach v, his arms, you catch his attention with the sudden movement.

He snaps his gaze to yours, pausing mid-stretch. His arm pulled across his chest, braced against his other arm to stretch his shoulder, the ropes of his biceps on full display for you.

“Hi,” you say.

Your swear his mouth curves just slightly, a twitch in his face, and he nods at you.

“Hi.”

All the blood in your body has left your brain. You continue to stare at him like an idiot while he does some basic stretches, before the lights flick to white, and Kino yells his daily on program! while Keef slides his shirt back on.

You fall in line in front of him.

He stands closer to you than normal, pressing his up front against you, his breath fanning against the back of your head as he leans in. His lilting voice sounds lowly in your ear, a lilting, baritone sound. “Remember what I said?”

Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation. “F-Follow Kino,” you manage to stutter out.

He hums in approval. “Good girl.”

Your thighs clench together.

He’s getting more bold in front of the others, more playful, and you can’t help but feel excited and nervous by the shift. Why has he stopped hiding?

The line starts moving forward, and you follow the person in front of you to the showers as normal, trying to focus on anything but what he just said.

He thinks there’s a chance you could both escape, you think, and then immediately regret that line of thinking. But it’s too late. That future you imagined - the one that he planted in your mind with his words, shifts, and suddenly he’s there beside you in each vision, relaxing, laughing, grinning like an idiot.

Fuck.

The shift begins, the men exchanging knowing glances that have anticipation and dread growing in your belly. You know what this is by now, you’ve put the pieces together despite their weird reluctance in telling you.

This escape plan is really happening.

The new prisoner arrives shortly after your shift begins, and when Keef returns from the bathroom soaking wet, you barely have time to react before shit hits the fan.

Obeying Kino’s orders, you watch as together the other prisoners hijack the lift and short out the entire system - no more hot floor.

As he reaches the top, Keef turns back to pin you with a wild, furious look in his eyes that fills you with fire. He jerks his head for you to follow him.

So you do.

You climb. You run. You follow.

A guard catches you and tries to pull you away, but Keef is there in a flash of red and the smell of burning flesh, grabbing you by the hand and telling you to run as the man slumps to the ground.

The loading platform ends in a sheer drop to the sea. Your stomach drops as you pull back, glancing around as others begin to jump.

This is insane.

“I can’t swim!”

You barely hear Kino say it over the sound of the wind and the other prisoners, but then he says it again, and there is no doubt.

You step up beside him. “Me neither.”

Keef stares at you in shock.

And then he’s gone.

One of the men drags him off the edge by accident, and a shriek escapes you. “No!” but you can only watch as he disappears from sight.

A second goes by, then two. More men rush past.

There's nothing but the sound of blood pumping in your ears. No matter which way you think about it, if you follow, you're dead. There's no way you can swim that far, and if Keef tries to help you, he'll probably just die with you.

You fall to your knees.

Others race past you still, flinging themselves off the edge one by one. Kino stands by your side, watching them with an empty gaze.

“What do we do now?” you ask, and find yourself subconsciously cradling your arm, the soulmark on it beginning to throb painfully. Follow Kino, he said, but you’re not sure Kino has any moves left. There’s none you can see; no way to survive.

Maybe you should just jump anyway and let fate decide.

“Nothing.” Kino looks down at the gun in his hand. “We’re going out, one way or another.”

You nod and take in a deep breath of salty ocean air. “Agreed.”

He says nothing.

“Ah!” Your soulmark throbs again, and you grip your arm, hissing through your teeth. “Fuck off!”

“Sorry?” Kino growls.

"It’s uh,” you pull back your sleeve to him, “my soulmark.”

He blinks. “Damn. Keef?”

“Yeah.”

“That explains you two then.” He nods, casting his gaze out to sea. “I... I have a family.”

You peer up at him.

“I just wanted to see them again.” He looks down at the gun in his hands again.

“At least you know you tried,” you offer. “Sometimes...” Keef’s words ring true, pouring from your lips even as you hear the memory of his words spoken in your mind. “...that’s all we can do.”

The two of you linger in silence. Below you, the forms of men swimming away from the prison spread out, reaching towards the horizon. The soulmark on your arm is aching something fierce now, calling you to the edge. But it’s the realisation that Keef must be feeling this pain too, that hurts even more.

You hope he is trying anyway, down there, despite the pain.

He’s probably thinking the same thing about you.

Damn.

You stand. “Give me the gun.”

Kino hands it to you without even looking, his eyes remaining fixed on the horizon.

You turn around, facing the inside of the prison, and point the gun at one of the panels of the wall. The sound of the blast almost deafens you.

The panels sizzle where the blast hit, but as you approach, you can see them peeling away from each other at the seam. Without hesitation, you wedge the barrel of the gun in the hole, and with all your strength, try to peel the panel off the wall.

“What are you doing?” Kino growls.

You glance back at him with a half-cocked shrug.

“Finding something that floats.”

Wet.

Cassian’s fingers close around sand. His lungs are on fire, exacerbated by the stinging salt he inhales with each breath. Everything hurts.

A shadow relieves him from the sun. He looks up and for a moment, it’s you, the beautiful image of you reaching down for him tilting this world on its axis. Then he blinks, and Melshi comes into focus.

“We need to disappear,” he’s saying, scanning their surroundings.

Cassian tries to push himself up, but there’s a terrible ache emanating from his soulmark. It was easy to ignore in the sea - everything hurt. But now it spreads through his body, an urging like no other to wade back out into the dark waves - to go back for you.

He wants to punch the man who tackled him off the edge. Whoever it was. But as soon as he hit the water, swimming was the only way to survive.

“Did ya hear me? Keef?”

With a grunt, Cassian sits up and brushes off his hands, wincing when his arm throbs with the movement. “Did anyone else make it?”

Melshi squints. “If they did, they didn’t follow us.”

Yeah, that’s what he thought. Even if, by some miracle, you did make it, you could be miles apart, with no way of finding each other.

It would be enough to know that you survived, but he’s never been that lucky. No. He thinks of you, of your tentatively hopeful expressions that get him through the day, that beautifully trusting look in your eyes right before he kissed you, and has to tilt his head back to prevent his eyes from watering.

His soulmate. Dead.

He thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he could save you.

“Keef.” Melshi stoops down beside him. “We have to move.”

“What do you know about soulmarks?” he murmurs.

Melshi sighs. “You’re dehydrated, mate. C’mon.” He goes to lift him up.

“No - no!” Cassian resists, pushing Melshi away and scrambling to his feet. He shoves back his sleeve and bares his soulmark. “I need to know! I need to...” He cuts himself off with a grimace as pain pulses through the mark.

Melshi stares at the mark, wide-eyed. “No shit. The girl?”

Cassian can only nod. “She doesn’t even know - my real name.” He chokes the words out past tears. “I thought I could save her. But she’s... she’s probably dead by now.” It feels like he’s separated from his body, like someone else is saying these things.

“Wouldn’t you know?”

Cassian stills. “What do you mean?”

Melshi hesitates.

“What do you mean?!” He grips at his hair, heart thudding in his chest so hard it might burst. “How would I know?!”

“I don’t know! It was just a story, back home - people said the marks are like homing beacons. So if she’s dead, your mark would... stop working.” He cringes, muttering, “it sounds stupid when I say it like that.”

Cassian looks down at it the throbbing, aching mark. He focuses on it, and - there - the throbbing pulls towards the sea.

He looks out at the waves. “She’s alive.”

His legs carry him forward, back into the sea. The sound of Melshi yelling behind him is a distant worry over the beating of his own heart, the very blood in his veins burning to get to you.

Then arms close around him, pulling him back. “You’re insane!”

He snarls and shoves Melshi back. “Get off me!”

“You’ll die!”

“I have to go back!”

Melshi lets him go. “Okay okay, just - just think about this! You’re no use to her dead.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t understand. If she’s alive - ”

“If she’s still alive, she’ll need more than just one man swimming out to rescue her!” His gaze darts down. “Is it getting better or worse?”

“What?”

He points to Cassian’s soulmark. “It’s painful, right? Is it getting worse?”

Cassian looks down at it. “It’s been about the same for a while now.” Fucking painful, but, “...maybe a little less than before. I don’t know!”

Melshi nods. “So she could be getting closer.”

“If that is how it works.” Instinct - the mark - tells him it does, but the panic in his chest won’t go away. He needs to see you. “So what do I do then? Wait around for her to find me? She can’t swim, so how - ”

“I don’t care!” Melshi interrupts. "But if you don’t return to shore with me, I will knock you unconscious and drag you back.” There’s a deadly serious look in the man’s eyes.

The ache within him isn’t going away. He’s not sure how much more he can take. But Melshi is right - it would be a death wish to swim back.

The prison is a blip on the horizon. Could you have really made it, somehow?

Melshi eyes him aggressively, waiting for him to make a move.

Cassian raises an eyebrow. “You really care about me that much?”

