Archive of Our Own

Call did not believe in fate.

The idea of predestination or a so-called “determined path” wasn’t exactly his cup of coffee. It was stupid, and Call would rather make his own choices than be told what to do by some weird tattoo on his arm.

And if fate really existed, then why wasn’t it nice? Why were there so many problems in the world, like wars, famines, and ring binders with rings that didn’t line up? If there was really someone up there pulling all the strings, then they should stop making life harder than it already was.

He remembered back when he was a little kid and was learning about soulmates in school. The teacher had told him what the black spiral on his arm really was, and suddenly he’d been the center of attention in class. It had made Call feel like the coolest guy in the first grade as everyone fawned over his soulmate mark, asking him questions and offering to play with him when just a day before they had never even looked his way. 

He’d ran home that day, excitement in every limping step as he’d chattered about it to his dad. But, when he had mentioned the mark, his dad had looked at him with a tired, grief stricken expression.

“Call, trust me when I say that having a soulmate isn’t as good as people say.”

Call had never gotten the full story of why that was, but it wasn’t difficult to fill in the blanks. His dad had a mark too, but, unlike Call’s mark, which was black and had the tendency to spiral around in lazy circles, his father’s was an ashen gray spot that remained static on his palm. It looked dead.

Call knew about the crash he had been in when he was a baby. His father had been driving Call and his mother home and a drunk driver swerved into their lane. Call had lost the ableness of his left leg that night, and his dad had lost the woman he loved.

It wasn’t exactly hard to put two and two together.

So, yeah, fate kind of sucked.

“...and, as you can see, while regular ink tattoos on the skin will decompose along with the tissue, soulmate marks are strangely persistent in the decay process. Most of the time, they can imprint all the way down to the bone, which aids in body identification,” professor Madden said, his voice echoing around the packed lecture hall. 

Professor Madden was a tall, middle-aged man with dusty blond hair and a powerful voice. He dressed exactly like you would expect a professor to: white button up, tweed jacket, Oxford shoes...you get the picture. 

In addition to the usual attire, however, he also always wore a pair of leather biker gloves, which raised a lot of red flags. He definitely didn’t own a motorcycle and was also a little too excitable about the forensics of dead bodies for Call’s comfort.

In Call’s mind, it was very likely his professor was a murderer and the gloves were a way for him to avoid leaving fingerprints. Madden certainly had that crazed glint in his eye that unsettled those close enough to see it. Still, a lot of scientists looked like that. It probably just came with the job.

Putting aside the lurking suspicion that Call was going to have half as many classmates by the end of the semester than he did now, he did his best to pay attention to the lecture at hand. Still, his eyes were starting to glaze over. All this talk about decomposing bodies was making him sick to his stomach, and the mention of soulmate marks made him itch. He tugged at his hoodie anxiously, pulling it down to cover his wrist. 

Chewing on the end of his pencil to distract himself, he looked over his blank page of notes. Class was about to end. He definitely should have written something down by now. 

“Professor Madden!” Celia called at Call’s left. He flinched at her volume, his ears ringing. 

Call had sat next to her on the first day of the class. He remembered her name because she seemed nice and easy to talk to. Call was used to either being hated or ignored on sight, but Celia had been kind and actually smiled at him when he came to class and sat down instead of edging away nervously. The starry look in her eye now, however, sparked another whirlwind of nerves in his stomach. 

Celia was a shameless romantic which, of course, there was nothing wrong with, but when it came to the subject of soulmates…

“Yes?” professor Madden asked, turning away from his computer after changing the slide on his presentation.

“Do you have a soulmate mark?”

…she was very persistent.

She didn’t even have a mark herself, which Call found odd considering how fixated on the idea she was. He supposed it was more about the allure and drama of the story to her. In his opinion, though, she was just romanticizing a curse.

“I don’t see what that has to do with forensics,” professor Madden replied. Call was sitting rather far back in the hall, but even he could see the nervous look that flitted across the professor’s face as he dodged the question.

“But do you?” Celia insisted. Half of the lecture hall kept their eyes glued to their notes, embarrassed at Celia’s somewhat invasive question, while the other half watched professor Madden expectantly for an answer.

Madden cleared his throat, turning back to the presentation at hand. “Moving on!”

Call let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and released his grip on his wrist, relaxing as the lecture moved on.

“How are classes going so far?” Alastair asked, looking over at Call.

Currently, Call was sitting behind the counter of his father’s antique shop “Now and Again” surrounded by dust and old people smell. Alastair had given him the job back when he was in high school, trusting that his son knew enough about addition and subtraction to run the tacky old register that was so obsolete it couldn’t calculate the change for him.

“Fine, I guess,” Call replied. Nothing remarkable had happened yet, so there wasn’t much to comment on. Apart from the anxiety that came with moving out of the house and starting life on his own, Call’s freshman year of college had started with less of a bang and more like a dud firecracker.

“Have you made any friends yet?”

“You know I’m terrible at that, dad.”

That should have been a given, considering the naked mole rat incident. No one wanted to hang out with the crippled menace that controlled an army of wrinkled rodents.

(Call had attempted to explain to people before that he didn’t control the rats, they just happened to be impressionable. However, every time he had tried to do that, he realized that the longer he talked, the crazier he sounded, and the less likely he was to make friends, so he’d stopped talking to people altogether.)

Alastair frowned as he continued to take stock of the shelves. Running a store like this meant that you had to take careful observation of your inventory, mainly because their customers either knew exactly what they wanted or were going to ask around until they figured it out. In either case, it was important to know where things were.

“We’re missing that vintage typewriter from the Virginia Antique Show.”

“I took it into the back. The Q key broke, so it’s just a WERTY keyboard right now. You’ll have to fix it.”

Alastair didn’t laugh. They fell into silence again. Business as usual.

“Has your mark shown any activity recently?” Alastair asked suddenly. Call slowly looked up from the messily scrawled notes he had been trying to read through for his exam the next day, staring incredulously at the odd question.

“Are we going over all of the taboo topics today, or is it just friends and soulmates?”

