Work Text:
Geoff woke up at 18 years old with five empty hearts etched into his skin. The scar tissue was raised, the perfectly heart shaped, red and welting wounds staring back up at him. The hearts were empty as could be, as they always were when one woke up on their coming of age. No colors were popping into life into his arm but his mother, her joy was over-whelming.
The peers, the friend, the teachers, not so much.
The whispers began when Geoff strode into school wearing a short-sleeved top, the scarring heart shapes on clear display. No one had had as many hearts as Geoff did. Not as long as anyone had known them to exist at least, but Geoff wore them proudly, knowing that one day, those hearts would fill with color and he would know that those five people would love him just as much as he loved them.
The jeers teetered off as Geoff grew tired of the comments, the long-sleeves in the Alabama heat hiding the love marks on his forearm. The inside of his left arm stayed hidden, hoping to avoid the stares and hateful comments of people with just one, the normal ones.
When Geoff entered the military he learned acceptance. No one questioned the five scars on his arm. They only knew him as Geoffery Fink, that funny guy with the camera and the notepad. The man they stood with and played games with. Hearts didn’t matter when their lives were at stake.
Geoff met a man with two hearts on the line, both of them filled. One was a beautiful magenta color, the other a docile periwinkle. Geoff commented to the man, his name was Eric, about them.
“My girls are the loveliest. I found out my color was cream before I left for deployment. I met Katie in college, Marissa during training, she worked at the library. I love them so much, that it doesn’t even matter that I have two hearts. We all have two hearts, we all have each other,” Eric told him.
Eric died of illness two weeks later.
Geoff met his grieving widows when he came back. Told them of how Eric spoke of them and only spared a glance to the scabbing black of what had to be his heart on their arms.
He went to college afterwards, met his friends from high school there and it was then his life seemed to change forever. When video gaming became less of a past time and more of a career, their Halo playing becoming more than just a bunch of dudes shooting at each other. His voice gave life into the internet, their web series taking off from their apartments and into cyberspace. It was like nothing would ever be the same.
Rooster Teeth was born of Red Vs. Blue. Gaming and shorts and silly snippets of themselves. Podcasts and then Achievement Hunter, led by Geoff all on his own. It was all expanding so quickly that it was hard to keep up.
Burnie and Matt hired Jack into the fray to give Geoff someone share the load with. Jack was a bright and happy man, a wide and soft man with a full red beard with a personality and laugh to fill a room.
“Jack, this is Geoff,” Burnie had introduced them. Their hands shook and the color popped to life in Geoff’s first heart. The shiny, gold stared back at him and he smiled gently to himself in the bathroom after having met Jack. The warmth that spread through his arm, up and into his chest, where it seemed to circular with his blood through the rest of his body was comfortable, wonderful.
“You’re hired,” Geoff had answered for Burnie when he met Jack. Jack had laughed and Burnie had given him an eyeroll with no heat behind it.
The following morning Jack greeted Geoff with a scratchy kiss on the cheek, his right hand lingering on his shoulder just a second longer.
For a couple of years, it was the two of them and their singularly filled hearts. Four remained as empty as they always had been and it was still comfortable. They danced around each other with only pecks and lingering hands on arms and waists for these years, knowing they had each other being enough.
The Red Vs. Blue Crew had run into a little British character in the following years. A sixteen year old with eyes the color of an ocean and a nose just a tad too big for his face. Burnie found him in the early years of the Rooster Teeth site, sitting side-by-side with a blonde-brunette girl with metallic braces but a knack for puns.
His name was Gavin and he tilted everyone’s world when he visited them in Austin for the first time. Burnie introduced him to the office and found Geoff in the kitchen, a beer in his hand. The greeting was in passing but Gavin and Geoff’s hands shook and there was another pop of color that was almost audible in Geoff’s ears.
Gavin’s opposite hand tore his sleeve up on his arm, finding the first heart just under the palm of his hand was filled to the brim with color. Geoff smiled softly and Gavin engulfed him in a hug, Burnie laughing gently to himself.
“I swear to God, Geoff…” he trailed off but Geoff only laughed and tucked his face into Gavin’s neck.