“You’ve been a bloody pain in my arse, but you were instrumental in our escape, so I figure I owe ya.”

With a nod, he looks back towards land, skimming his fingers over the waist-high water. “We wait here then.”

“They’ll be sending ships looking for us.”

“I won’t go any farther inland.”

Melshi shakes his head. “Fine.” With a splash, he begins wading toward the shore. “Then we’d better find some shelter for the night.”

It’s midnight. Probably, anyway. Cassian has no sense of time here, except that it's been dark for a while.

He sits with his face tilted up to the stars. The sea breeze is a cool rush of air, swaying the tree above and rustling his hair across his face.

He needs a haircut again.

The mark on his arm has steadied to a slow, aching pulse every few seconds, nothing more than the sensation of a mending bruise.

Melshi is right - he can feel it in his veins that you're getting close.

So he's waiting.

Sleep will not come to him tonight. Like you, it eludes him, and in its place, the unnatural sense that something is missing.

It's subtle, at first. A crashing of waves that don't fit the slow, steady beat he's been listening to all night.

Then, the sound of voices out there. A man's, deep and grating, and yours.

He'd recognise it anywhere.

He peers around the tree, out towards the sea, and sees a shape floating on the water.

“Melshi.” He hisses his companion’s name, getting up. “Melshi! It's them.”

“Huh,” Melshi starts, half awake.

“It’s them. I’m going to get her.”

He groans, shifting his arms up to cover his face. “They’re actually here? Wha’ are the chances? How?”

“I don’t know.” Breathless, Cassian turns toward the sea, towards the place his soulmark has been calling him towards all night. “But I’m going to find out. Come on.”

He runs to the water.

Sand sprays beneath his feet, then water splashes, and then he’s wading, then swimming, towards it. The shape blotting out the stars on the horizon morphs into two silhouettes sitting on some kind of raft. They’re slowly paddling their way towards the shore.

Cassian wants to weep with joy when he hears their voices - first Kino, then you.

“Is that - ”

“Keef? Keef!” you cry out, your voice hoarse.

His palm collides with the raft - a smooth white panel, and there you are, sitting on one side with a salt-streaked, wind-struck, beautiful face, staring down at him in wonder.

“Well shit,” Kino croaks, glancing at you. “You were right.”

Your hand rests over your soulmark as you stare down at Cassian.

Stars. There is so much he wants to say, but none of it seems like enough for this moment. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off you - he can’t.

But as the waves gently rise and fall, Kino clears his throat pointedly. “Much as I love being surrounded by water...”

“Right, right.” Cassian grabs hold of the panel. “I’ll take you to shore.”

The soft strokes of the sea abuts his efforts as he pulls the raft behind him, until the sea floor shallows out and he can put his feet beneath him.

“You should be good now. You can stand,” he says, instantly returning to your side of the raft. “Melshi’s with me, on the shore.”

Kino nods, sliding off the edge. “We should bury the panel.”

“Agreed.”

You hesitantly dip your legs in the water, and Cassian places his hands on your waist ready to help you down. “I’ve got you.”

In the darkness he can barely see your face, but he could swear there’s a heat reflected in your eyes.

It feels good, coming to you aid on instinct. Putting his hands on you.

As he holds you steady, you gently slip off the edge of the raft and collide against him with an oof as you land.

Despite his exhaustion, his shaft hardens. To go from be denied his soulmate for so long, to this...

“Here,” he says, roughly pushing the panel towards Kino, his eyes never leaving your face. “Go see Melshi. We’ll catch up.”

The man grunts something, and begins to wade to shore with the panel, and then he’s forgotten as Cassian is drawn back to you on instinct.

His arms tighten around your waist, and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He’s struck.

You cup his face, gaze flitting between his eyes and his mouth, your breaths mingling, and then suddenly he’s pressing his mouth against yours.

You let out a cute little gasp against him, and his chest flutters, as you yield to him.

Yes. He burns with the rightness of this moment, and yet braces you against him as he deepens the kiss, like he’s afraid you’re going to slip away. He doesn’t quite believe you’re real yet.

Your fingers dig into his hair, and he likes it, the way you pull him into you with the same hunger and desperation he’s feeling.

“Cassian,” he breathes suddenly, pulling back for a moment, his forehead pressed against yours. “My real name is Cassian.”

“Cassian,” you repeat, and then your mouth curves into a smile - a fucking smile.

He almost groans. His soulmark pulses warmly against you. “You’re alive.”

“Yes,” you breathe, nodding against him.

“You’re my soulmate.”

You nod again, clinging tight to him. “Yes.”

A low, reverent chuckle escapes him, and you let out a light giggle in response; together relishing in the intimacy of this moment.

And then you cant your hips, and his laugh turns into a groan, a new kind of bliss making itself known in the hardening of his length beneath his pants. He thinks he’s never seen anything as beautiful as the look in your eyes. Full of passion - a beautiful, twisting flame, but also, understanding. You barely know each other, and yet it’s like your souls know each other intimately; bound together by something greater than either of you can fathom.

With a swift motion, he sweeps your legs out from underneath you and hitches your thighs around his waist so you're floating in the water, anchored in place by him alone.

You press yourself into him, arching your back and leaning forward to brush your lips against his.

He kisses you with all the fervour and unfulfilled need building inside him. His hands come around your ass and dig in, tugging your crotch against him so you can feel his hardness.

Another heady, submissive gasp escapes you against his mouth, and when your legs open further to let him settle against you, he's done for.

“I know you’re probably tired,” he murmurs, “and we should probably get to shore, but I...”

You're nodding before he even finishes the sentence, making his heart soar with the needy look in your eyes. “Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, yes, please, Cassian, please.”

With a breathless laugh, he drops your thighs and takes you by the waistband of your pants instead.

Together, you work to pull it off of you. It’s awkward, messy, not how he imagined this going, but it doesn’t matter. The mood is playful as you struggle to pull your pants off beneath the water - you, bracing yourself on his shoulders, and him, trying to pull it off your legs and getting splashed in the process.

But then suddenly you’re fully naked from the waist down, and your laughter quietens as you draw close to each other again.

He can’t see your naked lower half beneath the dark water, but he can feel when you wrap your legs around him again.

Slowly, he places his hand on your bare thigh, treating the moment with all the reverence of a ritual, his soulmark tingling in anticipation and sending a shudder through his body.

With his other hand, he cups your face, searching your gaze.

“I’m clean.”

“Same.”

“Birth control?”

Something like pain flickers in your eyes, and you shake your head. “Not since... before.”

“Right. Of course.”

He hesitates.

The two of you just escaped prison, and if he’s learnt anything, this is not the kind of galaxy he wants to risk bringing a child into. He’s not even sure if he’ll survive tomorrow.

“What do you want to do then?”

“We could die tomorrow.” You shift in his arms, pulling yourself flush against him until his hardness presses firmly between you. “Fuck it.”

He tilts his head, a slight grin curling on his face. Stars, when you say it like that... With a clench of his jaw, he pulls you down slowly and impales you on his hardness.

His head falls back. You’re fucking tight. A raw, incredulous groan rises from his throat.

Your reaction has his head spinning - fingers winding through his grown-out hair and pulling desperately against him. He loves little hiss you make.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes flutter open to meet his gaze and his seed almost spills, only holding himself back with the barest restraint. Must savour this moment. Finally being inside you - his soulmate.

He pulls you in for a hungry kiss. Heat rises between your bodies as you give yourself over to his touch, opening your mouth into his kiss and arching your back for him.

It’s too much. Unable to stop himself, his hands grip you by your thighs and he fully impales you, forcing your tight, inner channel muscles to give way and let his shaft thrust full inside you.

You brace his shoulders and writhe in pleasure. “Oh, Cassian, please, m-move - ”

That’s all he hears before his instincts take over, and he uses all his strength to thrust, desperate to wedge himself so far inside you he’ll never leave.

He plants his feet on the sea floor and braces you against him as you cant your hips for him. Your bodies are working overtime to create that toe-curling friction, thrusting into each other with bruising force, the waves splashing and breaking over your entwined forms.

Your mouths clash in a tangle of heated, desperate kisses that burn him from within. The tension is pulled taut between you, soulmarks thrumming in time with each other as you desperately unite your bodies as one.

He rocks his hips up between your open legs and hits home harder and harder with each slosh of the water. His hands grip you by the back of your shirt, fingers scrambling against the fabric to pull your body down as hard as he can.

Your head lols back in the water, a gasp escaping your throat. “Cassian! Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop - oh!”

He grunts in approval. His hunger for you grows, seeing you so vulnerable like this for him, desperate to hold out as long as he can to pleasure you. His thrusts grow even more frantic and sloppy - a fast, brutal jerking rhythm of pounding up into your cunt.

