Archive of Our Own ^beta

The portraits are all starting to look the same. A blur of faces from long-dead nobles.

I wish Penny hadn’t talked me into coming with her to The National Gallery. She insisted I need more culture in my life. I told her I eat curry at least once a week, so that has to count for something.

I rub the back of my neck, shifting my weight back and forth as I wait for Penny. Art galleries are stuffy and boring, and filled with things you’re not allowed to touch. I need to be moving, not standing here like a lump.

“Are we going to be here much longer?” I ask her.

“We’ve only been here an hour, Simon.” She sounds exasperated, like all I am is a bother to her. (I wish I wasn’t.) “Why don’t you walk around a little? I’ll be in this room for a while yet.”

There are so many different rooms and exhibits in the gallery, I’m almost worried that if I walk around, I’ll never be able to find Penny again. I’ll never remember which room she’s in.

I’m making my way from room to room, playing a game in my head. Every painting I look at, I try to decide how I would fight the subject of the painting. That regal gentleman posing in his fine furs? I’d use the clay pot in the background to bash over his head. The family feeding ducks by a pond? Toss them all in the water.

So many of these paintings look so similar. Paintings of baby Jesus. Noblemen. Natural landscapes. They all blend together from one room to the next.

Until I see him.

I move a few steps closer, taking in the details. He’s posed as most subjects are in paintings like this, body angled slightly away, with a hand on his chest. Stupid fancy waistcoat and puffy lace cravat. Long dark locks of hair framing his face elegantly, with piercing grey eyes. I marvel at how the artist was able to capture such a grey. Not the boring grey of wet cement, but a mysterious grey like the sea. Swirls of blues and greens mixing in such a way that, if you’re paying attention, you can make out the shades that you wouldn’t notice at first glance.

The most striking feature of all is the dragon wings that mark the back of his left hand.

I glance down at my own left hand, examining the mark that has been there since I was born. A pair of unfurled blood-red dragon wings.

We match.

I look at the tag beneath the painting.

How is this even possible? I knew I had a soulmate out there somewhere, but this is too much. How can I be soulmates with someone that must have died over 300 years ago?

Penny has the answer for everything.

I hope to fuck she knows what is going on.

Penny’s going to be the death of me.

When she saw the matching soulmark on the mysterious man in the painting, she became inordinately excited.

“This is incredible, Simon!” she said. “Do you understand what this discovery means? This will change everything about how we view soulmates and the afterlife!”

Which is why I am headed to the library at nine in the morning on a Saturday. Really, I was supposed to be at the library by nine, which is why I’m also rushing out of Ebb’s Cafe—I work here during the week, so I at least know I can get our coffees fast.

Ebb is always warning me that I need to pay better attention to my surroundings. She calls it spatial awareness, and apparently, I lack it.

I stumble back as I step directly into the path of the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on.

Time itself seems to slow down as I take him in.

He looks vaguely familiar, like the memory of a fading dream you can’t quite hold on to. His grey eyes are piercing, like a sudden storm blowing in from the coast.

“Watch it!” his voice cuts through, setting time back on its normal course.

It’s then that I realize the contents of my coffee have transferred to the front of his jacket.

“Shit! I—”

He’s stepped back, wiping the remnants of my mishap from him with a gloved hand.

“Watch where you’re fucking going,” he bites out, walking off towards the bathroom.

Fuck.

Penny already had a pile of books pulled for research and was well on her way to filling her notepad with notes about soulmate theory by the time I arrived at the library.

“Simon!” Penny drops a book with a loud thud onto the table in front of me. My attention snaps back to reality. “What on earth have you been thinking about? You’ve been staring out that window for the last 10 minutes.”

The man from the coffee shop is still at the forefront of my mind. I know I’d never seen him before—I’d remember if I had—but something about him felt so familiar. It feels like if I think hard enough, I’ll be able to figure out why.

“N-nothing, Penny. Sorry.” I open the book she left in front of me and begin scanning the table of contents for anything related to past lives.

Penny is nothing if not a fiend possessed when she finds a new mystery to solve. I know that the only way to leave this task behind is to help her get through it.

Penny (11:28): Where are you?

Simon (11:29): Sorting out my future?

Penny (11:31): Are you at the gallery again?

