Chapter Text
Everybody is born with a clock on their wrist. The clock counts the time till you find your soulmate, when you met the person you’re meant to be the clock hits zero and you’ll have your perfect match. However, if your soulmate dies before you met, the place where the clock used to be turns into a scarred mark, and as like some kind of twisted joke from the destiny, you see your soulmate’s face when him or her die. Some people try to find someone else, even knowing that it will never be the same as it would be with their soulmate, they still try to be happy.
Zach was twelve when his soulmate died.
He is sitting in the couch glancing at his clock, the clock marks: 05:06:89:32:17:08. Most of people are eager to meet their soulmate and so is he, he knows that looking constantly at it will not make the time pass faster, but he can’t help himself. Yesterday, a girl on his class found her soulmate and Zach can’t forget the way she smiled and looked at the other boy, they just stared at each other like nothing else in the world existed, like in that moment life was perfect.
He traces the numbers with his fingertips wondering what it would feel like to meet your soulmate, a childish smile playing on his lips while imagining what he or she would be like. A kind hearted person? A brave one? Someone who would cuddle in the couch with him in the cold days and watch movies under a pile of blankets? Or play video games? Maybe someone who knows how to play an instrument? He loves music.
His wrist start to burn and Zach cringes in pain, Gray looks at him from his spot beside Zach with wide eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Zach can’t contain a scream, he holds his wrist and watches in horror as the numbers blurry and disappears turning into an angry red scar. The pain is not just on his arm, is like his soul is being ripped apart, like life is leaving him. He feels completely and utterly alone, like all the happiness has been drained from the world. Tears are running down his cheeks and when he blinks a face appears behind his eyelids. It’s a man with bright green eyes and a warm smile, his face is tanned and his hair a strange mix of brown and red.
“Mom!”
Gray calls and stands, his little hands cradle Zach’s face while the older tries to curl into a ball. Their mom comes running and kneels in front of Zach, her blue eyes wide with worry.
“Honey, what’s happening?”
With a sob, Zach extends his arm and their mom gaps in shock and horror, she cradles Zach’s wrist between her hands and looks at him with pity in her eyes.
“Oh sweet, I’m so sorry.”
“Is he…?”
“He is dead.”
Zach feels like he dies in that moment too.
He is running for his life and Gray’s, dragging his little brother with him while the pteranodons try to kill them all, when he sees a flash of red and stares as a guy kisses his aunt, a moment latter he feels like one of the dinosaurs is ripping his heart apart. His soulmate, the face that hunts his worst nightmares is kissing his aunt. All of the air leaves Zach’s lungs and he needs to lean into Gray to stop himself from falling, he shuts his eyes squeezing his eyelids hard and shaking his head, it’s just a trick of his mind. He’s dead. He’s been dead for five years. He remembers himself, but when he opens his eyes again, the man is still there, even closer now. His chest and shoulders are broad, his hair is a little longer than Zach remembers and he has a beard now. Everything else is just like the image burned into his memory. He looks at the ground and keeps his eyes there, all his body tenses when the man speaks. His voice is warm and has a tone of command. Zach thinks he would follow him everywhere, he already had followed him in death.
He tries to make sense of what is happening, of what this could mean. There is a person, who looks like others, but this man doesn’t look like Zach’s dead soulmate, he is exactly like Zach’s dead soulmate. Owen, this is how Claire called him. Owen leads them to the raptors’ paddock and the boy locks himself into a truck and just waits for him to go away, to disappear and makes Zach’s heart stop pounding with longing. He doesn’t need to worry about this man’s life, but he can’t stop dread to crawl up his veins while he watches the raptors turn to Owen and everything going into shit. He shuts the small window that separates him and Gray from his aunt tablet, at least he hadn’t had to see his soulmate die the first time, he doesn’t need to see his doppelganger dying now.