“My hope,” he murmurs in Kenari, barely hanging on to his sanity. “Better than anything I’d ever dreamt of.” He drinks in the sight of you, wet and vulnerable and all his, and his hardness gives a heady warning pulse of heat. He groans. “You’re everything. You’re mine.”

You let out a whimper in his arms, and then you’re tensing, your thighs, clenching around him with newfound strength.

“Cassian,” you moan through gritted teeth, “Cassian!”

The first jolt of pleasure wracks through his body without warning. At the realisation that you’re climaxing, he’s had it - he can’t hold back anymore.

He groans in disbelief. His brows draw together, the deep, intense, deliberate jerking of his body against yours faltering as pleasure takes over. A sound comes out of him, a mix between a desperate plea and praise, and then he’s coming inside you.

Fierce, intense waves of heat pulse into your raw, messy, clenching cunt.

His pleasure deepens as you open your legs even farther to receive his spend inside you. With a growl, he pulls you against him and jerks his hips against you once more, finishing himself off.

“Yes,” you moan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead against his. The change in angle shields your face from the starlight, but the sound of your shuddering, desperate pants of breath are clear as day. You’re high on this shared bliss together.

“Don’t want to wake up,” he murmurs against your lips.

“You think I’m a dream?”

He traces up your arm and wraps his hand around the back of your neck. “You’re too good to be real. I’m not that lucky.”

You chuckle. “You are now.”

“We’ll see.”

It isn’t until the next morning, when he opens his eyes to the first rays of sun and you’re still there, asleep in his arms, that he finally allows himself to believe.

[sp0o0kylights]

Steve/Eddie Soulmark AU Worth and Worthy

Warnings: Mentions of a burn scar, a prior attack via bully’s, Nancy cheating, Steve handling it ah, poorly, his TERRIBLE parents, etc.  Steve was a romantic.

It had been a well known fact about him even in his king days, one of the many facets of his charms that made the ladies do their best to catch his attention. He was a roses and chocolates kind of guy, even for a woman that he just had one night stands with. 

Sure, he might sleep with another girl the next night, but between the care he showed in bed and the charm he showed after, Steve didn’t catch the flak many other teenage boys did for his sexcapades. And if any was mentioned well, all it took was dropping some line about how he was trying to find his soulmate and things were right as rain. 

Then he met Nancy.

Steve knew of course that she wasn’t his soulmate.

He hadn’t cared. 

In a refreshing bout of sanity, neither had Nancy.  

She went off on all these cute little tirades about how soulmates was an outdated concept, that the marks they all bore could mean any number of things, that the word soulmate itself might not mean it was a romantic relationship, and if it was, how you shouldn’t waste your life looking for someone who could be anywhere in the world. 

Hawkins Indiana was so small, the chance of the person who represented your mark being there was slim, and wasn’t a romantic relationship something you should work at anyway? Be present for every single day?

Steve bought the whole thing, hook, line and sinker. Believed it with all his heart and soul. 

Distanced himself from his asshole friends, charged back to face down a demon with a baseball bat, laid bare his soul for the fiery woman who had stolen his heart.

Loved her long after she broke it, on the floor of some stupid party, drunk words searing him like a burn. 

When he found out she’d cheated on him with Jonathan Byers, on grounds that he was her soulmate…

It was the kind of crushing blow that had remade him as a person. 

Throughout it, the lonely days that followed, Steve woke up and stared in the mirror every morning at the mark that sat on his hip.

Fuck Nancy. 

Fuck Jonathan, fuck Tommy, fuck Billy-fuck everyone. 

His parents might not love him, his friends might have been fake and his own love bullshit but at least he had one person out there who was meant for him. 

A person who would accept him, for who he was (and wasn’t a sassy middle schooler using him for rides, even if Steve was secretly thankful for Dustin’s sudden presence in his life.) 

Throwing his crown away was easy. Being a better person, a person who wasn’t an asshole, was hard. 

It would be worth it in the end though, because he would be worthy of his soulmate's love.

                                                         xXx

Too bad life seems to be just as tired of Steve as he is of it, because he finds his soulmate in Hawkins trailer park of all places, hanging out with Eddie Munson, a person Steve found he enjoyed far more than he’d ever thought. 

It had barely been two weeks since Vecna had been defeated, the Upside Down destroyed, with the group of survivors still clinging tight to each other.

He was over at Eddie’s to help him sort all his shit into boxes in preparation for his move. The older man had just been given his shiny new government alibi, cleared of all charges, but it was obvious he wasn’t comfortable walking around by himself yet.

For reasons Steve had long had his own freakout over, he wasn’t comfortable with the idea either. 

It had been going fine. Eddie and Steve were trading off cassettes and mocking the others choices as they packed, things easy between them in a way only surviving a supernatural catastrophe could create in such a short amount of time.

He knew. Had known, since Eddie pulled out his guitar, that the metalhead was his. 

It made sense in a way. Steve had been so easy around him once they had gotten over their mutual jealousy regarding the kids. He hadn’t thought they had much in common at first, but the more he hung out with him, the more Steve realized it wasn’t the little things they shared but the big ones.

The love for the kids. Their humor and personalities. The way they fit together, bounced off each other, looked at life in general. 

Steve was happy to learn about all the things Eddie liked, had tolerated D&D and nerd shit for years long enough to have picked out various pieces he himself enjoyed. 

Now it was simply a matter of when to tell him. 

Then Eddie decided to change shirts. 

He was moving slowly,  jeans slung low on his hips. It gave Steve a nice long look at his hip (and briefly the treasure trail of dark hair that he was determined not to stare at.). 

For a second Steve almost mistakes the long healed wound there for one of Eddie’s demobat bites; but those were covered in bandages still and this was too far down for where they had struck.

This wasn’t even one of the guy’s scratcher tattoos, that ink faded while this one casually pulsed with yellow against the crumpled skin surrounding it. 

It takes a minute for it all to sink in. The color, the mark, the way the damaged skin was long healed in a close pattern over it.  

Anger floods his face with heat.

 Steve's body goes hot with it, his vision swimming and sound dropping out as his entire being pinpricks down to the soul mark on Eddie's hip.

He recognizes the cause of the destroyed skin around it. Burn scar, the kind that made your skin change color and crumble in on itself once healed.

Munson had tried to burn his soul mark off. 

It would be a crazy thing to see on anyone, the most unhinged act of rejection Steve can personally think of.

It wouldn't be a big deal, not to him, not when he still didn't know Eddie that well, except the stupid image staring back at him in the midst of all the shiny, scarred skin is a fucking baseball bat with nails.

As in, Steve's weapon of choice. His baby, the bat he carried with him in the trunk of his car and carted into his house everyday, hidden in a carrying case for golf clubs. 

"What the fuck?" Steve spits. He's intimate with the taste of betrayal already. His parents have a house in Burbank they stay in half the year. The word 'bullshit' still makes him wince. He has PTSD from being tortured by the Russians and likely a budding anxiety disorder from all the Upside Down nonsense and yet this-

This hurts more than anything life has put him through.

"What?" Eddie asks, confused, before following Steve's eyes down to his own hips. "Oh."

He brushes a hand almost subconsciously against the nail-bat, and they both watch it pulse a light yellow.

The tell tale sign of a soul mark, the way it could light up like a neon sign. 

"You tried to burn off your soul mark?" 

Steve's voice must come out far more angry than he had meant it to be, because Eddie's head whips up to him. 

"You a romantic, Harrington? Think you'll run into your soulmate one day?" Eddie teases, but his own voice is taking on a defense edge.  

"I already have." Steve says flatly. Part of him wants to withhold, not say, not admit that hes the one Eddie's tried to burn out of his life, but another part of him wants his soulmate (fuck) to explain why. 

Why try to cut him out. 

"If Nancy-"

"It's not her." Steve cut him off. "Stop dodging the question."

Eddie crosses his arms, gives him a look with those dark bambi eyes that Steve’s seen a million times. It’s a stubborn, “come hell or high water” expression, complete with a grin smug enough to make you want to hit him. 

He used it primarily against jocks being assholes, which just pissed Steve off further. 

“I don’t think I’m dodging enough, seeing as it’s none of your business.” 

"Munson." Steve says sinking everything he has into the word. "Why did you try to burn off your mark?" 

Eddie stares at him, eyes searching. He’s definitely on the defensive now, likely confused as to why Steve’s flipped from joking to furious. 

Steve can’t find it in himself to care. 

Eddie cocks crossed his arms over his chest. "Why the hell do you care so much? What's it to you?"

And right, right Eddie doesn't know. That it's him. Can't. 

So Steve decides to explain it to him. 

Untucks his polo with a few hard pulls. Yanks the fabric up. Reveals the Warlock that hangs low on his left hip, some nerdy dice making up the tip of it. 

"Wow, you got some popstar, hey Harrington?" Eddie says, practically before he even sees Steve’s mark. 

Definitely hasn’t had the time to really look at it.

Steve wants to strangle him. "You're an idiot, Munson." 

Then; “Look closer.”

