I think a really cool Soulmate AU idea is that your soulmate is the only person in the world who can hurt you.Β
Like you can feel pain from accidents and stuff, and people can still injure and even kill you. Itβs just that when someone hurts you, you canβt feel the pain of it. The only person who can give you pain is your soulmate.Β
So then imagine Flambae in that burning mall, being thrown around by Mecha Man.Β He doesnβt really think anything of the throbbing across his body as it hits the concreteβit barely even registers over the heady adrenaline roaring through his veins.Β
Until Mecha Man cuts his fingers off. He feels that.Β
And what it feels like is vivid, unrelenting, inescapable pain. The worst pain heβs ever felt, and the only pain to have ever been inflicted on him by another person.
The sheer fucking shock of it is enough to stun him, and by the time he tunes back in to reality, Mecha Manβs gone and heβs already in an ambulance, handcuffed to a gurney. The paramedic treating him doesnβt mention the grimace of pain on Chadβs face as she packs gauze against the stumps of his fingers, but she does discreetly administer painkillers.Β Β
Chad spends the rest of the night cycling through shock, rage, hurt, and probably worst of all, humiliation.Β
Mecha Man didn't even stick around to see if he was okay.
Whenever Chad thought of finding his soulmate, he always pictured something moreβ¦ well, just more.Β
When he was younger, he tended to imagine the wholesomeness of asking a longtime friend to pinch himβjust to checkβand feeling shyly pleased and excited at the corresponding sting.Β
Nowadaysβor at least, before tonightβheβd picture the thrill of a new sex partner thrusting a little too hard and leaving a sweet aching pain behind.
But no. Instead, his soulmate gave him the worst pain of his life, and then promptly left him in police custody with two less fingers.
Mecha Man's a fucking asshole. Chad hopes he forever has to live with the guilt of disfiguring his soulmate, of coldly dropping him into the hands of the state without a word, or a way to contact him, or even an actual fucking name to call him by.
Whatever. He doesnβt need a fucking soulmate. Everybody knows that shitβs fucked up anyway.
Meanwhile, Robertβwho was definitely overheated but ultimately uninjured in the fightβis completely unaware that heβs just met his soulmate. He heads home to feed Beef, totally oblivious to all the inner conflict heβs causing.
Years later, Flambae's standing over Mecha Man in a bar, half-posturing, half-desperate as he demands, "You're really going to act like you don't remember me?"
And Robertβagain, totally oblivious, thinking this guy's just some assholeβsays, "Wait, oh shit, I do remember you."
And Chadβwho despite his best efforts never really got over the soulmate thingβleans in, anticipation thrumming through his blood as he thinks finally, finally, after years of radio silence from this man, there's going to be some sort of something.
And then Robert smirks up at him and says, "You're that shitty villain I busted up."