“I just want to have a conversation with my son. Besides, you should be prepared for--”

“Hey, the store is pretty slow today, isn’t it? Mind if I take my lunch break?” Call interrupted, jumping up from his chair and packing his things into his backpack. He made his way towards the door, ready to flee.

Alastair gave him an exasperated look. “Callum, I’m trying to give you advice--”

“Don’t do drugs, don’t eat yellow snow, and don’t believe in soulmates! Got it!” Call called back. “See you in half an hour! Want anything from the cafe?”

Call was already halfway out the door before he turned back for Alastair’s answer. He was faced with his father’s exasperated expression and a quiet antique shop.

“...a black coffee, if you could. Two sugars,” Alastair sighed, getting the impression that any other response would fall on deaf ears.

Call shot his dad double finger guns then slipped out of the shop.

The coffee shop was warm and filled with afternoon light pouring in through the windows. Aaron felt content as he stood behind the counter, enjoying the lull in afternoon customers as his mind drifted off in search of something. 

It wasn’t hard to find it: the ever-present feeling of his soulmate’s consciousness at the back of his thoughts. They were feeling a little anxious today, but that was to be expected. They tended to feel anxious a lot. It was comforting nonetheless, the familiarity soothing over any anxiety Aaron was having himself.

He wondered if his soulmate ever reached out to his feelings. He wondered if they could tell he was there, reaching out through whatever bond they apparently shared. He wondered if they were having a good day. There were many unanswered questions about the strange mark on Aaron’s wrist and the connection it gave him an unknown person somewhere in the world, but so far that had been the only constant thing in his life, so he clung to it. 

“Hey, dreamer,” Tamara chided from behind him. “Stop staring off into space and get some actual work done.”

Aaron turned to look at her. “There aren’t even any customers. Or are we serving ghosts now?”

Tamara whipped him with the rag she had been holding then shoved it at him. “Go clean the machines or something. They’ll ring the bell if they need a cashier. Customers love that bell.”

Aaron took the rag, muttering about who died and made her the manager, but nonetheless made his way into the back of the shop to do the assigned task. The coffee machine hadn’t been cleaned in a while, so he could see why Tamara had shouldered the responsibility onto him. It was nasty and he was already regretting committing to this.

He gritted his teeth as he started to disassemble the machine, wiping down the grimy parts and grimacing while he did so. 

This is so gross.

“Two black coffees. One with two sugars.”

Aaron glanced at Tamara, who was shifting through the pastries they had in the back of the shop. “Did you hear something?” he asked.

Tamara looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “No?”

Aaron turned to look at the door leading to the front counter. “I think we might have a customer.”

Sighing, Tamara put down the pastries and walked to the front only to return a few seconds later. “Still deserted.”

Aaron frowned. He could have sworn he’d heard someone ask for…

“Two black coffees. One with two sugars. Two black coffees. One with two sugars.”

Someone was rehearsing a coffee order. In his head .

Aaron felt his wrist being tugged by some sort of unseen force. When he looked down, he saw his mark spiraling wildly around. His heart jumped into his throat with excitement and he threw the rag down onto the nearest counter.

“ACTUALLY TAMARA I REALLY NEED TO GO ON BREAK NOW THANKS FOR COVERING ME!” he yelled, running past her to the front of the store.

“Aaron, wait!” Tamara called, her mouth dropping open in shock as she moved to chase after him.

Ignoring her protests, he vaulted over the counter in one smooth movement, landing light on his feet on the other side and sprinting for the door. He felt his soulmate’s presence growing stronger in his head, the wave of emotions from the other person washing over his own in a tidal wave of sensations. He was grinning like an idiot as he rushed down the street, following the pull of his mark.

The emotion his soulmate had been feeling before was anxiety, but as Aaron fully embraced the sudden breakdown of a distance barrier between them, their response was intense panic. Their thoughts began to crash into his own, making it difficult to tell where one started and the other ended.

You’re nearby! Aaron thought joyfully.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!” they responded.

He frowned at the odd response, but still refused to slow his pursuit. He rounded the corner of the mostly empty street, his breath clouding the crisp autumn air as he booked it down the sidewalk. A flash of black disappeared at the other corner and he started to run faster, spurred on by the strong pull of the mark on his wrist.

Hey! Wait up!

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

Call despised having a leg that he couldn’t run on because he really needed to be able to get away quickly right now.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Go away!

Call regretted the surge of hurt he felt through the new (and frankly overwhelming) mind link he was experiencing, but he didn’t stop running. He threw his skateboard down on the pavement and began speeding down the mostly deserted street. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing a blond guy chasing after him.

The mark on Call’s arm burned, filling him with all the want in the world to turn around and face his soulmate. Still, Call resisted, and nearly skated directly into the middle of a busy intersection in his haste to escape.

Barely managing to stop before a car flattened him, Call whipped around to look at his options. Buildings boxed him in, and construction on the road to his left had closed the sidewalk. The only route he could take was through the intersection.

He rushed over to the “press to cross” button on the lamp post with a mad desperation. The repeating mantra of “Wait. Wait. Wait.” from the recorded voice did nothing to halt his pursuit for the world record of button pushes in ten seconds.

“Hold on! Stop running! I’m your soulmate!” the blond yelled, this time out loud instead of in Call’s head. He was grinning as he ran, looking like some sort of college age Captain America in the process.

“Come on come on come on!” Call hissed at the button.

Captain America was catching up, excitement ebbing into Call’s head through the mind link. It filled Call with a sense of dread and adoration, like when a very large dog runs towards you and you know you’re about to be tackled to the ground by more than a hundred pounds of slobber and hyper energy.

“Come on you stupid fucking button let me cross!” he yelled, continuing to abuse the public utility.

“Hey!” Captain America said, breathing hard as he suddenly appeared next to Call. 

Call yelped and jumped back, landing awkwardly on his bad leg. He cursed loudly as it buckled and he fell to the ground. 

Concern washed over his brain, Captain America appearing like a shining beacon overhead as he looked down at Call still cursing on the ground.

“Are you alright?” Captain America asked, holding out a hand. “Here, let me help you up.”

Call felt his wrist start to move but he forced it back onto the ground. “Don’t touch me,” he said, harsher than he meant to. Captain America flinched, filling Call with another flash of guilt.

