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At his age, Arthur Lester was damn well hoping he didn't have a soulmate. Since he was a child he had not had the swirling stripes and designs of color spreading across his skin in those lovely patterned webs that everybody else had.
Even as the late bloomers got on into school and realized that soulmates had only now just entered the world, and that they very likely would not be encountering them until they were both much later, Arthur had nothing. This happened sometimes, of course, it was nothing terribly shocking. His parents luckily hadn't lived to see him become the sort of man who reached adulthood without any markings because it meant one of two things.
Option one was of course that Arthur's soulmate still had not entered the world yet. Which did not paint a particularly favorable picture of Arthur Lester. With every year that passed it became more unusual to see a man of his age blank in the skin. It became more unsettling to those around him the idea of the mandatory age gap that there must be for his soulmate to still have not yet been born. Twenty-four years was too much to be respectable at any age, everyone seemed to agree. It didn't matter if you were seventy and they were forty-five when you met, it just wasn't right.
Or option two, and this was arguably worse in some social circles, you were in fact without a soulmate entirely. Arthur didn't mind this idea terribly. He never set out in his life with the intent for marriage and it was hard to consider it as even a real option. But then he had met Bella and she had also been blank. They had gotten on well and soon enough fell into the sort of trouble that leads a girl's father to insisting upon a marriage and fast, even if it was to a man with no marks.
In fact as years passed on it became all the more certain in Arthur's mind that this was what was intended. All the years with Faroe he remained blank even as his little girl was born with immediate pink swirls and flowers dashed across her skin because her soul mate was already out there waiting for her.
Arthur felt poorly for whatever poor parents were having to explain to their child why the same patterns that dashed across their skin were in gray one day as Arthur watched his little girl's coffin be lowered into the ground.
And yet years still passed and Arthur remained blank. Even as he met Parker a man whose skin twisted and swirled with pale grey ripples from a soulmate long gone. The two of them were good together, the two of them were great, and Arthur wondered sometimes if in a different world maybe it could have been them. If Parker hadn't already lost the person he was meant for, if Arthur was even meant for anyone.
When everything happened with the voice in his head there was an obvious delay in Arthur's reaction time. When exactly the color had appeared on his skin he had no idea, and of course it didn't occur to the entity to mention the color that swirled across Arthur's skin because that was just what people look like.
In fact it wasn't until the hospital when Arthur was shaving in the mirror and asked John how he looked that Arthur found out. He wondered how long the colors had been sitting there across the skin and felt a sick sinking feeling in his stomach realizing that even if he were to meet his soulmate he had absolutely not even the slightest interest in pursuing anything with them. He was nearly forty years old, what right did these goddamn colors have to appear now?
"You look thinner, weaker perhaps, but you still carry yourself with the air of a man not to be fucked with," John had told him, "the gold that arches across your brow makes you appear… regal. The image of the eye that swirls just below your adam's apple is more distinct against your skin with the lack of sun."
"Gold? Eye??" Arthur demanded, "What are you talking about?"
"Your markings, Arthur, the gold ones. They cover your skin in an intricate pattern," John said impatiently, then with a more hesitant tone he added, "like everyone has?"
"I don't have those, John. What are you talking about, are you sure of what you're seeing?"
"Yes, I'm fucking sure, Arthur. I don't have much but I do have your eyes. Are these new? Were they not here before?"
"No, no, they weren't," Arthur said weekly settling unsteadily against the sink, "I- we don't have time for this. We have to get out of here. We need to focus on finding a way separate us. I can't deal with this right now."
But the question weighed on Arthur. Why now? Why now of all times would it be revealed that his soulmate was entering the world? What was wrong with him?
He held out hope that there had been some mistake.
Finally in the house in the dreamlands, it struck him as he and John were meant to be falling asleep.
He sat bolt upright.
"Jesus calm down thought we were going to rest!" John complained.
"We are, soon I promise, but I think I've figured out the meaning of the markings John," Arthur said brushing him off and getting up to pace.
"Oh the ones you said were meant to indicate that you had a soulmate who had recently entered the world."
Arthur winced, "Yes, but I figured it out. They're not mine, John. This body has two souls. And they seem to have appeared around the same time as you did because you said you'd never seen me without the markings so if they only appeared when you went to my body then that would imply that these markings aren't my soulmate they're Yours."
"Mine?" John Breathed, "Arthur, go to the mirror let me see you again."
Arthur did as he was told. He stood in front of the mirror and John breathed out a low sigh, "Arthur, I think you're right. These markings… whenever I look at them they always seem to draw me in somehow. I get lost in the patterns… They feel… right. They must have- They must be mine."
