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"And here I thought a week of no incidents meant you boys had grown..."
Within the Headmage's office, it was as if all the portraits of the Great Seven themselves were glaring down at them to punctuate Crowley's point. (And, well, given that there was precedent of living paintings in the school...)
"How did you two get a teacher's answer sheet? Who is your supplier?!"
Deuce reeled back. "Supplier...?"
"If you two apparently didn't collaborate on this cheating, it means some other person has the means and sold it to you both separately." Crossing his arms, Crowley leaned back in his chair, eyes still locked on his targets. "If you cooperate in the investigation, your punishment will be reduced. If not..."
Whether he trailed off the words intentionally, or his mind just tuned out, Ace didn't care. He could use this. Deuce getting caught would work out in his favor after all!
The idea there was someone going around stealing answers off tests and selling them to other students was, to Ace's knowledge, just a rumor. Maybe he'd fork over money for something like mid-terms or a final exam he wasn't confident in, but this was just a routine test. While he still had difficulty with keeping up, he had other ways of solving that problem for free. If the problem was forgetting everything by the time the test rolled out, the simplest thing to do was just leave a reminder... one he could look to at any time, including the test.
It baffled him how Deuce got caught, though, especially since he didn't even bring him in on the scheme! Yet he also apparently wrote down all the recent class notes on his arm, while not even putting the full effort into hiding it from the professor! As soon as that happened, the professor was on guard, and started checking everyone.
But maybe if Crowley was convinced there was a more complex conspiracy, Ace could scam his way out of a harsher punishment.
If only Deuce wasn't trying his damndest to fail the Prisoner's Dilemma!
"I'm sorry sir, I can't help with that..." Deuce shook his head, everything in his body bracing itself even further than it did when they first entered. "Because the honest truth is that I have no recollection of how the words got there."
Idiot! Did he really never upgrade from bogus toddler lies?!
"I don't know what Deuce's on about, but I-"
And yet, Deuce was aiming to dig them both deeper. "I understand I have no way to prove it, but I promise that every time I notice it happening, I avoid looking! I really wish to learn at this school legitimately!"
Crowley's attention was focused solely on Deuce now, with no more hope for Ace to butt in and change course. "You said that when you notice it, you simply don't look... Why not just clean the arm off and avoid being accused of apparently a false crime?"
"Well, even when I notice with enough time before a test, it doesn't clear off on its own... I've really tried everything to make it go away, but it comes and goes on its own." At this point, Deuce was deflating. "It's happened since... maybe since middle school? No one's believed it, and like I said, I have no way to prove it."
At this, Ace felt a chill. His first assumption was to assume Deuce was flailing under pressure, but... his elaborate details were jogging a memory. Something that hadn't occurred in maybe several months now. Hell, with how chaotic the first few weeks of the semester had been going, it wasn't surprising that it'd slipped from his mind.
"It sounds like the dumbest excuse I've ever heard..." he piped up then, really giving it a try. "But I almost want to believe it. Growing up, I'd have random shopping lists just show up-"
"You can just say it's unbelievable without mocking me!" Deuce shouted, not even wanting to hear the rest.
"Oi, I was being genuine this time, dingus!"
"I've asked and searched and no one else has the same story as me! You expect me to believe you do?! With shopping lists of all things?! And you're only just now sharing that?!"
"Well of course I don't just broadcast something stupid out to the world, of course this is the first time you're hearing of it!"
"Enough!" The Headmage's shout was followed by a sigh. "Clearly, this conversation will not be leading to anything productive, so for now I will issue..."
His eyes narrowed down at something. "Mr. Spade? Mr. Trappola?"
"Yes, sir...?"
"Did you two not even clean off your arms before arriving?"
Deuce immediately was sprung into frantically rubbing his offending arm. "I apologize, sir! If you get out some cleaning agents, I can show that this is just impossible to get off!"
Crowley's gaze went toward Ace. "And you? Do you also claim to be incapable?"
"No, sir... I didn't think of cleaning it off on the way here."
A handkerchief was offered to him, to which he started to carefully rub the ink off his skin...
"Wait, here it is!" Deuce suddenly yelled, outstretching his arm. "It's- It stopped...?"
Ace was pulled from his cleaning to see what the fuss was about, watching as only the top section of words closest to Deuce's wrist had disappeared. Right below that, some of the ink of the next section was fading, but still partially visible.
"That's odd. It usually just keeps going..."
"What about your arm, Mr. Trappola?"
His eyes went from Deuce's arm to the Headmage. "Mine? I'm almost done..."
As he showed it off, things started clicking in his head. The phrases Ace wrote on his arm, Deuce somehow stumbled in perfectly copying them. The handwriting on both arms were exactly like Ace's, even though he's seen Deuce's before and can tell this wasn't it. And the order of disappearance, the leftover smears from unfinished cleaning...
