Chapter Text
If Alenca had to pinpoint one exact moment where her life started to go wrong, it would be the day she met her soulmate.
Oh, she used to dream about it, too. When she was little she would gaze fondly at the name on the inside of her wrist and wonder just who Laceaga Darhal was, if they were as excited to meet her as she was to meet them. Vanya had told her more than once that not all soulmates were romantic – hers wasn’t – and that having someone’s name didn’t mean they had hers, too. Told her to keep her hopes low, so as not to get disappointed.
In hindsight? Vanya was right.
That whole morning, she’d felt… different. Not the pull that some people said they felt, but just off. She was on her way to class – she’d enrolled in a summer course at her college so she could get credits while working at the library – when it started to get stronger. By the time she was seated, waiting for the professor to show up, she couldn’t concentrate, full of energy, her leg shaking underneath the desk. She felt like she was about to explode.
Alenca managed by looking at her phone, replying to some messages she’d gotten while she was walking, quickly slipping it into her bag when the professor walked in. It was a pretty small class, she realized – but she supposed that not too many people wanted to take their general electives during the summer.
By the time the professor got around to role call, she had gotten some of her jitters under control, at least enough not to jump when she heard him call her name.
All her self-control meant nothing when she heard him say, “Oh – and someone who joined last minute… Laceaga Darhal?”
Her head turned on instinct at the sound of a gruff acknowledgement, trying to locate the source – and then Alenca felt the world around her careen to a halt. He was looking at her – looking right at her, eyes a little wide with shock, and as she looked into his eyes all that pent-up energy melted away into something else, something wild and dangerous that hardened with a pull in her gut. A sense of blissed-out calm washed over her and she thought, yes, this is it. A sigh of relief escaped her lips and she smiled at him. Her soulmate. Laceaga.
He glared at her and looked away.
Things didn’t get better from there. After class, when she’d gone up to him, he told her in no uncertain terms that the whole soulmate thing was bullshit. Or, rather, soulmates were “for the weak and needy”.
She tried to introduce herself at least, but he just rebuffed her. “I know what your name is,” he scoffed, making an irritated gesture to his wrist. Apparently he had her name – he just didn’t want to.
Lacey was a slip of the tongue – an honest accident, really – but it seemed to shock and annoy him and that worked for her hurt heart.
So. Not the best first impression.
The next ones weren’t any better. Despite the gnawing emptiness she felt when he wasn’t around, despite the pain of not having any kind of connection with her soulmate, she left him alone. She wasn’t an asshole. But when the universe tied you to a person it was hard not to at least look in their direction and Lacey met every look with a roll of his eyes and a glare, if not worse. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the prick always sat near her in class, usually only a seat away. Close enough to soothe some of the upset so she guessed he felt it too, or at least enough that sitting near her was preferable to whatever else he felt.
Of course, since they sat near each other, they were sometimes grouped for discussions and boy was that fun. Lacey did enough of the readings to get by, judging from how often he participated in class, but in smaller groups they always wound up in a banter. The early ones were usually a little heated, but later? Less argumentative. More teasing. More shared glances whenever somebody said something objectively wrong.
It all led up to one, life-changing moment, when Alenca got off her late shift after a full day of studying, looking forward to the weekend, and returned to her student apartment to find the building in flames. The first responders had already set up barriers, the firetrucks were already on full blast, people were being examined by paramedics. The reasonable part of her thought to find Haron, one of her floormates, or Calipoa, the residence supervisor, to ask them what was going on. The emotional part wanted Lacey.
For what, she didn’t know. He’d probably just roll his eyes and walk away, as usual, leave the “weak and needy” to their business. Still, she wanted him near – or that strange pull did.
Taking a deep breath, she walked over to the curb opposite and sat down, hoping to find her phone in her bag. Maybe it was a good thing she had decided to study that day – she had her laptop, textbook and notes all in her bag. It was probably the only thing keeping her from bursting into tears. She sent a few quick messages to Haron and Cali, mostly along the lines of, why is the building on fire and what’s the plan, before searching online for pictures of cats. Cats were good. Cats would make her forget that everything she owned, save for what she had in her bag, was probably gone.