He was better, his life was almost normal and his nightmares had decreased to one per week, he would smile genuinely sometimes at Gray and stopped rubbing his scar; his mother had found him more than once with a bloodied wrist, tears running down his face while he tried to rip the scar off his skin. But the damned thing was always there, always remembering him of what he had lost, as if the hollow in his chest wasn’t enough. When he was young, his eyes were a bright shade of brown, now they’re so dark that they’re almost black. His mother would sometimes spend hours staring at his old pictures, crying and looking to what her son was once.
The psychologist told his parents that what he was going through was normal and that he was too young, he would recover, someday. However, days and months passed by and he was not better, he saw the worry on his mother’s face, the dark bags under her eyes that reflected his, she usually woke with his screams at night and hold him while he trembled, the pain inside of him pulsing so strong that was like someone was burning him alive. So Zach started to lie, he buried his face on his pillow in the night to muffle his screams, he tried to smile and talk with other people, and that worked, his mother started to sleep again and the bags in her eyes were gone, she didn’t comment on his own bags and that he was not eating, but things were better.
He is pulled out of his thoughts as the trunk swings when something heavy hits its side, he holds Gray behind him and stares at the doors, his aunt screams and a man open the doors, grabbing Zach’s ankle and pulling him out of the trunk.
“Help me!”
The bloodied man screams desperately when a raptor bites his neck and drags them both to the ground.
“Zach!”
Gray shouts but their aunt is speeding up the vehicle and driving away, Zach stays as still as he can, not even breathing as the raptor devours the man and his screams slowly fade. Everything is silent, his heart is beating so loud on his ears that he is sure that the dinosaur can hear him. He stays there for so long that his limbs start to feel numb, the cold mud turning his skin blue, then there’s a sound, a low roar coming from far away, he stiffens, but as the sound comes closer he can identifies it as a motorcycle, opening his eyes carefully he looks around, but there’s no sign of the raptor, Zach stands trembling and dirty in the cold night air and a moment latter the motorcycle comes into view, doesn’t matter that is dark he would recognize that features even if the moonlight hadn’t hit his face when he parked the bike. Owen stops in front of him and Zach is careful to avoid looking at him.
“Are you ok kid?”
His voice sends a shiver down Zach’s spine that he tries to convince himself that is from the cold. He nods.
“Where is your aunt?”
He cringes. Right, Owen’s mate, his aunt. His voice is small and barely audible.
“She and Gray went to the center of the park.”
“Why are you here?”
“A raptor pulled me out of the truck.”
“Ok, mount. We need to get out of here.”
He feels like all the air had been knocked out of him.
“What?”
“Mount. Or you want to walk to the park?”
With eyes trained in the ground he mounts behind the man, putting as much distance between them as the seat allows him.
“You’ll want to hold on me.”
Zach just shakes his head, even from this distance he can feels the warmth of Owen’s body, and he really, really doesn’t want to know what it is like to touch him. When he doesn’t move the man just shrugs and start the motorcycle again, Zach yelps and tries to hold on something to prevents himself from falling but there’s nothing but the man, the chill air hits his already cold body making him shiver uncontrollably, and when Owen makes a sharp curve he has to circles his arms around the man’s waist. It’s not his skin – Thanks God – but it still sends a shiver along his body, the warmth calming him and coaxing him to lean closer, to relax and let his soulmate makes him feel safe. He is not my soulmate! With a shrug he lets go of the man and leans away from him, if Owen perceives anything he doesn’t say a word about it.
When they are nearing the central of control they see a helicopter flying away, lights shining into the night, Owen stops the motorcycle making him bump into him, and Zach immediately backs away, he thinks about shouting to them but he doesn’t know if there’s any dinosaur near them. The man turns off the motorcycle.
“They’ll come back to get us, we just need to…”
There’s a loud roar and they both run to hide in one of the shops. The Indominus Rex walks slowly along the main street, things trip in the shelves and fall to the ground, Zach stops breathing and follows Owen to a door that leads them to a basement, locking the door behind them, and they climb down the stairs. They don’t dare to turn the lights on, they barely dare to breath, a few rays of moonlight come from the window illuminating the room. Zach walks to the far corner of the room, staying as away from Owen as he can get but the man just follows him and sits in a sleep bag beside of the boy.
