Chapter Text
You get your mark when the oldest half of you turns three, and if your mate has already reached that age, you'll be born with your mark. Because the marks work in this way, it is not surprising to be born without one. It could mean you're the oldest half, or that there is a small age gap between you. Often, mates are of a very similar age, so it's difficult to tell which scenario is true in the instance of unmarked babies. All there is to do is wait.
This was common knowledge, and so it came as no surprise when Geoff Ramsey was born with plain skin, his newborn body yet to have recognised and settled with its idea of a bond. It didn't concern his parents, didn't raise any suspicions. It was just as normal to be plain as it was to be marked upon birth, so for the early years of Geoff's life, nobody worried about him and the situation he was in, because nobody knew it was out of the ordinary.
Geoff's third birthday arrived and his mother checked, looking him over for any sign of his mark, any clue into the identity of her son's mate, but there was nothing there. That was fine. Geoff would be the oldest, then, and whenever his bond was born, he would get his mark. The age gap wasn't that bad, although a lot of people had marks by the time they were three, it still didn't set alarm bells ringing in the head of Geoff's mother. When he played with the kids in his neighbourhood, he wasn't the only one to still be without a mark, and so it didn't bother him all that much. Still, he'd check every night before he went to bed, searching for his mark. When he didn't find it he'd crawl into bed, closing his eyes and imagining everything he could about his younger half. He'd imagine what they looked like, what their names would be, where he would get their mark, what colour it would be. Geoff could never pick one fantasy that he liked best of all, and so every night he'd fall asleep to a different face in his mind, a different name in his head. This continued for the next two years of Geoff's life.
Geoff was now five years old, clutching at his mom's hand as he trudged around the store with her. Occasionally he'd find something that he liked the look of and tug on her arm, begging to be treated to cookies or marshmallows, or whatever it was he wanted. He was just trying to convince her that ice cream was a good idea, even if it was December, when all of a sudden he stopped talking and gave a small yelp in a mixture of surprise and pain.
"Geoff? What is it, are you okay?" She asked hurriedly, rushing to kneel beside her son who had fallen down.
"My leg feels all funny," Geoff grumbled, rubbing at it with a slight pout. "And it hurt, Mama."
"Well what happened?"
"I don't know! It just went all tingly and it burned, but now it just feels funny," Geoff sighed, his brow furrowed as he prodded at his leg, testing. He poked a particularly sore spot and hissed in pain, quickly pulling his hand back again. His mother just watched, a small smile starting to creep onto her face.
"It's okay baby," she soothed, picking Geoff up and carefully putting him down in the shopping cart. "You're okay."
"I am?" he asked, looking up expectantly, awaiting a further explanation. "How'd you know?"
"Because your mate was just born. That was your mark you felt."
The rest of their trip passed by in a blur, during which, Geoff got his ice cream. When they got home Geoff ran inside, getting as quickly as he could up to his bedroom. He needed to see it, wanted to know what it was, to learn everything about it. He pulled off his jeans, careful not hurt the part of his leg that still wasn't feeling right, before getting up and sitting cross-legged on his bed. He looked down into his lap, and there on the inside of his right thigh was the letter R, seared into the skin. The letter was a simple print for now, the bright shade of blue standing out against the surrounding skin, which was currently a little red from the burn. Geoff reached out and traced over the R gingerly, his finger going over the letter gently, as though he were scared it would disappear if he wasn't or if he looked away. He marvelled at it for a few long moments on his own before dashing off out of his room and downstairs.
"Mama, Mama, look!" He called as he ran into the kitchen. His mother laughed fondly as she turned to find Geoff standing there, a huge smile on his face. "Come see it!" At this she nodded and walked over to her little boy, kneeling before him and looking at the spot on his leg to which Geoff was pointing. "Isn't it pretty?"
"It sure is," she agreed, moving to kiss Geoff's head. "Is it still hurting?"
"No, it's okay now," Geoff replied honestly, still looking down at the new addition to his leg.
"Good. Now, how about you go play for a little bit, then we'll have dinner and ice cream."
"Yeah!" The young boy agreed enthusiastically, leaving the room to go back upstairs. Geoff Ramsey was now content in the knowledge that his mate had been born, even if he didn't know anything else about them. However, this feeling wasn't going to last all that long.
Christmas had been and gone, but Geoff was still on winter break. He was currently sprawled on the floor in front of the couch, playing with some of his new toys whilst his mother was relaxing, watching a movie on TV. The few days off after New Year's was always the same with them, a calm and quiet occasion that they shared together after they'd said goodbye to the rest of the family before they had to go back to school and work. Geoff really enjoyed it, and he laughed from where he was, letting go of his Stretch Armstrong and watching as his arms shrunk back in to their normal size with a giggle. Everything was normal there and to anyone looking at the scene there would be nothing out of place. Not even Geoff nor his mother knew. Then there was a familiar pain that shot across his stomach before blooming against his hip. It didn't hurt as much as he had remembered, but it was still something that he recognised, a feeling that he would never forget. Had only been a little over a year since Geoff had experienced that distinctive burn, but despite all this he still gave a small cry, quickly slapping his hand over his mouth in embarrassment. It wasn't even hurting now, not really, but the sensation had surprised the boy.