“I...alright.” Captain America dropped his hand and looked away, dejected. Then, he tried to smile at Call again, a glimmer of hope rebuilding itself in his eyes. “You’re my soulmate, right?”

“No, you have the wrong guy. I don’t have a soulmate,” Call squeaked out, despite the fact that he was physically restraining his marked wrist from reaching out towards the guy.

Confusion passed through the link. “But...I saw the mark on your wrist when you fell. It’s the same as mine.”

“It’s just sharpie,” Call lied.

“But it moved!”

“Wow how interesting oh wait the walk signal is green guess I gotta go bye!” Call jumped off the ground and grabbed his skateboard from where it had rolled away to, putting it on the pavement again and rolling away as fast as he could from Captain America.

“Wait! You can’t leave!”

Captain America started to chase him again.

“No thank you! Not today, whoever you are!” Call yelled, using his good leg to boost his speed as he raced along the sidewalk. Still, Captain America was fast. Way fast.

“I just want to talk!”

“Unfortunately I don’t!”

“Please just wait!”

The desperation in his voice nearly made Call turn right around, but he kept up the pursuit and did his best to lose the blond around every corner he could find. He was getting close to Alastair’s shop again, but he couldn’t count on the familiarity of it to save him from whatever supernatural force was pulling them towards each other.

Captain America was persistent, Call would give him that, but Call’s sheer fear of seeing that mark turn gray one day was enough to keep him ahead of the game. He ignored every shout of protest, every flash of sadness and hurt that shot through their link, and every plea for him to stop and just talk to me in favor of speeding away.

Eventually, Call’s skateboard won out over Captain America’s stamina. The blond guy began to fall far behind, the clarity of their linked minds ebbing away into that dull presence of a mere consciousness in the back of Call’s head. He was far on the other side of the city by the time he stopped and pulled up a map on his phone to find his way back to Now and Again.

Alastair said nothing when Call came back an hour later than he was supposed to return from his break, with no coffee and a despondent expression on his face. He draped a blanket over Call’s shoulders as he sat back behind the cash register. Call didn’t protest, simply pulling it around himself and dropping his head on the front desk.

At the back of his mind, he felt sadness.

The notes he had open on the front desk may have gotten a little wet.

Call got back to his dorm late that night, exhaustion weighing heavy in every step. He turned the handle to his room, ready to collapse into his shitty twin sized bed and pass out until he had to leave for his class at noon the next day.

On second thought, he might just skip his class tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

However, before he was able to even cross the threshold of his dorm, angry footsteps down the hall interrupted him. He looked up, watching a very peeved looking girl with long dark hair woven into two braids that draped over her shoulders stop in front of the door next to his own. 

He glanced at the whiteboard posted on the wall next to her, seeing the name “Tamara Rajavi” written in pink, swirly letters before looking back up to her scowling face. Even with the expression, she was really pretty.

“You seem to be having a great night,” Call quipped, unprompted. He then cursed himself for speaking, especially when she turned to glare at him.

“My coworker bailed in the middle of his shift and I had to run the shop on my own. I’m not in a great mood,” she bit out.

He whistled. “Sounds like that guy blows. Did you tell management?”

Tamara sighed. “No. Bailing or not, he’s a good friend. I’m just mad at him right now.”

Call leaned against his door, mostly to take the pressure off of his bad leg from standing in the hallway, but also to look cool in front of her. “So why’d he run out? Family emergency?”

“I don’t even know why!” she cried, looking relieved to have someone to rant to. “He just vaulted over the counter and started chasing after something. He’s kind of a hero sort of guy, so he probably saw a purse snatcher and decided to play Superman today.”

Call chuckled. “Well, I hope he got the purse at least.”

Tamara sighed. “I guess we’ll have to wait until he answers his phone. He hasn’t texted me back all day.”

She didn’t say she was worried, but a quick glance at her expression made it pretty easy to guess.

“I’m sure he’s fine. You know those Superman types,” Call shrugged, opening his door. “He’s probably down at the police station giving a long, perfect statement and boring some beat cop out of his mind.”

Tamara laughed. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Call,” he answered. “Well, it’s actually Callum, but I go by Call. Call Hunt.”

She smiled at him. “Have a nice night, Call.”

“You too,” he said, grinning back. Then, he went into his room, closing the door behind him.

Call normally cursed the higher powers that operated in this terrible world, but today he was thanking them for the invention of Fridays. 

It had been a long week, what with the entire ordeal he’d gone through with his soulmate and how that encounter had thrown him off the delicate rhythm he tiptoed with his classes. He had fallen behind, and now he was standing in front of his forensic science professor, begging for an extension on his paper that was due yesterday.

“I know that it can be difficult to settle in for college freshmen, especially when you’re moving away from home, but I thought I made myself very clear that deadlines are deadlines in my class,” professor Madden said, stacking the papers on his desk and tucking them into his briefcase. Call had caught him just after class, hoping that he could win brownie points by being present in the lecture before asking for something.

“It wasn’t a college thing. I...there was a personal thing that came up and I didn’t have time to get the paper done. I promise I can get it in by Monday, it’s just been a hard week.”

Professor Madden raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. Call figured “personal thing” wasn’t going to cut it as an excuse.

“It was something with my soulmate,” he rushed out, squeezing his eyes shut with the sheer effort it took to admit the fact. “It kind of went south. I’ve been having a hard time with it.”

A brief expression of understanding crossed Madden’s face. He fiddled with his gloves as he nodded to Call. “I’ll extend the paper. Have it printed out and on my desk by the start of class on Monday.”

Call sighed in relief. “Thanks. I’ll get it in as soon as I can.”

Professor Madden said nothing else, he simply waved Call off and continued to fuss with his papers. Call wasted no time in hurrying out of the lecture hall and making his way to the library. He’d have better luck with his paper using the nice computers in the student center rather than his bulky, obsolete laptop he’d gotten as a gift last year.

(Alastair spent all of his time working with antiques, and Call didn’t want to be the one to tell him that the computer he’d actually wanted for Christmas was something designed within the past decade and not a giant brick from the stone age of the internet. The thought was there, but the tech savvy was certainly not.)

