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Lickin the snoot. <3

∞

It was odd how soulmates worked. The last words one would ever say to the other were written clearly under the skin from birth. The text never distorted or blurred or faded. Finney watched his grow with him, the words precise as ever. They were an overall morbid concept considering what they heralded, but most people thought it romantic or kind, a warning to savor a final moment.

His dad's arm read, "Goodnight," which he always said was too ambiguous. He had no idea what she planned when she said it that final time.

"It's lovely," his mother used to say to Finn, admiring his small arm. "They must be a poet."

He would look at the, "Goodnight," she wore, a match to his father's, and thought it was much nicer, softer, caring.

A five-year-old did not understand the complexity in his skin. A nine-year-old thought it was haunting. And at thirteen?

"The whole of the world starting to fade away."

It terrified Finn.

Those were not the final words the man said to him. It was not what he said!

"Maybe he wasn't your soulmate," Gwen suggested, knowing he must have thought the same thing a dozen times already. She wanted to offer comfort and ideas.

Finn slowly shook his head. "It wasn't..." He could not explain. "It's not something you get wrong. When he was near me, talking to me, touching me, it—"

Every instance was charged like a lightning storm but warm and fulfilling as well. It was similar to eating when starving or laying down when exhausted. Nothing ever felt more natural, more undeniable.

"He was gonna kill you, Finn!" she argued. "Soulmates don't do that." Her view on the matter was idealistic and sweet. It was ignorant.

"I killed him, didn't I?"

Survival instincts made him do it, but the act hurt so bad. The instant he snapped the man's neck, it felt like he tore a muscle in his chest. He wanted to believe that was all it was: physical recoil from the act. It explained the sharp ache for days after but not why everything felt a little more cold and drear. He was punished for killing his soulmate before they killed him.

"Why did he do that?" Finn did not understand, might never understand. "I was his..." The man called him special, but he would have killed Finn just like all the others. His soulmate. He did not want to cry about that fact. The man was not worth his distress. His vision blurred regardless. "Why did he want to kill me?"

"Because he was an evil asshole." She did not know him.

Finn knew him and thought the same thing. "Then what..." He swallowed. "What does that say about me?" No one good could have someone so wretched and vile for a soulmate.

What was wrong with him?

"Maybe..." Gwen was wise to be so young. "Maybe it's not always about love." She thought on that idea, reshaping her own world view for her brother. "Maybe it's just fate bringing you together. And it was yours to be there, to stop him."

"Yeah," he considered, "yeah, maybe." It was a more comforting thought than any which had plagued him the last few weeks.

Whatever research adults conducted on soulmates and their causes, it was above Finn's head. He would check some books out of the library soon.

He pulled down his sleeve, tired of staring at the inky phrase for an evening.

"You're sure he didn't say it?" Gwen knew what he thought was correct, but she had to ask. "There was a lot... when it happened."

"I'm sure," Finn told her, though he doubted himself.

Maybe he did say it. Maybe he mumbled it. Maybe he screamed it, but Finn's blood was pumping too loud to hear.

"The whole of the world starting to fade away."

"Do you think..." He contemplated, remembering how it felt to hold the man's life in his hands, fighting and squeezing for all he was worth. "Do you think someone could think something loud enough that it's almost like talking?"

Where did the line between thoughts verbalized and thoughts expressed divide? Was noise all that mattered?

"Anything's possible."

∞

Finn lingered in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He was back to sleeping in his own room, but he had a question.

"Gwen," he asked, "do you still have that detective's card?"

"Detective Wright?" She scooted to the edge of her bed and looked through some things on the desk. The card was found and held out, but it was not given over. "Why?"

Finn did not want to say, but he knew when he asked that she would be nosy about it. "I need to know something," he explained, "about him."

"About his mark, you mean." Gwen was not stupid. "You want to know what it says."

"I know what it says," Finn lied. He never paid enough attention. What glimpses he caught of it on a bare arm were nothing but vague shapes in his memory. He saw but did not read. "I know what I said."

He should have read it when he had the chance, whenever the man came and went. He should have asked outright to see it, bringing up a matter they refused to discuss between them.

Maybe Finn did not pay attention then because he did not want to think about dying— one last phrase before silence.

He spent every day in that basement thinking it would be him.

∞

Detective Wright was a nice man, which was the greatest reason Gwen trusted him in the first place. With their dad's permission, he brought the autopsy report to the house.

It sat their on the coffee table, a brown folder with, "Shaw, Albert," written on the tab.

"Finn, what is this about, son?" Even though their dad allowed it, he did not understand. Finn wanted it too bad to tell him no, but that did not mean he thought it was good for him.

Finn picked up the folder. "Can I...?" He did not want to go through it with everyone looking at him.

Wright hesitated, knowing that evidence was not meant to leave his sight. He trusted Finn to not deface or destroy it. "All right," he said with a nod.

Finn took it to his room and locked the door. Gwen would want in, but she could not be there. Not that time.

He sat in the floor with the folder on the rug before him. It was best not to think how simply seeing the name written out excited him in some way. He opened it.

