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“I call bullshit.”
Sarah and Alison both look at her incredulously. Felix huffs and rolls his eyes.
Cosima crosses her arms stubbornly.
“C’mon now, guys. For all we know it could be a big government conspiracy.”
“All over the world?” Sarah raises an eyebrow.
“Why the hell not?”
Alison sighs deeply, like she’s had the conversation a million times and she’s incredibly tired.
“Cosima,” She pronounces slowly, “people are born with these.”
“That’s what the government wants you to think,” Cosima quips.
Felix snorts and comes to sit on the couch next to her, the familiar sway in his gait.
“Look, Cosima, I know you’re all seeing is believing and you think it doesn’t exist if it doesn’t have a scientific explanation. And that’s okay, I guess. But right now you’re completely out of your depth.”
She narrows her eyes, lets a short bitter laughter. “So what is it? Magic?” The last word is accompanied with an eye roll and a mocking snort.
Felix shrugs his shoulders. “It’s something science hasn’t got the answer for yet. Just let it go.”
--
She stands in front of the mirror, t-shirt ridden up and its hem clutched in her fingers, staring at her reflection. More specifically, at her stomach.
At the small, as if handwritten tattoo-esque letters on her skin, just below her ribs.
Hypocrisy.
And that’s all there is to it.
Her friends (can she even call them that? Alison always gives the fakest smiles and Cosima has the inner feeling she would run away in an instant from all this if she could. Sarah and Felix she still doesn’t know very well and they’re both completely wild and unpredictable.) believe in this bullcrap.
Sarah’s on her hip; says inevitability. Sarah says she doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know if she’s met them already or has yet to meet them.
Cosima doesn’t quite believe her.
Alison’s on her shoulder; says cowardice and it’s her husband – a bulky assholish guy who pays her far less respect than a woman like her deserves, in Cosima’s opinion. But the tiny tattoo on his chubby wrist reads cowardice as well (Alison has shown them pictures) and she can’t say anything to that.
Felix’s is, of course, on his left buttock; says family. Nobody has any idea what that means so Felix screws guys left and right. He doesn’t even look at their tattoos anymore.
Cosima knows many people who haven’t found their (soulmate. It sounds so fucking stupid.). Actually most of the couples she knows don’t share the same tattoo. Some have given in. The majority though are just hoping their (soulmate. Okay, whatever.) will magically find them.
All the people she’s slept with, from the toughest guy to the softest girl, have checked her for tattoos. She can’t help but laugh in her head every time she sees their disappointed looks.
Soulmates are fucking bullshit.
And people like her, people created in laboratories, people born out of science and not out of (what? Magic?) are not supposed to believe in them.
--
Cosima doesn’t fall in love hopelessly. She doesn’t restrain herself from feeling both physical and mental attraction to people but she’s not one to completely lose her mind because of somebody.
That’s why when she meets Delphine Beraud, she very, very persistently tries to suppress the budding exhilaration inside of her. It has happened to her one or two times in her teenage years but she was supposed to be over it. Like yeah, sure, smile a little, touch a little, maybe show a little bit of cleavage. Just a little.
But simply being with Delphine never seems enough and Cosima craves, and it’s almost painful and maybe Felix was right and she’s completely out of her depth, with everything.
Also she’s like ninety percent sure Delphine is her monitor.
--
Delphine is her monitor.
The sadder part is Cosima’s suspicions have been confirmed after kissing Delphine. After Delphine’s half-assed rejection and then coming back. After the two of them have sex together.
After Cosima’s lips leave hot trails on Delphine’s skin, after making her come numerous times, after the delicious little moans and curse words in French Delphine babbles incoherently. After Cosima’s eyes stop for a moment, involuntarily reading the small word on Delphine’s knee crease, the French woman’s leg thrown over her shoulder.
Hypocrisie.
It doesn’t take a professional linguist to know what the word means.
Cosima’s movements freeze. All of her freezes really and when Delphine’s arouse-induced gaze rises distractedly to her face, she hastily grabs her chin and kisses her sloppily, making sure their bodies slide together and the other woman doesn’t see the letters on her stomach.
Delphine is the first lover she has that doesn’t look for tattoos. And back then Cosima was immensely relieved.
Now, as her eyes scan the computer screen, her mind refusing to absorb the image of a beautiful blonde in a white apron whose last name is in fact Cormier and not Beraud... not so much.
Cormier sounds so much hotter. Delphine Cormer, Cosima Niehaus’ soulmate.
She comes to her apartment and Cosima yells at her and everything is shit. And the worst part is that Delphine somehow, without a sensible reason, craves just as much and Cosima shouldn’t be as surprised as she is when Delphine says through tears. “This is not… it’s not a lie, it’s not possible.” She stops, inhales softly. “I do not even care about this soulmate situation that is going on. You may not have a tattoo because of your origins but I… I am not ready to give up on this yet. Please.”
