Chapter Text
He was ten years old, in an abandoned library, when he first saw the word 'soulmate'. His brother was gently snoring on the floor beside him, using an old tablecloth that stank of foul tea with too much sugar as a blanket. He had propped himself against a window so that the light from the lamppost outside fell right onto his book.
'When one meets their other half, and secures their place in their soulmate's heart, one will begin to have certain dreams. Or rather, a mirage of a memory they haven't yet made. The only way to distinguish it from regular dreams is that those dreams will seem too full of warm and hope to be ever true.
At first, it would look mundane, but will linger in the back of the dreamer's mind until it comes true.
Some souls though, never find their other half. Either they die too young or their soulmate does. Some choose different lovers, spouses or life partners and ignore fate, willingly or unwillingly.'
Soulmate.
He closed the book. The sound echoed strangely loud in the quiet of the night. Tomorrow, he would look for a better book. One full of knowledge he could help others with and, if they were lucky, maybe they would get food or money in return.
He was a homeless boy and had no one in this world who understood him, or cared about him, except his little brother. Boys like them didn't get to daydream about things like love and other halves.
He left the book on the windowsill and curled up next to Louis. He would have to get something to eat from somewhere tomorrow. Perhaps he could help in some noble's kitchen, they always cook for more mouths than they need to feed. He pulled the tablecloth over the both of them and closed his eyes.
He did help someone the next day. A working class man who owned a small factory of fabric dyeing, complaining about how so much dye evaporated during the heating process. A few days ago, he recommended the man to mix salt into the dye, which would increase the density of the water and give it a higher boiling point.
"There ya are! I've been waiting for you to come around again," the man said contently.
"Good morning, sir. How is the problem with the dye?" He greeted with a smile.
"Oh, About that. You see, my wife loves baking. And lately, as the factory isn't doing much good, she hasn't been able to do any. But 'cause of you, I saved enough money to buy her the things she needed for her baking. She is as happy as a child! Even the factory is giving out more profit than before. Here," He took out a brown parchment bag from his jacket. "She baked you some nice pastries as a thank you."
"Thank you, sir. I bet these are delicious. Please inform your wife that we appreciate her thoughtfulness."
The man laughed. "Those are some words you got there, lad. Even some nobles don't speak that proper."
They took the pastries to a nearby park and sat in the shade of an apple tree to eat. Louis let out a content sigh as he took his first bite. The next day, they helped another person. And the next day. And the next day too. A kind lady gave them a whole bunch of breads wrapped in a white scarf. The day after that, he stayed in the library the entire day, reading an old copy of a book called 'The Merchant Of Venice' which already had some pages falling out.
This was their routine: they would help those in need, help again, and again. Then at night, Louis would lay down beside him and sleep while he mentally devoured every book in the library.
One day though, as they were going back to the library a woman stopped them. She seemed fairly young and was wearing religious clothes. She asked them if they were homeless, and when they said yes, how they were surviving.
"We live in an old library sister. It doesn't get much cold there, even at night." The woman registered his words looking satisfied yet worried at the same time as if she had won a mental bet with herself but it wasn't about something good.
"And what about-" she was only starting to speak as the boy's stomach grumbled. They had only gotten an apple from a gardener today, and Louis seemed too hungry for him to happily split it. He looked up at her to apologize only to see her face was full of worry. She muttered a quick 'oh dear' and said, "Come with me, children, come with me. Let's get you something to eat first."
They followed her reluctantly. As much as they helped strangers without wanting much in return, they didn't expect the same from them. Besides, they haven't had much good interactions with strangers to begin with.
He didn't mention that, in her sympathetic daze, she never told them her name or what she did. Perhaps she worked in a church? Her gown seemed to be that similar to a nun's.
The woman, however, managed an orphanage. She sat the boys in the main hall and slipped into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came out holding a platter of cooked potatoes, reheated porridge and bread. She set down two clay cups for both of them and filled them with water.
"Help yourselves, dears. We'll talk about the other things later," she said sympathetically. She later told them there were three other maidens who worked with her to take care of the orphans. They had already eaten dinner by the time they got there, and that she had only waited outside because she had seen them pass by more than a few times.
It didn't take much to convince them to stay in the orphanage. They would have proper meals, every day, a place to rest that wouldn't smell like old tea and burnt sugar, and other kids to play with. The children they had met till now were either sickly working boys who earned their night's supper by working in the day or the spoiled lineage of rich nobles. But here, the children would be better and happier. They were neither arrogant nor sick. He could even teach them to read if they would learn, and tell them all the stories he had read in that library.
By the time they had finished eating, Louis's eyes were droopy with sleep. The sister quietly ushered them into a large room where many other boys －some younger than them, some older－ were going to sleep. She quickly rolled out two beddings for them and gave them blankets.
"This is where you'll be sleeping, boys," she said. "Sleep now, and tomorrow I'll introduce you to the other children."
The next day, she'd come into the lawn to see how they were fitting in with the kids, ready to help them make friends if need arrived. To her surprise, all the children were already gathered around the brothers. The older had a book in his hands and was reading out loud a story about dragons and thieves while the other children sat around him in the grass and listened. He would read them all the stories he wished to. Every day, they would form a circle around him and sit patiently as he told them tales of princes and elves and all the magic this world didn't have.
He would also go out and help people, whenever he had time. Sometimes, they would even come to him. Word spreads fast when you're talking about a child with knowledge that astonished even the adults.
He would help anyone and everyone, as long as their cause was right and just.
But when none of the maidens were watching, the orphan brothers were stirring up a storm of their own. They weren't delinquents, far from that, one could even say they were the most behaved children in the facility; what they were was renegades to be. The older would teach those children about the corruption of the nobles, open their eyes to their true nature while the younger would stand by his side.
"When a bad noble appears, what do we do, everyone?" he asked.
"Fight! Kill! Kill all the bad nobles!" the shouts would echo. Unbeknownst to him, a certain someone was standing outside the door, hearing everything he said.
In the upcoming days, the two orphan boys were adopted into a noble household. They were scolded, thrown around, degraded. But there was a boy too, a boy who wanted to join forces. A boy who wanted to give them the power and influence in exchange for his ideals. There, he committed his first own perfect crime.
There was a smile on his lips when he did it. Not a smirk, or a grin, or anything noticeable; just a subtle tug at the ends of his mouth. Flames rose high and bright all around him. Someone was holding his hand and, there, William James Moriarty knew he was going to change the world.