Chapter Text
James grew up hearing people bitch about soulmate injuries as they were pegged an inconvenience by the majority of the population and who could blame them. It was annoying at best getting a paper cut every time your boyfriend hastily flipped his textbook page or waking up to a sharp pain in your foot because your girlfriend stubbed her toe on the table in the hallway again. James still remembers having to listen to his mother for weeks complain after his dad fell off a ladder at work and broke his foot. Soul mate injuries, although still painful, aren’t nearly as bad as if you yourself actually have the injury.
James had been witness to this on more than one occasion with his best friend Seamus, too. Seamus’s soulmate, Eddie, was one the most energetic people he had met and in his nature to get pretty bruised up over it. Seamus raged over it quite a bit but everyone knew deep down he found it endearing.
James on the other hand didn’t really experience these problems with his soulmate. Yeah he found miscellaneous bruises that he knew didn’t belong to him from time to time but nothing worthy of pissing him off or keeping his attention for more than a couple seconds. Nothing until the scars on his wrists started to appear.
+
It started out with just one. James was sitting in his room one evening after dinner, playing some Minecraft with Eddie and Seamus. He was attempting to set down tracks to connect their two villages across the map when he felt a slight burning on his left wrist.
“Ow, motherfucker!” James yelps, dropping his controller out of shock.
“Did you drop hot coffee onto your lap again, dick bag?” Seamus questions with a taunting lit to his voice, causing Eddie to laugh.
“No, asshole, I didn’t. That was one fucking time and you know it was because Ein knocked into my desk when she was running around. But no, really, thanks for reminding me of the time I got third degree burns on my dick, I had forgotten already. Really though, I think my soulmate burned themselves or some shit. It fucking stings,” James grumbles while he picks his controller back up.
“Oh, boo-hoo. Your soulmate gets hurt once every two years, let me cry you a river. Try being Eddies soulmate for a week. I look like a fucking battered wife half the time,” Seamus says as his character on screen starts to chop down trees that are in the way, clearing a path for the tracks.
“Hey!” Eddie speaks up, pretending to be offended by his boyfriends statement.
“Well, maybe if you actually thought things through before doing them every once in awhile I wouldn’t have anything to bitch about,” Seamus says in his usual sarcastic tone.
“No, I think you’d still find something,” Eddie stage whispers. James knows that if they could see Seamus right now he’d be rolling his eyes.
He then childishly whines, “but baby boy, if not for my so called stupidity, we never would have found out we were soulmates and been sooo in love right now.” His character on screen then starts to chase Seamus’s, attempting to hit him with his diamond sword as Seamus runs from him farther into the woods.
+
Eddie and Seamus met a year ago when Eddie moved to Denver from Florida to live with his dad. The two shared a lab table in the only class they had together, second hour biology. They didn’t become instant friends or anything like that. The only reason Eddie was even sitting there was because he transferred when they were already two months into the school year, so it was the only table with one person left at it. He could have sat at one of the empty lab tables by himself if he so chose but that would have been more than dumb on his part if he ever wanted to catch up to where the class was at.
The first couple weeks went by normally. Seamus never talked to Eddie unless he had asked him a question first, which might have offended the Puerto Rican if he hadn’t noticed that Seamus didn’t talk to anyone in that class. He always answered Eddies questions though and let him borrow his notes so that he could catch up and that's what made Eddie decide that Seamus would be his first real friend at that school. He just had to find a way to convince Seamus of this fact.
Seamus himself didn’t think much of Eddie. He didn’t adamantly dislike him as much as he did others at their school but he didn’t exactly enjoy all of the questions and enthusiasm that came from him. He usually vibed better with people that were more quiet and pessimistic like himself.
So no one was more shocked than he was when one day in November, one month after Eddie had started attending their school, Eddie got super excited over getting a question right and bashed his knee into their lab table causing not only himself to groan in pain but also his table partner who was clutching the same knee cap. They paused when they realized what had just happened and stared at each other until Seamus groaned out, “Oh, fuck me,” and Eddie started to giggle happily. The rest fell into place from there.
+
“Eddie can you fucking stop before you kill me you piece of shit,” Seamus snaps as his character just barely misses being hit by Eddies sword. All he gets in response are giggles and another swipe.
“I think I’m going to get off for the night you guys. Mrs. Coleman gave me so much shit to get done, it’s practically abuse,” James says interrupting the couple's bickering.
“Okay, pissbaby. Make sure to ice your soulmates burn so that you don’t have to get it amputated,” Seamus says in the most exaggerated caring tone James has ever heard.
“Oh, har-har, asshole. Night, Sly,” James says already beginning to pull his books out of his bag.
“See you tomorrow, homie,” Eddie says as a goodbye and successfully kills Seamus’s character while he’s distracted by James signing off.
James logs out before he can hear Seamus start yelling at Eddie.