“Are you hurt?”
Now that they settled down, Zach’s pains are starting to catch up with him. He can feel a bruise forming on his cheek where his face hit the ground when the man pulled him out of the truck, and looking down he can see a long cut on his arm. He sighs. He has to clean this before the wound infects.
“No.”
Owen doesn’t miss even a heartbeat to catch his lie.
“You’re lying.”
“How do you…?”
He trails off, the raptors’ trainer moves closer.
“Let me look at it.”
“Stay away from me!”
Zach hisses cradling his arm into his chest, the older man looks at him surprised for a moment and then sighs.
“Ok kid, you’re on your own.”
The boy let’s out a breath and stands to look for something to clean his wound. He finds a cloth and a bottle of alcohol, the liquid burn his open wound making Zach hiss, but that’s ok, the pain distracts him from the presence of the man just a few feet away. He is aware of every move the other do, every breath, every time he scratches his beard as out of habit; he makes Zach feel safe just for being in the same room. He feels like he could lie down and sleep for weeks, his entire body is heavy, eyelids falling even if he tries to keep them open. Is that’s ok to sleep, right? He walks back to his sleep bag and curls into a small ball, if he sleeps, he doesn’t need to look at Owen or even acknowledge that he is in the same room, he can forget that he is there. Zach turns his back at the raptor’s trainer and let his tiredness sink in, now that the rush of adrenaline fades he finally sees how close to die he had been the entire day, since the moment he stepped inside the gyrosphere till they closed the door of the basement. As he closes his eyes he wonders if it would not be better if he had died that day.
The sun is shining, sky blue and the leaves are green and gold where rays of sun catch them. Zach is smiling, he feels safe and happier than he can ever remember being. He’s lying in the grass with eyes closed, there’s someone hovering above him and he doesn’t need to open his eyes to know who it is.
“Hey, time to wake up.”
His soulmate murmurs on his ear and kisses his temple. Strange, usually his soulmate doesn’t talk. But he likes the sound, his voice is deep and warm, comforting, makes Zach wants to curl against him and stay there. His smile widens and he turns, hiding his face into his arms.
“Oh, that’s how it is?”
His soulmate asks with clear amusement on his voice, he cradles Zach’s hips and starts to disperse pecks along his nape that send shivers down his body, but he stays immobile otherwise, big calloused hands slide down his shirt and starts to tickle him, Zach can’t contain his laugh as he tries to roll out of the man’s reach, but his soulmate is much heavier than him and keeps him pinned easily, he squirms laughing breathless.
“Please…” A roll of laughter. “Stop…”
“Will you wake up now?”
His hands are steady on Zach’s waist now and he huffs amused.
“I’m already wake.”
His soulmate lets him turn till they’re facing each other, and the man smiles warmly down at him brushing strands of dark hair out of his eyes. Zach’s breathe catches on his throat. He will never het used at how beautiful the man is. His tanned skin, his muscled body, the soft brown reddish strands of his hair, his perfect smile, his green bright eyes that look at Zach like he is the best thing that exists in the entire world. He bents down and disperse soft kisses on Zach’s entire face, on his forehead, chin, cheeks, nose, jaw, temples and eyelids, but never on his lips, he never kisses Zach’s mouth. He reaches for his soulmate’s collar to pull him into a kiss when a sound freeze them both, the man’s eyes wide and a moment latter a raptor is closing its mouth around his neck and dragging him away from Zach. He screams and tries to reach him but he feels like locked in place, his body can’t move and he can just watch as the man’s eyes lose their sparkle; he feels like falling apart, the pain is so intense that it feels like its physical.
“Take me, not him! Take me!”
The raptor doesn’t turn to him and instead cracks his soulmate neck with a sickening sound, Zach feels like he is going to throw up.
