7 for Dimo/Tarvek.
soulmate au prompts.
7. the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link.
Tarvek’s never met his soulmate. He knows the emotions, though, the ones that get stronger as he gets older. They’re hazy when he’s young, and clearer as he gets older.
By the time Tarvek is old enough to understand the echoes of emotions he receives, he can best describe them as resigned sorrow. A general malaise. Tired.
Tarvek’s soulmate is someone who’s given up, and Tarvek is too young to know how to fix that.
When Tarvek is older, he’s so busy trying to fix himself and his sister and his family that he can’t think about his soulmate.
Dimo’s had soulmates before. He still has some, even, though none are romantic. His sister, Oggie and Maxim, and there’s something in the distance, growing. It has been since a year or two before the Masters disappeared.
It feels like fear and tension, usually. Old pains and new pains and the lash of a spark in fugue. Hatred on occasion. Loathing of the self and of others.
Dimo’s not sure what to think of the fact that it all starts so young. He’d guess that his soulmate is eight or nine, maybe when there are a few spots of happiness. He’s almost cheering up about it all, too, and then it’s gone and everything is somehow worse.
(He wishes he had something better to offer than the pains of an old soldier searching for his Heterodyne. The kid needs it.)
There are a few years of happiness, maybe two or three, perhaps when they’re... oh, twenty at the oldest, certainly. Young, still.
Those don’t last either.
Everything gets worse again, so much worse, there’s endless fuguing and guilt and pain and sorrow. There’s a lot of grief.
Dimo’s had worse, but it’s not something he’d wish on anyone, not really.
Tarvek is only just figuring out that Anevka’s dead when he feels a spark of happiness from down the line.
Something good happens to his soulmate, and for the first time, Tarvek actually feels peace from down the line. Contentment. Excitement, sometimes, but that constant low-level gloom is gone.
He wishes he could be happier for his soulmate.
He really, really does.
It’s hard to do that when he’s digging his hands into the catafalque’s wiring and finding only dials that show little more than zero.
Dimo’s running around with his brothers and Miss Zeetha and that Lars kid when he feels the most intense grief his soulmate’s had yet.
The past few days have been haywire for both him and his soulmate, and this... this is so much worse than any of it.
This is the grief of losing a sibling.
This is... Dimo’s felt this before. Once. Oggie had needed to mercy kill another jager, and...
Dimo’s felt this before and it’s bad.
He doesn’t know what to--
He needs to find Miss Agatha.
He needs a Heterodyne.
(He feels his soulmate get shot and then the fear of losing someone before he ever meets them is back.)
Tarvek is insensate in the Hospital.
The worry-unease-happy-love that he feels from his soulmate is comforting.
Violetta’s comforting, too.
Dimo can feel the tangle of emotions, sickness and pain and a vagueness that’s more worrying than any of the rest, he can feel them pass through his soulmate while he waits for the Doom Bell to ring.
His soulmate is involved in this mess, he knows it, but he doesn’t know who.
Pride-Anger-Approval-Worry pass through Tarvek in waves that come from somewhere he can’t pinpoint. Something is very red. And purple. Is that Violetta? Violetta! Hi, Violetta.
Dimo clutches his chest and stumbles.
Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying-Dying
Over and over and over again.
He’s had soulmates before, they’ve died before it’s never been like this and he can’t make it stop.
“Hoy, Dimo! Iz hyu--”
“Sometheenk iz wrong!”
Tarvek survives, he’s fine, he’s great, there’s a muse here, kind of, and Violetta is fine, and Agatha and Gil are fine, and everything is fine-fine-fine in a way he doesn’t let himself think about.
There are waves and waves and waves of worry from his soulmate. If he could make it clearer, give it words and images, he would, but he can’t. He just tries to send back satisfaction. He’s fine. He’s alive. Isn’t that enough?
Dimo’s ready to fight something for a lot of reasons, but the extended worry about his youngest soulmate is pretty near the top of his list. The kid--not a kid, an adult by now, he needs to remember that--keeps having wild swings of emotion, most of which involve fear or frustration, and at least one bout of unconsciousness that had followed a brief flash of pain.
Dimo wishes he could meet his soulmate if only to convince himself they could take care of themselves.
Tarvek wants to fight something. He’s not sure why. He’s blaming his soulmate.
He’s also standing on the table just so he can shout down at Gil, but that’s besides the point.
Dimo finds Agatha, brings her the zappy stick, and then tries to step back to let the Sparks and Minion work. He joins his brothers in getting new parts, and--
“He... Well... I don’t know. I... think that’s going to depend on how smart a guy he really is.”
Resignation-worry-affection-annoyance
Dimo teases the minion, slaps him on the back and--
“You know, we could just chuck it all and turn to piracy.” Resignation-resignation-irritation-humor-hope?-affection “It’d be a lot easier.”
There are sparks of shock-fear-wonder-hope-irritation-resignation-affection-fondness-fugue-fugue-fugue as they travel along the city. Each matches a word or an action or a visible thought.
Tarvek Sturmvoraus is very good at hiding his emotions, but...
Dimo sends a silent apology and squeezes the stump of his arm so it hurts.
Sturmvoraus stumbles and hisses and assures Maxim that he’s fine, when the question is asked.
Dimo grabs him by the collar and pulls him back when Othar shows up.
Tarvek stares at Dimo like he’s never seen him before in his life, which is only half fair. They only met today, but they’ve been running around together for miles, now.
“Ve need to talk,” Dimo says. “About hyu soulmate.”
“I don’t have a--ah!”
Dimo lets go of his stump. He hopes he didn’t make it start bleeding again. “Hy’m theenkink dot hyu do. Hy’ve been theenkink dot hyu need somevun vot’s beeg und scary on hyu side since ve connected, und now Hy’m theenkink dot’s still true.”
Tarvek stares at him, unreadable in the face but crystal clear in the emotions he’s struggling to control, and then sharply nods. “Fine. Let’s talk.”
Dimo loses his Heterodyne, his soulmate, and well over a thousand siblings to the time bubble.
He hates it.
