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‘John Price’
That is the name on Kyle’s wrist from the moment he was born. A brilliant, deep red. The colour of fresh blood. In a handwriting that is neither neat or untidy. Boxy letters in a perfectly straight line.
It will take Kyle some time to realise that his soulmate changed his life long before they’d even met. That he —or more accurately, his name— was the reason he was raised by his grandmother, not his parents. Why he had to cover up his mark, when some other kids didn’t. The man whose name he carries on his wrist will continue to change his life until his dying breath.
By the time Kyle turns six, the name John Price becomes Private John Price. He’ll learn —later, when he asks his grandmother far too many questions— that this means his soulmate was older than him by at least ten years. He will learn that his soulmate spent his first ten years of life without a soulmark.
It is also around that time that he learns that the number underneath the name represents how much danger his soulmate was.
The first time it reaches a nine —he’s eight, getting ready for bed— he cries. His grandmother does the best she can to console him, but there is little you could say to a number that high. Active duty, she explains. That’s why he has the title. That’s why the number is so high. He is fighting bad people, protecting people.
By the time Kyle is eleven, he gets used to the number getting so high, to the fluctuation thereof. Never below a three for long.
He was starting to get used to a lot of ideas. To how his soulmate’s changed from Private to Lance Corporal. To the danger that implies, the ambition. To the age between them. It wasn’t common. Wasn’t what people were used to.
It was around this time he started hearing stories of people rejecting their soulmates, of onesided matches.. He wasn’t scared. It was just a name, just a number. In the end, how much could that actually mean?
By the time he is thirteen, the title has gone from Lance Corporal to Corporal. His grandmother remarks on what an ambitious person his soulmate must be, and he scoffs. He has no interest in caring about some person he might not even ever meet. He’d much rather live in the now with his friends.
Three years later, struggling with what to do with the rest of his life, the name on his wrist becomes Lieutenant John Price. By now he’s done his research, knows what that means. He’s lonely, and tired of the world being an awful place, and wants to make a difference.
When he tells his grandmother that he’s enlisting, she gives him a grim look, tells him she always knew this would happen. Tells him to visit when he can, and hugs him so tightly he struggles to breathe. Both of them cry, and both of them pretend they didn’t.
Serving isn’t what he imagined it to be. The rules are strict, the people are even stricter. It takes too long to get anything done and half the time it feels like he’s going nowhere. But he does help people, and he holds on to those moments.
He is twenty-two when the name on his wrist becomes Captain John Price. He’s in the SAS by then, and he’s good. Really good. He sets record times, makes himself home on the battlefield, makes himself valuable. He feels alive. As alive as one can be with all the restrictions. But he doesn’t think about that, only wants to think about the good that he does.
Kyle doesn’t look at his soulmark often. Doesn’t get the time. When he does, it’s always hovering somewhere above a six. Never without danger, his soulmate. Kyle doesn’t know what John’s mark says, but can only imagine the number isn’t low either. In his moments off, he wonders what his soulmate thinks of the Corporal Kyle Garrick on his wrist. Wonders if his soulmate would track him down.
He doesn’t —of course he doesn’t— because life doesn’t work that way. So Kyle pushes himself harder. Beats his old records. Sets new ones. Makes friends with the people he serves with. Never talks about his own soulmate, even when other soldiers’ come up.
Once or twice he tries bars, tries to make connections with people. Plenty of people end up with someone that isn’t their soulmate.
It never works out for him. He’s too busy, too intense, too willing to risk his life. So Kyle gives up on that idea. He has other things to focus on.
He is twenty-six when he meets John on a rainy day in London. Granted, he’s hunting terrorists and there are fires and explosions across Piccadilly Circus, but London nonetheless.
As a man comes lunging at him with a knife, he has a thought that his number must be at a nine. He doesn’t have time to ponder on it for too long though, before he could fight the man off, there’s a bullet through his skull.
He’s quick to identify himself before he gets shot, and there the man is right in front of him. He barely has a moment to take him in. The hat, the beard. Army. Backup has arrived.
That’s when he utters the introduction. “Captain Price.” He didn’t think his heart could spike more than it already has, yet there it was. This was the man. John. And the first thing he’d done was save Kyle’s life.
“Sergeant Garrick,” the words come without thinking. Kyle expects recognition, words, something, but the man barely pauses for a moment.
“You’re with me.”