“No!”
“Zach. Zach, wake up. Everything is ok. You’re safe.”
He opens his eyes and blinks the tears away, just to face his nightmare staring back at him with worried eyes. He takes a moment to knowledge that one of the man’s hands is cradling his face, it feels warm and calloused and so fucking comforting, a sob scape his lips.
“Please, stay away from me.”
Owen looks at him in horror and completely lost, but he takes his hand away and lets Zach curl into a ball, tears run down his cheeks and his shoulders tremble with the force of his sobs.
“What I did to you?”
He doesn’t answer, maybe if he ignores him, the man will give up.
“What’s wrong?”
He waits a minute before talking again, his voice is so soft that makes the boy’s chest feels like it’s been ripped apart.
“Zach, talk with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because everything hurts!”
He shouts and stands, he thinks about getting the hell out of there, just to be reminded that he can’t.
“I know that you are scared, but we are going to be fine.”
He gives Owen a sarcastic smile without looking at the man.
“Being eaten by a dinosaur would be a good thing now.”
Zach can feel Owen staring at him, a frown forming between his eyebrows.
“What is your problem kid?”
You! My life! This fucking island! This fucking scar! The hole inside of my chest! The loneliness! The pain! Everything! He thinks about shouting this all, but settles to just walking away from the man. He needs to let all of this out or he is going to destroy himself, so he sits in the far corner of the basement and circles his arms around his legs, resting his forehead on his knees and letting his entire body shake with the force of his sobs. He is not sure if he can survive much longer.
***
Zach wakes to a sore body and swollen eyes, he groans as he stands, they’ve been stuck in the basement for three days and contrary to Owen’s belief, his aunt haven’t sent the rescue yet. They had not talked, Owen had tried to start a conversation during the first day, but Zach haven’t answered him, he just stayed as far away as he can from the man.
Owen’s voice makes him feels like his blood turn into hot honey, makes him want to curl against him and never leave. Zach want’s to punch a wall because this is a fucking silly joke, the universe must hate him in levels he can’t even imagine. Before he had a face to hunt his nights, now he has a voice, a body and a touch; he can still feel the touch of Owen’s hands on his face, the warmth and security of them, the way they’re so big that they reach from Zach’s chin till his nape, cradling his entire face. He is always aware of where Owen is, like a sixth sense, like something deep inside of him that told him to go to his soulmate. But Owen is not his soulmate!
So, it is a complete surprise when he turns from the shelve from where he is taking a protein bar, and finds Owen standing right behind of him , the boy jumps hitting his back and head hard in the shelve. From where had he came from? How had I’d not heard him coming? Zach winces in pain and lifts his hand to his hurt head, the arm that is trapped in the cloth to hide his cut.
“Ouch.”
From the corner of his eye he sees Owen reaching for him.
“Don’t touch me!”
He hisses but before he can walks away, Owen grabs his arm and takes the cloth away to study his injury, the boy struggles but the grip on his arm is firm.
“Let me go.”
Warmth start to spread along his body, a feeling of comfort and safety fitting on his chest, and that fucking hurts because he doesn’t need to know how it feels, doesn’t need one more thing to hunt him.
“Please.”
He sobs. Owen hesitates for a moment before letting him go, Zach stumbles away from the man, chest constricting painfully.
“Why do you hate me?”
His voice seems like he is frowning but Zach doesn’t dare looking at him, he takes a deep steadying breath.
“I don’t.” The boy takes a deep breath before sighing. “I don’t hate you.”
“So why?”
Zach closes his eyes and swallows his pain. This man doesn’t deserve this, he has nothing to do with what happened to him, it’s not his fault. The boy feels like all his strength had leave him and he sits on the ground hugging his legs close, his voice is barely audible when he speaks.
“You remember me of someone.”
They stay is silence for a long time before Owen speaks again, voice softly.
“Your soulmate?”
Zach’s throat closes and he can’t speak, so he just nods.
