#ghostknifeweek2023

Dakota looks over at Vyncent, surprised, and he notices that William's head also snaps over to him at the same time. It makes him slightly jumpy, having both of them staring so blatantly, but clearly it means something. It's a small heart, fully black, on the outside of his upper arm, only visible because Dakota had taken his usual flannel off and had a vest on underneath.

Dakota doesn't let up on the staring, and Vyncent starts to wonder if he'd accidentally violated ANOTHER unspoken taboo because neither of them are saying anything. Dakota shakes it off eventually, but what he says doesn't make much sense to Vyncent.

"It's my soul mark? Y'know, the way to know you met your soulmate?! Dude, I'm starting to think you really are from another world. You don't- Don't you have one?" He sounds distressed at the end, like not having a 'soul mark' is some horrible fate.

Soulmates. Seriously? That's- fairy tale bullshit, as far as Vyncent's concerned. Stories of powerful magic meant to entertain children, not actual things. Then again, as far as William and Dakota are concerned, dragons are made up to entertain kids. Supposedly. Vyncent's pretty sure every world has dragons. But- off topic.

"I- No? Dakota, I told you- No, how do they even work? We definitely don't have those back on- back home," Vyncent answers, brushing off how Dakota still doesn't believe he's not from here, despite being a different species.

"Well, wayyyy back, like, FOREVER ago, the first time heroes existed, everyone had a soulmark! And then the heroes disappeared and they did too, but then the PRIME FORCE did their cool shit and everyone has one again! They're black until you meet your soulmate, then it gets colours!"

Vyncent narrows his eyes at Dakota. He... seems genuine? This doesn't seem like something Dakota would joke about. Just to be sure though, Vyncent turns to look at William-

Who isn't there. Shouldn't one of them have heard the door open if William had left? Maybe Dakota had noticed and not said anything?

Whatever. That's just proof he's letting himself get distracted by trivial things. If he's so out of it he can't even hear footsteps and a door... Dakota, thankfully, is already back to his own exercise. More training is clearly what he needs.

-

Eventually, a pattern forms. Without fail, every single time soulmates get brought up, William finds a way to leave without answering any questions about it. Going invisible, falling through the floor... On more memorable occasions, even going intangible to walk straight through a door, or pretending to answer a call and walking off.

It's weird, is what it is. Vyncent doesn't like talking with Tide, but he'd had to once they'd started going to school and Vyncent found out Dakota really wasn't lying. Tide told him what he wanted to know about soulmarks at least, but still! William's way more interesting when he talks about things, and is less likely to somehow manage to go off on a lecture. But even when it got brought up in school William was never there...

In a quiet moment after meeting Ashe, Vyncent decides to ask her if she'd noticed William's behaviour too. He knows she has one, even though he's never seen it, so he reasons that she might understand. And unlike Dakota, she won't immediately run off to find William and try ask him herself.

"I mean... maybe he's just private? Could just be a taboo where he's from, I've heard of that. Like, some people think its bad luck or whatever? My- uh. My mom was like that, before she met Mark." She leans back against the couch and seems to consider it more, and a complicated look crosses her face. Fucking humans and their lack of ears and tails...

He stares at her in hopes she'll.. say something that makes sense instead of making minute facial expressions. When she does speak again, it's more halting than before, like she doesn't want to say it. "Or... maybe he doesn't have a soulmark?"

"Is that possible?" Vyncent frowns. As far as he'd been told, the only reason he doesn't have a soulmate is because he wasn't born on Prime. Nobody has ever said it was possible for people to just... be born here without one.

Ashe winces a little and shrugs. "I've seen it mentioned online, but it's... really rare. Absurdly." She reaches up to tug on her hair a little, sighing. "It's probably just personal. But- keep it in mind, yeah? I'll try to get Dakota to stop talking about it so much."

And then the world ends.

The sky rains blood, Mark drags them out to some cabin in the middle of nowhere, Dakota and Vyncent wrestle in the mud, William makes a rocket, you know the story.

In the non-stop chaos that follows, nobody really has time to bring up soulmates. Ashe follows through and elbows Dakota in the side when he tries to bring it up at the cabin, and again at Richie's when they're being fitted for their suits. Richie gives confused looks to both Vyncent and William, but thankfully Dakota immediately bounds up when they're all finished in the weird machine and starts whispering his ideas to the designer before things could get more awkward.

Small blessings.

-

Then William dies. Ashe can't do anything and Vyncent is suddenly deeply, deeply regretful that he never bothered to learn from a cleric.

To say things work out would be a gross simplification. They lug William's body around, first without guidance and then with it once Ashe realises she can talk to his ghost. Vyncent begins to wonder if maybe he should try asking what the Prime equivalent of a cleric is, just in case, but then they're chasing after Wavelength and he's preoccupied with the mental battle of trying not to let Alphonse kill the asshole and fuck everything up more.

But William ends up alright again, at least. Alphonse... isn't happy about the situation, so Vyncent resolves to keep some distance until he calms down. Just- to be safe. If he were to dwell on it,he'd know that he really, really doesn't want to see William that hurt, ever again.

