Chapter Text
It's the first day of college when the words write themselves into existence, running over the knuckles and palm of his left hand in clear Times New Roman font.
Snarky, they say, but falters a lot while talking. bad reputation maybe, likely has lots of "friends," definitely popular, peer or parent pressure?? but has a heart. probably. WAIT HEY WHAT'S THAT ONE POEM ABOUT THE SUN AND THE SHADOW--
And it cuts off there; no big reveal, no hint as to who they are, nothing aside from the fact that they can see straight through Keefe's facade. Which is--yep, nope, totally fine, aside from the fact that he can't hide any of it (unless he, you know, wore gloves in the middle of July like a maniac), and it's perfectly clear and visible to anyone who squinted. Also, what kind of person uses Times New Roman so much that it's their soulmate-designated handwriting? Also also: What the fuck.
"They just sound like a mind-reader," Biana points out to him, weaving her hair into a braid with deft fingers. She's peering down at her laptop, which displays a ridiculously long report on FDR's Inaugaral Address. "Literally how are you going to figure this out?"
Keefe sighs heavily, raking a hand through his hair. "What the f--why. Why is soulmate magic like this."
"You'll figure this out, or my name isn't Biana Racker," Biana declares, shutting her eyes sleepily. Keefe snorts, deciding against telling her that her name is, in fact, not Biana Racker.
Keefe spends most of the weeks after this finishing his homework and pulling out the list of people he'd met on that day--but it was the first day of college. What a day to get a soulmate mark. He has just about a hundred suspects--even Tam Song is on the list, just for the fact that he knows anything about Keefe. He still doesn't get it--he may be well into the public eye and not really minding it, but how could anyone see everything about him that well, and how could he even track them down--?
"Keefe," Biana says breathlessly over the phone, like she's just run a marathon--it's the middle of her track practice, Keefe realizes. "Where did you go the day you got your mark?"
"Uh--I was in the car with my dear old dad most of the time, um--we went to college campus and explored a bit, and then he gave me a lecture and drove off and I went to find you guys and get dinner, and then--"
"You guys live hours away."
"Yeah?"
"Did you make any pit stops on the drive over?"
He starts to protest, but freezes with the words on his tongue. "Oh my God."
Biana lets out an excited huff of laughter. "You really didn't think of that?"
"I haven't gotten a lot of sleep, you cannot blame me for missing this--"
"Oh, yes, you're a college student, you're finally eighteen, you're so very busy," she teases, laughing harder now. "That took so long. I bet yours is freaking out just as much as you are."
Coincidentally, Keefe's soulmate does not seem to be freaking out.
Keefe sighs as he finishes his seventh cup of coffee, glaring down at his hand. The sun's setting. He's getting jittery and of course the coffee isn't helping, but--he has to know. He has to stay, and--if they don't show up here, Keefe doesn't think he'll know what to do. He'd already vaguely memorized everyone that had been in the café the day he'd got his mark, but they all seem either way too nonchalant, markless, or just--not in his age range. The café itself is already emptying out, the rush of lunch customers gone, so the only people there are two baristas, Keefe, and a handful of other customers.
Keefe's been here since six in the morning.
He might cry.
And then--then he hears a thud and a curse from across the café, and whirls around in his chair to see a cup of coffee fall and explode and the owner of said coffee cup not even noticing. Her eyes are fixated on her palm, which Keefe can't see but seems to have a scrawl of something on it--a soulmark, maybe--?
Keefe freezes.
The soulmark-girl stares for two seconds longer before drawing her knee up on the bench to scan the café. As she's doing this, Keefe curses lightly, but with his thoughts piling on top of each other he really isn't surprised that he starts moving without thinking about it, first to the napkin booth and then straight to the girl with the soulmark.
"Uh--" he starts, and wow, really exceeding expectations with that intro there, Keefe, good job, "Your coffee--?"
The girl blinks at him, then down at the puddle of coffee at the ground, and seems to come back to herself in a rush. "Oh--hi--yeah, um--that's not good I should probably--you got napkins how nice of you--" and reaches out for the napkins, only to give him a weird look when he simply crouches and starts cleaning up the mess. "I can do that myself, you know."
Keefe glances up at the girl and finds her squinting at him suspiciously. "You probably can," is his response--he's spent too much time with Biana. Abort. "You seem like you have some, bigger things to deal with right now, though, yeah?"
She sighs before turning her hand over to gaze at her palm again. "This is weird," she says after a second. "Wait--do you think I'm stupid?"
Keefe sits back on his heels mid-swipe of puddle. "Why... would I think that you're stupid?"
"I have to have been really stupid to have missed a soulmark on my hands. Which I use. All the time."
"Maybe you just got them a second ago?"
"No--" the soulmark-girl sighs, brushing her hoodie off, "I've talked to everyone here except for--"
And then she stops. Turns to look at him. Blinks.
"What?" Keefe asks, though he feels like he knows the answer.
"Can I--do you have a soulmark? What does it say?"
Keefe lifts up his left hand and sops up the spilled coffee as she examines it.
"Oh," the girl says, then with more emphasis, "Oh." She turns back to her laptop, tapping the keyboard faster than Keefe thinks he could ever learn to do. While she's doing that, Keefe wipes up the last of the coffee and tosses the napkins in a trash can. He nabs his backpack and coffee from his table and detours to the cashier a moment after that. When he returns, she's scrolling down on a document written completely in 12 pt. Times New Roman.
"The blond boy with the swagger," she reads aloud, and looks up at him from her seat, squinting. "Yep, that sounds like you."
"The blonde who types so much that a font is their handwriting," Keefe points out, "Sounds like you, too." He slides into the booth across from her and she gives him a wry look.
"Be glad it isn't Comic Sans." She smiles at him and holds out a hand, then looks down and winces--Keefe catches sight of scorched red skin before she pulls that hand back and offers him a smoother one. "Sophie Foster-Ruewen."
Keefe catches the Ruewen--he knows the name fairly well, since they're field biologists that he knows Alden knows; they own a reserve somewhere out of California that they frequent. He'd heard through Della that the two of them had adopted a daughter several years ago, and then nothing else after that. "Nice to meet you, Sophie," he says after a second, taking her hand to shake with his own scarred hand so that she knows--at least that she's not alone in having a lot of scars. "I'm Keefe Sencen."
Sophie meets his gaze with a half-grin, and Keefe feels like there's something good about to begin.