Chapter Text
Everyone has soulmarks sprinkled all over their skin. They're colourful spots, drawn all over a person's body, making their skin look like a canvas straight from a fancy museum, some great painter having put time and effort into his ultimate masterpiece. But humans are not paintings, their colours dulling and meanings lost to time, but instead their skin is drawn full with love, each spot a different shade. The person who colours your skin doesn't have to be perfect for you. There just has to be enough love to coax out the colour. Some people have their parents as their first soulmarks, others have siblings, or childhood best friends. A soulmate doesn't have to stay for all of life, doesn't even have to be in it for long. As long as they touch the soul, as long as the love is there, a shimmer in the air, represented by blooming colours on bare skin, it works.
Max never got a soulmark from his parents, but that is, of course, fine. Not everyone does after all, it doesn't mean they love him any less. Or at least it shouldn't. His sister's soulmark is tiny, a light green, on the wrist bone of his left hand, right where he first brushed against her arm, back in the hospital. He's too young to remember it, but there is a picture from the moment he first reached for her, two and blonde and giggling, next to Victoria, all pink and purple and red and blue from the birth still. She has a matching one on her right upper arm, a slightly lighter green, but the colours go well together, he thinks.
His father doesn't like the soulmark. It's a weakness he says, one Max doesn't need, he's weak and distracted enough without it already. Sometimes he thinks that it's because Papa doesn't have many soulmarks of his own. He was taught not to think like that soon enough.
So he picks up ways to hide the little spots, beneath bracelets or later a wristwatch, but most often, his gloves. If he wears racing gloves his father doesn't get as mad, because then he's just working, doing all he can to become better. He wears them long before he necessarily needs them for the kart and way longer than is justifiable after a race or training session. He is one of the only ones to wear them on the podium as well, even when they stick to his skin, when the rosewater drips in. The skin of the kids around him is always littered with colour, yellow and purple and green and blue, all falling into accordance with each other, even when they really shouldn't match.
His skin is the same colours, but they don't match nearly as well as those of the other kids do. And they hurt a lot more.
Sometimes it feels like the others have dozens of soulmarks, in all shapes and sizes, full handprints next to two fingers of the same colour, next to pretty clouds, where the bare skin of a shoulder brushed against someone else's, while all he has is one shapeless blob, hidden beneath bracelets and gloves, bound to a sister Max barely ever sees anymore.
His second soulmark happens by accident. He never even dreamed of getting another one, to match Victoria's. It didn't even need to appear on the other person, he was fine with being the only one to get a soulmark, Max knew that he's not important enough to make an impact on somebody else's life that is big enough to get them a soulmark.
It's not planned and not expected, and maybe that's the beauty of it.
He's had a terrible week, losing second place because of his own mistake, misjudging the grip he'd had on the tarmac and going off track, causing him to lose two places, instead of making up the one he needed. Afterwards Papa had made him train every day, from early morning till the evening, when it grew dark already and Max could barely see the track, sometimes without food until he finally beat his own lap time, the too hot summer sun glaring down at them mercilessly. But now, finally, his father is going out again in the evening, probably to a bar to drink beer and liquor, only to come back in the early hours of the morning in a bad mood and with easy fists. Max takes it gladly anyway, grabbing at the break with both hands, exhaustion heavy in his bones. But instead of maybe having a moment to sleep without interruption there are knocks on the door.
It's Stan, green on his nose, purple handprint wrapping around his left ankle. The sun is burning down onto the porch, the air heavy in the way it so often is in the summer, sticky and sweet with the juices of the plumtree in the neighbour's garden. Still Max is wearing his long-sleeved shirt, carefully covering his arms and chest from sight and touch. Especially from touch. Stan's smile is bright, his cheeks dimpling, the red fingerprint of Jorrit scrunching together where it sits high on the left side of his face. “Come on, let's go!” His smile begins to dim, when he notices Max's apprehension, the indecisiveness probably painted all over his face.
“Do you not want to anymore? It's fine. I can go alone. Or maybe Jorrit does have time.” The laugh Stan lets out is painfully awkward, hanging suspended in the air between them for a moment. Max doesn’t know what to do. Either he finally goes swimming in the creek with his friend and he’ll have a good time or it’s going to be absolutely horrible. He knows Stan, knows that he won’t push, and still. The safe choice is to stay home, be still and quiet. But he also wants so desperately to have some fun for once, fun that isn’t karting. He wants to go swimming, even if it’ll ruin this friendship because he won’t let himself be touched. Stan is turning away already, when he comes to his decision, posture defeated, head hanging low, as Max’s hand shoots out. He stops it right in time before he touches, barely a bandwidth between his fingers and Stan’s hand, but he must’ve made a noise of some kind, because Stan is turning around again, the smile back on his face in full force as his marks seem to almost glow with his happiness.