Alenca didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, fielding messages from Cali telling her to stay put while she was trying to round everyone up, but eventually something got her attention – or rather, someone, as a pair of feet appeared out of the corner of her eye. At first, she thought it was Cali, but as she glanced up, she saw heavy-duty boots and torn jeans and a military jacket and Lacey, she realized with a rush of warmth and affection.
He was glaring down at her, but there wasn’t any bitterness in it. “Figured you’d be here.”
“Yeah, well.” She gestured across the street. “I live here.”
Lacey glanced over his shoulder and snorted. “Not anymore.”
Anger bubbled up in her throat and she shot him a weak glare; she didn’t have the energy for any real venom. “Your powers of observation continue to amaze, Lacey.”
He snorted again as part of a laugh that dissolved into a smirk. “You’re not going to sit there all night, are you?”
“I’m waiting for someone – she’s just trying to figure out who needs a place to stay and who doesn’t.”
At this, Lacey tensed. “You don’t need –“ he stopped himself. “Rather than sit out here all night –“ he stopped again and then cursed under his breath. “Come on.”
Alenca really didn’t need much convincing – anything was preferable to sitting in front of her now-ruined home. She grabbed her bag and hopped to her feet, unable to keep a smile off her face. “Are you actually helping me, Lacey?”
“It’s easier this way,” was his offhand response as he started walking. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he meant. As she took a few quick steps to follow, she felt some of the chaos and tension inside her ebb away in face of an overpowering sense of peace, a calm rooted in a sense of rightness, that she had, ironically, come to associate with being near Lacey.
Her smile turned teasing. “Easier for you?”
“Obviously.” His tone was curt and he shoved his hands in his pockets. Alenca let out a light laugh and walked along with him. They only stopped once along the way, when she noticed a 24-hour pharmacy and decided to go buy some essentials. Lacey only rolled his eyes and told her that if she took too long he’d leave her there. Alenca’s only response to the empty threat was a teasing look before she went inside the store. She grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste, along with some deodorant (that she’d need no matter where she wound up staying, she reasoned) and a little travel pack of shower supplies (to avoid having to lug around full-sized bottles until she got a more permanent place). As she paid for them, though, the reality of her situation – that Lacey’s arrival had helped her ignore for a little while – came crashing back down onto her shoulders.
She braced for the inevitable Lacey remark as she rejoined him, but it never came. He opened his mouth as if he was going to make one and shut it when their eyes met. There was a moment of silence.
“It’s not that far,” he finally said. Alenca nodded numbly.
Lacey’s apartment building was one of the newer ones in the city, not too upscale but clearly of decent quality. Lacey smirked at the look of surprise on her face as he led her in, making a quick comment about the building’s security. Alenca didn’t respond. The emotional extremes of the day just left her tired, and her back was killing her from carrying her laptop around all day.
His apartment itself was on the fourth floor and, as she saw when she stepped through the doorway, was clean and spartan. Glancing to her right she saw the kitchen had a small table with two chairs; the main area had a worn couch, a cheap coffee table, and some workout equipment. Lacey shrugged off his jacket and tossed it onto a hook on the wall, pausing only to kick off his boots on his way towards one of the doors connecting to the main living area. Alenca took a little more care in untying her laces and hanging her coat, using the time to look around more. The few things Lacey had on the walls were practical, hooks and shelves, rather than decorative.
“You’re on the couch,” he called out, and she let out a little sigh of relief as she sat down. Soulmate or not, she didn’t feel fully comfortable sharing a bed. There were a few banging noises – drawers being pulled open and closed, she thought – and Lacey reappeared to toss something at her – a loose sheet, she realized, probably pulled from his own bed.
“I don’t have extra blankets,” he said, already walking to the kitchen, “and I keep the place cold.”
Yeah, that she could tell, what with the goosebumps on her arms as she tried to get settled. She was midway through digging through her bag in the hope that she didn’t leave her favorite lip balm in her apartment when her phone went off. She jumped at the sound – Lacey snorted a laugh – and dove to answer it, a little out of breath from the startle.
“H-hello?”