Arthur felt relief course through him like cool water, "Thank fuck."
"What?" John said with half a laugh and his voice still seeming exhilarated from the realization.
"Thank fuck they aren't mine," Arthur repeated, "I am far too old for my soulmate to be only now entering the world. But they're yours, and we know that they're alive. This is excellent news John. It's wonderful that you have this opportunity, and once we get you your own body you'll be able to seek them out to find them."
The enthusiasm of the moment seemed to wane a bit on the latter sentence. Arthur found the idea of being left on his own once again admittedly not the most appealing. Of course he wanted his own body, and it wasn't as though he and John got along well enough to justify any sort of friendship after this. It was just the idea of being alone and blank once again now with a few more guilts seemed… unpleasant.
"Take off your shirt," John demanded.
"What?"
"The shirt Arthur. I want to see more of the markings. I want to make out more of the patterns."
"Right, fair enough, I suppose, they're your markings even if it's my chest. Sorry if any of the scars get in the way," Arthur said with a huffed out laugh.
There were many scars these days. The dreamlands was not a caring place and with every new injury done to them Arthur felt a little more like a child's blanket that had been dragged through the mud and washed enough times to have worn thin.
"No Arthur," John said as he took off his shirt, "the scars don't get in the way at all."
"What do you mean?" Arthur said.
"There used to be these disruptions in pattern. I hadn't noticed before because well- I didn't know how important the markings were, but in the places where they're used to just be blank spots, that's where the scars are. The markings, they stand just at the edge of each of the scars you've gotten since I've been here, gilding the edges. Even your finger."
"I should hope you got some gold for that one. You certainly earned it," Arthur said rolling his shoulder remembering the jolt of tension that had rocked up through his body when he'd bitten through his own tendons as John growled. He shook off the thought, "That's very odd though, it being only ones that we've gotten as we were together."
"Yes, each of them are shining just at the edge of disrupted skin."
"You compared it to gilding you don't mean properly gold do you? You mean yellow, like a warm yellow as you would be, being the king and all?"
"No Arthur, it's metallic. Your skin has a sheen across it in these places and the lines curl up and settle about your forehead as though in an ornate crown."
"Fascinating, you know typically the patterns only get their shine after the soulmates meet. Perhaps you've met them already."
"How would I know who it was?"
"They would have the same color and patterns and their would shift to gold when you first spoke."
"Hmm," John said and Arthur could feel his eyes moving, presumably over the pattern in their reflection.
"Tell me more about your pattern I want to see if we can find out something about your soulmate," Arthur said realizing that this was the first nice thing that had since they arrived.
John hummed, "The hand I control is covered in a crawling pattern of leaves and vines rooting itself at the pinky."
"Lines that form the circlet on your head drip down at the temple and curl beneath your eyes and across the bridge of your nose forming a sort of masquerade mask. They skirt around the edge of the burn we got from the wind and sand so the bottom of it is uneven. One side of it asymmetrically lays across your cheek ending at your jaw while the other side ends just an inch or so below your eye."
"There's the eye that sits at the hollow of your throat and then as though pouring across your torso in a pattern like water, the gold flows down in lines skirting across the areas where the scars sit and a few other areas as well. It pools in the hollow of your hips just barely visible above your pants. There's a spot on your shoulder that has a bloom like a flower where in the center it's blank, your wrists are ringed in the gold as though you've been covered in jewelry."
"It sounds beautiful john," Arthur managed through the catch in his voice.
"It is beautiful, Arthur," He said and his hand startled Arthur as it came to Arthur's jaw, tilting Arthur's head in the mirror to better examine him.
That was the last quiet moment they had for a long while.
*
"Well well well, Buttercups, you two have gotten yourselves into quite a situation haven't you?" The blood covered man said, running the tip of a finger over Arthur's face tracing what Arthur knew to be the lines of John's soul mark. He was familiar with the sensation of fingers drawing the pattern across his skin.
"What do you mean?" Arthur said, jerking his head away.
"I mean, Precious," the man jerked Arthur's face to look at him, gripping Arthur's jaw, "That this body finally has a destiny and look at you! You're running right towards your death."
"It's John's destiny and we're doing what we have to to get to it."
"He's leaning closer Arthur," John warned him.
"How terribly noble, and what about you, Artie? What'll you do? Fresh start? Blank slate?" His hand came up to ruffle Arthur's hair.
"Arthur, what's he talking about?" John demanded
"Yes," Arthur snapped, grabbing the man's wrist and pushing his hand away, "I prefer being a blank. At least my body would be my own."