Eddie does. 

A savage feeling of glee runs through him the second he sees Eddie registers the dice, the same black and red one Steve knew he used. Makes the connection that it isn’t just a guitar, not even his physical Warlock, but instead the stupid thing he draws on everything he seems to own.

Notebooks, textbooks, post it notes, his fucking pants. 

All things Steve has gotten an up close and personal look at considering how much time he’s spent in Eddies trailer the last few weeks. 

Saucer wide eyes jerk back up to Steve’s face. 

“Shit.” Eddie says almost breathlessly, shooting to stand straight, hands frantically pulling at his hair. “Steve-”

“Give me an answer, Munson. You owe me that.” Steve interrupts him, because he is done. 

With life, the universe, everything. 

“Why did you try and burn my bat?” 

“I-I didn’t-” Of all fucking things tears are springing up in Eddie’s eyes.

Steve kind of wants to cry himself, but can’t seem to find any emotion other than fury and a growing sense of numbness. 

Eddie takes a step forward, and flinches hard when Steve jerks back. 

“Steve-” He’s begging, Eddie Munson is actually begging, and he kind of wants to laugh at how much life clearly fucking hates him. 

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t burn it, Steve please-!” 

Tears are now openly tracking down Eddie’s face, his arms going from crossed to hugging himself. “Fuck! I had a whole story planned for this, I never thought-”He looks up at the ceiling, like he can’t bear to look at his own soulmate. 

Steve is rapidly flipping through emotions, the numbness coming in to save him, making words impossible to get out. 

Eddie is still speaking. “Jordan P, middle school. He eventually got expelled but before he did he and his asshole buddies caught me after school. Held me down.” 

He bites his lip so hard it bleeds and that cuts through to Steve. 

“I fought, I fought them so hard Steve. I tried, but there were too many,” He chokes on a breath and Steve finds himself moving forward without thinking. 

“They told me I didn’t deserve you.” He whispers, finally bringing his head back down, just in time to realize Steve was wrapping him up in a hug. 

Eddie freezes in his hold, but Steve just hugs him tightly, resting his cheek against Eddie’s curls.

“I'm sorry.” He says quietly. “I just reacted, Eddie. I’m sorry.”

The older boy fell into him, arms wrapping back around Steve as he tucks his face. 

“I’ve got you.” Steve whispers to him, rocking them gently. “I’ve got you.” 

And he did--for the rest of their lives. 

[medusapelagia]

Eddie's month day 12 + Whumptober day 12

written for @eddiemonth and @whumptober-archive 

Prompts: Eddie’s month 12: Soulmates | Eight - Sleeping at Last | Perceptive Whumptober 12: I haven't slept in days, but who's counting? - Red | Insomnia | “I’m up, I’m up.” 

Rating: Mature Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson WT: omegaverse, Omega Steve Harrington, Alpha Eddie Munson, Nurse Steve Harrington, violence, hospitals, medical procedures, medical inaccuracies, soulmates and soulmarks WC: 2284

"You got nice veins." the nurse tells Eddie while drawing some blood.

"Sorry?"

"Your veins. They are nice. Look how they pop out." the omega repeats, smiling at him so sweetly that Eddie has to fight with all his self-control not to pop something else right there.

"Are you worried?"

"A little." he confesses. 

It's a minor surgery, everyone told him, but he is scared. He never had surgery before and he doesn't know what to expect.

"It will be fine. It's a very simple procedure and I'll be with you all the time." the nurse comforts him.

"Will you?"

The omega nurse nods "Yes. I'm in surgery today. And you are lucky I am, my partner, Robin, is not as delicate as I am. Done."

Eddie stares at his arm and sees the long needle "This is an IV access. I will remove it as soon as the doctor discharges you, ok?"

"How long?"

The nurse looks at the clock "We start at half past eight, you are the third so I think you'll be waiting for at least an hour." the omega replies, then he asks "Can you tell me where your soulmark is? It's not written on your file."

Eddie blushes, he knows that the skin around the soulmark is sensible but his soulmark is… "Oh... it's... it's on my hips. A crown."

The nurse smirks "Lucky boy, you find yourself a prince! Or is it a queen?"

Eddie shakes his head "No... I... haven't found my soulmate yet."

The nurse keeps smiling "You are young. You still have all the time in the world to find your soulmate. Some people do not even get their soulmark recorded to the register. I waited for years before registering mine. And I did it only because my family insisted. They said that it was not appropriate for an omega male to work if he was not bonded."

"So you found your match? Are they perfect for you as everyone says?" Eddie tries to take a look at the omega mating gland but it is protected by a tick collar like every omega in the hospital.

"Sadly not.” he replies “But there are a lot of people who find their soulmates by chance. Their soulmark starts to tickle when they first meet, and if they are fated mate they say it can even shine. Not that I have ever seen a shining soulmark, but you never know, right?.” he tells him while he keeps writing something on Eddie’s file “But I think that it is possible to find love even without the designated soulmate. Many people do that. I know some couples that even erase their soulmark once they bond."

"Really?"

"Of course. But I'm sure you'll find someone perfect for you, soulmark or not. Now. Here is the gown, put it on and tie it on the back, I'll call you when we are ready for you."

"Can I ask you something?" 

The nurse turns, his hand still on the handle of the door "Do you have any doubt about the procedure? I could call a doctor if you need some explanations…"

Eddie blushes "No it’s… I... I'd like to ask you your name."

The nurse's smile is so bright that Eddie feels a little bit in love.

"Steve. The name is Steve."

***

When Eddie wakes up the kind omega is working at the computer.

He turns, as he could feel that Eddie is awake “Hey. How are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”

“Is it done?” he asks, still disoriented and sleepy.

“Everything is done. Now we wait for a little bit and then you can rest in your room.” The omega replies with a smile.

“Have I… have I done something stupid?”

Eddie has a very vague memory of having made a fool out of himself but he can’t really remember what happened.

“Hey, our lover boy is back! How are you feeling?” a blond nurse asks him, getting closer to his bed.

“Lover boy?” he asks, confused.

The girl's eyes shine “Don’t you remember? That’s such a pity. You made the most wonderful love declaration I have ever heard.”

“That’s because you never heard a love declaration before, Robin.” Steve mocks her.

Robin. Why is that name familiar to him?

“What… what are you talking about?”

“Oh. You promised our Steve to make him an honorable omega and to marry him soon. I think you tried to compose some kind of wedding song too.” She grins.

“Oh my god.” he roughly remembers that, now that she is pointing it out. Fuck. He proposed to his nurse in front of his partner! 

“I’m sorry… I don’t know why I did it.”

“Don’t worry. It was the anesthesia. I know that you are not really attracted to me.” the omega replies.

“How no, you are definitely attractive! I just didn’t mean to make a declaration in front of your partner.”

Steve stares at him perplexed, wondering if they gave him too much medicine “Who?”

“Robin? Your partner?”

The girl starts to laugh “Oh, Romeo, I’m his partner in crime, we are not partners in real life.” she explains to him, taking his vitals “Even if our Steve is actually taken. How are the things between you and Tommy, by the way? Did he finally propose or is he still unsure between you and Carol?”

“Robin, that’s not professional!” Steve scolds her.

“Come on, lover boy here is so high he will not remember a thing.”

“I don’t care. Just stop it.” 

“Ok, ok. Sorry.” she says putting a hand on Steve’s arm and the omega flinches.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Steve Joseph Harrington, show me your fucking arm right now!” she hisses, tugging him in a corner, but even from his position Eddie can see a blue bruise that looks like a hand.

“How the fuck did this happen?”

“I argued with Tommy. I forgot to pick up dry cleaning, but he was right to be angry because he had a really important meeting today and I’m the omega of the couple…”

“What the fuck! He can’t hit you because you forgot something.”

“He didn’t hit me!” Steve protests “He just… Grabbed me.”

“So hard to leave a bruise?”

The omega lowers his eyes and covers his arm “Come on. We still have three more patients and I have to bring Mr. Munson back to his room.”

The girl sighs “But don’t think that this conversation is over.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he comes back toward Eddie who stares at him with more attention, the omega’s eyes are red and tired, and he seems dead on his feet even if he keeps smiling and cheering Eddie up.

“All done. So now you rest a little and when the doctor says that everything is fine you can go back home.”

Eddie nods, but before falling asleep he thinks about the sweet tired omega.

How is it possible that he is in a relationship with someone who grabbed him so hard to hurt him?

Someone who can’t decide between him and another person?

He feels a strange burning sensation on his waist, but he falls asleep before he can point out exactly where the pain comes from.

***

A week later Eddie is back in the hospital, he still has to do a couple of exams just to be sure that everything is fine.

This time it is Robin who draws his blood and he definitely feels the difference.

“Steve is not here today?” he says.

“Still in love with him, lover boy?” she asks, changing the vials.

“I just wanted to thank him for being so kind to me.” Eddie shrugs.