“Alenca?” Calipoa’s voice was clear as day and fraught with worry. “Where are you? I thought you said you were by the bus stop – “
Shit. “Yeah, I – I bumped in to someone I knew, and I forgot to text you –“ A loud sigh of relief cut her off. “Sorry, Cali. It – it was just really chaotic, and – “
“I know. It’s alright… I’m just tired. Are you good for the night?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Get some rest. When I get an update from the school I’ll let you know – we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do long-term.”
Alenca winced. “That bad?”
Another sigh. “You saw how it was. Whatever the fire didn’t get, the water probably did. Even if it’s salvageable it won’t be habitable for a while. But I need to go; Haron’s trying to convince people that now is an excellent time to go drinking.”
Managing a weak laugh, she replied, “I can’t say I blame him. You get some rest too, okay?”
“I’ll try,” and another weak laugh were all she heard before Calipoa hung up. Alenca let out a long, drawn up sigh and rubbed at her temples before getting up to join Lacey in the kitchen.
She was only hoping for a glass of water, but what she saw was better than that: two plates of what looked to be leftover takeout, steaming from being microwaved. Lacey was already eating his, a half-empty beer next to his plate. When she asked about water he jerked his head in the direction of the sink.
Once she managed to find a glass (upper left cabinet) and fill it, she sat opposite him and started to eat. It hadn’t occurred to her how hungry she was until she could smell actual food; she was a few forkfuls in before she remembered that she hadn’t really thanked him yet. Once her mouth was empty she looked up to do just that and found him looking at her.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“The person I was waiting for, she wanted to know where I was. I forgot to let her know that I was going with you.”
A smirk appeared on his lips. “I guess I can be that exciting.”
Excited, relieved, same thing, really, or it was at least close enough to the truth that Alenca just blushed in response. They ate in silence for a few more minutes before a question – one of the many she had about Lacey, really – popped into her head. Without even thinking about it, she asked it.
“How’d you know what was going on?”
Almost immediately, Lacey scowled at her and, practically slamming his beer bottle on the table out of sudden annoyance. It was enough to know that the answer had to do with Lacey’s favorite subject.
“The damn bond,” he muttered after a pause. “I was trying to focus on work. So,” he added, “I guess that makes it your fault that I left early.”
“My fault that my apartment building caught on fire?” Oh, if he wasn’t housing and feeding her, she would have had a few choice words. Still, Lacey scoffed, as if even he knew that was a little ridiculous.
“No, your fault you can’t keep it down a little.”
“I don’t think the soulmate bond has a volume option, Lacey.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t brush the word off outright, the way he used to. Instead he just let out a strained sigh. “It should.”
Alenca used the silence that settled to finish eating. She thought about getting up, putting her plate in the sink with the intention to do the dishes tomorrow to try and pay him back, when another question came to her.
“Do you… keep your emotions down?”
The look Lacey shot her way told her that the answer to that was a resounding no, but his glare faltered after a moment. “You don’t feel them?”
Alenca shook her head. “Maybe it’s based on need.” Really, it was hard to study the specifics of the whole soulmate thing. Every single bond was different – and Alenca didn’t know a lot of people with soulmates. Her parents were dead. Vanya’s soulmate was platonic and very happily married by the time they met and, Vanya still being Vanya, they didn’t talk much. All she knew about her friends that had soulmates was the very fact that they had them, not if they met, nor the little intricacies of their relationships.
“Bullshit,” Lacey spat out, grabbing both his and her dishes and putting them forcibly in the sink. For all the venom, she thought it wasn’t directed at her – just that where she was confused by the whole soulmate deal, Lacey was pissed at the very concept.
She didn’t need to feel his emotions to know that talking would do more harm than good, though, and instead she went back to her bag. She plugged in her phone to charge and opened her laptop to send emails to both her professor and her boss, letting them both know what had happened and that things would probably be chaotic for her for the next few days.
As she put her computer away she realized that since both were associated with the school, they’d probably find out about the fire… but she liked to be on top of these things. Focusing on what needed to be done kept her from collapsing.
Though, now that she had eaten and had a place to sleep for the night, collapsing was starting to sound like a pretty good idea. She had to force herself up to go brush her teeth in the washroom and she was glad she did; it wasn’t until she was looking at herself in the mirror, dressed in what she usually wore for work (a white button-down and some nice pants), that it occurred to her she wasn’t dressed in prime sleeping clothes.