Hole-punched and hanging from the left flap were two pictures framing the upper body, one of the back and one of the front. Even ghastly pale with eyes closed in a grainy photo, even though Finn barely ever saw him for all the masks, he knew him.

Seeing that face again was supposed to fill him with dread and fear. It did. There trickled a distinct sense of warm reprieve as well.

There he was. He wanted to steal the photo, and because he wanted it so bad, he did not. An urge like that should not be indulged.

Instead, Finn focused his attention on the opposite page. Everything was filled out in itemized boxes: name, height, weight. He let his eyes descend the lines, waiting to see what he last said to the man.

"It's for you."

"It's for you."

"It's for you."

There, under the space labeled, "Soulmate Impression (Please Print)," he read it.

"You don't scare me."

Finn dropped the folder. No, he threw it. That was wrong. It was wrong! It was not what he said.

He did not understand.

They wrote it down wrong. Whoever filled out the report, they messed up. They put something that sounded more thrilling for a killer to have. They messed up, and now there was no way to know the truth. Finn should have asked sooner. He should have demanded to see the man's arm when he was still alive. He should have called Detective Wright before they buried the body, so he could read it with his own two eyes.

Because someone messed up, Finn would never be able to put it to rest.

He was lying to himself. He knew he was. Whoever examined the man's body had too much attention on them to miss dotting a single i. They would never write down the wrong phrase.

What did that mean then?

Maybe Gwen was right all along and they were never soulmates. Everything Finn thought he experienced, the physical and emotional cues, it was his imagination in a stressful moment.

He believed that theory for as long as he could, which was only a few minutes.

That man, Albert Shaw, was his soulmate. Finn knew it. He knew it! No matter what every piece of logic and reality tried to say, he knew the truth.

So why was the mark mistaken? What was wrong with them?

∞

The man was kind once or twice, or maybe it was only ever an act. The worst of it and the best of it stood out in Finn's mind, probably always would.

He was sleeping when touch woke him. The instigator crouched beside the dirty mattress, indulging himself.

Whatever Finn noticed between them, the man felt it too. That was why he touched his head, caressing brown hair and pushing it from his face to look at him. He wanted to look at him.

Finn nearly jumped away in fright or disgust, but he stayed still, telling himself it was strategic to let the man think he was sleeping. The truth was that hand with its tender touches felt so warm and consoling. Despite everything wrong with his situation, including fear of death, Finn felt comfort to be touched by him. He could almost go back to sleep.

Speech roused him, that pin drop in an empty room.

"I think," the man whispered, "I think I could love you."

Finn considered the words. At the time, they were disturbing, yes, but they made him hopeful too. If the man loved his soulmate, he could not kill them. He could not kill Finn.

It was not until later that he fully understood. The Grabber was not talking himself into something like love. He lamented how he had to let it go. A man like him did not want the weakness of loving Finn. He did not want him, not in ways of safe devotion. The thrill was more important.

Finn wondered if he ever stopped to think how much it hurt to kill one's soulmate.

It still hurt.

And it was cold.

∞

It was cold.

Camp Alpine Lake was a frigid disaster when they arrived. Gwen's dreams had Finn on edge. He did not know what was plaguing her or why it led her to that house and that basement. He tried desperately not to think about it.

When trying did not work, he went outside to smoke, hoping to ease his apprehension that way.

The phone in the booth rang. He did his best to ignore or deny it, but the long, relentless ring was too insistent. He answered.

Suddenly, everything made sense again.

"Hello, Finney."

The voice made his blood freeze in his veins. It was angrier, like their last time together, but it was undeniably him. Finn's heart hammered dread. Despite every odd, his murderously vile soulmate spoke to him again.

Worst of all, he was glad to hear it.

They were not done. Finn fought the urge to touch his arm, the promise under two layers of clothes that tried to warn him it would happen. There was more to say, and they both knew it.

"You're still scared, Finney."

The man knew the writing in his own arm, a mark which might or might not even exist anymore. He spent all his life and beyond waiting to hear it.

"You don't scare me."

As long as Finn was still afraid, the game would continue and they would be together. The day he beat his fear and accepted him, as the man longed to hear, it was over.

Finn did not know whether to be upset or relieved that he was scared. He was absolutely terrified.

Notes:

In case you're wondering, Al is conflicted over his own mark. Has been all his life. He always knew it meant that his soulmate was intimate with the real him and wasn't afraid of it. (Yay!) But he also suspected the day they aren't scared anymore is the day one of them dies and it ends. (Sad.) That used to bother him, the idea of acceptance at last... followed by loss. Now that he's dead, he thinks it means he kills Finn and Finn joins him. Sorry to disappoint you again, my guy. Oh, but he was so close! There can't be a Black Phone 3 because it would wreck my fic. lol. Hush. No more talking. I know it doesn't make much sense that they would feel the bond so distinctly before having final words as confirmation. Probably not how this specific trope usually goes, but I needed it to. My excuse is people fall in love normally, and as that emotion builds, they feel the bond more clearly. Turns out, it doesn't have to be love. Any strong emotion shared between soulmates sort of jumpstarts it, whether good or bad. What may have been a flutter at the beginning (on the street) was undeniable at the end with everything they felt (fear, hatred, etc) towards one another.