"What happened?" Geoff's mother questioned, looking down to him whilst he stared back up with wide eyes. He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to actually figure out in his young mind what had just happened to him before he could explain it to his mother. Except he couldn't find the words, couldn't understand why it was he'd felt that again. He was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen. Perhaps he had just imagined it, perhaps it was nothing, maybe it was all in Geoff's head.
He didn't answer, but instead sat up onto his knees, looking down at where his stomach had stung slightly, even though his shirt was in the way. Slowly he reached down, grabbing the hem of the pyjama top and lifting it up slowly to get a glimpse at his hip and figure out what had caused it to hurt. He heard a gasp from his mother, who had been watching him intently, but he paid little attention. All of his focus was directed at the skin he'd just exposed, or more importantly the new addition to his skin that sat upon sore flesh. There, just above his left hip and as plain as the mark he had on his leg, was the letter J printed in a shade of brown that seemed to swirl between light and dark, unable to make up its mind.
"Is that supposed to happen?" Geoff asked in a small voice, his little head conflicted. He had never heard of this, knew that this didn't happen. People didn't have two marks. Yet despite that, despite the fear over why he had a new letter there permanently on his skin, he couldn't help but love it the same way he'd fallen in love with his first one.
"I've heard stories," his mother replied in a whisper, picking Geoff up and sitting him down on the couch with her so that she could take a closer look. "About people who get two, but I never believed them. I just thought they were made up. Looks like they're true."
"So I'm weird then? This... Not everybody has more than one?"
"Most people don't, no. But that doesn't make you weird. You're normal, okay baby? This," she said, her hand moving to hover over the new mark. "Just means that you have a big heart. You've got more love to go around, see? There's three of you, and you'll all make it work, together. That's how you're meant to be."
"But..." Geoff trailed off, lost for a moment as he touched the new letter and grinned to himself. When he looked up again his face fell, but his fingers lingered on his warm tummy. "They're still just babies, right? I get these when they're born, so they... They're both only little."
"You're the biggest, yeah," his mother laughed in reply. The sound was warm and Geoff's worries seemed to slide away with it. "And you're all little for now. When you're bigger, when you meet them, that won't matter. You all take care of each other."
"What if I don't know how though, Mama? What if they need me and I can't help 'em, what if I-"
"Geoff, stop worrying," she interrupted, running a hand through his hair. "You'll know how to help them, how to work things out. Besides, if there's three of you, you get even more help. You'll have two mates covering your back, not just one. You'll be fine, trust me." Geoff nodded in reply, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around his mother, sighing softly as he pressed into her side, drifting off into slumber soon enough. Whilst he slept his mother worried herself, knowing that not everyone would be accepting of the abnormal bonds her son had formed. She just hoped she could protect him enough until he had his mates there with him.
After that, Geoff led a fairly normal life. He wasn't the most popular kid at school, since the situation with his marks made most people avoid him. His was taunted for it a lot and sometimes people were pretty mean about it, but Geoff didn't listen to them. When anyone said something about it, Geoff would think of his mates. He'd tell himself that wherever they were, they would have to deal with the same thing, that he wasn't the only one. He was the oldest and he was determined to stay strong, so that he could be there for the other parts of himself. This, along with all that his mother told him, helped Geoff to rise above everyone who tried to mock him because he had bonded with two people.
When he started middle school, Geoff was able to make a few friends. Most of them were singled out for being too nerdy, but Geoff found that of the small number of people in their group, everyone was nice. Nobody said anything mean, like they had some unspoken agreement to be the opposite of their bullies. They all kept together and not one of them was bothered by the fact Geoff had one more mark than he maybe should have. Of course, things in Geoff's life were destined to be complicated, and it seemed that the universe enjoyed flipping his world over when he had just got used to this new one.
It was Geoff's last week of school before summer vacation, his last year of being in the sixth grade. It was a typically hot day and he and his friends had seated themselves outside beneath a tree, where they could eat their lunch shaded from the Alabama sun. Geoff was smiling and laughing along with the group when the noise was cut short by a sharp intake of breath. Geoff's hand flew to his knee, huffing softly to himself. Everyone else had stopped talking and turned to look at him, their faces varied between concern and curiosity. Geoff's hand remained over his knee, clutching to his leg as he looked around at the faces of his friends.