“Well, I do hope he is resting somewhere. He was here all night long covering an extra shift.” she replies “But if I know him I think you will find him in the pediatric ward. That omega loves children.” she winks at him.

Eddie thinks for a long moment, and then he goes toward the pediatric ward.

As Robin anticipated, Steve is reading a fantasy book to a couple of pups.

“And that’s all for today.” he says, closing the book.

“Come on! Steve! Read us another chapter!” a red-haired girl complains, glaring at him with her blue eyes.

“Next time, Maxine.”

“It’s Max.” she states.

“Ok. Max. Tomorrow we will read another chapter, ok?”

The pup doesn't seem happy but then the other one notices Eddie and says something in Steve’s ear.

The omega lifts his eyes and smiles at him.

“Eddie. Did you come for your last check-up?”

The alpha nods, too embarrassed to speak, but the omega is kind as usual.

“You know what? Why don’t we have a coffee? God knows that I need one.”

***

The cafeteria is nothing fancy, but the coffee is hot and strong.

“That’s exactly what I need.” the omega sighs, drinking his cup of coffee with oat milk and brown sugar “I was ready to fall asleep when I was reading to the kids.” he laughs.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?”

“I’m a nurse.” Steve replies with a smile “I haven't slept in days, but who's counting? Right?”

Eddie’s inner alpha would like to take him home, helping him make a nest in his room and keep him there until he feels better.

“Robin said that you were supposed to rest.”

“Yeah, I know. But I promised Max and Dust that we would read a chapter today and I’m not going to have any free time later on so…”

Steve takes off his collar and stretches his neck  “Every omega that works in the hospital has to put a collar on during his shift, you never know what could happen with some alpha patients. Sometimes they get violent and try to bite the omegas. But god if it’s uncomfortable!” He complains.

“For real?”

“Yeah. You know. Pain is a strong emotion and sometimes it takes out the instinctual part of some individuals.”

“Steve?!” someone calls and the omega turns.

For a moment Eddie sees a black mark on Steve’s neck, but then his attention is all on the alpha that is growling at the omega.

“You are such a slut.” the unknown alpha yells, throwing a paper bag at Steve “I made you a fucking sandwich! Your favorite! Because I thought you were too tired after a night shift! And you are here?! Having fun with another alpha?!”

The omega mewls “It’s not like that, Tommy, he is a patient and…”

“Is that so? I thought that you were supposed to wear a collar when you were with alpha patients! Why are you not wearing it, uh? Are you offering him yourself? Is that what you do when you are at work?!” the alpha growls, but Eddie growls back, pushing Steve behind him.

“What the fuck are you doing, man! We were just having coffee!”

“You were having a coffee with my omega!”

“I see no bite!”

“Well, this could be arranged, you know?” and then Tommy pushes Eddie away and throws himself at Steve, trying to bite his mating gland.

The omega whines, but Tommy manages to scruff him and he is almost biting Steve when Eddie punches him in the face.

After that, everything is a blur.

When Eddie comes back to his senses he is tied in a hospital bed and a policeman is sitting next to him.

“I’m Chief Hopper. Nurse Harrington told us what happened but I’d like to take your statement too.”

Eddie nods and explains to him what happened.

“The omega is not going to press charges. Are you?”

Why the fuck is he not pressing charges?!

“Everyone in the cafeteria testified that you were protecting the omega so you could press charges if you wanted to.”

There is something in the way the police officer is talking to him that makes him think that he should.

But in the end, he decides not to.

It’s Robin who comes back to discharge him a few hours later.

“How is he?”

“Steve?”

Eddie nods.

“He is resting. It was a hard day but we are understaffed and he knows that.”

“Can I see him?” he asks and Robin seems unsure, while she bites her lip, but then she gives him directions toward the room where Steve is resting.

“I’m up, I’m up!” Steve says, jumping on the bed as soon as Eddie opens the door, ready to get back to work.

“Sorry. Just me. I wanted to be sure you were ok.”

“Oh, Eddie. Hi. I’m fine. Yeah. Thanks for the help…”

“When I see fragile things, helpless things, broken things… I see something familiar.” he tells him, sitting on Steve’s cot “My parents were junkies so I lived in a trailer with my uncle. I’m no Prince Charming but I know how you should treat a person and how you should not.”

“You mean an omega.” Steve clarifies.

“You are more than your designation, Steve. And you deserve someone better than that piece of shit!” 

In the dim light of the room, something is shining on Steve’s neck.

“What are you looking at?” the omega asks.

“Your neck…”

“Oh, yeah, it looks bad but it’s just my soulmark.”

“It’s shining.”

“Is it what?!” Steve gets up and runs towards the bathroom. Now that Eddie can see it better he understands exactly what that is: a guitar pick.

He lowers the waist of his pants and sees something shining too.

“Are you a prince, Steve?”

Steve turns and looks at him astonished “At… at school. They called me King Steve. To mock me.”

“Well… I’m a guitarist. And I really think that I’m your fated soulmate.”

[fuckyeahfanfictions]

Chapters: 6/6 Fandom: DCU, Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, Barbara Gordon, Stephanie Brown Additional Tags: JayTim Week, JayTimBINGO2019, Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, undercover as a stripper, Fluff and Angst, Protective Bruce Wayne, Humor Series: Part 3 of Jaytim Week Prompt Oneshots and Stories Summary:

Tim turns to him with a quick, shy smile before rapidly climbing the pole, waiting for Jason to position himself under him. “Like this?” he asks, arching his back, gripping the pole tightly between his shapely little thighs and beginning a slow, grinding descent. Jason did not realize until this moment it was possible to be so jealous of a fuckin’ pole.

Oh fuck, I’m gonna die again. Of embarrassment or blue balls, just take your fuckin’ pick. 

“Yeah, Baby Bird,” he says, almost not recognizing his voice for how throaty and deep it sounds right now. “Just like that.” * For the tumblr Jaytim month(ish) 2019 week two soulmate prompt.

[hemlocksandfoxgloves]

I've been putting updates of my story here. Chapter 1 is almost finished. But if anyone is interested in reading it, it's here.

Jake Phearson and Clayton Jones are best friends. During their first year of high school, Clay figures out him and Jake are soulmates. Problem is, Jake thinks their friend Kayla is his soulmate. When Clay finally can’t take it anymore, he kisses Jake, accidentally Sparking with him, upsetting the already delicate process of their connection. Jake becomes confused and starts to push Clay away, straining their bond even further.

[emeraldhazeidentity]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Undertale (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sans (Undertale)/Reader Characters: Sans (Undertale), Reader, Unnamed doctor Additional Tags: Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Broken Bones, Hospitals, Doctors & Physicians, Best Friends, Hurt/Comfort, Bad Puns, Happy Ending, bone puns, so many bone puns, Reader-Insert, Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), gender neutral reader, POV Second Person, Pre-story injury, X-Rays, Fluff Summary:

You may have broken your arm, but what hurt far worse was your complete and utter lack of a Soulmark.

At least you've got your best friend Sans to cheer you up with some awful puns...

Look, look! I’ve finally written something again! I’m so happy with how this turned out!

Inspired by the lovely @lizzie-tempest‘s fic Maybe In Time, You’ll Want To Be Mine.

[kythwena]

“Rest assured, Ron, that I will never try to stick my cock in your eye. Unless it’s to save your life,” Harry adds thoughtfully, to make Ron squirm. “I think I’d choose death, mate,” Ron says. “No offense.”

Written on the Heart by who_la_hoop Collection: H/D Erised 2016

[nekonom26]

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Naruto (Anime & Manga)

Relationship:

Senju Butsuma/Uchiha Tajima

Characters:

Senju Butsuma

Senju Touka

Uchiha Tajima

Additional Tags:

butsutaji week 2024

Soulmates

Alternate Universe - Soulmates

Soulmate-Identifying Marks

wanted to write something funny but wrote something sad and bitter instead

they only know to be ennemies

Language:English

Summary:

Not all story about soulmate end in happy ending.

[gloromeien]

The latest is finally complete! A Shrunkyclunks Soul Mark AU featuring a Bucky inspired by Seb’s look and performance as Tommy Lee. :)

Chapters: 23/23 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton, Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Wanda Maximoff, Bruce Banner, Helen Cho (Marvel) Additional Tags: Shrunkyclunks, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Tommy Lee!Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Soul Bond, soul mark, soul mates, soul mark au, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Feels, Romanian Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Angst, Domestic Fluff, Natasha Romanoff is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Original Character(s), Original Romanian Family, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, but it's barely mentioned, Past Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Bucky is a recovering addict, Emphasis on recovering, meet angry, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Slow Burn, Food Porn, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Tattoos, Bucky Has Ink, Rock Star Bucky Barnes, Steve has dogs, Very loyal and cute dogs, Found Family, I swear there's going to be an HEA, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Stubbornness Abounds, Pining, Let me know if you notice anything I forgot..., Alternate Universe - Soulmates Summary:

When Steve Rogers emerged from the ice, he wound up not only in a whole new century, but also with a brand-new soul mark. Knowing that the person he was destined to be with might be just around the corner made it easier for him to settle into a future where happily ever after was a sure thing. Until the Romanian drummer of a 'popular in Europe' heavy metal band, and freight car of personal baggage, come crashing into his life...