The man clicked his tongue the sound of his footsteps retreating, "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, what am I gonna Do with you? I know you know better, your daddy didn't raise no liar, I was there."
"What do you want?" Arthur demanded because what else was there to do.
"I want to see if I've puzzled out why your still living," He said, the smile evident in his tone.
*
Of the many things that could be said of Arthur Lester let it be said that he was determined.
When he found himself barely clinging onto life in the snow, of course, his first concern wasn't what he looked like. In fact his concern wasn't what he looked like, at all, until Yellow looked him in the eye in the mirror in his room at the Red Right Hand.
"Let me guess the cold calculated demeanor-" Arthur began unimpressed by the old line that meant a lot more when it came from John, properly John, not this half finished monster living in his head.
"Well youve got vomit in your beard and mostly you look like you've been pissed on," Yellow said.
"Oh fuck off," Arthur growled, grabbing a towel to wipe the water away from his face and then he paused halfway through the motion, "wait what do you mean by that?"
"I just mean the effect of the gold and you being soaking wet from the snow look like you missed, badly."
"Gross," Arthur said flatly, "what gold?"
"The gold that's covering your skin. Is it new or something? Were you not aware it was there?" Yellow said impatiently.
And Arthur took comfort in this at least for a time. Because, if nothing else, it meant that John, the John he knew, still existed enough to have his own pattern splashed across Arthur's skin.
Arthur winced the phrasing, not "splashed", definitely not "splashed".
*
It wasn't until they were in the car driving away from Addison when John said, "Arthur would you mind- christ- would you mind putting on the driving gloves?"
"Hmm?" Arthur replied vaguely.
"The sun's coming up and it's reflecting off the gold in your skin. It's difficult to see."
"Oh! Of course," Arthur said pulling over to the side of the road with John's direction, taking a moment to slide the gloves on, and he stopped, "you really don't remember being with me after we got separated? Not immediately after?"
"No, it's like you said, that was Yellow, right?"
"I suppose so… it just doesn't make sense," Arthur said with a sigh.
"How do you mean?"
"Well it's just that if you really weren't in my body anymore, and that really wasn't you, then why did your soulmark remain with me? Yellow commented on it. He- well, it doesn't matter what he said," Arthur said, frowning severely.
"I don't know, Arthur. Maybe… maybe the mark belongs to The King. Or maybe it was marking me for him. I've been having a hard time finding any part of it that reminds me of anyone we've met. Maybe- maybe it's just a mark indicating what I'm tied to, what Yellow was tied to."
"That's not how these things work," Arthur said, feeling obligated to fight off the bleak notion, "Soul marks aren't chains, John. They exist to show you what would bring you the most joy in your life. And yes you can, of course, defy them, but there would be no reason to think that it was a Mark that simply indicated that you were part of a split soul. That's not how these things work and I refuse to believe that fate would be that cruel to you after everything."
"Well then maybe the mark actually is yours," John reasoned, "maybe it was never mine at all."
"Don't be ridiculous, John. There's no doubt in my mind that this mark belongs to you. The crown, the jewelry, the gold, the mask. Hell there's the leaves that are growing out of your hand. This mark belongs to you, I'm sure of it.
"And what about the scars, Arthur. It frames the scars on your body."
"Is there any gold on my ear where- where it's missing?" Arthur demanded stubbornly.
Arthur felt his eyes flick up to the rear view mirror as John checked.
"No. No gold."
"See? The only scars that are marked out are the ones that we've gotten together or I suspect a few that we might get a little later down the line."
"Fair point, Arthur," John said clearly letting the matter rest, "I suppose there's no real way of making sense of this. Perhaps, I was still connected to you in some small way even when I had left."
"Perhaps."
*
"Well don't you make a portrait boyo," The Butcher said as he circled Arthur.
"Didn't get a good look at you on the train, but you're a sight. All draped in finery like some sort of King. Hardly ever seen that much color on somebody. Your soulmate must be real lucky, or real unlucky seeing as your sittin here. And those scars are making me think I'm not the first thing to try and do you in."
"Arthur, his skin is patterned with a matte blue. It spirals on the backs of his hands, there's very little on his face."
"Yes, well when there's something good going on inside you, it's actually possible to connect to someone," Arthur shot back
The Butcher chuckled, "ah seems I found a sore spot. All right, mouse, that's quite enough. Good for you that you got to meet your soulmate an' all but I'm afraid all that finery is going to look a lot like mourning clothes on them when I'm through with you."
*
As months wore on Arthur began feeling a strange claim over the gold that wrapped itself around him like a cloak. As much as it was not his to feel protective over, when others would comment he would feel the need to bristle, stand up straighter, square his shoulders. Sometimes people would ask him about his soulmate, tell him how lucky he was. It made Arthur feel very small in the face of John and his soul mate's connection.