The panic from realizing a paper was overdue when he thought he still had a week to work on it ensured that he made a rather decent dent into the assignment after an hour of working. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his stiff muscles. Then, he bent down and went rifling through his backpack to find a thumb drive.

He was already halfway through the assignment with two more days to work, so he saved the document onto the drive and shut down the computer, sighing as he stood up from the chair. He was still anxious about the week’s events, but for the first time in a few days he finally felt content.

Well, he did for about five seconds, then his mark tugged on his arm aggressively.

SHIT , he thought.

“You’re here!” his soulmate immediately replied, sounding like a golden retriever again. Relief and happiness flooded over all the dread Call was feeling. “Hold on, I’m coming to find you!”

Suddenly feeling like a victim in a horror movie, Call searched desperately for an escape. He was on the second floor of the library, and the tug on his arm told him that Captain America was somewhere on the first. There was no way he could get past him without initiating another chase and Call had forgotten his skateboard today.

Panicking, he searched instead for a hiding place, spotting a large trash can at the back of the room. He rushed over to it, lifting the lid and doing his best to ignore the smell as he climbed in and pulled the lid back on.

He immediately regretted his choice, feeling someone’s discarded banana peel squish under the weight of his shoe. Still, he’d rather this than face Captain America and his sad puppy eyes again. He fished his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and sending a text to his dad.

To Dad: SOS

To Dad: SOULMATE ON SITE

The light of his phone illuminated the contents of the trash can, making him grimace as he edged away from a used tissue. He was going to need a shower after this.

From Dad: I’m on my way. -Alastair Hunt

Call wasn’t sure whether or not his dad had a signature programmed into his phone or if he typed it out with every message, but he let out a sigh of relief nonetheless.

Then, he was suddenly being doused in something very, very hot.

“Ow! Fuck! Fuck!” he hissed, jumping up and hitting his head on the lid of the trash can. “SHIT! Ow!”

Someone yelped and a moment later light from the library poured into the dark space as they lifted the lid. 

“Call?!” Tamara asked, looking horrified as she stared down at her soaking wet next-dorm-neighbor.

“Shhhhh!” Call shushed her, grabbing the lid and slamming it back down over himself. Tamara opened the flap a moment later and poked her head in to look at him.

“Call, what the fuck are you doing in the library trash can?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Hiding from someone,” he answered.

“That someone wouldn’t happen to be Aaron Stewart, would it?”

He squinted, trying to place where he’d heard the name before. “Blond guy? Looks like Captain America?”

“That’d be the one.”

“How’d you know?”

She shrugged. “He asked if I’d seen a black haired guy with a slight limp walking around. I put two and two together.”

He self-consciously shifted his bad leg underneath him so it wasn’t bearing too much weight. The pain from the hot drink Tamara had dropped on him was subsiding, but he could still feel Captain America--or, rather, Aaron Stewart--searching for him.

“Are you going to turn me in?” he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

Tamara shrugged again. “If you’re freaking out enough to be hiding in a trash can, I think I can keep quiet.”

Call let out a sigh of relief. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to look at another text from his dad.

From Dad: Where are you right now? -Alastair Hunt

To Dad: a trash can in the library

From Dad: ? -Alastair Hunt

To Dad: tell you about it later 

To Dad: the building should say student center on the outside of it just let me know when you’re waiting outside and i’ll make a run for it 

“I am, however,” Tamara began, “very fascinated in your reasons for hiding in a trash can.”

“It’s a long story. Plus, you shouldn’t be talking to a trash can. It’ll make you look crazy.”

“Oh, I’m the crazy one in this situation?”

From Dad: I have arrived. -Alastair Hunt

Call stood up, this time making sure to remove the lid before he did so. “I’ve gotta go. Do you think you could distract Aaron for me while I slip out?”

She grinned. “Sure. I love getting revenge.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Revenge for what?”

“I’ll tell you when you tell me about the trash can.”

Slowly, Call grinned back at her. “Later, then. See you tonight?”

“It’s a date.”

Tamara turned around and went down the stairs to the first floor of the library. Call gingerly climbed out of the trash can, trying not to make much noise as he gathered up his things and tiptoed over to the second floor balcony.

“Aaron!” Tamara called, her voice drifting up to Call’s ears. “I think I just saw the guy you were looking for in the back room! I’ll show you where he was!”

Relief flooded through the mind link, which in turn flooded Call with guilt. “Thanks, Tamara. I really appreciate your help.”

Call watched Tamara lead Aaron away from the front door of the library, giving him a window of opportunity. 

He didn’t waste it, ignoring the strange looks from other students as he raced down the chairs, leaving behind a trail of garbage slime in his wake. He burst out into the courtyard in front of the library, spotting his father’s 1937 Rolls Royce Phantom idling on the curb. 

Call limped toward it as fast as he could, seeing his father get out of the car and approach him with a horrified expression.

“What on earth happened to you, Call?” Alastair asked, looking his son up and down.

“Trash can, like I said,” Call answered. “We should really go. He’s still nearby and I really don’t want to get caught again.”

“He? Again?”

Call chuckled nervously, realizing that he had just accidentally outed himself to his dad. “Yeah, about that--”

“Alastair Hunt,” came a voice from behind him. Call turned to see professor Madden glaring daggers at Alastair. Alastair’s expression changed from shocked concern to one of hard stone.

“Constantine Madden,” Alastair gritted out.

Call looked between the two of them, feeling like a ping pong ball in a match between two statues. “And I’m Callum Hunt,” he mumbled at last, trying to break the tense silence. “Dad, we need to go .”

“I see you’re a professor now,” Alastair said, ignoring him. Call was getting the feeling they weren’t going anywhere until this weird staring contest was over.

“And I see that you’re a father,” Constantine replied, looking at Call, who felt very small at Alastair’s side. He was suddenly less like an adult and more like an eight-year-old again.

“Did you expect me to stop living my life just because you weren’t in it anymore?”

Anymore? Just how do they know each other?

“Hey!” Aaron’s voice called in his head again. It was faint, but present. Part of Call wanted to drag his dad away from the interaction to escape from his soulmate, but the stronger part of him wanted to see what was about to happen.