[inwhichiramble]

Chrysalis | A Harry Potter Fanficition: Masterpost

Hey friends! Welcome to the masterpost for Chrysalis. I’m still fairly new to fanfiction on Tumblr, so let me know if there’s anything I can improve :) 

Caelia Beatrice Carter is a half-blood witch who's been best friends with Harry Potter since they were five years old. Upon arriving at Hogwarts, she finds herself questioning everything she knows. Can a Hufflepuff be friends with the Golden Trio? Where could her soulmate be if no one at Hogwarts has her soulmark? And, really, how did the swoon worthy Tom Riddle fall so far as to lose his nose? Whether all of those questions get answers remains to be seen, but Caelia sure knows one thing. The world is much bigger than she could have ever imagined.

Start Here | All | AO3 | Wattpad

YEAR ONE

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

YEAR TWO

14 | 15 | 16 | 17

[browneyesandhair]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Marcus Flint/Oliver Wood Characters: Marcus Flint, Oliver Wood Additional Tags: soulmark, AU, Hogwarts, soulmate, inappropriate use of the room of requirement, lol nothing hanky panky, just a strange use more so, than inappropriate, canon isn’t real Series: Part 2 of Snapshot of the Soulmark Summary:

A snapshot in the life of Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood. Just some fluff for me to get out of my Marcus/Oliver funk. Enjoy.

[bluemari23]

hello soulmate | min yoongi

summary: your first day on the job doesn't turn out the exact way you envisioned

pairing: min yoongi x hype employee reader

genre: soulmate au, soulmarks, fluff,

warnings: running, unhappy coworkers, some injury

word count: 1.7k

masterlist

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

Running was not your forte, and neither was breathing apparently as you choke trying to get air into your lungs as you reach the fortunately empty elevator. 

You were running late, and you were seconds away from being fired on your third day of work. You had just gotten the job as one of the content creators for a variety show through one of the big four entertainment companies, and today was the first official day at the company. 

HYBE was bigger than you imagined, and thus, the reason you were late. You had gotten lost on the first floor and then there were issues with your ID card getting past security. But you manage to reach the 12th floor in record time and use the piece of paper you received the last meeting to find the correct room. 

It was slight chaos when you opened the door, unsurprisingly as you now realized who you would be working with for the variety show. Everything was kept top secret until you were approved by HYBE and showed up on the first day, after signing numerous NDA’s of course. 

The BTS boys were having fun and running amuck as they waited for the shoot to start. It was supposed to be just a fun shoot, numerous arcade games set up throughout the room and a table set in the middle where some challenges were going to take place later on. 

You looked around after taking in the room, trying to set eyes on your director. Eventually you find him talking to your fellow creators, going over the different challenges that would be taking place. 

“—After the water bottle challenge, we’re going to move onto the karaoke booth.” You arrive just at the tail end of the run through, but you manage to understand anyways, seeing as you all had a copy of the schedule for the day. 

“Where have you been? Never mind, you’re working on the individual camera today.” Your director questions you but doesn’t give you any time to explain yourself before moving on and assigning you your task. You quickly nod your head, before moving to grab one of the video cameras from the table. 

You would be in charge of taking individual behind the scenes videos and photos for the social media accounts. You had seen episodes of Run BTS before and knew how much moving you would be doing today. 

Again. Running wasn’t your thing. 

“What are you doing?” You turn your head to see a slightly older woman in front of you, her hands on her hips as she looks towards the camera in your hands. 

“I was assigned individual shots today, Ma’am.” You respond as politely as you can, getting bad feelings from the woman in front of you. 

You could almost feel that you would be having problems with her. You tried to be respectful though, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes on your first official day. 

The woman just looked you up and down, her nose crinkling a little before she spoke. “Just don’t get in my way. I’ve been doing this longer than you have and don’t need some inexperienced newbie messing up my photos.” 

You can only nod before she is walking past you, bumping into your shoulder on her way past. 

‘What the heck?’ you think, turning to watch as she steps forward and begins to talk to one of the supervisors who was in the middle of talking to Namjoon. Shaking your head, you move to the edge of the set, close to the basketball arcade shot game. 

You had a good view of the other games from here and felt you could maneuver through the set easier from where you were set up. Bringing your camera up to your eyes, you begin taking some practice shots, making sure the lighting was good and the settings on the camera aligned with what you wanted to photograph.

It took you some time, but eventually you were able to begin taking photos of the boys who had come back to mess around with the games after getting changed and before the actual shoot started. 

You were so focused on the pictures that you didn’t even notice one of the boys moving up to you. 

“Hi! You must be one of the new creators! I’m Taehyung.” The bright eyed man bounced right up to you when he noticed you, hand held in front of you to shake your hand as he introduced himself. 

You put your camera down, smiling softly as you brought your hand to meet his, introducing yourself. As you did, you caught his attention on your wrist, where your soulmark resided. The initials of your soulmate were written in short, quick writing, the gray M and Y staring back up at you since the minute you turned sixteen. 

Taehyung’s smile only seemed to widen once you introduced yourself, a twinkle in his eyes that wasn’t there before. You could barely blink before the director was calling for the boys to get into place; the shoot was about to begin. 

You smile as you watch him bounce away again, his energy levels palpable as you hold your camera up again. 

The next hour was spent moving slowly throughout the edge of the set up game room, trying to get as many good shots as you could. You noticed that Taehyung gravitated towards you and seemed to pull Yoongi with him to play the basketball game, Jungkook following behind to try and battle against the basketball player. 

You moved closer to get a picture of both boys making a basket and scoring a point when someone stepped on your foot causing pain to radiate up your ankle and shin. A gasp leaves your lips as you look towards your left to see the woman from earlier, a glare set on her dark eyes as she almost pushes you aside. 

You end up tripping over the cord to another game and just barely manage to catch yourself on the corner of said game before injuring yourself or ruining the shoot. You were so focused on the pain in your foot you didn’t even notice the burning in your wrist as your soulmark gets darker. 

You didn’t notice the three men witnessing the entire thing, nor the dark looks Taehyung was sending to the older woman. A break was luckily called soon enough and you tried to move away back to the far wall but a hand on your arm stops you.

“What was that? I thought I told you not to get in my way?!” The older woman steps in front of you, her hand still gripping tightly to your forearm. 

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. It won’t happen again.” You grit out as politely as you can, the pain in your ankle making you want to sit down but you knew you needed to just go along with what she was saying, not wanting any trouble. 

“No. Don’t apologize.” You both turn to your right to see Taehyung, Yoongi and Jungkook, all three eyeing the hand gripping onto your forearm. The woman is quick to release you when she realizes what the boys were seeing. 

“Oh boys! Don’t worry about this. I’m just giving some advice to the newbie.” The woman was quick to put on the sweet tone as she speaks to them. You just want to roll your eyes. 

Pulling your arm back to your chest, rubbing against where you knew her grip was going to leave some bruises. Your sleeve had rolled back down and your forearm was on full display, along with your soulmark. 

“Advice? It seemed like you stepped on and pushed someone out of the way. That is not okay nor something we want to see happen between our employees.” Yoongi’s voice was low, each word spoken slowly as if to ensure the woman knew exactly what she had done. 

Jungkook moved to you while Taehyung and Yoongi were talking to the woman, his hand holding onto your own, softly and a huge contrast to the woman as he tilts your forearm around to see the spot where the woman held you.

The skin was red and he knew it would bruise. This was unacceptable and he would make sure that the woman would be reprimanded for her actions. As Jungkook continued to look over your arm, his attention was caught by your soulmark, his hyungs initials on the inside of your wrist. 

‘No wonder Taehyung kept bringing him to where you were…’ Jungkook mused, a small smile on his lips as the thought of Taehyung trying to bring you two together. 

Well, no time like the present. 

Taehyung agreed, as his next words caught the attention of everyone. 

“You hurt Yoongi’s mate.” Your eyes widened as your head turned quickly to see Yoongi already staring at you, your faces both sharing the expression of shock. Jungkook was still holding your wrist, bringing you the two feet until you were right in front of Yoongi. 

You were silent, trying to process everything as Yoongi looked down at your held out wrist, his initials written in his own handwriting. Slowly, he pulled his own sleeve up, showing you his soulmark. 

Your initials were written in your own soft script, smooth cursive showing on his inner wrist, the same spot as your own. 

You were lost in your own world, oblivious to all of the noise and emotions happened outside the two of you. Yoongi slowly brought his hand to your wrist, his thumb rubbing over the top of your soulmark, gray turning to a dark black as the soulbond snaps into place confirming Taehyung’s suspicions. 