There’s no time to think about if this man might be his soulmate —he has to be, how many Captain Prices could there be— before they’re rushing up the stairs. There’s a man, a bomb. His hands don’t shake as he tries to get the bomb off, but he feels like they should. Something to indicate the gravity of the situation. But the calm of being a soldier settles on him.
“Can you help him?” Captain Price speaks with pure command. Later, he will admire it. Right now, there’s an urgency.
“I’m trying.” Six seconds. Kyle catches the barest glint of a 9 on the Captain’s wrist before he’s flung away from the man, onto the floor.
He can only watch as Price throws the man over the railing, not a moment too late. The bomb goes off. John falls beside him. In one piece. They both are. It doesn’t take the man long before he’s giving more orders. And if this was his soulmate? He suddenly understood how he rose so quickly up the ranks.
“You broken?” Price asks him —for the first time, definitely not the last— holding out a hand.
He takes it, pulling himself up. “I’m good.” And despite the anger and frustration building in him, he is.
Outside, Kyle calls him ‘sir’ –belatedly, forgetting protocol in his anger, in speaking to his soulmate— and John doesn’t correct him. It tells him enough. That there is a line.
Even if, apparently, his now-Captain seemed to be plenty willing to cross over other lines. To overstep and do the right thing.
What did that mean for them? Was them being soulmates not the right thing? Was talking about it bad? He didn’t know. Couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was going on in Price’s head.
But he’s finally doing something. Making a difference. The gloves are off and it feels good. To do good, despite getting dirty, to do the right thing. So he decides not to mention it. Keeps to himself that they’re soulmates. Or potential soulmates.
Now, whenever he looks at the number on his wrist —always during downtime–- the number is low. He can only guess because their danger corresponds now. He does his best not to think about it.
They’re on a mission somewhere in the deserts of northern Africa when it happens. He’d turned 28 three days ago. Now, he finds himself in a rundown base, in Price’s temporary office. It’s a habit by now, keeping the other company while he works. He’ll get teased for being the Captain’s favourite —as always–- but he doesn’t mind too much.
They got along well. It was so easy to spend time around him. So easy to relax around. There was something different about Price. More than just having his name on his wrist. More than just him having opened Gaz’s eyes and having made it possible for him to make a difference, a real difference.
“Catch.” He barely has a moment to process the word before a small package comes flying his way. John isn’t even looking at him, having returned to his paperwork.
He inspects it. It’s roughly wrapped in what seems to be a newspaper from the local town. Small, boxlike, he can hold it in one hand.
With another glance to Price, like he’ll explain it —he doesn’t— he opens it. The sound of the tearing fills the quiet office. It’s a black box which opens to reveal a watch. Not just any watch. A nice one, practical, with a compass, different settings and; Kyle is hit with the sudden urge to kiss John.
He blinks, trying to push down the feeling. But it stays, dwelling warm inside his chest like a campfire he’d just lit on a long, tiring mission.
The realisation that he’s in love dawns on him slowly, but clear as day.
He walks around with this feeling for more than a year. Dwells on the fact that there is a line and clearly it cannot, and should not, be crossed. Not according to Price, at least.
Sometimes he wonders if John also feels this way. If the feelings in his chest are shared. That even if the line isn’t crossed, he wants to cross it. He wonders if it would be better or worse that way.
Worse, he decides. At least if it’s not mutual then there are no ‘what ifs’.
There are still ‘what ifs’.
He spends his time mulling it over when they have down time. It’s a day like any other. He finds himself done with drills and heads to John’s office on muscle memory alone. He finds it empty, but doesn’t mind. Never minds spending time in John’s space, around his things. Even when he’s not there.
He ends up falling asleep on the couch, woken by a gentle shake to the shoulder. Once the instinct to fight dies down he finds himself face to face with John.
They stay like that for a long moment before John goes to speak, but he shuts his mouth again. He doesn’t move away either. Kyle is struck with the —now familiar— urge to kiss him.
For once, he does. Not because anything monumental changed, not because he realised. It’s the floodgates slowly cracking. So he gives in, leans forward and kisses him. It starts off brutal, like they both need it to stay alive, like they’re creating a plan for infiltration, like they're on the battlefield. But John slows them down, turns it into something more. Still just as intense, but more careful this time.
Kyle is dizzy from it.
He reaches for John’s wrist, pulls it closer. Needs to know. Needs to make sure.
Sure enough, on his wrist are three simple words in his own slanted, choppy handwriting.
‘Sergeant Kyle Garrick’