Simon (11:31): maybe

Penny (11:32): That’s the 3rd time this week

Simon (11:32): and?

Penny (11:33): And you’re not going to find him by staring at that painting all the time.

Simon (11:34): Then what should I do?

Penny (11:35): You’ll find him just like everyone else does. By living your life.

Penny (11:36): Now come by mine and bring lunch with you. We have a lot of work to get through in PoliSci.

Simon (11:37): Alright fine. Be there in 30

I slide my mobile back in my pocket and sigh. I know she’s right. The identity of whoever this man was, or who he is now, isn’t going to reveal itself by me staring at this painting for hours on end.

And yet, I find myself back in this gallery every few days to study him. What kind of life did my soulmate live? What kind of life does he live now?

I glance around the gallery quickly before touching my hand to the frame of the painting. A quick goodbye before I leave him for the day.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a sharp voice cuts the silence of the hall.

A security guard seems to have materialized out of nowhere. He’s tall and fit and—

“Fuck,” I mumble under my breath, recognising him immediately. “Uhh.” I pull my hand back quickly and stuff it into my pocket. “Nothing. I was just leaving.”

“That’s right, you are,” he says, giving me a sharp look. It only takes a moment before I see the look of recognition on his face. “Wait. You’re the idiot who spilt coffee on me at the cafe last week.”

“Yeah. Uhh. Sorry about that,” I say, trying not to look directly into his eyes. The piercing look he gave me at Ebb’s is still ingrained in my memory. I hate it more than I have any right to.

I want to punch him and make his crooked nose worse.

“What on earth possessed you to touch a painting at an art gallery?”

“Dunno,” I tell him. I don’t really want to tell him that I say goodbye to this painting every time I’m here. That the subject of the painting is as familiar to me as the freckles on my skin. That we’re connected in a way that only soulmates can be.

“That’s not even one of our more interesting pieces in the collection,” he says, glaring at the painting. “The artist and subject are both unknown. It hasn’t even been fully restored.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I tell him, absentmindedly touching the soulmark on the back of my hand. I turn and make my way to the door as quickly as I can.

“Wait—” he shouts after me. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. Something about his tone has my nerves prickling with sensations I don’t understand.

I stop in my tracks as he continues talking. “I need to take down your information.”

“What for?” I ask. I didn’t hurt that painting, I didn’t even touch the canvas. I never do.

“If there was any damage, the gallery may need to contact you,” he drawls. “You’re lucky I’m not detaining you to press charges for destruction of property.”

“Fuck that—I didn’t destroy anything.”

“I hadn’t realized you were an art historian. My mistake,” he says rolling his eyes. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to hand over your identification.”

I give it to him and wait impatiently as he writes my information down in a notebook. Then he asks for my phone number, for contact purposes should the curator have any additional concerns.

Penny is going to be pissed off when she finds out why I’m so late.

What the actual fuck was I thinking?

After years of spending time near this painting, taking a job as a security guard just to stay close in a desperate hope of it leading me to my soulmate, I let him walk away without a word.

Well, I did manage to call him an idiot and then threaten him with pressing charges for destruction of property. But in my defence, he did spill coffee all over me because he is an idiot.

Every day since then, I’ve been looking for him. I linger by the painting just a touch longer than I should.

Watching.

Waiting.

I find myself thinking I see him everywhere I go. In the queue at the post office. At the pub after my shift. Walking a dog in the park.

It’s never him.

I find myself frequenting the coffee shop where we had that first catastrophic encounter.

He’s never here.

I’m about to leave when I see him come through the door from the kitchen with a large tray of baked goods in his hands.

I sit back down and watch him for a few minutes. He sets his tray down to talk with an older lady at the register. His sleeves are pushed up, revealing toned forearms and a galaxy of freckles dotting his skin. When he leans closer to listen to her, his face suddenly lights up with the joy of whatever joke she must have shared. I wonder vaguely if I’ll ever be able to get him to talk to me like that.

I can’t stay here any longer. I get up to leave as soon as I see him turn away from the counter and back towards the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” his voice comes from behind me. I turn to take him in. Those same bright curls and plain blue eyes that I’ve been dreaming about are boring into me.