Just one more thing to ask Lacey about. Great.
“Lacey?” she called out, leaving the bathroom. She heard a muffled response from behind his bedroom door. “I – could I borrow some clothes? Just to sleep in – “
She fell quiet when she heard a long, drawn-out groan from the other side of the door. There was the sound of drawers being opened and closed – and then Lacey was in front of her, a shirtless and scowling Lacey, thrusting a bundle of clothes out at her.
“Thanks...” Alenca was quick to take them, willing herself not to finish the thought that was lurking in the back of her mind, that the workout equipment was definitely not for nothing – and there it was. She quickly turned to go change in the washroom, hoping that she managed to hide her blush – but Lacey’s low laugh told her that she hadn’t.
She changed quickly. He’d given her a t-shirt, a pair of boxer shorts, and flannel pajama pants, all of which hung off her frame (not a surprise considering their difference in size) and seemed to smell like him.
Not that she had intentionally smelled them. It was just a thing that happened when she pulled the shirt on.
That done, she threw herself down on the couch and curled up underneath the sheet, allowing her exhaustion to carry her off to sleep.
Alenca woke with a start much earlier than she would have liked the next morning to the sounds of music – Lacey’s workout playlist, she realized, when she opened her eyes to see him over by the equipment, paying her no mind. She folded up the sheet before grabbing her shower kit and her clothes and heading into the bathroom. The water pressure wasn’t the best but the heat of the water was welcome; she left the washroom feeling refreshed – optimistic, even. Lacey was still focused on his workout, so she didn’t bother with trying to greet him and instead headed into the kitchen.
She’d already decided to wash the dishes, so she started on that while Lacey was still occupied. While she was waiting for the sink to fill with water, it occurred to her that she could probably make breakfast, too – it was a more concrete way of thanking him than what he probably saw as empty words. And, since she wasn’t keen on lying to herself, she was hoping he would warm to the idea of being around her, if only to make things easier on the both of them. If he didn’t want a relationship? Fine, she could live with that. But maybe she could get him to see that being friends with her wasn’t so negative, that she wasn’t helpless and needy…
Alenca groaned under her breath as she started to scrub at the plates. For whatever reason, some grand power saw fit to tie Lacey and her together… and she wasn’t inclined to fight it. It was fun being around him – he responded well to her banter and teasing, even if she wasn’t as heavy-handed with the sarcasm – so it wasn’t like it was a tragedy. Maybe unfortunate that they’re bound by something they can’t control… but regardless of whatever brought him into her life, he was there, and she was going to make the most of it.
She was jolted out of her thoughts by Lacey reaching over her to get a glass out of the cupboard, one hand on her shoulder. He shifted somewhat around her to fill it – and wow, he looked good with his hair swept back like that. His face was still flushed from his workout and he was breathing heavier than usual, but his eyes were as bright and predatory as they ever were as he took in her reaction. His smirk vanished only for a moment at the temperature of the water, but he drained the glass anyway.
“Making yourself at home?”
“Oh, yeah,” Alenca snarked – okay, maybe she was a little sarcastic. “That’s how I make myself comfortable, by doing other people’s chores.”
Lacey let out a snort, placing the glass next to the sink on his way out of the kitchen. She’d just finished drying and putting everything away (his kitchen was pretty well-organized, to her surprise) when she heard the sound of the shower running so she continued on with her plan to make breakfast, figuring she wouldn’t be bothered for a while. After giving the contents of his fridge a quick appraisal she decided on omelets.
“What are you – “ Lacey started, when he walked in the kitchen a while later, ruffling his hair with a towel, and then he fell silent seeing her flip the second omelet from the pan onto a plate. “One of those better be for me.”
“No, I just like eating off two plates,” Alenca replied with a sweet smile, divvying up the fruit she’d sliced between the two plates. She heard Lacey’s vaguely-amused sound behind her before he reached around and grabbed one of the plates out from under her. “Lacey! I wasn’t done.”
“Tough,” he replied, grabbing a fork and sitting down at the table. She thought he was going to eat right away, but when she sat opposite him with her own breakfast she saw that he hadn’t. Lacey was nowhere near considerate enough to actually wait for her – he was looking over the plate with suspicion.