"You okay, Geoff?" Tammy asked from beside him, leaning forward slightly to look him in the eye. Geoff gave her a shaky nod in response, but he knew what had happened. The six years that had passed him by suddenly felt like six minutes and his heart was hammering in his chest as he tried to decide what he should do, to understand why this was happening again.
"I, uh, yeah," he replied rather unconvincingly. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Something happened," Shawn added, blonde hair bobbing as he nodded to the hand Geoff still had over his knee. Geoff let out a deep breath in response, knowing that he wouldn't be able to cover this up. He decided he didn't want to anyway.
"Yeah," was all he said in reply before he took his hand away. He wasn't sure if he was glad or frustrated that he was wearing shorts, but he did know that the chocolate brown M on the inside of his left knee looked beautiful. He laughed softly to himself, forgetting he was surrounded by people as he brushed his thumb over it fondly, in love with it already. He was torn from his moment, though, when Shawn piped up again.
"You got another one!" He exclaimed, pointing to Geoff's leg. His voice was void of the anger that Geoff had expected, filled only with genuine surprise. He forced himself to look up, taking in the group of people he'd become so close to. "That's crazy."
"You're telling me," Geoff laughed nervously, waiting for the bomb to drop. He braced himself, getting ready for his friends to turn on him, to start shouting abuse at him, except it never came.
"How many's that now?" Another voice asked.
"Four," he replied. "Four including me. Christ," he muttered under his breath, his finger going over his skin despite the pain, trying to memorise the addition. "You took your time," he said to the M, knowing that his mate couldn't hear him, but it felt good to pretend. He shook his head, remembering the group and looking up to stunned and smiling faces. "I, uhm... Don't you guys think I'm a freak?" he asked quietly. His friends actually laughed at that.
"I think we're all freaks," a boy, Burnie, replied. "Just in our own ways. That makes us wanna stick together. We freaks gotta look out for each other, see. Don't worry, Geoff. We don't care."
Geoff and Burnie became best friends after that. Of course, their group was still together, but those two in particular became inseparable. They not only did everything in school together, but spent most of their time around one another's houses, just hanging out. They were currently treating themselves to a night at the movies, sat at the back of the theatre and munching on popcorn. Occasionally they would mutter comments to one another about what was happening, but for the most part they were both engrossed in the film. Burnie caught Geoff twitching in the corner of his eye, turning to his friend with a questioning look. Geoff sighed heavily in response, scratching at the back of his neck before getting up and shuffling past the row of people so he could get out of the theatre. Burnie frowned deeply and watched Geoff leave, completely baffled and worrying a little. Something was up. He got to his feet and followed behind the younger boy, muttering apologies as he pushed passed people. When he was free he ran after Geoff, trying to be as quiet as he could.
Burnie ran out of the theatre and looked around, spotting Geoff a little way off down the corridor, sat on one of the seats with his head leaned back against the wall. Burnie walked up to him slowly, able to see that Geoff was a little shaken, that something wasn't quite right.
"You okay there?" He asked from Geoff's side, but not sitting down just yet.
"I don't know," Geoff sighed, not lifting his gaze from the carpet. "I don't think that I know anything anymore."
"What makes you say that? You know loads of stuff," Burnie countered.
"No, all I know is that people keep saying things and they aren't true. People always say that I'm not normal, they say that whatever is happening to me is a mistake. I'm sick of it. I try my damn best not to listen to them but it's so hard and I just... I don't know. What if they're right, Burnie?"
"They're not right," Burnie laughed gently, shaking his head and taking a seat beside Geoff. "Jeez, Geoff, there's some idiots about, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to everything they say. Anyone who talks crap about you is questioning a soul bond, your soul bonds. You'd have to be completely dumb to doubt marks and all that stuff. Anyway, what the hell's brought all this on?"
"I'd question it too," Geoff mumbled and before Burnie could ask about that Geoff turned his head as far as he could in Burnie's direction. Burnie let out a soft sigh as his gaze fell on Geoff's neck.
"Have you seen it?" He asked, to which Geoff shook his head. Burnie got back on his feet and took hold of his friend's arm, tugging him up too. "C'mon then."
Before Geoff had a chance to protest, Burnie was dragging him into the bathroom. He headed straight for the sinks, pushing Geoff forward before stepping back.
"Look at it," Burnie said gently, watching the other boy expectantly. Geoff turned his head and let out a choked sob, his hand coming up to cover the spot behind his ear in an almost protective manner.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his head hanging in shame. "I'm sorry, I don't doubt you. Any of you," he continued to mutter to himself. "We'll be just fine." Geoff gave a firm nod of his head and moved his hand to wipe at his eyes. He couldn't stop looking into the mirror, didn't want to look away from the beautiful green G that now sat just below his hairline, behind his right ear. Yeah, so maybe this was crazy, the whole thing. But Geoff's life had been crazy since he was just six years old. Now he was nearly thirteen and it seemed as though his life was just going to be complicated, that the craziness wasn't going away, at least not for a long time. Geoff decided he could deal with that. "All of five of us are gonna be okay."