"You are lucky you know," Arthur said, softly to John one night when he was meant to be sleeping. He was instead helplessly awake under the feeling of John's fingers blindly tracing the patterns on the back of Arthur's hand.
"What do you mean?"
"That you'll have someone who cares for you this much after all this is done. That you'll have somewhere to go. Something to look for."
"I'm not going anywhere, Arthur," John said absent-mindedly.
"What do you mean, John? Of course you are, you've got someone out there who's waiting for you. You can't just leave them. They clearly care very deeply for you o- or they will."
John seemed more present as he said, "I don't particularly care about what some stranger thinks of me. You've said that you don't need to follow what your soulmark tells you. I don't see why I ought to. It's not as though I've even got the faintest idea who it could be. I'd rather stick with what I have than go chasing blindly after something that I'd probably never find anyway. Futile searches aren't of much interest to me."
Arthur hummed, then said, "Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old, This knight so bold, And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow; 'Shadow,' said he, 'Where can it be, This land of Eldorado?'
'Over the mountains Of the moon, Down the valley of the shadow, Ride, boldly ride,' The shade replied,-- 'If you seek for Eldorado.'"
"What was that?" John asked.
"A poem. El Dorado is meant to be a lost city. Something that many people pursued for quite some time believing it to be a real place where the very walls were made of gold. It's a poem about knowing when stop searching for something and also about when to keep pushing just a little farther."
"I liked it," John said.
"If I woke up one day to find myself clothed in gold like this, I would want terribly to meet the man responsible. Properly meet him and realize who he was. It is your choice in the end, John, but if you're staying for me, don't. Don't rob yourself of something so lovely."
"Arthur, don't be ridiculous, it's not as though anybody's out there searching for me. If anything, they would think they were looking for you, with your face and your voice."
"What about my face and my voice?"
"They're nice. Anyone would be happy to find out that their patterns matched yours. And they would be looking for you, not me."
"You don't give yourself enough credit, John. Anyone would be lucky to have your mark on their skin. I hardly offer more than superficial qualities, dig much deeper than that and as you have found, I'm not much of merit. Beyond being more resilient than most, I suppose. If I look lovely to you, then it's because you've only ever seen me with the mark of someone you'll come to love."
"What if I don't want to come to love anyone else?" John said tersely
'Anyone else,' the words echoed around Arthur's brain with a furious clanging.
"I won't argue with you, John. It's your business whether or not you look for your soulmate, or if you wile away the rest of your life doing whatever else you care to do. I just hope that you'll consider it. As someone who is going through life without anyone, I can't imagine how it would feel to go through the same knowing that there was someone out there built for me. I don't want that for you."
"Then I suppose we'll just have to see that neither of us are alone," John said firmly.
*
A body for John was a costly endeavor neither of them came out of the search unscathed, but after the deals had been struck and the blood pacts enacted they found themselves with time and moreover bodies.
Arthur woke up in a small bed surrounded by warm sheets that smelled simultaneously familiar and like no one he knew and his eyes fluttered open to light that stabbed at his eyes. Less physically, really, it wasn't his eyes that were unused to the light, it was him. There were red curtains and through them shone early morning sunshine landing on the room in a warm pink.
Arthur sat up with a start and glanced around, flexing the fingers in the hand he'd been missing for so long, wiggling his toes, looking around, a grin breaking over his face. His gaze landed on the figure who was pressed quite closely to his side. A large man with yellow hair that fell in short waves just about his ears. He was covered in beautiful gold markings and Arthur felt a squeeze in his chest as he reached out a hand to shake the man.
"John?" the man began to move under Arthur's rousing, "John! You're here."
It was a stupid thing to say, Arthur felt certain. He felt certain that this was a moment that he was meant to be saying something truly poetic, but all he could find himself saying over and over was, "you're here now, you're here."
And amber eyes fluttered open locking with Arthur's.
"Arthur, are we-?" his voice was still the same deep rumble that had been but without the echo to it. Arthur felt sort of odd hearing it rather than just feeling it in his teeth.
Suddenly John's eyes grew wide.
"Arthur!" he said urgently, sitting up and clasping Arthur's face between his hands.
Arthur laughed pulling back from the clutch of large hands which spanned nearly the entirety of the side of his head. Palms pressed warmly against cheeks, fingers cold against Arthur's ears.
"Arthur, look at you," John breathed out. He was giving Arthur a look that Arthur didn't think he'd ever seen pointed at him before.