“I’ve found that I can’t expect loyalty from anyone in my life. You were the prime example of that, Alastair.”

“You haven’t changed at all, Constantine.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe you’ve changed too much.”

“I’m not sixteen anymore and neither are you. I didn’t expect for us to meet again, but now that we have, I wish we hadn’t. And certainly not now of all times.” Alastair turned to Call, fixing him with an intense gaze. All of the tension that had been hanging in the air before was suddenly hanging heavily on Call. “Let’s get going.”

Call could do nothing but nod as his dad all but dragged him towards the car. He looked back at professor Madden, who was fiddling with his glove again as he watched them go. Call barely registered getting into the car and buckling his seatbelt, but he did notice as Aaron ran out of the front doors of the library and rushed down the sidewalk.

He stopped next to the professor as Alastair floored it out of the parking lot. Call watched out of the window, seeing a tear fall down Aaron’s cheek as they pulled away.

“Please come back,” Aaron said through the link.

Call closed his eyes.

“Aaron!” Someone called from behind him. Aaron turned to see Tamara running towards him, waving her arms to get his attention. “I think I just saw the guy you were looking for in the back room! I’ll show you where he was!”

Aaron’s shoulders sagged with relief.  “Thanks, Tamara. I really appreciate your help.”

“No problem,” she grinned, taking him by the arm and pulling him towards the back of the library. As she did so, he felt the pull of the link compelling him to go in the opposite direction.

He shook the feeling off. He didn’t know enough about the link yet to tell when it was wrong. Plus, he trusted Tamara to lead him. They were friends, after all.

The back room of the library was chaotically stuffed to the brim with books that needed to be checked back in. Aaron couldn’t feel his soulmate’s presence anywhere, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from raking his eyes over every visible corner in the room.

“He was just through here,” Tamara said, stopping them both in the doorway and pointing towards the far corner of the room. “I think he was behind that shelf over there.”

Aaron wasted no time in running over to the shelf at the back of the room, skidding triumphantly to a stop only to see an empty corner. As he felt his soulmate’s panic fading away through the link, he put two and two together and closed his eyes.

“Was he actually here?” he asked, his voice despondent.

Tamara crossed her arms. “No, he was upstairs. That’s what you get for bailing on me on Tuesday.”

Aaron whipped around to face her, tears brimming in his eyes as he yelled, “Tamara, that guy is my soulmate!”

Tamara’s eyes widened. “ Shit , Aaron!” she cried, looking horrified as she realized the result of her actions. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t...I-I’ll help you look for him.”

Aaron closed his eyes, rubbing his temples as he tried to search for the link again. It was faint, but he was still nearby. He rushed out of the back room, ignoring Tamara’s pursuing apologies, and sprinted through the library towards the doors.

Hey! he shouted through the mind link, hoping that he could get a response.

“No running, please!” a librarian called after him. He ignored her.

Throwing open the glass doors, he dashed down the sidewalk, feeling his mind connect with his soulmate’s again, thoughts washing over him like a tidal wave of strange familiarity.

Then, he saw him: climbing into an old-timey car, eyes glued to the ground as he slammed the door shut, was the black haired boy from before. An older man--possibly his father, since they looked so much alike--similarly climbed into the driver’s seat and began to speed away.

Realizing there was no way he could keep up with a car, Aaron slowed down in defeat. He came to a stop next to a professor on the sidewalk, who was also watching the car pull away.

Please come back, Aaron thought.

If his soulmate heard him, he didn’t respond.

Aaron sank down onto the ground, breathing hard from the run. He forced back all the tears threatening to fall and stared at the pavement in front of him.

Why does he keep running away? Am I not good enough or something? He’s never even met me! How can he already be so sure I’m a bad person?  

“Young man, are you alright?” the professor asked next to him. Aaron didn’t recognize who he was, only guessing his profession based on the academic attire and the briefcase by his feet.

“No, I--” Aaron choked up as he tried to speak. “My soulmate--he was in that car.”

The professor sighed and looked over at the empty space on the street where the car had just been. “Mine too.”

He turned back to Aaron with a curious, somewhat sympathetic look on his face. “You look like you could use some coffee. Or perhaps a scone.”

Despite the fact that Aaron disliked other people buying things for him, he nodded. A hot drink would do wonders for the cold he was feeling right now.

The professor smiled. “Come along then. We wouldn’t want to get caught with the after work crowd.”

Aaron nodded again numbly, allowing the professor to guide him away in the direction of some coffee shop or another. He spared one last glance back over his shoulder, just to check if the car was really gone. Then, he returned his eyes to the path ahead, clenching his fists tightly at his sides as he forced back the tears he felt welling up again.

Why can’t you just let me find you?

“Hey, dad, what the fuck was that?” 

Call had waited until they had gotten back to the house and he’d had the chance to take a long shower and got all of the garbage grime off of his skin before asking the question.

“Callum, watch your language,” Alastair replied curtly. He was taking apart a clock at the kitchen table. Alastair usually saved antiques that needed to be taken apart for times when he was in a bad mood. Given how little the clock looked like a clock currently, Call figured Alastair’s mood was not doing so great.

“I think I’m entitled to swear at least once right now!” Call cried, staring with wide eyes as he threw a hand out towards the garage that they’d pulled into an hour ago. “How do you know professor Madden? How does he know you? Why did I feel like a kid watching my divorced parents fight?”

Alastair’s grip tightened on the screwdriver in his hand. Then, he sighed and put it down on the table, gesturing for Call to take a seat. Begrudgingly, Call obliged him, huffing and crossing his arms as he sat down.

“I suppose it’s time you found out…” Alastair murmured, then he looked up at his son. “Call, do you remember your mother?”

The question surprised Call. “No. You know I was still just a baby. Everything I know about her is through what you’ve told me and the pictures.”

Alastair looked tired as he rose from the table and fetched one of the photos Call had been talking about. It was of Alastair and Sarah Hunt holding a tiny baby Call between the two of them. They both looked very young and very happy together.

“Before this conversation continues, I want you to know that I loved your mother with all my heart. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss her.”

“Yeah. I miss her too,” Call said, surprised to feel tears stinging at the backs of his eyes. “I mean, I never got to know her but…”

“I know,” Alastair answered for him, smiling sadly. “But, before I met your mother, I had a soulmate.”

