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It's funny - they tell you that soulmate marks can withstand anything, that they never leave you, that they're eternal, but Larry's had burned off in the crash.
He hated his, anyway. Having a stereotypical symbol of masculinity - a car, just large enough that it couldn’t be hidden with long sleeves - as a soulmate mark made Larry’s sexuality even more suspicious. He tried to cut through it, once, leave a scar to make it unrecognizable - but the bleeding stopped instantly, the tissue repairing itself in a quick flash of light.
It was hell. Seeing red, peeling skin on his wrist where the mark should’ve been was the only peace that escaping death had brought him.
Cliff—
Cliff barely remembers his. He tries not to think about his old body; the memories are too alien, now, too striking. It hurts too much—he was once human, miserable, but now he has shed that skin, now he is something different. He doesn’t need that body anymore. He no longer needs the memories that drench him in unbearable pain, regret, hopelessness. He thinks about the body and he burns. He thinks about the body. He thinks about the body. He thinks about the body that he is and isn’t.
It was an airplane. One of the older ones, bright and olive, stretched perfectly across his entire inner forearm. He does miss it, on occasion, but the concept of soulmates is just too sick, too cruel. He doesn’t deserve a soulmate; he’d just fuck everything up again, like he always does, and that would be that, an unbroken cycle of ache.
So he tries to forget, drown the partnership away entirely. The mind is a powerful, fascinating place; you’re capable of anything if you focus hard enough.
And it works. He forgets, a comfort in not knowing. Until the trip to Paraguay. He’s driving; everyone but Larry is asleep. Last he checked, Larry had buried himself in a book, but now he’s staring through the window, up at the moon. It’s - it’s beautiful. There’s no one else on the road, and the moon is a calming presence, and it’s been too long since he has gazed at space above.
He wonders if Larry feels it too. The wonder of the stars. Larry had been close to them, once, had touched them. Does he ever think about that day, like Cliff thinks about his accident? Does he—
“Do you remember what yours was, Cliff?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your mark. Your… soulmate identifier.” Larry spits the word soulmate out like it’s a blade in his teeth. It hurts both of them. Larry never talks about what he has faced, but Cliff knows there’s something he’s hiding.
“I guess,” he says. “I tried to forget about it. I did, for a while.”
“What was it?”
“Stupid green airplane. You know, they say it’s supposed to be small, but it took up my whole forearm.” Something flickers, in his mind. “What’s yours?”
“Mine… burned off.”
“Oh. Shit, sorry.”
“But it was a car.”
“That’s weird.”
What if, Cliff thinks, another flicker, another spark, burning his mind against the bronze of his body, what if it’s—
Larry doesn’t say anything else; his face is pressed up against the window, now, unmoving. He’s asleep.
No, Cliff thinks. He makes a left turn, and forgets once again.