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Andrew is seven-years-old when he finally works up the nerve to ask his dad if his mother had been his dad’s Soulmate.
It’s the hope of most children that their parents are Soulmates — a perfect match, two individuals finding each other among billions in the universe. It’s said that when you first touch your Soulmate, you instantly know that it’s them, and when your Soulmates touches you back, they then know, too. Soulmates mark each other in such a way so that they’re never the same, and it becomes an everlasting condition.
It scares Andrew — he has to spend his life searching, only to be changed by this person? What if he doesn’t want to change? But his dad assures him it’s a good change, and it’s supposed to be that way because when you’ve found your Soulmate, you want to change for them.
And that scares Andrew even more, because if his parents were Soulmates, why did his mother leave? If you were assembled for each other, two parts for a whole, why would they leave? Could you fall out of love? Do you feel the loss of your companion when they’re away?
So he is glad when his dad says no, that Andrew’s mother was not his Soulmate. Andrew’s follow up question is, “Then who is your Soulmate?”
Andrew’s dad shrugs. “I dunno. But that’s okay. A lot of people never find theirs. They do the best amongst everyone else.”
“So you give up?” Andrew asks.
“Not give up,” his dad says, and then pauses, as though searching for a way to explain it to his young and innocent son. “You just settle.”
Andrew is nineteen, and he hardly buys the Soulmate theory. Even though it has been proven with science or whatever. Knowledge that one is a Soulmate occurs with a simple touch, a catalyst that surges through the body. A light turned on in a previously dark world, wherein it’s wondered how could you have survived so long without them. The two have an inextricable bond — a soul-bond — one so strong that feelings are shared between them. It’s said that some Soulmates can even experience physical pain that the other has.
One touch doesn’t enlighten both, however — both must initiate contact with the other to be conscious of their soul-bond. Something about it having to register for both to make it reciprocal.
That last bit makes Andrew sad, sometimes. He thinks of accidental brushes against a shoulder, where one in the pair is suddenly awakened and before they can turn around and see who their Soulmate is, the other has disappeared into a crowd never to be seen again, while the other aches for their missing Soulmate for eternity. There’s been tons of movies about that situation, where one character searches for their missing Soulmate and against all odds, they find them. But reality is that most often than not, they don’t reunite; there’s forums dedicated to searching, posting things like, I was wearing a navy peacoat and you had a red scarf and wavy blond hair and I accidentally hit my hand against yours but by the time you apologized (which you didn’t need to, it was all me) and I realized that you were my Soulmate you were gone, that go unanswered.
But Andrew isn’t too concerned about finding his Soulmate. Who could really understand him anyway? He doubts if anybody could, and that he is destined to be without a match. But he doesn’t care — he can’t miss what he doesn’t have.
He knows there are parties where people line up and take turns dragging their hands across, touching shoulders and hands and anything, just to experiment and see if any of them are Soulmates. Andrew avoids those gatherings at all costs, as he does with tactile contact in general. He can’t be waiting in anticipation with every touch to see if he will feel that flicker that indicates a person is his Soulmate — he has more important things that concern his mind. A Soulmate is just a person, but music and jazz and drumming is his life.
And that is why he’s pleased as punch as he stands in the hallway during the break of his first studio band class. Fletcher stands in front of him, and sure, he’s heard stories about the guy and not minutes ago Andrew had witnessed him go off on that trombonist, but honestly, the guy deserved it. Andrew rationalizes that all of those who have undergone Fletcher’s criticism probably deserved it, that they weren’t good enough to be worthy.
Andrew figures that he is good enough, because Fletcher’s leaning in, nodding, and giving him a pep talk. It’s nice, honestly — he hasn’t had someone take interest in him and his playing in a long time.
Before long the conversation is over and Fletcher tells him, “Have fun,” clapping a hand on his shoulder and walking away. Andrew briefly looks down considering it all, but then as he steals a glance over he realizes that Fletcher had took only a couple steps towards the practice room before stopping in his tracks with his head turned towards Andrew. Andrew flits his eyes up to meet Fletcher’s and finds Fletcher’s expression is unreadable, eyes wide staring back at Andrew, mouth slightly parted, head tiled. Andrew has never been great with identifying emotions — he can hardly sort out his own — but if he had to guess he would say that Fletcher is between somewhere of confusion and betrayal.