Call’s eyes went wide. “I--but I thought mom was your soulmate! That’s why your mark is all…”

Alastair shook his head and handed the photo to Call, pointing to Sarah Hunt’s hand. Call squinted, seeing that, while young Alastair clearly had a soulmate mark, Sarah did not. He furrowed his brow in confusion.

“So professor Madden…”

“Was my soulmate, yes.”

Call looked up at Alastair, putting the photo back down on the table. “Was? What happened?”

His father took in a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “Sometimes, even with the workings of fate, soulmates don’t work out. Constantine was struggling with the death of his brother, Jericho, and it seemed like nothing I did could help. We fought and fought and eventually broke it off. I left, and that’s when the mark turned gray.”

Call thought back to the confrontation in front of the library.

“I’ve found that I can’t expect loyalty from anyone in my life. You were a prime example of that, Alastair.”

Ouch.

“Is it...can you fix it? He’s still alive, right? Could you be soulmates again if you tried?”

Alastair sighed. “That, I don’t know. It’s possible, probably, but I’m not sure I want to become entangled with Constantine again. I wouldn’t want you to get caught up in it.”

“Dad, I’m eighteen and moved out. Mom’s also been gone for seventeen years now. If you want to date again, don’t let me stop you from doing it.”

“Even if I wanted to pursue Constantine,” Alastair began, pushing his hair back from his tired face, “you’re already having issues with your own soulmate. I don’t want to make things harder on you.”

Call looked down at the picture with his parents, running his thumb along the outline of Sarah Hunt’s photographed face. “I thought I was cursed or something,” he admitted. “I thought that, because mom was gone, you and I had some sort of destiny to have dead soulmates. I didn’t want to go through that.”

“Call,” Alastair said, the seriousness in his voice compelling Call to look up at him. To his surprise, his dad’s expression was gentle. “You can’t deny yourself happiness because you’re afraid of losing someone. Grief is a part of life, and whether someone is your soulmate or simply just someone you love, there’s always a risk of loss. Still, you should never refuse to love someone simply because the risk is there.”

“You always said soulmates were a bad thing, though,” Call whispered. He felt numb, the world seemingly crashing down around him in just one afternoon.

“I loved Constantine, through good and bad, and just because he and I didn’t work out didn’t mean I couldn’t still love your mother afterwards. You make your own destiny, Call. Sometimes, fate makes the wrong decision about who works with who.”

“What about that whole “ having a soulmate isn’t as good as people say ” stuff?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yeah, when I was six . I’ve been terrified ever since.”

Alastair shifted awkwardly in his seat. “I never meant to steer you away from these things, Call. I suppose the statement came from a bitter source.”

Call blinked blankly at his dad in front of him, not believing what he was hearing. “My entire life,” he began, his voice quiet, “has been wasted so far.”

“Now, I’m not saying throw all caution to the wind , Call,” Alastair quickly interrupted. “Just because you have a soulmate doesn’t mean everything is going to work out magically for you.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” Call admitted, his shoulders sagging with dread and worry. He’d been treating Aaron so horribly. “How do I know I won’t mess it up? More than I already have, that is.”

Surprisingly, Alastair gave him a gentle smile. “We all mess things up. That’s a given.” He leaned forward, picking up his screwdriver and starting to piece the clock together. “You should probably start by talking to him.”

Call nodded. 

“Yeah. That sounds like a plan.”

Aaron didn’t realize how weird it was that a professor he had never met before was buying him coffee until they had both sat down. He’d honestly been too distracted trying to piece together some sort of explanation for the way his soulmate was acting. So far, he hadn’t been successful.

Maybe Aaron was strange for investing so much hope in the mark on his arm. Growing up, that mark had been the one thing he had clung to, the single source of familiarity in the ever-shifting mirage that was his life. Foster home to foster home, new world to new world, his soulmate was there through all of it.

He just wanted to meet the guy. Was that too much to ask?

“You’re thinking rather loudly,” the professor, who had introduced himself earlier as Constantine Madden, said. “A penny for your thoughts?”

“The coffee will do,” Aaron replied, trying to force a smile. It was more difficult than usual, which spoke volumes on how shitty his afternoon had been. 

Aaron’s phone had been buzzing nonstop in his pocket, receiving text after text from Tamara. He still felt too bitter to look at any of them, even though she’d apologized and he knew she hadn’t been aware of the situation.

Constantine cleared his throat, looking expectantly at him. Aaron sighed.

“It’s stupid,” he said eventually.

“Soulmates generally are.”

Aaron laughed weakly. “Yeah.” 

He was never one for spilling his guts, especially to a stranger, but in that moment Aaron was a broken man. “It’s like--I’ve spent my whole life searching for this person, but now that I’ve found them it feels like they want nothing to do with me.”

Constantine nodded slowly, closing his eyes. “I was once in a similar situation, but the roles were reversed. It was I that pushed my soulmate away. It was likely the most foolish decision I made in my life.”

Aaron blinked, surprised at the admission. “Why’d you push them away?”

Sighing, the professor reached for some sugar packets and began dumping them into his latte with a hefty helping of whipped cream, which, in Aaron’s opinion, was already far too sugary. “I was going through a period of mourning. He tried to help, but I lashed out against him. As I said, it was foolish. He gave up and decided to move on. I could not blame him.”

“That’s so sad,” Aaron said, seeing Constantine in an entirely new light. There was an undeniable undertone of grief in his eye as he stirred his coffee with a gloved hand. It was difficult to see it, but his white blond hair was graying too. He was an aged man with many regrets.

“As is life. Still, I know now that he found something resembling happiness. That’s all I could hope for him.” Constantine’s eyes fell closed as he turned to the window. After a moment, he opened them again, looking at Aaron. “If I could impart one lesson on you today it is this: you do not owe your soulmate everything that is yours. Love is a partnership, and one should not have to work harder than the other to make it work. Destiny may seem fixed, but you will have more chances for happiness in the future.”

“Did you find another chance?” Aaron asked.

Constantine’s eyes fell closed again. “I did not.”