Their arms were perfect copies.
Moments passed as the realization dawned on them, but they still fumbled with words to express either exclamations or questions. It ultimately did not matter, as Crowley already had an idea of what to say next.
"It must be..." He paused, now out of his chair. "Mr. Spade, did you use your arms to write shopping lists before?"
"Huh? Well, whenever there wasn't paper around or we needed extra space, then yes..."
"And Mr. Trappola... can you honestly answer: did you write answers on your arms at previous schools?"
In too much of a daze to plan his words carefully, Ace almost automatically let out a: "Yes..."
"Then it's the only explanation." His masked face lifted from watching their arms for the first time in a while. "The ancient legend of soulmates is true... and it has manifested within you two!"
.
.
.
"EH?!"
Calm in the face of their shared outburst, Crowley continued, "Legend has it that every so often, a pair bound by fate will appear, signaled by ink placed on one body appearing on the other's as an exact copy. It is one of few myths shared by every land and culture in Twisted Wonderland. And yet, besides old stories difficult to prove for certain, there was no evidence of this phenomenon...
"Until now!"
Ace's eyes were as wide as Crowley's smile. "There's no way! There's literally no way!"
"Yeah, if there was a legend like that, I would've come across it when searching for answers back then!" Deuce added.
"Not entirely. Only few sources of this legend remain, with much available at only certain locations. I'd imagine that at this point, most public records would've been labeled as mere fairy tales... and you likely never would've thought to include supposed fiction in your search for answers, correct?"
Crowley could take Deuce's silence to mean an admission, but Ace refused to believe it.
"Of course... there is still technically another explanation..."
Of course there is! Anything else is more believable than >me< being "fatefully-bonded" with-
"You two could also have come across the fairy tales yourselves and decided to utilize magic history for an awful prank on your hopeful, nice Headmage..."
"No, sir!" Deuce quite quickly exclaimed. "We would never, sir!"
"Is it even possible for us to pull that off?!" Ace tacked on. "We've gotten into some trouble, yeah, but do we look like the kind to attempt something like this?"
"So it's true." Crowley was beaming. "A long-forgotten myth, the source of much academic debate, has been proven! On Night Raven College grounds, no less! This moment will be etched in history..."
It was as if Crowley was saying that the most embarrassing scene of your childhood - the one that keeps you up at night - was going to be known by all just because of cultural significance...
"I suppose this proves Deuce's innocence, but calls into question how Ace knew what to write for the test..."
Oh no.
"However... The excitement of history in the making is inspiring exceptional generosity within me! Should the discovery reach ears outside of this room, it would be unbecoming that the story is one of a cheating student..." Suddenly, his mood went from bright to chilly, as he brought a hand to tap his chin - visualizing to the point of obviousness that the man was... thinking. "Yes, it would be for the best that records of that be replaced and forgotten, changed to something more appropriate... That is, if you two are okay with this myth not staying in the shadows. Otherwise, then, the records of Ace's current and past cheating would be no threat to anything..."
You cheeky prick!
"I still can't completely believe all this, and it doesn't feel like Ace and I are..." Deuce refrained from finishing that thought. "But if it'd give Ace a clean slate, and my arm can be used as a tool to keep it that way..."
You son of a bitch!
"Ah, I completely didn't think of it, but yes. Now that we know his writing will appear on you, this method of cheating is also closed off from him."
"Hey, why do I feel like the target of a scheme now?!"
"Ace, Deuce, gimme the scoop!" Cater's voice echoed across the dorm. He shrugged away a crowd of their dorm mates, dragging the two into a nearby closet for privacy. The two braced for the questions they knew were coming.
"The news went trending on Magicam minutes ago! Is it true you two are legendary, rare Soulmates?!"
"Yeah..."
"So Ace used to see Deuce's shopping lists for his mom?!"
"Yep..."
"And Deuce used to see Ace's amateur poetry?!"
"Alright, do people really have to put it that way?!" Ace yelled. Burying teeth into his inner cheek, he put to words the thought-up plan he'd been rehearsing since Crowley got dead-set on that detail replacement. "Weird shit would pop up on my arm. I thought, hey, if someone's putting this weird shit on me, it's only fair to put weird shit back on them! It ain't some romantic fairy tale! And I'm not unironically into real poetry 'cause of it!"
"But still, it was such a hyper-specific childhood story, we just had to test our arms then..." Deuce finished the story, a lot more calmly than Ace. "And when we saw our arms would copy each other magically, we took it to the Headmage..."
