Chapter Text
“Hey, check this out,” Benny says, holding up his wrist by his face. Wrapped around said wrist is a bracelet with thick, braided, brown thread laced through two small holes on the edges of a flat, circular, grey stone with magic markings on it.
Ethan looks at it dubiously. “Wow, nice… bracelet,” Ethan says dully, soon distracted by something behind Benny, and Benny can tell what - actually who - it is just by looking at the nervous smile on Ethan’s face. “Hey, Sarah,” he greets.
Benny rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but grins mischievously nonetheless, moving a little to make room for Sarah in the space by their lockers as she greets them. “This bracelet enchanted so that, while I’m wearing it, it’ll change color if my soulmate touches me,” Benny says.
Sarah raises an eyebrow curiously. “Soulmate?”
Benny nods. “Yep. According to my spellbook, everyone has a soulmate, and it’s like a match made in heaven - literally. Like our souls fit together like puzzle pieces. I’m destined to come across her at least once in my lifetime; and now, when I do find her, I’ll know for sure that it’s her.”
Sarah looks upwards with a thoughtful smile. “Hey, that actually pretty romantic. I mean, I’ve heard the expression, ‘soulmates’, but I didn’t realize it was, like, an actual thing.”
Ethan looks toward Sarah with a transparently infatuated expression, laughing awkwardly. Benny knows that he’s hoping that Sarah is his soulmate.
Benny feels something unpleasant in his gut like he always does when Ethan looks so obviously in love with Sarah. Benny guesses it’s a protective instinct for his best friend. Sarah must know how Ethan feels, but she doesn’t seem to feel the same way, at least not as strongly as Ethan does. Ethan deserves a girlfriend who loves him just as much as he loves her. Sarah might be his friend too, but if she ever hurts Ethan then Benny is going to give her a piece of his mind.
Benny bumps Ethan’s shoulder with his fist, nonverbally reminding him that he’s being obvious by staring.
Benny looks back at Sarah, who looks surprised and a little uncomfortable. Benny doesn’t know why . Ethan’s been like this before. Is being his soulmate that bad of a thought? Is it because she’s immortal and he’s not? He really hopes that she doesn’t break his best friend’s heart.
“Anyway,” Sarah says, breaking the awkward silence. “I’ve got to get to class.”
Ethan nods, oblivious and lovestruck as always. “See you, Sarah.”
“You know, I could, uh,” Benny begins teasingly, subconsciously placing one hand on Ethan’s shoulder while he holds up the banded wrist to show it to Ethan. “Make one for you, too. Then you’ll know if Sarah’s ‘the one.’” Benny finishes the sentence with air quotes and a wink.
Ethan pauses. “Couldn’t you just lend me yours?”
Benny shakes his head. “No, man. The only reason the spell works is because I used some of my blood to enchant the stone.”
Ethan cringes. “Uh, no thanks. Covering a stone in blood isn’t worth finding someone who ‘heaven’ apparently wants me to be with.”
What happens next happens so quickly that Benny’s brain nearly short-circuits afterward. Benny wants to tell Ethan that all he needs is a drop. Before he can, he’s distracted by wondering why Ethan would even think that he’d have to cover the whole thing, because the blood dissolved into the rock and you can’t even see it.
Then he looks at the rock: the rock that’s supposed to be grey.
It’s red.
The rock has changed color from grey to red. That means he’s touching his soulmate. But, he’s only touching Ethan . So Ethan is…
“...so I really don’t think I want to rely on a stone to tell me who to and who to not love, even if it is enchanted. Actually, especially if it’s enchanted,” Ethan says, and Benny realizes that he’s been talking throughout Benny’s epiphany. He’s been talking about how he doesn’t want or trust soulmate stones.
After a brief silence, Benny laughs weakly. “Your loss, bro,” he forces out, trying his best to sound casual.
“Come on, let’s get to class,” Ethan says. Thank god, he doesn’t seem to have noticed that Benny is freaking out right now .
Benny takes a deep, subtle breath and follows Ethan to class. ‘It’s fine,’ he tells himself in his head. ‘I’m fine. Ethan’s right, it’s just a stone. And maybe I cast the spell wrong! Maybe…’
But something surfaces from deep inside Benny’s soul. He didn’t even realize it was there until it came to light. It’s like he’s lived inside an artificially lit building all his life, and now a curtain covering a window has been opened to let the sunlight in. Even this little bit of sunlight is startling like his instincts know that the UV rays have the potential to give him a sunburn or, if he gets close enough to the sun, even burn him alive. He doesn’t think this in so many words, but that’s how he feels.
Maybe the whole soulmate stone bracelet wasn’t such a great idea.