Certainly not on John. His only freshly acquired face aside, his tone was new, and Arthur got the distinct feeling that even if he'd had a face before this John wouldn't have known how to make this one.
"What? Did something happen?" Arthur found himself frightened for a moment that his body had been changed as well, but his voice sounded the same to his ears. And his hands were as he-
He froze.
Golden markings covered the backs of his hands. Yellow leaves growing out, rooted at the wooden pinky. Circlets of gold settled round his wrists and spiraled off, stretching up his arms. His slightly unbuttoned shirt showed the beginnings of a waterfall of gold which he knew with an absolute certainty would flow down around his scars pooling in the hollow of his hips just as John had described.
Arthur knew the lines well. He felt them being brushed against night after night, a self-soothing gesture John had taken up. A gesture that Arthur had guiltily taken comfort in.
"What…" Arthur moved his hands with a bit of a shake, as though he could disturb the patterns enough that they'd ripple away, "but you're- you have your own. Perhaps they don't leave once there put on? You- Maybe they're stuck?"
John's expression faltered, shuttering. Arthur realized, all at once, that the look that had been on John's face was an incredible, open, softness of excitement. He withdrew his hands which had been fluttering about Arthur's shoulders, his cheeks, his hair.
Arthur hadn't even noticed. It felt as natural as anything to have John's hands brushing against him.
And Arthur realized what John's look meant. It meant that-
"Oh John, I mean- we- I," Arthur found he couldn't find where that sentence was going exactly, but the tone itself was causing John to draw further back into himself. The tone was explanatory, dismissive, careless
Arthur captured John's hand as it withdrew, "John, it's not that I wouldn't want these marks, if they were meant for me."
He laid a hand against John's cheek and John's eyes pinned Arthur as their gazes met.
They were yellow, just tinged with a flourish of brown around the iris. They were like sunflowers and Arthur felt all at once as though he could write music about these eyes.
He forced himself to continue, "but I'm not like that. I'm nothing to anyone, and that's what I was built for. I don't want to take you from the person that you actually need. Please John understand that it's not that you're unwelcome."
"You're not nothing, and you're not no one. Not to me," John growled out, "and you've been playing this fucking game this whole time. Despite the evidence, you won't believe that these are yours. That I want you. What else could prove it Arthur? Have you ever heard of anyone accidentally getting stuck with a soulmark?"
"Our situation isn't the usual, John."
"Arthur, I'm fucking-" John growled furiously pushing his hair back with the back of his hand when it fell into his eyes, "I'm meant for this. I'm meant for you and your mine and I won't have anyone else."
Arthur felt a terrible pain in his chest, "John, please." He wasn't sure what he was asking for.
"If you want me to go and wander the world then I will, but I don't want anyone else. And I don't think there is anyone else, so send me away if you want to, but I'll be back at your fucking doorstep every night."
Arthur knew he couldn't have this, and so, clinging on to the last vestiges of his self-control, he told John, "you know what I am. I'm… monstrous, John.You could have something good and I won't be it. You've worked so hard to be who you are now and- and I don't love people, John, I kill them. I draw them near to me and when they trust me, my actions, my mistakes, my carelessness ends them. And I can't- I can't see you end because of me.
"You'd have to bury me really fucking well if you wanted to keep me there."
Something that was halfway between a sob and a laugh wrenched its way out of Arthur's throat, making a pitiful choking noise, but he found himself grinning, "I'm sorry, John, did you just threaten to raise yourself from the dead to haunt me if you pass away because of my misdeeds?"
"Oh no, Arthur, that's if I pass away at all. If you aren't there first I'm not staying."
"Is this romantic to you?" Arthur said laughing incredulously.
"Do you want it to be romantic? It can be anything, Arthur. I don't care, just don't send me away," the earnestness was back in John's voice.
"I just- I don't wish to keep you from anything else."
"There's nothing else, and you are keeping me whether you want to or not," John said it like a threat and Arthur felt that squeeze in his chest again.
"I think I would like to keep you," Arthur admitted.
"I'm going to kiss you," John's tone brokered no argument, his hands holding Arthur's gently so Arthur could retreat.
Arthur would not let John get the last word in.
He captured John's mouth with his own, hands releasing John's and coming to Cup the man's jaw. Arthur committed the feeling of stubble beneath his palms to memory as John let out a low agonized sound, clutching at Arthur's sleep shirt.
Arthur pulled back for a moment, they remained forehead pressed to forehead, "John, there's something I forgot to tell you."
"Hmm?" John's eyes were everywhere, taking in every part of Arthur he could from this distance.
"John," Arthur insisted, and finally those eye met his, "This face… it suits you."