“Drinking coffee, obviously,” I sneer. I don’t know why I can’t just talk to him.

“Why here?” He crosses his arms over his chest, clearly not believing that this was an innocent encounter.

“That is none of your concern.” The words come out before I can stop myself. “But you don’t need to worry about why, because I was just leaving.”

I make my way to the exit as quickly as I can. I can’t stay here a moment longer, berating the one person I’m supposed to feel an instant connection with.

I dream about him that night. And the next. Bronze curls. Blue eyes. A charming personality that he shows to everyone except me.

I dream of him as an actor at the Globe Theater performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and making eyes at a particular audience member. Then he’s in America, a Regular in the King’s army fighting to crush the American rebellion. And an exhibitor at The Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Finally, a lover, whispering promises into his partner’s ear. Always just wisps of what feels like a life once lived, never much more than a feeling and the briefest of memories when I wake.

I know I need to talk to him. Tell him who I am and my relation to the painting he’s been so obsessed with.

I call him the next day, asking him to meet me at the gallery at closing time. He doesn’t sound happy at the prospect, but he consents. Now all I have to do is get through this last shift of work before meeting him and telling him everything.

I can’t fucking believe that wanker called me back to the museum. And at closing time at that. I’m sure the curator found an easy way to extort money out of me by claiming I damaged that painting.

I don’t want to be here. I want to bash in that security guard’s stupid fucking face.

I arrive late, despite Penny’s warnings that I should arrive a bit early to show that I was serious about wanting to make things right. Unfortunately, I lost track of time and am now walking up to the front doors just as the guard is getting ready to lock up.

“Nice of you to make it, Mr. Snow,” he says without giving me much of a glance.

“Yeah, well. You didn’t give me many options,” I mumble as he lets me in and locks the door behind us.

“Would you follow me, please?” he says, leading the way down the corridor. I follow a few steps behind.

We walk in silence, nothing but the sounds of our feet echoing in the large, empty halls. It doesn’t take long for me to realise exactly where he’s taking me. I just don’t understand why.

“What do you know about this painting?” His voice is quiet and thoughtful. I would almost think he sounds nervous—but that doesn’t make sense. Why would he be nervous?

“N-not much—” I hate the way my voice breaks.

“I told you the last time you were here that this painting is of unknown origin.”

I nod, not quite sure where he’s going with this.

“Why did this painting draw your attention, when the gallery has so many better-known works?”

“Dunno,” I shrug.

“Tell me, Simon. The truth this time.”

I look down at my hand—at the soulmark that is the twin to the one in the painting.

He takes a steadying breath before removing his glove.

I just stare at his hand, my mind not quite processing what I’m seeing.

A soulmark in the shape of dragon wings on the back of his hand. Just like the one in the painting.

Just like the one on my own hand.

We match.

“How—” I don’t know what I want to ask first. How is he here? How did this painting bring us together? Why didn’t he just tell me that day he found me with the painting?

“I first saw this painting when I was in secondary,” he says with a faraway look, “and have been coming back here on and off over the years. Eventually, I decided to take a job as a security guard to stay close to the painting, hoping that one day it would lead me to my soulmate.”

He turns to me with a soft look in his eyes. He looks good like this, with his guard down and vulnerable. (He has looked good every time I’ve seen him. But he looks like somebody I could see having in my life now and not just somebody I’d like to punch.)

I take a step forward. Two.

He reaches out, taking my hand in his.

“This doesn’t have to mean anything, you know,” he tells me, examining my mark.

My skin tingles where he touches me, like warm electric sparks between us.

“I know,” I whisper leaning into him, “but I think I’d like it to.”

“Me too,” he says, closing the centimetres of space we had left between us. His lips are soft when they brush mine, a barely-there flutter.

I take no such precautions. I allow myself to kiss him like he is the answer to every silent prayer.

After several moments, we separate. I can’t help the grin on my face. This is my soulmate. A soul so perfectly matched to my own that we’ve been able to find each other across multiple lifetimes. I look forward to sharing this life with—

“Uhh,” I stupidly mumble. “What’s your name?”

He bursts into a sudden sharp laugh. It sounds beautiful coming from him.

“Basilton,” he says with an almost imperceptible smile, “but you can call me Baz.”