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Reed hadn’t written on his skin for a few hundred years. There had been no point in the dimensional rift, where Ailette definitely did not exist.
He wouldn’t have thought to write again when he re-entered the world, either – except he was immediately greeted by a familiar holy light lighting up the night sky.
He swipes a gentle hand over her thousand year-old message on his left forearm.
hang in there. it’ll take a long while, but i’ll be with you as soon as i can. -ailette
Out of everything in the world, his memories of her are the one thing that remains beautiful – even if they have been tarnished by wistfulness and longing for a thousand years.
Still, he doesn’t try to reach out. He only picks up his pen again after he gives up on stopping the regression before they even start, resigned to staying in this world for quite a while longer.
It really has been a long while, he writes. He stares at his arm with bated breath, an excited thrill in his heart that he hadn’t felt in a thousand years.
No answer.
Well, that made sense. Any reply she wrote would surely reach that maggot as well, and he had never gotten any one-sided conversations from Ailette before during this time period. He remembers the way she had suddenly cut off contact months before the regressions started – he wonders if she knew that he would be here.
It stings, to think that Ailette might be deliberately avoiding communication with him. But still, Reed continues to write. It’s been so long since he’s known that there’s a recipient at the other end of the soulmark.
What would you have done if I hadn’t cleared out those monsters for you?
Don’t I get any thanks?
The trash dump of the demon world sucks… I wish you were here.
Sometimes he writes messages mimicking the 17th.
Ailette never bites the bait.
They get their first proper conversation three months after Ailette pushes him into the Demon World’s junkyard.
The chapel’s doors creak close behind Ailette.
“It was rather rude of you not to answer any of my messages,” Reed smiles.
“Did you know how long I’ve been waiting for a reply?” There is no heat behind his question, however. Really, he’s just glad to see her again.
Ailette’s eyes narrow and her frown deepens.
“Were you afraid that that maggot would read it? You could have replied when he was asleep, then. I still would have answered.”
Ailette stills. Something in her eyes flicker uncertainly.
Reed reaches for her left arm. His hold is firm but not forceful, his movement deliberately slow so that Ailette could have pulled back at any moment.
He pulls back her sleeve, his own falling down with the motion to reveal the thousand year-old message imprinted in pink on his inner forearm.
Her arm has only a blue stigma mark, and no words at all.
Reed falters. “Oh.”
His heart drops and turns stone cold.
He looks back up at Ailette. She meets his eyes.
Her eyes are blown wide, and now he realises… her growing frown was one of dawning horror. And pity .
His ribcage squeezes into a vice grip around his heart. He thinks he may have stopped breathing.
“Tesilid,” she chokes out. Her hand struggles slightly against his grip. “It hurts.”
He looks down with a startle to see that he had tightened his grip without meaning to.
He drops her arm like it burns.
The expression on his face closes up.
“So that’s how it is,” he murmurs, voice dark and low.
He takes a few steps away, turning his back to Ailette so that she can’t see the rapid and shallow rise and fall of his chest behind the curtain of his long hair.
She wasn’t his soulmate.
Her message was still a brand on his arm, right below the darkened stigma mark, but it wasn’t reflected on her own arm.
Who had Reed been writing to all this time, then?
Just like in all his previous 99 lives, he had merely been writing to someone who couldn’t hear him.
Except Ailette Rodeline lived in this timeline, and she should be his, just like how he had always been hers. Always waiting, always wanting, always hoping for her to show up and fill the slot in his life like they had imagined and planned during those years between the ages of fifteen and twenty through shared laughter and messages.
I’ve said this before, haven’t I? I’ll always be on your side.
Reed had clung on to that promise for a thousand years.
He closes his eyes and breathes in shakily, bringing a hand up to his face.
Ailette Rodeline’s left arm still had a stigma, even though she was never a stigma bearer. It was in the exact shape that Reed’s had been his whole life.
“Tesilid,” Ailette starts. He hears her take a step towards him. “Please… We can still save both you and the world.”
Reed doesn’t answer.
When he turns, the hand covering his face is lowered just enough that he can meet her eyes. He drags his fingers down the side of his face, slowly, deliberately, carving red marks in his flesh.
They both stare at each other, frozen still except for the red rivets making their way down Reed's face.
The skin on Ailette’s face remains free of blemish.
“I see,” he breaths, “there’s no need for me to ask my question anymore, it seems.”
There won’t be anyone by his side in this life, either.