“What?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s going to make me sick,” was his response, a lopsided grin making its way onto his face, “because there’s no way you managed to make a meal without the risk of food poisoning.”
Alenca made a face at him and stuck a strawberry into her mouth. “Shut up and eat your eggs, Lacey.”
She was rewarded with an honest-to-god laugh, one that was low and dangerous and made her smile all at once. They ate in a comfortable near-silence, which Alenca took to mean that he didn’t have any complaints. She would have been surprised if he did – she’d learned how to cook from a pretty young age, since Vanya worked so much. Not to be cocky, but she was fairly good at it.
She cleaned up once they were done, too, and Lacey even managed a “thanks for making yourself useful,” so she saw that as a success. By the time she sat back down on the couch, she saw that Cali had texted her, saying that they ruled the building safe enough for people to go in and see if anything was salvageable. She mentioned it to Lacey and he gave something of a shrug.
“I need to go out anyway, so might as well go now.”
“You’re coming with?”
He rolled his eyes. “Unless you know how to get back into this building without me.”
They left together, at least, though Lacey took off a few minutes before they got to her building to go run whatever errands he needed. Alenca didn’t mind; she wasn’t entirely sure what shape her room was in and how she would react. Plus, the knowledge that he would be meeting up with her afterwards helped ground her. At least she wouldn’t feel as adrift and soulmate-less as she did the night before.
Calipoa greeted her with a hug and a smile, though she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink – and she laughed off the question when Alenca asked if she had. With a small sigh, she said, “If you’re ready I’ll take you up. Just stay close, okay?”
Ready as she ever was, Alenca agreed. She’d brought her bag with her, having left almost everything in it on Lacey’s couch, just in case there was anything she could bring back… but there wasn’t. Despite the condition that the rest of the building was in (badly scorched, damp, some parts blasted and broken from the strength of the hoses) she carried the naïve hope that everything in her room was fine up until the moment Cali opened the door.
Her posters, her bedding, her clothes were gone, only a few colourful scraps remaining. The carpet under her feet was a mix of ash and water, making an awful squelching sound as she looked around. Whatever had managed to escape the fire’s reach wasn’t so lucky when it came to the water.
She walked out without a word. She stood with Cali for a while, talking a little about her current plans (none) and if she was ready for her class on Tuesday (not at all), until another student showed up. Almost as if he planned it, Lacey showed up only a few minutes after Cali took the other student inside, two opaque shopping bags in hand. He didn’t need to ask – Alenca just shook her head.
“- but at least Cali said that the school should have long-term alternative housing ironed out in a day or two,” she explained to him as they walked, trying her best to be optimistic. Lacey just scoffed.
“Not like you need it.”
Alenca had a bitter retort on her tongue, but it fell apart the moment she registered his words. Instead she looked up at him, confused.
He rolled his eyes and let out an irritated noise. “Do you want to deal with whatever second-rate housing you’re going to get with the school?”
“I – no! I’m just surprised.”
Lacey let out another scoff. “Don’t be. I said it’s easier this way, didn’t I?”
That he did. Alenca just rolled her eyes and walked along with him, happy to let him use whatever excuse he wanted. Part of her wasn’t convinced – and that part of her grew stronger when they got back and Lacey handed the bags off to her. A pillow and a couple blankets – easier, sure.
Maybe the strangest part was that after that day, something seemed to settle between them. Nothing concrete was said, or really done – Lacey was just as Lacey as he ever was – but it felt like something shifted. More than once Alenca was trying to do her prep work for class in the kitchen when Lacey would come in and join her, to the point that they even started doing the readings together. Without meaning to they stumbled into a kind of schedule for housework – Lacey was tidier, Alenca was the better cook – and soon they were shopping for groceries together. Sometimes one of them would come back from work with takeout for both… which was made a lot easier when Lacey gave Alenca a key. A key.
“It’s easier this way,” he’d told her, rolling his eyes at her teasing grin, before he’d told her she’d better put her ice cream away before it melted.