"Well, I obviously can't imagine Ace being into poetry..." Cater went on, adding in a wink. "But Deuce, if you can remember any highlights, my DMs are open~"
He almost thought he'd reached his maximum boiling point...
"But even without fate confirming it - I totally called the A-Deuce train!"
In a flash, Cater was flung into the crowd outside the closet, shouts overpowering his laughs.
A few moments of calming down and the two shared mirrored sighs.
"I should've known that unlike the 'academic world' the Headmage mentioned, our peers would've made this a nightmare..." Deuce said.
"It was one of the first things that came to my mind! Why did you think I was sending you all those 'don't do it' looks in the office?!"
"Yeah, I should've realized something was wrong, when you weren't jumping at the opportunity to get out of trouble..."
"Jeez, and this is what I'm talking about!" Ace leaned against the back wall of the closet, using clothes to avoid the sight of Deuce's moping stupidity. "'Fated pair'... that sounds like being on the same wavelength, finishing each other's sentences, being as in-sync as our arms... We're nothing like that, why is everyone so convinced we are?!"
"Well, our arms do-"
He was caught off by the slight shrieking of a hanger scraping against a beam, as Ace harshly made a brief window to glare at him. "It's not just about the arms! It's about how this isn't even the first time Cater's used a couple's nickname with us! Just how long have people been getting the wrong idea about us?!"
After the sound of the clothes shuffling back to their normal spots ended, Ace stopped hearing much else for a bit. When the delay made him sure he wouldn't be hearing anything else, he lost himself in his own thoughts.
Thoughts about how much he hated Deuce. How much he hated the situations he kept getting wrapped up in alongside him. How much he hated only getting out of trouble once Deuce got involved.
Thoughts about how - just barely into the first semester of the first year - he was already getting tired of this school. Tired of things going wrong for him and just getting worse. Tired of weird magic shit happening to him - the monster in the mines, Riddle's overblot, Leona's overblot, this Soulmates things.
Thoughts about how maybe they let the Headmage get away with more than he should...
My gut reaction was to find it hilarious that Yuu and Grim got made janitors, but maybe I should've been questioning just what kind of ability he has to get people to agree to humiliate themselves. I bet our Headmage is an Octavinelle alumni!
There was a tap on his shoulder, from a hand emerging from the other side of the closet clothes. "Hey, Ace... check your wrist."
"What the hell did you do this time?!" he demanded - as if it was Deuce who was the one that wrote cheats and kickstarted this, and not him.
"Just read it..."
With a sigh, Ace brought his dominant wrist to read, muttering at the same time, "You better not be-"
Everything is going to be okay.
Now he was the one staying quiet for a prolonged amount of time.
"This school is full of assholes, we already experienced that before," Deuce started saying, to fill the void, to be sure Ace got the message. "That doesn't mean we let them decide what this means for us. Our skin manifesting ink copies? Us just bumping into each other, out of all the other students, to get briefly expelled and go on an adventure together? That just means fate has plans for us to stick together. That doesn't mean we have to like each other - in any sort of way!"
"Then what about the first week?"
"I just said-"
"Not the first day. The stuff with Riddle." His fingers ghosted against the clothes in front of them, stopping himself from revealing Deuce's visage again for some reason only his subconscious knew then. "It was chance you got involved with catching Grim and the chandelier... Why were you the one to check on me at Ramshackle?"
A sigh. "What else was I supposed to do? I saw three guys get kicked off the dorm's premises for a rule break. I heard you broke one during the night. Nobody knew where you were or even if you found a place for the night!"
Ace's voice raised. "But why you?! Why - out of everyone in our dorm, in this whole school - why are you the one who keeps following me along?!"
And in contrast, Deuce's went quieter. "I... I was just worried back then, okay. But of course I would be! We just escaped expulsion together, and you were suddenly gone."
"That still doesn't explain why you couldn't just mind your own business after we fixed that expulsion mess together. And what about the tart?!"
"Yuu and Grim also-"
"Grim will do anything for food, and Yuu's just nice! What's your excuse?!"
A pause. "I was still worried... worried you'd screw up the tart, or that Grim would screw up the tart instead, or that you'd back out at some point to stubbornly refuse apologizing to Riddle." And then, more sharply, "Which you did!"
"Still, that should've stopped being your business by then!" Ace continued to hiss. "And the Spelldrive! You ran to me first! You just had to tell me about Trey personally!"
"I..." Another sigh. "I don't even know. It just popped into my head and I didn't question it. I think by then I was just... used to it. Used to being around you and getting involved in stuff with you. I've been making more acquaintances than just Yuu, Grim, and you, but... you're really the one I've been spending time with the most, y'know? Of course it's just going to become instinct at that point."