The bullying only worsened with the addition of his fourth mark, but Geoff was beyond caring. Getting upset about being shoved into lockers or thrown on the floor wouldn't help anything, so Geoff fought back. He wore all four of his marks with pride, and even though only one was constantly visible, Geoff practically flaunted them. They were his and Geoff was proud of that. His confidence about the fact he was so different, coupled with his physical strength that showed when someone got a little too close for comfort earned Geoff a fair bit of respect in school. Still, that didn't mean he was excited to be back after summer.
Now that he was in eighth grade, starting his final year of middle school, hardly anyone bothered him about his mark. Everyone that was his age knew just what he was like and that crossing him was a bad idea and the younger kids, even the toughest, had heard enough to deter them. Neither Geoff nor Burnie were bothered on a regular basis and when someone did make a comment or try and humiliate either of them, Geoff would quickly put them in their place. He wasn't a bad kid by any means, he did pretty well in school and he worked hard, it was just that he wasn't afraid to stand up for himself. When he was younger and had become more confident in himself he got into more and more fights. The teachers all had the wrong impression about him and most weren't too fond of him, seeing him as a trouble-maker.
Geoff was sat at the front of the class, as his teacher had decided he would when creating their seating plan. Thankfully Burnie was also at the front in the next row over, so Geoff didn't mind all that much. It was pretty annoying, knowing that he could be trusted to sit further back, but he could deal with it. For the most part Geoff kept his head down and got on with his work, only occasionally leaning over to whisper or pass notes to Burnie. Right now Geoff was leaning back, having finished the test that they'd been given on a Friday, of all days. If that wasn't a bad enough start to the day, then the universe decided it would just have to keep pushing. Geoff swore suddenly, the two front legs of his chair slamming down onto the floor and the desk flying forward from the force with which Geoff had kicked it. Their teacher looked up, eyes narrowed and landing on the boy directly in front of him.
"Is there a problem?" He asked, which Geoff knew was a prompt to explain himself. He didn't instead he huffed to himself and propped a leg up on the desk, starting to untie his shoelace. "Mr. Ramsey? Mr. Ramsey, get your foot down. And if you could keep your shoes on, please?"
"Yeah, hang on," Geoff replied hurriedly, clearly distracted with his shoe. This, apparently, was not the right thing to say and only angered his teacher further.
"Geoffrey! This is not the time for fooling around, there is a test going on!" Again, Geoff was too preoccupied to respond, now in the process of pulling his sock off. Burnie was watching him closely, wondering if his friend had actually lost his mind. In fact, the whole class had stopped to look up and watch, all of them wondering much the same thing as Burnie. Geoff let out a small noise of disbelief before he started laughing to himself. "Is there something funny, Mr. Ramsey? Because if there is, I'm sure the class would love to hear about it."
"I don't know, I think it's pretty funny. I just got my mark, that's all."
"Seriously?" Burnie cried, leaning over to look to Geoff's foot. Surely enough, there below the bone of his ankle was the letter R, a deep brown in colour. "Dude! You're fourteen!" Geoff shrugged in reply, not paying attention to all the mutterings and whispers of his classmates.
"They're only like, a year younger than the last one," he countered, touching the mark gently and grinning. "The baby of us all."
"Yes, very funny, Geoffrey. However, mates are not something that you should be joking about. That is very disrespectful."
"What?" Geoff snapped, going into defensive mode now that his mates were being brought into this. "What, you think I'd joke about them? You think that I'm the one being disrespectful?"
"Geoff, c'mon..." Burnie said gently, reaching out his hand tentatively to his friend's arm, hoping he could calm him.
"No, Burnie!" he yelled back, pulling his arm away. "I'm tired of everyone being like this about it. I'm sick of everyone laughing and jeering, I am sick of my mates being insulted all the time and I'm not putting up with it! What, so there was five of us. That apparently was funny enough, and now there's another one. Big deal. I don't give a damn how weird any of you think it is that there are six of us, because none of you are involved in this. So how about you all just shut up and keep out of other peoples' business. And if you have a problem with that, if you don't like the fact I don't have one but five marks on me, I've got a brilliant idea. Keep your god damn mouth shut about it."
Geoff was on his feet by this point, addressing his class who all stared back up at him in stunned silence, with the exception of Burnie who was grinning a little, trying to contain himself. When he finished talking, Geoff gave a firm nod of his head and grabbed his stuff, making sure not to forget his shoe and sock. He walked calmly and proudly out of the classroom despite being half bare-footed and made a point of slamming the door behind him. As he walked down the empty hall toward the exit, he looked down at his feet and the R that showed back up at him.
"Don't worry, little one," He said quietly. "I got your back."