It was nice, in a way. Comfortable, as undefined as it was. Lacey had even started to say she had to get a dresser for her clothes because he was tired of her keeping them folded in piles by the couch.
(“Where would we put it?” she’d asked, the we slipping out of her mouth before she could stop it. He didn’t correct her.)
Still, it couldn’t last that way forever. Alenca just didn’t expect the change to come in the form of a man she didn’t know, with green eyes and brown hair, calling out to Lacey as they were walking across campus after class. Lacey’s face immediately soured and he let out a drawn-out sigh.
“What do you want, Vadeyn?”
“The boss has been trying to –“ The man, Vadeyn apparently, stopped suddenly as his eyes landed on Alenca – and then they darted between her and Lacey, as if trying to puzzle them out. Lacey made another irritated noise.
“This is Alenca. This is Vadeyn,” he muttered, by means of introduction. Alenca gave Vadeyn what she thought was a friendly smile, but he just seemed more alarmed as he looked between the two of them, about to voice something when Lacey added, “if this is about work…?” and gestured to a nearby tree. Giving Alenca one last glance and a warm smile, Vadeyn nodded, the smile disappearing the moment he looked at Lacey.
Alenca tried not to look over in the direction of their conversation – really, she did. But bubbling up in her stomach was the sense that something was wrong, something that she couldn’t place, and when she tried to brush it off it only grew stronger. Still, as she forced herself to look away – they were only talking – she felt a harsh pull force her attention back on Lacey. Almost immediately, he glanced in her direction, and when he met her gaze her stomach dropped like a rock.
It seemed they had the same thought, or at least similar enough, because she started to make her way over to him and he started to walk away from Vadeyn, the conversation apparently finished. She didn’t speak until they were walking again, far from where they had left his co-worker behind.
“Bad news?”
“No.”
He was clenching and unclenching his fists. Alenca sighed. “Well, it wasn’t good news.”
“There wasn’t any news,” Lacey snapped.
Alenca was hesitant to ask what was wrong outright – no doubt he’d just brush it off – but then Lacey continued, his anger apparently winning out over his reluctance to talk.
“Vadeyn,” he hissed out the name, “is irritating. Annoying. So quick to coo and coddle over every little thing.”
“You’re not this worked up over someone being annoying.” It wasn’t a question. There was something else there – and it seemed that with that little pull, everything else came tumbling out. Lacey started to talk rapidly, as if she wasn’t even there.
“He’s all about people like you,” he spat, and before Alenca could ask what that even meant, he went on, “and he’s the sort of person you would probably rather be with if it weren’t for this fucking bond.”
The sudden honestly both shocked her and soothed at that strange upsetting pull she felt, but instead of being relieved Alenca’s heart twisted at the truth. “You’re… upset because we’re soulmates?”
“We wouldn’t be together otherwise,” Lacey said, snapping again. “We only met because of the names on our wrists. We probably wouldn’t have even look at each other without – “
“ – without the bond, but so what?” Lacey scoffed and looked away from her, clearly done with the conversation, but Alenca wasn’t. She reached up and turned his face back to look her in the eye, keeping her hand on his cheek as she spoke. “We control how we act, what we say. No matter how this started I choose to stay here – “
“Because it feels wrong not to - !”
Kissing him might not have been the best way to get him to see her side of the argument, but it was the only thing she could think of. He wasn’t reacting, which either meant he was shocked into stillness or frozen from rage – but when she pulled back she saw it was neither. She moved her hand to press a finger across his lips.
“I chose to do that, Lacey. No soulbond made me. No matter what it is, what it does to us, we’re not mindless animals. We can choose what we want to be… and I choose this, whatever this is.”
She watched as some of the tension left his body. He reached up and moved her hand away from his mouth, lips curling into a smirk as he did so. “I guess I am pretty that big a catch,” he said, the cockiness back in his voice – but the way he held her hand as they walked told her something different.
Oh, well. She’d let him pretend. “I guess you did grow on me – like a mold,” she replied in a sing-song voice, smiling at how he laughed under his breath.
“We should probably see about getting your name on the lease,” he said when they were home, “if you’re going to be staying here and eating all my food.”
Alenca laughed and made a show of rolling her eyes, but one word stuck out to her.
We.
She liked the sound of that.