“How old were you when he died?”
“Twelve.”
“Have you ever met him?”
He just shakes his head, tears are burning his eyes and every breath hurts.
“So how you know?”
“I saw him, when he…” He takes a deep breath. “When he died. For some reason you see your soulmate’s face when they die. I think it’s just to give you a face to morn.”
Zach hugs his legs closer, burying his face on his knees.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I’m still sorry.”
***
It’s been a week and no one had come to rescue them, Zach thinks he is starting to go insane, locked in this goddamn basement. He is not avoiding Owen anymore and the man is not pushing him into conversation, but there’s no other way to pass the time, so they sit – away, Zach can talk with him but he doesn’t want to touch him – and talk, the warm calm cadence of Owen’s voice soothing his worries, sometimes he even catches himself smiling at something the older man said. When he heard Owen laughing for the first time he felt like all the air had been knocked out of his lungs, and he had been left staring at the floor wanting to hear that sound again and again.
Zach looks down at his dirty hands, the cut on his arm is better, not completely healed, but much better; he feels gross and shuts his eyes from the sight of the same grey walls that he had been staring for the last two hours.
“I would kill for a shower.”
He mumbles letting his head fall against the wall.
“You would probably be killed while taking one.”
Owen chuckles making him smile.
“I feel gross.”
The boy protests and he hear Owen shifting but doesn’t open his eyes.
“They’re not going to come get us, are they?”
His voice is soft and Owen doesn’t answer for a long time, but then he says:
“Come on.”
“What?”
“Let’s get a look outside.”
“You said we would be killed.”
He points with a small smile. Owen’s voice still sends shivers along his body but he is getting used to it.
“Well, if we stay here the food and water will end sometime and we will need to get out. So why not?”
Zach tries to find arguments to fight him and finds none. Sure, just the thought of the Indominus Rex shakes him, but what other choice they have? If no one comes to rescue them, they will have to live someway. Sighing he stands and follow Owen to the stairs, the man presses his ear against the steel door for a moment before pushing it open.
There’s chaos everywhere. Tables and chairs turned down, blood and dirty splashed on the ground and walls, food and drinks left half consumed, shoes and hats on the ground. There are corpses too. People half eaten and splashed with blood. A woman stares at the sky with wide blank eyes, her neck is torn open, a puddle of blood under her; a man with two glasses on his hands and dark glasses is leaning against a door, like he was going to try to hide inside the building; a little girl with a yellow dress and pigtails is lying peacefully on the ground, if it was not for her missing leg it would look like she was sleeping.
Zach thinks he is going to throw up, he takes deep breaths and looks away. He can only see Owen’s back from where the man is searching one of the shops for food and water, the boy walks to one of the restaurants avoiding the corpses on the ground, he lets out a sigh of relief when he finds a sink with flooding water, he splashes some on his face and scrubs his arm carefully with soap, the water that flood in the sink from his body is almost black, with blood, dirty and sweat, he puts his head under the tap and let the water run through his hair. The cold liquid helps to put his thoughts on order. It’s been a week and yet no one came to see if they were still alive, probably his parents are already mourning him, burying a body that doesn’t exists.
The boy doesn’t know how long he stays there, but when he closes the tap he feels a little less gross, not clean, but a little better. He takes some knives that are on the top of the table, not sure if they could really help, he walks back outside. The sun is almost blinding, he would suppose that it is almost midday, but from someone who lived his entire life in Maddison he couldn’t tell; native birds sing far in the jungle, the air is humid and smells like sea and forest, the corpses on the sun are starting to smell terrible bad and he wonders if they can do something with them, although he doesn’t know how long they can stay outside before a dinosaur spots them.