It only took a couple of years for Gavin to find his place with Jack and Geoff, Jack’s shiny gold painting itself into Gavin’s arm when they met. Gavin’s neon green filled the second heart on both of their arms, and the spaces they didn’t take up in the ones in their chests.
Gavin’s ability to move to the United States, however, created the biggest barrier between them. The early developments of video chat was like talking through water at a blurry screen, but it worked for awhile. The Gents spent all their time cursing the government for keeping their soulmate across an ocean from them.
Meanwhile, across just the country, there were two gamers living in soulmate bliss with four empty hearts, the first of theirs already filling in each other. The surprise on their faces had shocked the both of them, vibrant purple and the color of an orange sunset were filling the spaces of the first hearts.
Michael shouted into his camera some nights, his single heart on clear display when he wore short sleeves. Others, it was just his voice screaming profanities into his microphone, gameplay covering the entirety of the screen. This brought the attention of Geoff and Jack, the two of them certain he needed to be a part of their lives.
Jack met him first, meeting him in New Jersey, his home. Their greetings were cut short when Michael looked down and saw the shiny gold blossoming into the heart underneath his purple one. Jack’s third heart filled in Michael’s sunset orange color.
“I wish I knew I was meeting my soulmate today. I would’ve dressed better,” Michael joked and Jack laughed, the warmth in Michael’s body spreading into a wildfire at that sound.
Michael moved to Austin within the year, Geoff greeting him with a warm hug. The gentle buzz of a new color moved into the third heart on Michael’s arm as well as Geoff’s. Michael needn’t look far for a home, Jack and Geoff willing to give him one.
Gavin moved from England within the year Michael did, Gavin’s third and Michael’s fourth hearts filling with color. Michael often still says he should’ve have figured out what was coming from the very obnoxiousness of Gavin’s color, the neon green having practically radiated from the pale skin on Michael’s arm surrounding it.
Rare was it that the topic of the mysterious purple heart was breached. Michael would press his fingers against it sometimes, would be on the phone for hours, his hand instinctively reaching over to rub at the first heart on his arm. Gavin asked once and quickly never did again when Michael got snappy about the subject.
“He’s from New York. We met once, I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough,” he had replied, sounding pinched and annoyed. The purple heart was never mentioned from them again, just looked at wistfully and curiously.
Ray stayed in New York with only the color of sunset orange interrupting the slight brown shade of his skin. He made Achievement Guides and talked with Geoff from afar, but never once did he offer to move to Austin. He lived with his parents, working at Game Stop, and if making Achievement Guides for people across the country was his fate, hell, he’d take it.
Geoff had to physically offer him the job to come to Rooster Teeth before the topic was ever even considered in Ray’s mind. Geoff had laughed gently at his surprise and repeated himself several times in the conversation.
The five of them drove to the airport to pick him up, Jack behind the wheel and Michael nearly jumping up-and-down in the passenger seat. Gavin had to lean forward, wrap his arms around the back of Michael’s seat, around his shoulder to calm him. He strained his neck around, kissing the back of his clothed shoulder.
“You guys will love him,” Michael told them. Geoff tried not to roll his eyes at the lad’s excitement in his voice. Michael looked back at him, the grin on his face nearly splitting it in two, his legs nearly sending him sprinting towards the baggage claim after Jack parked.
Ray walked leisurely from the exit and Michael was bouncing on the balls of his feet. He broke into a straight-up run when he saw his first soulmate walking around. Michael had him by the shoulders in seconds and Ray laughed gently, hugging him back.
“It’s okay man, I’m not going anywhere this time,” Ray told him and Michael nodded into his shoulder. Michael pulled away a bit and Ray kissed him on the nose. Michael scrunched up his features and Ray kissed him on the lips, pulling him closer.
When they finally broke apart, Michael held tight to his wrist, dragging him from the exit and to the outskirts of the area, where the three of them were waiting. Ray looked down at Michael’s arm and feigned being offended as he said, “I see I’ve been replaced.”
“Not replaced, just… added to,” Michael told him and Ray laughed, Michael continued to drag him, stopping only briefly to get his bags, until they reached the other three.