“Hello, soulmate.” A gummy smile burns into your retina, a memory you never want to forget as warmth erupts in your soul.

[fuckyeahfanfictions]

Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, DCU Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, (except for not really; don't read this if you want heat cycles and all that), Scenting, Depression, Panic Attacks, Demisexual Tim Drake, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Intersex Omegas, porn in the last chapter, Omega Tim Drake, Translation Available Summary:

Everyone has a mark-match, someone whose mark will match their own. No matter what, you will always meet your match after your mark comes in and before you die, it's just a fact of life.

Tim's mark starts to come in the summer he turns twelve. Less than a week later, his match is dead. He doesn't meet anyone at all in the time between.

[luxaofhesperides]

Final hour Ghostlights request! Soulmate AU where when your soul mate dies your soul mark expands. Duke was really heartbroken at first but now his soul mark makes it really difficult to keep his secret identity hidden because he is covered in a map of the cosmos. He has to use his shadow powers almost constantly to keep all the stars hidden! And and maybe they light up like actual stars when he uses his light powers.

He meets Danny at orientation or something at GU and they brush against each other and he just lights up like a supernova, all his stars literally blazing and he's just like "YOU!" Both excited and also OH MY GOD YOU ASSHOLE.

....I rambled a bit here I'm so sorry.

The thing about soulmates is that you don’t really know who they are until they die. And even then, most people never know who their soulmate was, only that they outlived them.

Duke became one of those people when he was thirteen. 

He didn’t even notice until he went to change and saw the watercolor swirl of nebula spill out from over his heart. 

One moment, he was tired and angry, ready to sneak out of his latest foster home to search for his parents and do all the things adults have failed to do. The next, he’s collapsed on his knees, shaking, unable to breathe as he tries to rip his soulmark off of his skin. He couldn’t think past the shock and horror of realizing that his soulmate is dead and Duke didn’t even know until that moment. 

They’ll never get to meet. 

Duke had never felt so alone before. 

He spent the next few days in shock, his mind a mess of static, unable to focus. He hid away in his room, buried under the covers, and his foster parents were understanding when he whispered my soulmate’s dead. They called him out of school and brought him food and water throughout the day, gentle encouraging him to eat something every few hours. 

But disaster waits for no one, and Batman was gone, so Duke pulled himself out of his misery and hit the streets again. 

So his soulmate’s dead. So his parents are gone. So Gotham’s falling apart.

No one’s doing anything about it, so it’s up to Duke to start fixing things. It’s not like he had much to lose.

Soulmates become a bit of a taboo topic to him, after that. He speaks of them to no one, avoids all conversation about them, refuses to stay when people talk about soulmarks. He tries not to look at his soulmark at all.

And then he takes a hit to the chest and patches himself up with shaking hands. For the first time in months he looks at his soulmark again and…

Did it… grow? 

Duke prods it gently, letting out a hiss when his bruised ribs protest at the movement. He remembers the mark being right over his heart. 

But looking at it now, it branches out, swirls of galaxy and constellations reaching out along his ribcage. 

Panicked, Duke grabs for his computer and looks up soulmark growth and webmd soulmark abnormalities.

Neither give him any answers, though WebMD helpfully suggests skin cancer. 

“I’m gonna ignore this,” Duke decides, and pulls on a shirt and goes to sleep. The less he thinks about his dead soulmate, the better. 

Time passes and Duke goes from being a Robin to being the Signal, a legitimate vigilante working with Batman. It’s nice to see Gotham start to settle, things falling into place. For once, nothing is awful; Duke’s found his parents and doctors are looking for a cure for long-term exposure to Joker Gas, Batman’s taking care of Gotham with a number of other Bats, Duke is getting used to his powers and slowly making a good name for himself out on the streets. 

He keeps his focus on protecting people and getting stronger, helping solve cases with the other Bats. No one mentions soulmates, so he keeps his ever expanding soulmark a secret. 

The only problem is that it keeps growing and Duke is concerned that it’ll move to a place he can’t easily hide under his clothes. 

And he does need to hide them. The more his soulmark has grown, the more obvious it is, especially when he uses his powers and the stars on his skin light up like the Fourth of July. He knows it’s abnormal, but it’s also his soulmark and he doesn’t want anyone, least of all Bruce, poking around trying to study it. 

The grief still lingers when he looks at it, but Duke has long since grown used to it. If anything, these days he’s quietly annoyed by how far the galaxies on his skin spread out, forcing him to take tank tops and shorts out of his wardrobe. 

There’s also the tentative hope that maybe his soulmate is immortal and keeps coming back to life after they die. And they must also have terrible luck, because they just keep on dying.

Case in point: his soulmark flares and spills out onto his shoulder and wraps around his bicep. It’s not the first time he’s seen it move, but it still startles him.

“Are you serious,” Duke mutters to himself, pulling at his sleeve to adjust it and hopefully hide his soulmark. The starts are bright against his skin, and while sometimes he likes to trace them with his finger, now is not one of those times.

As pretty as it is, his soulmark is also very obvious and will cause people to realize his identity if they ever catch a glimpse of it while he’s out as Signal. 

He sighs. There’s no choice but to live out the rest of his life in hoodies and sweatshirts. 

As if to spite him, his soulmark grows once more. 

Did his soulmate just die twice in the span of five minutes? That’s concerning. 

He wishes he could meet them just so he can shake some sense into them. Maybe tell them to stop dying since it’s stressing him out so much. Maybe stick by their side to make sure they never have to die again. He’s honestly not sure what he’d do if he ever meets his soulmate, but he has to do something. This has gotten out of hand.

At least seeing his soulmark grow doesn’t hurt as much as it did a few years ago. 

Lazily, he pulls at the light around him to hide the new portions of the soulmark on his arm from sight. It takes some focus, but he can hold it up long enough for him to grab a snack from the kitchen and retreat up to his room without being questioned by anyone. He could probably even keep this shirt on for the college orientation he needs to attend later in the day if the light works well enough to keep his secrets hidden. 

He’s expecting Alfred in the kitchen when he arrives, but is greeted by Dick clapping a hand on his shoulder, right where his soulmark has claimed space. Duke falters and works to keep the light from fracturing as he returns Dick’s grin. 

“Hey man,” he says, “What are you doing here? I thought you were out until Friday.”

“And miss a chance to hang out with you? No way. Besides, I wanted to give you a ride to your orientation.”

“You don’t have to,” Duke starts, only for Dick to cut him off.

“I’m going to,” he says, as if it’s a threat. “It’s been too long since we get to spend time together without a mask on. Are you really going to deprive me of this?”

Duke shakes off Dick’s hand from his shoulder, walking towards the pantry to find a small snack. “I guess not. It’s going to be pretty boring for you, though. I’m just going to listen to people talk about what college is like for a few hours.”

“We could always just walk around campus afterwards. I haven’t seen it since it was rebuilt after the last time Freeze attacked it.”

“Sure, that sounds fun. Thanks for offering to drive me.” Duke pulls out a box of Poptarts hidden behind stacks of pasta boxes and pulls out a pack for himself. He opens it and isn’t at all surprised when Dick steals one right out of his hands. 

“Meet me out front in an hour then.” 

And with that, Dick leaves, his stolen Poptart in hand, and Duke is left to shake his head and shove the Poptart box back into its hiding place. He heads off to eat his own snack, making sure no one is in the hallway as he lets go of his hold on the light. Already he can feel a migraine building with the immense focus he had to use to make sure nothing looked out of place.

At least Dick didn’t notice anything was off. If he can fool Dick, he can fool anyone.

Still, just to be safe, Duke changes into something with longer sleeves before he leaves and hops into the car with Dick. 

The drive goes quickly to the tunes of ABBA, both of them singing along as they head for the GCU campus. Parking is a bit tricky, but they manage to find a spot a street away and walk towards the student union, where tables are laid out for incoming freshmen to sign in and grab a folder filled with papers meant to help them. 

He waves to Dick and heads in once he gets his folder, and grabs a seat in the auditorium that’s close to a fire exit. 

It takes another twenty minutes for the presentations to start. The lights dim and Duke panics for a brief moment before drawing the shadows over himself lightly to hide the soft glow of the star etched onto his skin. 

They start with introductions, bringing in advisors, professors, and student ambassadors. Most of it is basic information that Duke already knows, so he zones out and plays with some shadows at his feet, where no one can see the way he twists shadows together like some dark magic form of finger knitting.

For the next hour, Duke halfheartedly listens to people talk about preparing for classes and keeping on top of schoolwork and learning how to ask for help. He’s saved enough college students that he knows the gist of things, and the orientation really doesn’t give him anything helpful. 

He probably could have skipped, but he wanted a normal college experience. 

He should have known that normal means boring as hell.

