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Eren's marking is an anchor, right at the back of his neck on the first knob of his spine. It is two shades paler than his skin, stark, unmistakable. He hates it. He hates what an anchor means; held steady in a stormy sea, dragging the bottom of the ocean.
Armin assures him it suits him. "It’s iron, unmovable," he says, tracing his own marking on his arm over his shirt. His is a constellation (or so Eren thinks, Armin isn’t so sure) the colour of freckles, sprinkled over his shoulder.
Eren hates the mark just the same.
*
When Mikasa is eighteen, she finds her soul mate. When she tells Eren about it, it seems so contrived. Strolling past a girl like they do every morning, Mikasa heading to exercise science, Annie to English 101. A stray breeze pushing up a lock of hair. Blue eyes turning at just the right moment to see a knight chess piece peeking from behind the left ear. A strong grip on her wrist.
Reverent, whispered words. "It’s you."
Eren watches Mikasa and Annie dance around each other with the sort of amusement the gods must feel for this entire set up. They want and don’t know how to want, need to take, and need to give, and be full of each other, complete.
It looks disgusting, really, but Armin tells him to be happy for them, as he keeps his hand over his shoulder.
*
When Eren is eight, he asks his foster brother to see his mark. Levi sighs, tugs down the neck of his shirt to reveal two crossed wings sitting on his collar bone. It’s beautiful, and Eren cries.
"C'mon, brat, stop that." Levis tone is gruff, but his hand in his hair is gentle and warm. "What are you crying for?"
"I wanted our markings to match." Eren says pleadingly, scrubbing his fists over his eyes. He doesn’t get to see Levi’s taken aback and vaguely uncomfortable expression.
"Eren." Levi says, holding his shoulders. "Love," he stumbles awkwardly over the word, clicks his tongue at himself. "Love isn’t defined by our soul mate markings." Eren hiccups. "I’m your brother. And that means I’ll love you even if our markings don’t match."
Even at eight Eren knows Levi doesn’t understand just what type of love he wants (or, in retrospect, Levi understood precisely what type of love he meant, and wanted to nip that in the bud) but he doesn’t let it bother him until Erwin comes around when he’s thirteen, and he watches Erwin effortlessly fill all the holes in Levi Eren tried to pour himself endlessly into.
He hates his mark even more then.
*
Jean’s mark is a roaring lion on his left hip. Eren teases him, calling it a male tramp stamp. Ymir takes offense to this, since her masquerade mask is an actual tramp stamp. The three of them are training EMTs, and, at 20 years old, the only unmatched people in their program.
"What do you think it’s like?" Jean asks, sipping a beer.
"What what’s like?" Ymir asks back. Her words are slurring, the result of too much vodka and a bad break up with a girl who found her soul mate while she and Ymir were dating.
"Finding your match, feeling--"
"Don’t do this Kirstein." Eren interrupts. It’s certainly the kind of conversation one needs to be drunk for, but he doesn’t need this, certainly doesn’t want to pet Jeans back as his head hangs over the toilet, crying about never finding the person meant for him.
He doesn’t want to explain for the millionth time that finding your soul mate, or so he’s seen, looks like losing yourself to become part of someone else. And the problem is it’s so gradual, you don’t even mind when you turn around to look at the wasted shell of your old self laying behind you.
*
He’s responding to a call; car crash on the high way, some broken bones, possible deaths. Not pretty.
The cops have blocked off the necessary space, flashing lights in the hot summer sun, distracting the flow of traffic. There is a body covered by a cloth lying on the pavement next to the wheel of a totalled car, and Eren shakes his head mournfully.
The fire department’s paramedics have taken care of the smaller injuries; it’s Eren's job to just pack them into the ambulance and carry them to the emergency room.
A young cop is trying to get a statement from one of the drivers. He has a gentle voice, gentle eyes, large gentle hands wrapped around a pen and a notebook. Eren’s heart gives a tug when the cop's eyes land on him, caramel warm and lit by the sun. "You can go ahead and take him." He says, and helps Eren load him onto a gurney.
Eren is pushing the patient back to the ambulance when arms wrap tight around his waist and shoulders, both gentle and inescapable. "What the fuck--" Eren hisses, but a sound like a cry distracts him.
"I finally found you." The cop sobs, and fear, dread, terror, settle in Eren’s belly, barely soothed by the warm arms keeping him pinned against a soft chest. The cop nuzzles against his nape, where the stupid anchor marking is light against his skin, and presses a single, over familiar kiss to it.
How contrived, Eren thinks, and stops struggling against the arms around him, melting against the cop. He was so pleased, he thinks, so good at pretending he didn’t want what Mikasa, Levi, Ymir, had found for themselves.
"Where the fuck have you been all this time?" He asks roughly. "You kept me waiting--"
"Looking for you. All these years I’ve been looking for you." The cop lets him turn around to cup his face in his hands. Caramel eyes glow with the potential to love so much Eren could drown. He’s glad of the anchor then.
"A likely excuse." Eren says. The cop smiles, kisses him on the nose.
How contrived.
*
Marco loves to kiss the mark over Eren’s neck so reverently. Eren accepts it, and thinks the anchor suits Marco better than it ever could him, dependable, solid, held steady in a stormy sea.
"Do you ever wish--" Eren starts, but stops, curling in Marco’s arms, weighted there by the anchor between them.
"What?" Marco nudges him, peering into his face.
"Do you ever wish I was different?" He blurts, feels his ears heat when Marco blinks at him. "I mean, I’m no fucking cake walk. I have so many issues that you just deal with--"
"Eren. This marking here," he touches the anchor, and Eren shivers beneath his fingers. "Could have been on anyone in the world at all. But it’s on you. And that means you’re the one who’s absolutely perfect for me." He kisses him on the nose, and Eren would never admit it but that’s his favourite gesture. "Issues and all."
The words are such a comfort, Eren lets himself relax, tracing nonsense on Marco’s bare arm. He knows why Marco is perfect for him, he knows that Marco fills up all his cracks effortlessly.
Privately, he thinks Marco got the short end of the stick with him, but he’s certainly not going to complain.