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‘If you are somehow still alive, we need to talk.’
Cellbit stared at the red words inked onto his skin. He hadn’t heard from his soulmate in years. He wasn't sure why his soulmate was reaching out after so long. The last time his soulmate had written to him he was still in prison. He couldn't even respond back then. The prison didn't let inmates have anything they could write with for fear of people's soulmates helping them escape. The lack of communication with his own soulmate didn't stop him from breaking out of prison but it did cause his soulmate to think he was dead. He still remembered receiving the message from his soulmate.
‘You haven't responded in months so either you are dead, or you don't want to talk to me. Either way I guess this is Goodbye.’
Cellbit escaped the prison just a few months after that message, but he never ended up reaching back out to his soulmate. For the first few months it was out of fear of getting thrown back in jail and abandoning his soulmate again but eventually too much time had passed to even think of reaching out again.
Now, here his soulmate was reaching out to him again years later. The ball was in Cellbit’s court again. He could ignore his soulmate and pretend to be dead like he had been all along, or he could reach out. He wasn't even sure how his soulmate would respond to finding out that he wasn't actually dead all this time or the actual reason that Cellbit had stopped replying to their messages. It's not like Cellbit even wanted his soulmate anymore. Sure he missed what they had had when they were younger, but he already found someone who he loved.
Cellbit had first met Roier when Forever started making him pick up Richas from daycare. Roier had introduced himself after Richas had run up to him yelling “Pai.” Apparently Roier's son, Bobby, and Richas were best of friends and absolute menaces to each other. Roier had met all the rest of Richas’ dads, even Felps somehow with as little as the man was in town, and Roier was surprised to meet another one.
After the first few times they crossed paths Cellbit found himself looking forward to the days he was able to go and pick up Richas from daycare. Roier had found his way into Cellbit’s heart when he least expected it. He would choose Roier over his soulmate any day but despite that Cellbit still decided to pick up a green pen and decided to write back to his old friend.
‘We haven't talked in years, what is there to talk about?’
Cellbit waited and slowly red writing started to appear on his arm.
‘I found someone, and I thought I should try to reach out again before I move on.’
Cellbit ran his hand through his hair. From his soulmate's point of view, he abandoned him out of nowhere. His soulmate could have just moved on and said nothing. He didn't owe him this kindness of talking again.
‘You don't owe me that.’ Cellbit wrote on his arm.
‘I may not owe you it and it may have been your fault we stopped talking but that doesn't mean we can't start again.’
‘Why, when you plan to move on?’
‘He may have my heart, but a piece will always reside with you.’
Cellbit sat staring at the sentence. He had abandoned his soulmate for years and the other still felt so strongly about him. His soulmate found someone else and still said that Cellbit held a piece of his heart. Cellbit sighed. He should give his soulmate this one thing, especially after all he put the other through.
‘Just tell me when and where.’
-𖹭-
Cellbit looked down at his arm and back through the glass of the cafe. He had almost laughed when he first saw the writing explaining his soulmate's outfit and location.
‘Spiderman hoodie, at the back table.’
He thought it was amusing that Roier and his soulmate had similar tastes in clothing. Now he wasn't amused because sitting at the back table in a spiderman hoodie was Roier.
Roier was in love with someone enough to give up on his soulmate. Roier who Cellbit opened up to about every piece of his past. Who knew all the things he did. Who knows why Cellbit abandoned his soulmate. Who knows how much Cellbit regretted that action.
Cellbit stared at Roier through the glass, the other man unaware as scrolled through his phone. Cellbit couldn't listen to the man he loved who was also his soulmate talk about the man he was in love with.
Cellbit sighed and pulled the pen out of his pocket.
‘I'm sorry, Roier. I can't do this. I love you.’
Cellbit turned away from the cafe and walked a block down the street before he stopped and leaned against the wall to collect himself.
-𖹭-
Roier doesn't know why he felt like he needed to reach out to his soulmate one last time. Before he met Cellbit he had convinced himself, or at least tried to convince himself, that his soulmate had died years before. He wasn't sure how much he believed that fact when he had first come up with it, but Roier had grown to accept that even if his soulmate wasn't dead that he was as good as dead since they no longer talked. Roier had kept that belief until he had met Cellbit.
Cellbit had told him about his time in prison and how he couldn't talk to his soulmate. Roier sometimes couldn't help but wonder if the same had happened to his soulmate. Roier knew that if the same thing had happened to his soulmate he had fucked up and majorly. He wasn't sure if what he and his soulmate had was salvageable, if his soulmate was alive, but he also felt he couldn't just move on without attempting to reach out one last time.
Roier was surprised when he actually got a response back that wasn't a complete ‘fuck off’. He knows he would have deserved the response after what he had said to the other. He was even more surprised when his soulmate agreed to meet up in some obscure coffee shop Roier had found.
Roier's surprise faded to anxiety as the day got closer. By the time he was sitting at the table, his leg was bouncing up and down with anxiety about the conversation to come, and he almost regretted reaching out in the first place. He tried to distract himself and focus on what was on his phone, but his mind kept drifting between Cellbit, who won his heart without the need of soulmates and his soulmate, who should have been the one he was in love with.
In his distracted state Roier almost didn't feel the message appear on his wrist.
‘I'm sorry, Roier. I can't do this. I love you.’
Roier. His soulmate called him by his name. They had never traded names. Whatever the soulmate link was made it impossible to share name,phone numbers, addresses, and any other thing that would lead people to the exact locations of their soulmates. His soulmate had to know him. Roier looked up and searched around the cafe for anyone he knew but found no one. Roier got up and shoved his phone into his pocket as he quickly walked out of the cafe.
Once Roier was outside he looked around for anyone he knew on the street, or anyone briskly walking away and found no one. Roier sighed. He can't blame his soulmate for running off. He just wished he knew who they were like they knew who he was.
Roier mindlessly walked in the direction of his house. He was going to go home and crawl into bed for the rest of the day and then start the next day like nothing happened. His soulmate wasn't dead, but they might as well be with how he left things. Roier was almost certain now that they would never actually meet.
Roier spotted Cellbit leaning against a wall obviously stressed. He wondered what case Cellbit was investigating now that made him look so stressed. As Roier was about to approach the other man, Cellbit raised his hand to run it through his hair and Roier caught sight of red and green that mirrored the marks on his own wrist.
Roier’s breath caught in his throat.
No way. There was no way that Cellbit could be his soulmate.
Roier slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his pen, all while not taking his eyes off Cellbit. Roier uncapped the pen and wrote on the back of his hand.
‘Pinche pendejo.’
Roier watches as the words appear on Cellbits hand. Roier stares at the other man. Cellbit might be smart when it comes to his cases or the puzzles that he does in his spare time, but it sometimes amazes Roier how much of an idiot the other man could be.
“Gatinho.” Roier called as he approached the other man.
Roier's heart clenched at how the other man looked happy for a moment and then frowned before a fake smile appeared on his face. Roier stopped right in front of the man.
“Morning, Guapito.”
“You are a fucking idiot.” Roier replied, as he stepped forward and gently grabbed Cellbit's face in his hands.
Roier kisses Celbit and a moment after Cellbit starts to kiss him back. They pull away from each other breathless. After a moment Roier holds up his hand and Cellbit glances over and he can hear Cellbit’s breath catch at the sight of the words.
“It was always you, Gatinho. I've always loved you.”