Chapter Text
Dex is four years old the first time he hears the words “bad match” - far too young to be hearing anything of the sort, to even really understand what it means, and yet he knows exactly the kind of things everyone is saying about his parents, whispers about soulmates and the universe and it’s just unnatural, isn’t it? . He doesn’t know, not yet, that children are not supposed to grow up like this.
–
The first time he thinks about soulmates is when he meets Sophie. She is perfect in every way imaginable, he wishes she could be his soulmate, and yet, when he sees her with Fitz, with Keefe, with anyone but him, he knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this cannot possibly in any way end in his favour. He is not that lucky, has never in his life been that lucky. He tries to let it fizzle out as quickly as it started.
–
He is sixteen. His elation at having finally manifested an ability has long faded away, covered up by a history of weapons and gadgets made out of a desperate desire to protect his friends, and he has settled into a well-practised routine of school, home, study, think, sleep. Nothing takes nearly as long as he hopes it will. He ends up doing an awful lot of thinking.
He thinks about the future, thinks about the Neverseen, about soulmates, his friends, his family, the Forbidden Cities, the Black Swan, soulmates again. Sometimes, he even thinks of being a Vacker. Years of being around Fitz and Biana have accustomed him to seeing how people look at them, like they put the stars in the sky. He would bask in the glory, he thinks, and relish in watching everyone who ever hated him look at him like that. But that is too far out of reach, even for his dreams, and for now, he settles for dreaming of being treated like he is normal .
It is in one of these thinking sessions that he first comes up with the idea. And once he’s started making, he can’t stop and then suddenly he’s thrown back into that desperate desire to protect . Not his friends this time, but himself. He needs to know, to give himself a little bit of closure, even if it doesn’t do much. He is up until the early hours of the morning, he’s building tiny parts under the desk at school, he can’t do anything, can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t concentrate without thinking about it. And then it’s done, and he’s holding it in his hands, and he’s staring at it and maybe he’s having second thoughts but he won’t admit that to anyone, because this could fix all his problems. Once and for all.
Before he can think about it too much, he slips the gadget onto his wrist, takes out a pen and starts writing on his arm.
hey
this is your soulmate
sorry this is really weird but could you send a message back if it worked? just writing anything on your arm should be fine
–
Fitz almost has a heart attack when he sees the words on his arm. He doesn’t know when they got there, or how, but the words themselves are enough to send him into a minor (very very very big) state of panic. He is not supposed to have to think about soulmates yet, at least not for another few months until his eighteenth birthday (a fact he is trying very hard to ignore at the moment), but he swings himself off of his bed to grab a pen anyway and starts to write a message back, pausing for a moment to think about what to write before responding with a simple,
Hi. It worked.
–
Dex quite literally falls out of his chair when he glances at his arm and sees the reply. He clambers back up to his feet, ignoring, or trying to ignore, the throbbing pain in his foot, which he somehow managed to hit against the leg of the chair in his panic, and scrambles to find a pen. His second message is long, longer than the first, and consists of many crossings out and incoherent sentences as he tries to explain what he’s done in a way that doesn’t make him sound like a complete loser.
yes thats good!!! okay so i was fiddling around with communication machines and stuff and i found a way to be able to link soulmates together through marks on the skin. sorry if i scared you i probably shouldve found a way to warn you but i guess i couldn’t really have done that without doing this stuff first so maybe the first message was the warning?? also don’t try to reveal any information about yourself cause i guess that messes with the system that stops you from knowing who your soulmate is before you get to 18?? i don’t really know to be honest this is my first time trying this. anyway im desperately running out of space on my arm right now so i can’t really say much else bye i guess??
He’s not sure he’s really nailed not sounding like a complete loser.
(Fitz watches in abject horror as his arm slowly fills up with no sign of stopping.)
That’s fine, it was only a little bit scary (complete lie) and thanks for the warning, I won’t try to reveal anything personal.
(His reply is squeezed onto the tiny bit of space underneath Dex’s paragraph.)
–
They don’t talk much until a few days later. Dex is, frankly, terrified he has scared his soulmate off, but even this is overshadowed by the looming threat of midterms, which are, admittedly, probably not as important as soulmates but still very very scary.
In a last-few-minutes-before-exam panic, he attempts something he’s seen in a human movie Sophie showed him, squeezing formulas and star names onto the section of his arm that falls just below the sleeve of his uniform, having entirely forgotten about the soulmate link.
He is reminded of this when he gets into the exam, pulls his sleeve down slightly, and sees,
Cheating on your midterms?
Caught. But at this point, Dex, who is thoroughly screwed for the exam, and is willing to try anything, scrawls a quick,
yes pls send help i am not doing well right now. do you know what the constellation lambentine is in is called??
His soulmates reply is fast, written in a messier, more slanted script then their other messages.
No, sorry, I know its the same one that Rubini and Pallidrose are in if that helps?
Dex breathes a sigh of relief and replies,
YES thank you so much i literally owe you my life you’ve just saved my exam i actually thought i was doomed before this
Glad to know I could help? Stop writing long messages though, go finish your exam.
k
–
After this (slightly mortifying) incident, with the ice seemingly broken, they begin to fall into a steady routine.
–
hey how was ur day???
Average. 6/10. My dad was being annoying again.
that’s higher than yesterday at least!!
–
7/10 today.
yayy!!! hope ur feeling better now :)
–
How are you?
great!!! 9/10 :)
That’s good, anything happen?
not rlly tbh, just in a good mood recently i think. hbu??
Not sure, 3/10 maybe?
oh that sucks :( want to talk abt it??
It’s fine, just my dad again. You know, “Not good enough”, “Shame on the family.” Pretty standard.
ok im really sorry if im overstepping here but from what you’ve said before he really does not sound like that great of a person.
but the way you talk about him sometimes, it’s like you think he’s the best in the world, and then you say these things and to me it feels like youre downplaying what hes doing, even to yourself. im so sorry if im wrong about this but the way hes affecting your life rn doesn’t feel like hes just being annoying.
what im trying to say is i think it should be okay for you to acknowledge that he does have some kind of negative impact on you and him being your father doesnt diminish that in any way.
Fitz doesn’t reply for a long time after that.
He stares blankly at his arm.
You don’t know jack shit about me or my dad.