“Wait here. I will, of course, get my stuff.” There's anticipation brewing in his gut, nerves running rampant. The towel is thrown into his backpack carelessly and he changes into his swim trunks immediately, pulling his clothes over on top again. He stumbles on his way down the stairs, slips and just barely catches his fall. He grabs his keys from the kitchen counter on his way out before the door locks behind him. The click it makes as it does, feels foreboding. Something is going to happen. He just doesn't know what.
The feeling disappears before he's even fully down the stairs, Stan carefully grabbing his shirt arm and tugging Max in the right direction, around the back of the house, up the stream into the woods, where a little lake lies. It's small, just the one creek leading to and from it, but it's where the other children all come to play. Max has never been here with anyone else, his skin prickling, now that he will finally be able to have some fun with another kid, instead of only ever watching from afar.
Their bags hit the soft forest ground as soon as they reach the edge of the trees, Stan discarding his clothes much faster than Max does, already sprinting into the water. It looks cool, refreshing in the repressive summer heat, the water clear, as the light hits it, the shadow play of the tree leaves painting patterns onto the surface of it. But he pauses, hesitation residing in every limb, a “I have to go” already on his tongue. Max bites it down, the hopeful gaze of Stan being the only thing keeping him from running, again. Taking off his clothes takes considerably longer as he takes care to fold them. Stan's smile doesn't falter, even when the colours on Max's chest become visible. One could almost mistake them for soulmarks from further away, yellow and purple and green and blue as they are, but Stan is close enough and he's not dumb. His gaze, however, doesn't turn disgusted, he just stays quietly in the water, patiently waiting for Max's signal. And for the first time he begins to feel hope. Maybe he could actually have a friend that stays this time.
Stan doesn't push, when he gets into the water, doesn't reach out, probably having seen Max flinch away from the mere motion of touch too many times to make that mistake. But he does start splashing Max, throwing water at him when he starts wading into the cold wet, the brilliant teal on his chest matching the colour of the lake. The drops sparkle as they fly through the air before they hit him in the face, have him squinting his eyes and turning away. There is laughter bubbling in his chest, rising from within.
The waterfight Stan starts takes up more than an hour of their time, the sun sinking further and further down to the horizon, the sky slowly changing colour. It's the most fun Max has had in years, maybe, laughter and water droplets and bubbles underneath the surface all mixing together. At one point they try to make stones bounce on the water, Max failing miserably, while Stan manages to make one of his stones bounce six whole times, jumping up and down, raising a hand in the air triumphantly in response. All the while there is no attempt to touch him.
He hasn't had a friend in so long, it feels almost foreign, he realizes as he stares at the little rainbow they somehow managed to produce by continuously splashing water in the same spot. It's pretty, the colours blending so well together, just like the ones on Stan's skin.
It happens at the end, just before they leave, already dressing up again, when Stan stumbles over a rock, falling over and flailing around as he desperately tries to catch his fall. There's an immediate sense of dread in Max's stomach, when he notices. But he is not fast enough to move. He expects it to hurt, like all touch usually does, for the bruises to flare up with pain and for him to have to hold in an outcry.
Instead it… feels good. There's warmth rushing through him, outgoing from the point of contact, setting his nerves alight. It's like one of his Mama's hugs, warm and comforting, quelling his fears, all-encompassing. Both of them look down, eyes wide, staring at the space between Max's chest and Stan's hand, orange blooming.
Beauty isn't always grand. Sometimes it's a worm, working his way through soft dirt or a leaf loosening from its branch, gliding downwards. Sometimes it's the laughter of a best friend or the twinkle of the water when the sunlight hits it just right. And sometimes it's an orange handprint right on his sternum, a soulmate, his first actual one, just for him.
Suddenly he is being tugged forward, Stan's arms wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug, and with the sigh he lets out, the tension that has, once again, formed in his body, slowly dissipates. It feels safe, the two of them, next to the lake, the last rays before the sun sets gliding over them, a quiet space, just for them, the tree leaves rustling and the lake water splashing softly against the stones on the riverbank, understanding tying them together.
When he goes home he will have one more soulmark to hide from the world. But what does it matter as long as Stan and him both know it's there? They're soulmates now after all. Maybe if Max tries hard enough he will get to keep this forever.