“I don’t want him to be alone.”

“You’ve never even spoken to him. You don’t owe him any loyalty.”

“I’ve known him all my life,” Aaron protested, raising his wrist so that Constantine could see the black spiral marking his skin. “Whether he knew it or not, this mark is the reason I’m alive today. He at least deserves a thank you for that.”

The smallest of smiles graced Constantine’s face as he sipped his coffee. “As you wish, Aaron. Your soulmate’s name is Callum Hunt, if that helps.”

Aaron grinned as he stood up from the booth. “Thanks. That’s good to know.”

He made a move to pick up his coffee and leave, but was interrupted by the sound of the cafe’s door slamming open.

Tamara stood in its wake, breathing hard as her gaze landed on Aaron.

“Aaron! Aaron, oh my god!” She ran up to him. “I’m so sorry about earlier. I really didn’t know who he was. I thought it was just--”

“It’s alright,” Aaron said calmly. “I get it. Sorry for leaving you hanging on Tuesday.”

Her shoulders sagged with relief from his forgiveness, waving off his latter comment. “It was a slow day anyways.”

He was about to say something else, but was cut off by a sudden excited glint in her eye. He wasn’t used to Tamara having this much energy, so he was caught by surprise as she yanked at his sleeve eagerly.

“I can make it up to you, though. I know where he’s gonna be tonight.”

“Really? How?”

Suddenly, she looked embarrassed. “I uh...I think I asked him out on a date? He lives in the dorm next to me.”

Constantine chuckled next to them, startling Aaron who had forgotten he was still there. “Apologies, the irony of “like father like son” just hit me. You said he agreed to date you?”

“Who are you?” Tamara asked, raising an eyebrow at Constantine.

“He’s a professor. Professor Madden,” Aaron answered for him. “He caught me at a low moment and offered some advice.”

“And coffee,” Constantine added. Aaron raised his cup, presenting it to Tamara as evidence. She hummed in thought.

“I think he was more concerned with getting away from Aaron than flirting with me.”

“But you flirted with him?” Aaron asked. Tamara raised her hands in defense.

“Again, I didn’t know he was your soulmate!”

Aaron sighed and nodded, conceding. “Okay. You said you knew where he was going to be tonight? What are you thinking?”

The excited glint returned to Tamara’s eye and she grinned at him. Aaron wondered briefly if he was going to regret this. 

“Let’s get you something nice to wear.”

He was definitely going to regret this.

It was late by the time Call left his dad’s house and returned to the college dorms. He felt more awake than he’d expected to after a day of running around and intense emotional reflection. Food for thought.

The second he made it into his hallway, he felt the pull start up again. This time, however, he cautiously edged towards it instead of running away. 

The closer he got to his door, the stronger the pull became. He saw Tamara standing in the hall, looking at her phone as he approached.

“Hey,” he greeted. She snapped her head up to look at him, nearly dropping her phone with the force of her flinch.

“Hey!” she greeted back, her voice echoing loudly down the hall. “I see you’re not covered in garbage anymore.”

He winced, remembering the awful smell of that cursed trash can. “You’re the one that dumped hot coffee on me.”

“It was green tea, ” she corrected him, laughing. Call chuckled as he stopped in front of her, feeling surprisingly calm despite the hectic day he’d had.

“Well, whatever it was, it hurt .”

Tamara at least had the decency to look a little ashamed about that, but Call laughed again and broke the tension.

Then, after a moment, he grew somber again. “Can I be honest with you?” he asked.

Tamara looked up at him, blinking in surprise. “Sure.”

Call sighed and tugged at the straps of his backpack, suddenly brimming with nervous energy. Then again, he couldn’t tell if it was his own anxiety or the anxiety of his soulmate, who was really close judging by the restraint Call had to put on himself not to run in the direction of the pull.

“I have a soulmate,” he admitted, finding it hard to look her in the eye as he shifted on his feet. “I just met him the other day, but it’s probably not a good idea for me to keep flirting with you while that’s going on.”

She blinked at him a few times. “Oh. That’s cool.”

“Yeah?” he asked. Tamara smiled and crossed her arms as she leaned against her door.

“Yeah, totally. I’m sure Aaron would appreciate it.”

Call frowned. “Aaron?”

Tamara’s eyes widened and the door behind her shuddered with a thump! as someone kicked it from behind. Call’s expression went flat.

“He’s in there, isn’t he?”

Tamara looked incredibly embarrassed as she turned and opened the door to her dorm. An equally embarrassed face poked out of the room as Aaron looked at Call.

Now that he wasn’t more focused on running away, Call took a moment to look Aaron up and down. It was clear that Tamara had forced him into something nice, judging by the uncomfortable way Aaron tugged at the collar of his button up. His hair was blond and fluffy, the sort of hair that was probably heaven to run your hands through.

It hadn’t escaped Call before how athletic Aaron was, but the better lighting made the fact easier to appreciate. Aaron stared back at him with bright green eyes, looking as though he expected Call to start running at any moment. There was a light dusting of freckles on his nose and his cheeks.

Fate had actually given Call a pretty good bargain as far as he was aware.

“Call, this is my coworker,” Tamara said, breaking the silence. “Aaron, this is Call. I hid him in a trash can.”

It didn’t take a mind link to see that Aaron was freaking out. Call was freaking out too. Aaron shakily raised a hand to offer a handshake to Call.

“Hey,” he said, his voice rather level for how loudly his thoughts were screaming at the moment.

“Nice to meet you, Superman,” Call replied, smiling and shaking Aaron’s hand. Aaron smiled back, relieved that Call wasn’t running away. As soon as they made contact, the pull vanished, leaving them both standing there and smiling at each other.

The tension flooded out of Call after he realized Aaron wasn’t going to drop dead right in front of him by simply making contact. Tamara shifted awkwardly on her feet at the corner of his vision, unsure what she should be doing.

“Superman?” Aaron asked, releasing Call’s hand and apparently not noticing Tamara’s plight.

“Someone called you that recently. You actually look more like Captain America to me.”

Aaron continued to stare, confused. Tamara laughed into her hand and he turned to direct his baffled gaze at her.

“Tell you later,” she chuckled. “But...you guys are good? I can have my room back now?”

