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Soulmarks aren't indestructible. There's an old, longstanding belief that they are, but Alex knows firsthand that they aren't.
Not when his shoulder is a gnarled mess of scar tissue with only faint lines at the edges here and there to indicate that there ever had been one. It had been a nasty accident when he was young enough to not remember what it looked like. His parents, in a rare show of solidarity, refused to tell him, instead choosing to keep quiet about it, no matter how many times he asked.
Even after they divorced and his mother found her soulmate, she refused to share it.
"I just think you should find love on your own, darlin', not just take what the world gives you," she'd said, like Alex has ever once just gone with whatever the world tried to hand him.
It's one of those things that still pisses him off, that they're taking the choice away from him. Alex could meet his soulmate and choose to not be with them. Rejections won't kill anyone. But the fact that they won't even let him know what to look for and be able to make that choice himself makes him angry enough that he wants to scream.
"It hurts. Like they don't trust me to make my own decision on this. Like I'm so put off by the idea of non-soulmate couples that I wouldn't choose anyone but my soulmate. Newsflash, it'd be their fucking fault!" Alex lets out a breath, trying to calm down. Exhale the bullshit, as Pez would say. He glances at Henry next to him and nudges him in the shoulder. "Why couldn't you be my soulmate, huh? I already know I'd love you. Hell, maybe you are and we just don't know."
"Chance would be a fine thing," Henry says but it's with a soft smile. "You'd be a wonderful soulmate."
"And how do you know I'm not?" Alex challenges, taking Henry's hand and folding their fingers together. There's the same spark that he always feels when he touches Henry, one that warms him from the inside as if to welcome him home.
"When has my fortune ever been so good, love?"
Alex takes a breath and summons his courage, dipping his head to press a kiss to the back of Henry's hand. "Well, who's to say we can't make our own luck? Can I keep you, H? At least until you find your soulmate and make your own choices?"
Henry stares at him for a long moment, obviously searching for the trick or catch to Alex's words. "Alex, you—"
"I think I've loved you since we were kids," Alex murmurs, fingers of his free hand tracing the outline of the rose on Henry's wrist. "When I saw this beautiful, shy boy who needed more friends and let Pez drag him around and into trouble without a word of true complaint. Even if you're not my soulmate, even if you eventually choose your own soulmate, I'm choosing you. I may have met you by accident, but these days, I love you on purpose."
"Alex," Henry breathes. There's a moment where Henry lets go of his hand, but before he can panic about pushing too hard, Henry pulls him in for a kiss that makes every ounce of warmth Henry's ever brought him feel like burnt-out embers from a candle in comparison to a roaring hearth fire.
He knows Henry's not his soulmate, that their luck isn't that good, but it feels like something in him slots into place as they kiss.
"I love you," Henry says when they finally part, voice choked with tears.
"I love you more," Alex replies, because he's always been competitive.
Henry, well familiar with his need to beat everyone, just gives him a look and says, "I think that's up for debate."