Work Text:
Gabriel Novak couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest guy in the world whenever he looked down at his arms. He’d watch the intricate ink patterns flow across his arm, and sometimes feet. Sometimes he’d have whole sleeves of beautifully drawn flowers; other times random symbols or objects, and the occasional reminder scrawled across his palm.
He remembered the first drawing that had seemed to have ‘magically’ appeared on him. He had been home alone with his brother Michael, and had looked down to find a simple smiley face drawn on the back of his hand in blue. He’d automatically blamed Michael for marking on him, being only 5 at the time, and it took a lot of explaining and 3 phone calls to their father until Gabriel had learned what a Soulmate was.
Gabriel had watched over the years as his soulmate’s artistic talent grew, and he felt bad at times for not contributing much, instead just writing the occasional joke or notes when he couldn’t find paper, more often than not, it was jokes.
On this particular day, Gabriel’s right hand was colored almost completely black, with bare patches of skin, perfectly placed to look like the bones in his hand. Gabriel was quite proud of it, and couldn’t help but smile when he saw other people glancing at his hand, although they were probably wondering why a 28 year old man would waste time drawing on themselves, instead of admiring the work, but Gabriel didn’t really care. He hummed Heat of the Moment as he strolled down the street, making his way to the local bakery, where his brother, Castiel, worked.
“Hiya Cassie!” he called as he opened the door, a small bell ringing as he did so.
“Gabriel, you were going on a diet, remember?” a familiar voice said from the counter. Gabriel put his hand over his heart, as if to be offended, and gave a mock look of hurt before saying,
“I came out to have a good time with my brother, and honestly, I’m feeling so attacked right now.”
There was a chuckle from one of the customers behind the two.
“So you don’t want me to make you anything?” Castiel said, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, you know, a cup of coffee would be nice.”
Castiel rolled his eyes before turning around to make Gabriel’s coffee.
“Extra sugar, please.” Gabriel added quickly. Castiel gave a thumb up from his spot near the creamer. “Thanks baby bro, you’re the best!”
Gabriel turned away from the counter and scanned the bakery for a place to sit. The person who had chuckled at Gabriel’s joke before wasn’t hard to pinpoint, seeing as he was the only one there. He was a tall man with long brown hair that shined from the light through the window, and Gabriel couldn’t help but stare. He forced himself away from the man’s face and looked to see what he was doing. Gabriel caught his breath. He pulled the sleeve of his jacket up his left arm. There, in blue ink, were the faint markings of a star, surrounded by a ring of flames. He stared at his arm as the markings slowly grew brighter and clearer. He looked over at the man. He had a blue pen in his hand, his arm stretched across the table, a blue symbol clearly visible on his muscled arms.
“Alright Gabriel, play it cool, play it cool…” he whispered to himself, turning back around to the counter, taking in deep breathes. “It’s cool. No big deal. You just found your soulmate… And he’s drop dead gorgeous.” He looked around frantically across the counter top, searching for an idea. His eyes drifted to a sparkly pink pen near a tray of cupcakes. He swiped the pen cap off and scribbled quickly the words:
Found You
Just below the blue drawing. He closed his eyes and silently prayed to God his plan worked before opening his eyes and spinning around.
He watched the gorgeous man move his lips to the words one by one as they appeared on his arm. He looked around, meeting Gabriel’s eyes, before quickly turning his head back down to his arm. He wrote something down quickly and looked back up at Gabriel with a wide smile. Gabriel took a moment to enjoy the man’s smile before looking back at his arm. On it where three simply written words in bright blue pen.
Found You Too