Aaron looked at Call, a question brimming in his gaze. Call smiled sheepishly and felt his face go red.

“Yeah, uh...about the whole running away thing…” Call began.

Aaron continued to stare, sparking a new wave of nerves in Call’s stomach. 

“...I sort of thought I was cursed?”

“Cursed how?”

“I thought you would die if I touched you. It's...a whole thing.”

Aaron blinked at him in surprise. “Oh.”

Call laughed again, trying to release some of the tension. “I found out today that it wasn’t true, but I probably should have talked to you instead of running away like that. So, I’m sorry about that.”

Aaron smiled at him. He had a really nice smile. “Okay. Thanks.”

They both stared at each other, grinning like idiots now that the barrier had been broken down. 

“Reaaaaally hate to break up this moment,” Tamara cut in, “but I have an exam to study for. Can I get into my room now?”

Aaron blushed and stepped aside, allowing Tamara into her dorm. She turned and winked at Call over her shoulder before shutting the door, causing him to match Aaron’s blush.

“So,” Aaron began slowly, reaching for Call’s hand. Call allowed him to take it. “Do you like coffee?”

Call smiled again. 

“You know a place?”

The door of the shop jingled, but Alastair couldn’t be bothered to look up from the vintage typewriter on the desk in order to greet the customer. He’d nearly taken the entire thing apart trying to fix the broken key on it, straining his old eyes as he tinkered carefully with all of the small parts that made this bulky machine tick.

Someone cleared their throat and he sighed, putting down the tiny screwdriver and looking up to face them. 

“Hello, welcome to Now and Aga--” He cut off when he realized who was standing in his shop.

Constantine Madden, in the flesh, was watching him with calm gray eyes. A lopsided, charismatic smile graced his face, his white blond hair pushed back from his forehead. If it hadn’t been for the aged lines making themselves known at the corners of his eyes and the crease between his brows, Alastair could have sworn Constantine had walked out straight from his memory.

“Constantine,” Alastair acknowledged eventually. “Why are you here?”

“It’s a rather quaint store,” Constantine mused, running a knuckle across a wooden wind chime. The hollow parts of it clacked together, filling the shop with a quiet, charming sort of sound. “I was thinking about taking up collecting. I have a lot of free time these days.”

“And so you decided to come here,” Alastair said dryly. “How did you find this place?”

Constantine picked up a skull with ruby eyes, which was a rather tacky piece but Call had insisted they buy it when they went to a convention, saying that it looked “super cool”. He turned it side to side, observing how the rubies glinted in the light.

“Call told me where it was when he turned in his paper this morning. He seemed rather insistent that I come and talk to you.”

Alastair ran a hand down his face, sighing in exasperation. “I thought I told him I didn’t...Constantine, I’m not interested in whatever means you’re going to employ in order to insult me. I have a business to run and a typewriter to fix.”

“Who said I was here to insult you?” Constantine asked, putting the skull back down. He walked up to the desk, standing in front of Alastair. “Perhaps I came here to ask forgiveness.”

Alastair looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Forgiveness? For what?”

Constantine’s gaze fell to his feet, suddenly looking awkward. “I’ve never been good at apologizing, Alastair. You would know that better than anyone.”

Alastair continued to stare at him, puzzled as to where this was going. Constantine sighed.

“What I’m trying to say, Alastair, is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened after Jericho, the entire thing with Joseph, and that I pushed you away. I get that this was almost thirty years ago and old wounds like the one I inflicted tend to fester, but you at least deserve to know that I don’t blame you for walking away. I shouldn’t have said what I said, and you had every right to do the things that you did.”

The store fell into silence, Constantine looking at Alastair with a sad expression, Alastair staring back speechlessly. After a moment, Constantine began to knead his palms together anxiously, drawing attention to the ashen gray mark as he was, surprisingly, gloveless.

“In any case,” he began, “it was a pleasure seeing you again, Alastair. I hope you have an excellent life.”

He turned to walk out. Alastair stood abruptly, knocking his knee painfully against the desk in his haste. He ignored the pang in his leg, staring after the retreating professor with a sudden desperation. “Constantine, wait.”

Constantine waited.

Alastair rounded the desk, standing behind his soulmate. “I--thank you, but I feel as though I owe you an apology too.”

Constantine turned.

“You don’t owe me anything, Alastair.”

“You were hurting. That’s why you were angry. I should have been able to help.”

Constantine shook his head. “I had no right to hurt you because I was hurting. That’s not how love should work.”

“But I--”

“I don’t deserve an excuse, Alastair, so don’t give me any.”

Alastair went quiet again. “Perhaps you have changed, Constantine. For the better, that is.”

Constantine smiled again, this time less charming and more...pleased. “Watching your son and his soulmate run around each other made me come to a few realizations.”

Alastair huffed a laugh. “Call is a good kid, but sometimes he gets...ideas about things that don’t turn out well.”

“He’s a lot like Sarah,” Constantine said gently. It came out kinder than Alastair had been expecting the subject to.

He let out another small laugh. “That he is.”

Another pause lulled between them, this time more comfortable but filled to the brim by unspoken things. It moved like a chess game, one watching the other and trying to predict what strategy they were pursuing.

“Constantine…” Alastair began, testing the waters. Constantine looked at him expectantly, his hands still fiddling anxiously. “Do you think we could ever fix things? I know we aren’t the same people we were before and things are harder now, but I don’t want…” 

Alastair trailed off again, running a hand down his face. “It feels like I’ve made more decisions in my life that have turned out for the worse than for the better.”

Suddenly, Constantine was in front of him, pulling his hand away. “Do you truly wish to fix things?”

“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise. I would have let you walk away.”

“I think both of us have walked away too many times. Maybe we should stay in one place for once.”

A small smile reached Alastair’s face, cracking through the stony expression he usually kept. “You really think so?”

Constantine nodded. “I do.”

He brought their marked hands in front of them, and to their surprise the spot on both of their palms began to change. It morphed from a static gray dot to its original form, the black wolf waking from its long slumber and raised its head to howl again.

Alastair looked up at Constantine.

Constantine looked up at Alastair.

They both grinned at each other.