The pressure of Fletcher’s gaze heightens and shifts, and Andrew shifts with it. It only lasts for a beat, and the demeanor in Fletcher’s face changes — his eyes narrow and his mouth carves into a harsh line, and with a flurry Fletcher turns on his heel and goes back into the classroom.
That was strange, Andrew thinks.
A couple bars of music, a thrown chair, and slaps later, Andrew realizes that his life is going to become much much more strange.
Fletcher becomes an entity of consistency in his life.
Andrew isn’t sure if it’s for better or worse. Fletcher’s constant expectations make him work harder, and it hangs like a fog around him. It never dissipates, so it surrounds Andrew, making him disorientated in a wasteland of jazz hell. However, he argues to himself that he’s becoming better. He repeats it when his muscles scream and blood splatters onto the drums, better. When he ignores his dad’s calls, better. When he feels him slipping away into a singular focus blocking out everything else, better.
The far more ineffable of his experiences is Fletcher’s harrowing presence in Andrew’s subconscious.
He dreams about Fletcher, twisted dark dreams that suffocate, dreams where Fletcher plays a leading role. Most often than not he wakes from those dreams whimpering and damp with sweat, his heart slowing from a hammering rhythm. He thinks about them during the day, and feels as though Fletcher is always there with him, looming and berating him to work harder, bleed more, suffer. The bristling feeling of someone behind him never completely goes away.
And when he sees Fletcher outside of his nightmares, Andrew is almost positive that he knows that he is...haunting him. He takes every chance to harvest Andrew’s weaknesses, and plants and grows them into actions of his liking; they become snarled with vines that wrap around inside Andrew, thorns pressing into his organs.
Fletcher steals every opportunity to damage, like now — Fletcher has Andrew by the scruff of his neck, fingers digging into skin and forcing his head down towards the drum in front of him. “You’re a waste of flesh,” Fletcher snarls into Andrew’s ear. “Talentless failure. Probably not even valuable enough to be someone’s Soulmate.”
The quietest murmur sparks through the room — talking about Soulmates in that way is just not done. But leave it to Fletcher to push that boundary, he always does.
He knows it’s probably not what he should be thinking about currently, but Andrew wonders if Fletcher has a Soulmate. If anybody is without a soul and loveless, it would be him. How could anybody ever be a counterpart to a monster’s soul?
His line of thought is broken when Fletcher suddenly releases his hold on his neck. Andrew hears him breathing heavily behind him and that bristling feeling, that pressure that’s now always there, becomes more intense.
Andrew turns to look behind him and up at Fletcher — he is not afraid of him, the abuse rolls off of him, he wants to show him it’s meaningless to his progress as a drummer. He can’t stop him.
For a moment, Fletcher stares Andrew down, as though sizing him up. But then he glances away, flexing his hands open and shut into fists a few times before walking around Andrew and the drum kit and back to the front of the class.
It all comes to a culmination at Dunellen. Fletcher’s dismissal bites, and as he kicks over the drum kit and charges at Fletcher, Andrew realizes four things:
- He probably should not have ran off after the car accident, because he’s pretty sure he has a concussion.
- He knows why Fletcher acts so weird around him.
- He had never touched Fletcher until now.
- He might as well go ahead and die.
At first, Andrew supposes that the possible concussion is what causes the jarring, light-headed feeling that explodes in his head, but soon concludes that there’s no way — the feeling is so visceral and unlike anything worldly he’s ever experienced that it must be that which everyone speaks of.
As soon Andrew touches Fletcher, as soon as he slams him into the hardwood floor, he feels it, a staggering jolt that rips through him, lighting his neurons aflame and leaving him gasping for breath. Andrew pauses for a second, while pinning Fletcher to the floor. Fletcher doesn’t struggle, he’s still and slightly lowering his hands from his face that he had been using to protect himself, and Andrew can see how he’s looking — expectant.