"Tch, this wouldn't have happened, if I were in your shoes. I would've cut off all thoughts about you as soon as we gave that magestone to the Headmage!" And now you've dragged me down into this "Can't get away from you!" nonsense, too!
"...well then, I'm sorry." There was a shuffling. "Do you want me to just avoid you now? We don't have to be in each other's proximity anymore, the arm stuff's already been shown off to the people Crowley wanted. It shouldn't be entirely unbelievable to people that we got sick of each other, with our history so far, right?"
"Isn't the idea of this whole thing, that no matter what, we'll still just bump into each other?"
"Then we'll just keep those moments brief and split as soon as we can."
It's what he would've settled for several minutes ago. Feelings that that sort of reasonable plan... wasn't the right direction, didn't exist until now.
"Nah, just... There's no point in putting in that much effort." He slid down the wall a bit, slumping further. "The arm stuff, you seeking me out all the time... that's not really the problem. I'm just tired of bullshit that follows 'cause of it. But that's not your fault."
Technically, besides the times they start getting into a shouting match over differences, those situations they get wrapped up in weren't so bad because of Deuce. And when he wasn't being an idiot, they did seem to work well together and even have fun during the un-dire moments.
"Besides, the arm stuff is kind of cool and useful when you think of it outside the 'Soulmates' context," Ace finished, feeling a grin form on his face. Not a scheming one - it was genuine joy. "Would hate not to mess around and take advantage of it, just for a bit."
"I think all the professors aren't going to fall for any new cheating plots." He could hear a similar mirth faintly appearing in Deuce's voice, too.
"Eh, we can find other ways to have fun with it." Unconsciously, he glanced back at his wrist, only to slam it back down to his side when he remembered the message still on it. "By the way, what even was up with that sappy shit?"
"What?"
"'Everything is going to be okay.'" He spewed it out with an overly goofy voice.
"Look, my grandma once mentioned leaving encouraging notes like that, and it just came to mind right then! It's not sappy if you were really upset and needed something like that!"
"It's sappy because I was upset and needing something like that! That's stuff a grandma would do for a crying kid! It makes it look like you love me when you go that far, just say 'dude, stop moping about it, it’s not that big of a deal' next time!"
Deuce's next words came through chokes. "I don't need to love you to show emotional support like that! I can care about you as a friend without sharing your crush!"
Clothes were thrown to the floor as Ace shoved a path to face Deuce directly. "I don't have a crush on you!"
"Well you seem to keep thinking about me and romance in the same sentence! I didn't even immediately jump to that when the Headmage said 'Soulmates', I thought it meant we'd be like, like a superhero duo or something!"
"What sort of stupid- 'Pair destined to meet' always comes before falling in love, idiot! Did you never pay attention when getting read stories?!"
"All sorts of heroes come together because of destiny, do you think all those end in making out, too?!"
"Do you really describe every sidekick or team-up as 'Soulmates'?! And besides that, you're the one confessing to having an 'instinct' to see me all the time! So if anything, you're the one who's crushing here!"
It was like that physically attacked him, with the way Deuce slid back a little. "Only someone with a crush would interpret that as anything other than platonic!"
Now straining his throat with the vocal cord abuse, Ace challenged back, "Only someone with a crush would be deflecting to 'just friends' and 'platonic' at every accusation!"
"Only-"
The closet door swung open.
"Would you two just get out of the closet already and stop shouting?!"
Like deer in headlights, both boys stared at their Housewarden. As soon as he recognized he himself shouted that order, he cleared his throat and continued.
"You're causing a scene... if you must fight, like you always insist on doing, then go take it somewhere you won't disturb tea time."
"Yes, Housewarden..."
Riddle stepped away and they watched him go, still rooted in place themselves. Until finally, Deuce half-whispered to Ace without facing him.
"Do you want to go check what Yuu and Grim are up to?"
He didn't answer at first. A part of him was recognizing it - the pattern set in motion once again. Were they just Soulmates, or were those two involved in it somehow.? 'Cause it sure seemed like whenever Deuce and him met up, Yuu and Grim would be somewhere nearby.
Maybe I really have been overthinking this lately... I mean, I should've had the same assumption as Deuce, since Yuu and Grim keep bumping into us, too. Maybe they just don't have the arm thing with us 'cause Yuu isn't from here and Grim's a monster. This doesn't have to mean anything beyond us being a good fighting, overblot-stopping team... Why did it even cross my mind that he might be... That I might...
"Sure. Let's go."
They both forgot that out of anyone in school, Grim would rub the Soulmates situation in their faces the most.
And Grim forgot he had neither the size nor numbers to escape the retaliation.
And only Yuu seemed to remember that this is exactly the kind of set-up for every time they burn a statue or break a chandelier, without fail.
But eventually, everything will be okay, like always.