Walking silent back to where he last saw Owen Zach tries to think on some way for them to get out of this goddamn island. Maybe there is still a boat on the beach? Maybe the energy in the control center is still on? The boy chuckles sadly to himself. His entire life he never made plans for the future, he never really thought about what he wanted to do or what career he liked, usually Zach just put his headphones on and forget the world, when the music is playing he can forget how fucked up his life is. He knows by experience and research that people whom lost their soulmates usually stay alone, they isolate themselves or their hearts turn into something so black that they’re almost not even human anymore. There’s few cases likes his, where the soulmate died when the other was so young, just one guy turned out to be happy, there’s a girl who killed herself, another guy went mad and other girl just disappeared. He is not going to deny that the thought of dying is not as terrifying as it should be. What would he be afraid of? He has no one who really needs him. Gray has his parents and one day he will have his soulmate, and his parents have each other and Gray. There’s no one who would be torn apart by losing him, he doesn’t mean anything to anybody. Maybe a dinosaur should eat him and end his pathetic life.
He turns his head to the sound of something falling to the ground and freezes on the spot. A raptor is standing less than twenty feet away from him, her smart eyes piercing him, she lets out a shriek and he cringes. Maybe a death less painful? Three other raptors appear behind her, they all study the boy who barely breaths, he can hear his heart beating on his ears, hands shaking, and then Owen is there pushing the boy behind him, putting himself between Zach and the raptors.
“Blue, calm down!”
The command on Owen’s voice is undeniable, the raptors attention turns to him, although they keep stepping closer waving their tails in the air.
“Charlie, I’m seeing you!” He turns to the other raptor. “Delta, not even one more step.”
One of them snaps.
“Echo, what just I said?!”
Zach can barely see them over Owen’s shoulder, the man is so big that he almost blocks him completely. However, they still keep coming. The two closer to them start to circle Owen and the man steps back, his large hand closing around Zach’s wrist.
“I’m sorry.”
Owen whispers and Zach tenses looking wide eyed at the man.
“What?”
The raptors’ trainer walks slowly till he is standing behind Zach and circles his arms around the boy’s waist, he buries his face into his nape, rubbing his beard against his skin. Zach stops breathing, his legs tremble and if Owen’s arm wasn’t around his waist he would have fallen to the ground. The man’s entire length is pressed against his back while he keeps rubbing his face along the skin of the boy’s neck. He wants to melt into the man’s embrace, even if there are four raptors looking hungrily at them, he feels completely safe there. He is home. Zach tries to get away from Owen, but the man’s arms are made of steel and hold him easily.
“Shh.”
He whispers against the boy’s ear making him shake into his arms, he feels the tip of Owen’s nose brushing along his neck before he bites into the juncture of Zach’s neck and shoulder, the younger whimpers and leans against Owen for support, a jolt of pleasure runs along his body and through half-closed eyelids he can see the raptors looking interestedly at them. The raptors’ trainer runs his tongue soothingly on the teeth mark, but he doesn’t let go of Zach, what the boy is grateful for, he doesn’t think he can stand by himself.
“He is mine Blue, are you hearing me? Mine.”
Blue slowly approaches them, she is looking curiously at them both, tilting her head to one side and then the other, she stops right in front of Zach, and if the boy wasn’t so high from his proximity of Owen he would have stopped breathing, Blue sniffles him for a moment, they both staring expectantly at her, she growls softly on her throat before stepping back, one by one the other raptors sniffle the boy and growl. Zach trembles when one of them, Echo he thinks, brushes her snout on his neck, Owen’s arms go tense around him and they both let out a relieved breath when she steps back. He feels the man’s forehead resting in the back of his head.
“They’re not going to attack you anymore.”
“Why?”
“I marked you as mine and as I’m the alpha they can’t kill you.”
“Thank you…?”
Zach doesn’t mean for his words to sound as a question, but they do. They watch as the raptors turn their backs to them and start nuzzling things.
“Can you let me go now?”
The boy asks softly, it takes Owen a few seconds to finally release him, but he finally do. Zach takes slow, deep breaths trying to stead his racing heart. Oh God, I’m so fucked. He thinks bitterly as he starts to walk back to the basement, the place where Owen had bite pulsing as a living thing.