Although, Andrew doesn’t have to see Fletcher’s to know how he’s feeling — he senses it, a cacophony of fragments attacking him that he does not recognize as his own. And Fletcher, that motherfucker, he smiles as he looks upon Andrew’s confusion, and it registers with Andrew that Fletcher has known for a long time that they’re this.
Andrew feels an inky crawling in his ribs and his eyes begin to water and he starts screaming and hitting anything of Fletcher that he can get his hands on, because it has to be some kind of cosmic joke. Eventually, Connolly and a security guard pull him away, but that doesn’t stop him from spitting curses at Fletcher as he’s dragged off stage.
Because he cannot accept that Terence Fletcher is his Soulmate.
He’s been scarred, Andrew decides.
Andrew doesn’t see Fletcher after he had been made aware of their soul-bond, and Andrew decides it’s probably for the best. He doesn’t know what he would say, and fuck, if he had to explain to his dad why Fletcher was around and why there was an awkward tension between them, he would die out of horror.
However, Andrew does get a lifelong question answered: it in fact does pain when separated from a Soulmate. There’s a string of tightness that pulls taut from Andrew, and he knows that Fletcher has the other end grasped in his fist. The dreams about Fletcher don’t stop, but instead of them always been gut-wrenching horror, they become variable — with ones where Fletcher is close and the wanting feeling that’s constantly in Andrew’s chest is gone, and Fletcher is whispering things in his ear that Andrew can’t remember when he wakes up.
Truth be told, those dreams haunt Andrew too, and he hates himself for how he feels disappointed when he wakes. The only consolation is the thought that Fletcher probably has similar dreams about Andrew, ones that just won’t leave him.
Andrew hopes that he suffers, because the damage Fletcher has wrought on his life is irreparable. Andrew is satisfied for awhile; after, when Andrew keeps having sharp pains in his chest that can not be medically explained, he realizes that Fletcher most likely broke a couple a ribs during their fight and he’s having the shared symbiotic pain that some Soulmates experience. For weeks, a smile comes to Andrew when a jab of pain radiates in his side. He misses it when it stops, supposing Fletcher healed.
But he needs Fletcher to bear more — Andrew is forever fucked up, and he wants to drag Fletcher down with him. He hopes that Fletcher feels the solemn ache that settles around his sternum and crawls up his throat and chokes him. The feeling of loss — loss of purpose — is a constant companion. It takes Andrew a while to realize that Fletcher is the one who caused it, he was the one who destroyed Andrew’s chance at being Great, so if anything Fletcher would be glad to experience Andrew’s pain. And that — that fuels Andrew even more.
So that’s probably why Andrew is out late on the city streets, following that tug in his chest instead of resisting it.
It leads him along a winding path until he stops outside of a jazz club. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Andrew says to himself as he sees the chalkboard outside that says Special Guest: Terence Fletcher.
That invisible tug beckons him to go inside, and against his better judgment, Andrew follows it.
As soon as he steps in, Andrew wants to turn back and run, but something in him keeps him rooted to the spot; a delicate melody fills the room and the notes settle in his chest comfortably, and he doesn’t necessarily have to see Fletcher sitting at the piano to know that he is the one creating it.
The song is soon over and Andrew tries to escape — no, he can’t be confronted, not yet — but Fletcher is too fast and traps him.
“So...,” Andrew starts. Fletcher had convinced him sit down with him, and Andrew really regrets it now that he is sitting across from Fletcher, who is staring blankly at him waiting for him to initiate conversation. Andrew doesn’t know what to address first: the incidents that followed as a result of Dunellen, or the fact that they are apparently Soulmates.
Fletcher takes the lead, “I don’t know if you heard, but I’m not at Shaffer anymore...”
The conversation volleys for a while, and Andrew internally sighs with relief. It seems as though Fletcher doesn’t know it was him who got him fired, and maybe they won’t ever acknowledge the Soulmate thing, which is fine by him. Avoidance is the best option. Nobody says you have to be with your Soulmate.