Jack reached out first, hugging him tight and marking up his second heart. Neon green filled the third and then Geoff had ahold of him, welcoming him to the Achievement Hunter/Rooster Teeth family. Ray thanked him and then looked at his arm, four of his five hearts now filled with color. “Really, thank you,” Ray added.
“No need. Now let’s get you settled in,” Geoff told him, throwing an arm around his shoulders, steering him toward the doors.
For the following years, the five of them settled in with their four filled hearts. Their last heart was empty and sometimes, Geoff would catch himself or one of his mates looking at it, sadly, wistfully. Somewhere in the world, someone was waiting for their soulmates to find them, all of their hearts empty and colorless.
The Craigslist ad was a joke. Well, a half joke. It was a little bit serious but it was mostly a joke, just to see who would answer. They got a handful and scheduled them for interviews, asking them to come down to see if they could get the job.
Geoff was bored of the interviews within the first couple of people, having started to run out of questions. He was considering asking Burnie for questions when one of the last guys came in. He was handsome, stocky, blonde and blue-eyes with broad shoulders. Geoff squinted his eyes a little, a vibe coming off of him that Geoff couldn’t quite place.
“Please, sit,” Geoff had told him and the gentleman had done so, hesitantly. With his own hearts so visible, he pondered what this man’s looked like, his jacket having been covering his. “What’s your name?” Geoff asked, numbly.
“Ryan, Ryan Haywood. My first name is James, but I just go by Ryan,” he explained. Geoff nodded to himself, looking at the sheet in front of him. He crossed off James Haywood and lifted his eyes again.
“So… Ryan…. what did you previously do for a living?” He asked conversationally.
“This and that. Mostly tech work. I.T. and stuff like that,” Ryan told him. Most of the interview went like that.
Geoff disappeared once to ask Burnie what to ask Ryan about his credentials and things, but it mostly went off without a hitch. Geoff would never say he was good at interviewing people, but he had muddled through. Ryan got up when Geoff did, looking a little confused.
“Well, Ryan, it’s been a fun. We’ll give you a call about the job,” Geoff told him, reaching out to pat his arm. Ryan nodded and almost disappeared before Geoff could feel it. That pleasant buzz under his skin of another heart filling, of the sudden coursing warmth of being complete, finding their last heart, their missing heart.
A maroon-red filled the last heart on Geoff’s arm and he called Ryan back. The man turned and looked at him expectantly, still standing in the doorway.
“How many hearts do you have?”
One by one, Ryan’s hearts filled until he had a matching set like the rest of them. Geoff and then Michael, Jack and Ray and then Gavin, the last of which being too intimidated, he almost didn’t want to meet their last soulmate. Ryan’s smile was blinding.
For a while, he felt too far away, sitting in another part of the building. The five of them felt his pull from across the building, but when they moved, it settled in alright. The six of them could sit together, feel each other's presence and nothing could get in the way.
Geoff hadn’t really thought about his own color for most of his life, his mate’s being the most important in his life. It wasn’t until he had settled down with Michael one evening with a game of Halo when he noticed.
“Am I- am I blue?” Geoff asked. Michael looked down, smiled and then paused the game.
“You didn’t know?” Michael had asked, sounding a little smug. A smoky cornflower blue filled the third heart on his arm, nestled right in the middle of all his boys. Geoff shrugged and Michael set his controlled down, sliding over on the couch to settle into Geoff’s side.
“Some people say the color of your heart is the color of your personality. That is dictates who you are a person, but you’d never be blue, Geoff,” Michael told him, his fingers tracing the third heart on Geoff’s left arm, his heart that was filled with a beautiful sunset orange. “I think it says a lot about you, a defining characteristics, if you will,” Michael rambled on.
“It reminds me of your eyes,” Michael concluded, looking up into his soulmate’s eyes. Geoff smiled down at him,
“Yours reminds of your calm,” Geoff replied. Michael laughed.
“What calm? Don’t be confusing me with Jack now,” Michael joked. Geoff rested his head on top of Michael’s.
“Jack may have a heart of gold, but you’re a cold beer at the end of the day. The softness from a hard work week. That’s why you’re a sunset, Mikey, you’re too pure for this world,” Geoff joked the last the part, but the rest he meant. He kissed the top of Michael’s head.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”