As soon as the presentation ends, an advisor encourages everyone to follow the schedule tucked into their folder to give them a half day modeled after a typical student’s schedule. Of course, all the classes are nonsense just to fill up their time, made to help freshmen coming into the college by covering topics such as how to write an email and an introduction to majors and minors.

Duke already declared himself as a Human Services major, his first step into becoming a social worker like his mom was. 

Also he totally knows how to write an email, what are these advisors on about? Do they really think people his age can’t write emails? 

Yeah, he’s ditching. The main presentation is really the only part that matters in the orientation. He’s not walking out on anything he needs.

Duke files out after the rest of the crowd, carefully letting the shadows slip off of him once he’s outside again. Instead of finding the first ‘class’ he’s supposed to go to in the Modern Languages building, he wanders off to find a quiet place he can sit down and wait until Dick finds him. 

Tucked away towards the back half of the campus is a small nook full of trees, bushes, and benches. Judging by the amount of cigarette butts left in the single trash can there, it’s a popular smoking spot. 

No one’s there, so the air is clean and free of smoke, so Duke heads in, hoping to sit down.

Someone else apparently has the same idea. He hops down from one of the concrete planters that’s keeping a bush contained and nearly falls on Duke.

They both shout in surprise, then Duke is moving without thinking, reaching out to steady the startled looking guy who accidentally jumped down in front of him. 

Duke only has time to take note of how blue his eyes are before his hands wrap around the guy’s wrist and Duke feels his soulmark flare with warmth.

In the shade of the trees, the glow of each star on his skin is obvious. It’s visible even through the fabric of his shirt. His soulmark, at this point in his life, stretches across his chest, his ribs, his back, and now his shoulders and upper arms. All the stars in that watercolor galaxy are shining brightly as if the night sky has been draped across his body.

Soulmarks only react like that for one reason.

“You!” Duke shouts at his soulmate, both elated to see that he’s alive and annoyed that he made Duke’s soulmark so large. “Stop dying! Do you have any idea how much stress you’ve caused me?!”

“Oh my god,” the guy says faintly, eyes fixed on Duke’s chest where his soulmark originally rested, shining brighter and bigger than any other star, as if he’s tucked a sun into his heart. “Oh my god,” he says again, with more feeling.

“I’m so happy you’re alive, but please stop dying. It’s bad for my health.”

“I think I need to sit down?”

He does look very pale and faint. Duke tightens his grip on his soulmate’s arms and guides him to a bench, gently sitting him down.

“You’re not about to die, right?” Duke asks. “I don’t think my heart could take it if meeting me killed you somehow.”

“No, no,” his soulmate manages to say, “I’m not going to die. Um. Wow. I didn’t know my soulmark would do that? Sorry.”

“Well, it’s not like you had any way of knowing. It’s all good, man. Just please stop dying.”

His soulmate winces. “Yeah, that’s not gonna be possible. Sorry. Again.”

What does that mean, though? What does it all mean?

“Can I maybe get an explanation as to why you have to die again.”

“Mmmmm no. We just met and it’s kinda personal so. No.”

“Dude.”

Duke’s soulmate shrugs helplessly. “It really is personal! I know your my soulmate and all, so I’ll probably tell you one day, but right now I don’t even know your name.”

Oh shit. He’s right. Introductions completely slipped his mind, too busy reeling over the fact that his soulmate is here and alive. Which, honestly, would be enough to throw anyone off balance.

“Shoot,” Duke says. “Sorry. You just really caught me off guard. Hi, I’m Duke, I promise I’m more put together than that.”

“Hi Duke, I’m Danny, and I’ve apparently been traumatizing you for the past few years by making you think I keep dying.”

“Well. At least we’re thrown head first into the crazy. Best way to know if we’re be a good match.”

“You sure you can handle this? You seemed pretty frazzled a second ago.”

Duke flusters and lightly whacks Danny’s shoulder. “That’s normal! Anyone would do the same when meeting their soulmate for the first time!”

“Fair enough,” Danny laughs. “This is a totally weird request and you can absolutely say no, but… can I see?” He presses a hand against one of the glowing stars beneath this collar bone, looking up at Duke with wide, hopeful blue eyes, and Duke finds it so cute that he’s willing to do anything Danny wants. 

“Here,” he says as an answer, pulling the collar of his shirt down a bit to reveal the nebula spilling onto his shoulder. 

“Oh,” Danny breathes, tracing a light finger against it. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m guessing you like space?”

“Love it. I wanted to be an astronaut, but uh…. It’s never going to happen. Health problems, you know?”

“Well, I know it’s not the same, but I hope the stars you put on my body will be a good enough replacement.”

Danny cheeks turn red and he turns away, flustered. “Don’t smooth talk me right now, I’m not ready for it,” he mutters, bringing up a hand to try to hide his expression. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Duke laughs, “I’ll try to keep the flirting down to a minimum. It’s just really great to finally meet you. And I’ve been wondering, what’s your soulmark look like?”

“Oh, well…” Danny fiddles with the long sleeve of his shirt. “I had a pretty bad accident years ago that kinda affected how my soulmark looks. So if it looks weird, that’s why, okay?” He takes a deep breath, then pushes up his sleeve, holding his wrist out to Duke. 

The first thing Duke notices is the soft yellow glow, Signal yellow to be precise, running down his arm as if sunlight fills his veins. Then he sees Danny’s soulmark, a sun with rays that wrap around his wrist. And running through his soulmark are Lichtenberg scars, glowing yellow as if stealing the color from his soulmark. 

“Guess we both got super obvious soulmarks, huh? At least we kinda match, that way.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Danny agrees. 

“Man, what a day.” 

Danny looks more relaxed with him now. It’s much better than the startled, tense version of him that first sat down on the bench. Duke hopes he chooses to stay with him; he doesn’t admit this often, willingly, or to other people, but he’s a romantic at heart and has always wanted to live a happy life with his soulmate. It’s still far off in the future, but he hopes Danny feels the same way.

“So, are you ditching the orientation classes to?” Danny asks.

“Yeah, there’s no way I’m going. I mean, a class on how to send emails? They can’t be serious.”

“I know, right?! I saw that and thought I was being pranked. I mean, we’re going into college. We better know how to send an email by now.”

“Since we’re both free for now, wanna grab lunch with me? It can be our first date, if you want.”

“I’d love to! And you can show me around Gotham a bit. I’m coming here for college, but I haven’t really seen the city yet. It’d be nice to explore it with someone who knows where things are.”

“Are you free for the rest of the day? ‘Cause I wouldn’t mind showing you around, if you want.”

Danny smiles, radiant. “I am. I’m in your hands for the rest of the day.”

“Cool,” Duke says, trying not to think too much on that wording. It’s very suggestive, very flirtatious, and he’s looking forward to getting to know Danny more so he can start properly flirting. “Lemme just let my brother know to not wait up for me.”

He pulls out his phone and sends Dick a text that just reads: met my soulmate. going on a date now. i’ll see u back at the manor!

Then he puts his phone on silent and tucks it back into his pocket. He’ll tell Dick all about this later; for now, all his attention is on Danny. 

Soulmates get priority, even stressful ones that give him the largest soulmark he’s ever seen. 

And right now, he’s on a mission to find the best lunch spot to take his soulmate to for their first date. Everything else can come later; for now, he’s going to enjoy the time he gets to spend with Danny.

He hopes they’ve got a future together as bright as the stars in his soulmark. 

Despite it all, Duke is sure they’re going to be alright.

[myfavmultifandomfanfic]

Every Letter That You Write Me by othellia

Fandoms: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Paring: Buffy/Spike

Rated M

49 chapters, 204,676 words

In a world where soulmates have the ability to write on each other's skin, Spike finds himself shackled to a five-year-old Buffy, who (for once) listens to her mother's advice about not handing out personal information. With no way of tracking the annoyance down, Spike is forced to endure a decade of unavoidable communication.

When Spike finally arrives in Sunnydale and discovers his soulmate is none other than the Slayer, he revels in the notion of a destined death match, but the Powers That Be have other plans...

This was good! Very well written.

It's seen from Spike prospective and begins way before canon timeline. Then it catches up to the show and rewrite it in a way that fit perfectly together the soulmarks with the canon facts.

Warning for heavy slut shaming (Angelus use Spike body to write on Buffy).

[kythwena]

Malfoy’s undoing the buttons of his formal robe as he walks, and rather than stopping next to Harry, he diverts, and sits down on the bench seat beneath the window. Once he’s finished undoing the buttons of his robe he shrugs it off his shoulders, and makes a start on the buttons of his shirt. Harry turns and rinses out his mouth in the sink. “What are you doing?” he asks his reflection, which stares back at him, a bit red faced. Mirror Malfoy, only just visible at the edge of the glass, shrugs. “Keeping a promise,” he says, and then pauses. “If you want.” There’s a challenge in his voice, and Harry’s never been one to turn away from a challenge.

Written on the Heart by who_la_hoop Collection: H/D Erised 2016