“I know you’ve stopped practicing,” Fletcher suddenly says, and the accusation stings, but only because it’s true. Seeing Andrew’s questionable look, Fletcher raises an open palm in the air. “My hands haven’t hurt in awhile.”
“Oh,” Andrew says. The conjunctive Soulmate pain. Spurred from that, he feels the need to apologize for breaking his ribs, but it would be a lie. He isn’t sorry.
Fletcher eases back into his chair. “Neiman, you’re fucking dumb, you know that?”
The insult is nothing new, but the way Fletcher says it is. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t realize?” Fletcher asks. “Why I was doing what I was doing?”
“You’re saying you treated me like that because you realized I was your Soulmate?” Andrew responds, almost whispering the last word. “Honestly, I just thought you were being a dick.”
Fletcher laughs, and says, “You got me.” The laughter sits heavy in Andrew’s chest. “But I admit I was curious to see if you were made of the stuff to go all the way to the top,” Fletcher continues. “Now I know that it doesn’t mean anything. People will always disappoint you. I never really had a Charlie Parker, and I sure as hell don’t have a Soulmate either.”
The rejection burns at Andrew’s insides, and it somehow feels like a double rejection. Denial spurs the need to be claimed. It’s that awful feeling that motivates him to agree to play the JVC concert.
He’ll prove himself worthy.
“You’re the biggest idiot who ever lived,” Fletcher says harshly in Andrew’s ear, hot breath blowing at Andrew’s hair. Andrew grins, and racks his hands up Fletcher’s back, under his signature black t-shirt. The sounds of another band performing echoes down the hallway and against the door of the tiny storage room that they’re crammed into, but it’s just them. He ebbs, the other flows.
“So I am yours, then?” Andrew asks, the air rushing out of his lungs.
Fletcher groans and responds by pressing his mouth against Andrew’s and kissing him deeply.
If Andrew had to reconstruct the evening in perfect detail he most likely couldn’t — it’s a blur of events that range from utter despair to complete elation, and somewhere along the way he and Fletcher connect, them becoming affixed together, two metronomes in sync. They both recognize it, both knowing there’s no going back, that this is their new normal, now that they’ve fully acknowledged their soul-bond.
Andrew knows he’s got Fletcher hooked. Having all of Fletcher’s focus is an intensity of a storm that rages, thunder and lightning that courses through his veins, that cuts at him and rings in his ears, an effervescence that consumes. Touching the surface of the sun would hurt less, he thinks.
“Andrew,” Fletcher says in a sardonically saccharine way that’s just for him, “No need to hurry. I always knew you’d be mine eventually.” He bites at a place at Andrew’s neck, then covers it with his mouth.
He feels as though the marks Fletcher gives is his attempt to imprint himself further upon him, and Andrew is desperate for him to brand his whole body. “So you admit it? I’m your Soulmate?”
Fletcher runs a hand down Andrew’s side, down to his hip. “That lovey-dovey shit is exaggerated. This just means...” He pauses, and looks far into Andrew. “It means that we understand each other.”
That, Andrew cannot argue with. He looks to Fletcher and he can see Fletcher’s plans for him: to rip him from the inside out and make him his own version. Andrew is sure that Fletcher’s only method is one of destruction, but that’s okay — because he had to be demolished to become who he wanted to be.
He’s pretty sure that Fletcher is tortured too, with the way that Fletcher is grasping at Andrew, and Andrew remembers that Fletcher has had to wait a lifetime to find the one who complements his soul. Andrew feels the way Fletcher’s trying to hold on to the inner essence that is Andrew, slipping like oil through his clutches.
Andrew aims to continue to torture him. “I’m your Charlie Parker,” he says, hooking his leg around Fletcher’s waist and closing the distance between them.
“Sure,” Fletcher mumbles, and kisses Andrew again, his tongue pushing into and invading Andrew’s mouth.
Andrew smiles on his lips, and leans towards him, letting Fletcher sink in his claws, because he knows how bereft it feels to be without. If anything, it’ll be a mutual destruction. He once wondered who could be the match to a destructive soul like Fletcher’s, but Andrew has seen his and it is a mirror to his own.
Nobody ever said that your Soulmate had to be good for you.