And there’s something about Delphine’s voice, Delphine’s eyes, Delphine’s almost invisible body twitch, that makes Cosima lift her tank top. The blonde frowns a bit at her, then at her stomach, then her eyes widen. “You do have it,” She murmurs in awe then screws her eyes this time, to decipher the word.
For the longest moment in their lives, neither of them says anything.
Delphine suddenly takes a sharp breath. “Cosima…” Her eyebrows rise then scrunch a little. “I… I think I have to tell you something.”
Cosima makes an ambiguous movement with her head that can be both a shake and a nod. Delphine doesn’t deserve this kind of trust or this kind of forgiveness but she’s Cosima and she’s already fallen harder than she should have and to the hell with it.
“I know.”
--
Sarah stares at her for a good couple of minutes.
“It’s Delphine.” She repeats eventually.
Cosima nods.
“Bloody hell,” Sarah murmurs at the same time as the door opens loudly and Felix, heavily inebriated, staggers in.
“The sisterhood has reunited!” He howls and sloppily closes the door with a slide of his shoulder.
“Shite, Fee!” Sarah jumps startled and gives her brother a nasty look. “You scared the hell outta me!”
Felix rolls his eyes dramatically.
“Well, excuuuse me for entering my own home,” His hands flail wildly and he almost loses balance, grasping at the edge of the couch at the last moment. “But if you wanna know-”
“Cosima found her soulmate,” Sarah interrupts him.
Felix blinks a couple of times and for a second seems not that drunk. Then an idiotic grin spreads across his face and well, maybe Cosima overestimated his capability to overcome intoxication a little.
“The unbeliever knows his Koran best,” He nods to no one and Sarah groans.
“Felix, stop with your stupid quotes, this has nothing to do with anything at all.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Felix raises his hands again. “But oi, wasn’t there something goin’ on with that French chick-”
“Delphine.”
“Yeah, sure.” He looks pointedly at her. Cosima shrugs her shoulders. Felix’s eyes almost fall out of their sockets. “Oh my god, it’s her! It’s fucking Delphine!” He glances at her again, for confirmation, and erupts in a roaring laughter. “Oh! Oh, Jesus! Oh, Christ!” Then he stops. “Wait, so she isn’t your monitor?”
Cosima sighs and slouches back into the couch. “She is.”
Felix doesn’t look smashed at all anymore.
“Oh, bloody hell…”
--
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Cosima says all of a sudden.
The two of them are sitting in front of her laptop, countless green numbers and letters appearing on the screen but meaning exactly nothing.
Delphine turns her head to slowly look at her.
“It means to me,” She admits softly and reaches to touch her.
Cosima stiffens and Delphine retracts her hand. “You said you didn’t care about the soulmate thing.”
“I didn’t,” The blonde shrugs awkwardly and god, how can someone be both so hot and adorable at the same time? “But now that I know it… I have yet another proof that this is real.”
Cosima almost bangs the laptop shut.
“We’re not bound together, alright? I didn’t even believe in this crap until recently. Actually I still don’t know if I do. You lied to me, Delphine, and a stupid tattoo won’t change that!”
Delphine’s big eyes water slightly and Cosima’s insides clench but she’s not going to apologize.
“I know,” Delphine clears her voice, swallows, closes her eyes for a moment and when she opens them, they’re clear again. “Je gâche toujours tout,” She mutters to herself and Cosima pretends that a small, inner part of her doesn’t instinctively understand the words.
And that the same inner part doesn't want to hug Delphine and tell her she loves her, tell her it’s not her fault, tell her she did good because she did what she thought was right.
The meaningless chain of numbers and letters on the screen suddenly ends and something understandable appears in front of their eyes.
This organism and derivative genetic material is restricted intellectual property
Cosima feels like throwing up.
--
Delphine’s hand is strong in hers. They’ve held hands from the moment they got on the plane all the way to Toronto and somehow Cosima doesn’t have the physical strength to let go.
“They’ll flip shit,” She hears her own voice, almost unrecognizable. They’re standing in front of Felix’s apartment but neither dares to knock. “Alison will probably build a fortress around her house and Sarah will burn DYAD to the ground.”
Delphine gives her a little smile, both amused by her comment and encouraging. “It will be okay,” She replies. “I will help you.”
Cosima rubs her forehead, grits through teeth. “It doesn’t mean anything, okay?”
Delphine just looks at her, sighs, gives her hand a soft squeeze. “Okay,” She agrees.
They both know it’s a lie.