Maybe it's because of all the stress and chaos that Vyncent doesn't notice anything for... however long it takes. But the day they get their hero suits, he takes a moment in the changing room to check on his bruises from Alphonse's fight.

He doesn't just find bruises. It's hard to see, resting on a dip in his spine right between his shoulder blades, but as he contorts in the mirror he sees it - a small black heart. One that by all rights he shouldn't have.

Vyncent Sol does not want to think about soulmates. So he doesn't. He stares at the mark, forces his breathing to steady, and pulls the rest of his outfit back on. Breathes some more - even if none of the others can read elf body language, he's better safe than sorry.

He walks back out, strikes a few poses in his new gear, and forces the topic from his mind.

-

William Wisp does not have a soulmate.

For years, he had hoped that it was a fluke, some anomaly in the magic, and as soon as he met his soulmate his soulmark would finally appear and people would stop glancing at him whenever the topic was brought up.

Then he died. Nobody really knows how soulmate magic works, but people who died before the marks came back didn't have any marks on their corpses. So he... just wouldn't ever have a soulmate.

He'd hoped to all fucking hell that he could avoid the topic with his new group. Luckily, the wisps gave him the perfect powers for avoiding awkward conversations! It's just his luck to get teamed with a guy who doesn't know anything about soulmates and a guy who's obsessed with them, but there's always the classic "fall through the floor" trick.

Which he does. A lot. Vyncent is fucking relentless after Dakota talks to him, and William has to pull out every strategy and even invent some new ones to get away from it.

Vyncent... intrigues him. Once he lets up on the soulmate questions, they actually start to get pretty close, and William lets himself fantasize.

They're nice fantasies. Ones where William tells Vyncent he can't have a soulmate because he's dead, and Vyncent says it doesn't matter and picks him up (which Vyncent can do, and finding that out was when William became incredibly grateful his blush isn't as strong anymore) and kisses him and fireworks go off and they hold hands and skip away into the sunset. Or something.

William is infinitely glad he doesn't dream anymore, too.

The daydreaming picks up when William finds out that since Vyncent isn't from Prime, he also doesn't have a soulmate! Dakota's upset enough for the two of them, right? Maybe- Maybe one day, when William builds up the courage, they can be, like... chosen soulmates.

When those thoughts start to come up, William works harder to push them out. He has far more important shit to think about these days than hanging on to his childhood dream of finding a soulmate. He doesn't have one.

-

A couple weeks after Dakota leaves, Vyncent and Will settle into something like a routine. They train, they eat, they watch movies, they do a little vigilante work, they ignore WATCH's calls... almost all normal teenager things.

They both realise pretty fast William doesn't actually have good clothes for exercising in, but after raiding Dakota's closet they find he has shirts in... way more sizes than he'd ever need? Which is weird, but he's not fucking here to ask about it, is he? So William takes some of the tank tops.

Which is a wonderful time for him to forget that Vyncent, being the adorably oblivious guy he is (as much as William resents it - both the adorable and oblivious parts), is the kind of guy who occasionally forgets to knock when he opens door. To be fair, normally William hears him walking and makes sure he's presentable, but he's tired and angry and might be muttering to himself so much that he doesn't have time to pull the top on when Vyncent opens the door.

Small mercy: he has his back to the door. Big problem: Vyncent does not immediately turn and walk back out, but instead pauses and asks, "When did you get that tattoo?"

This is a problem, because William does not have any tattoos on his back. He whips around to look at Vyncent, trying to see if he's fucking around, but- He looks shaken. Like William's supposed tattoo is something that's freaking both of them out.

"Wh-what tattoo?" He asks, near frantic. His heart never quite races anymore but he still feels himself flush, feels if speed up just a little. He can't let himself get his hopes up jumping to conclusions, but he can't help but mentally cross his fingers while he waits for Vyncent to answer.

"It's... a heart. Right," he gestures to his chest, below his collarbones, "here. On your back. Not- not a black one. It's... indigo, I think? Is it- not a tattoo?" His voice is almost as unsteady as William feels, which doesn't make any sense, right? Right? Because why would Vyncent care if William has a soulmark or not, why would Vyncent immediately be able to place it on himself?

His mind is racing in place of his heart beat. He looks Vyncent in the eyes, just for a moment, and then runs through him to reach the bathroom and its much bigger mirror as fast as he can. He can faintly hear Vyncent running through the halls, but it takes longer when you have to go around the walls and not through them.

Small perks of not being able to control his powers well when his emotions spike.

He can't help but freeze up once he's standing there. Gripping the sink, staring into his own eyes... the dread, the excitement, the curiosity, it's all building up inside him and it's near paralysing. But he's William Wisp, and he can't resist the pull of a new mystery.

He turns around. It's hard to see, because he really isn't that flexible, but he sees it. A small indigo heart, sitting on his spine between his shoulder blades. A real, tangible soul mark. And- indigo, not black.

He doesn't cry. He can't, but his vision blurs anyway and he has to face the sink again to grab hold of something to keep himself upright.

It's like deja-vu, then. He doesn't hear Vyncent coming, just sees him in the reflection, appearing behind him in the doorway. Their eyes meet, and William doesn't fucking know what to say. How do you- how do you ask someone that? How do you ask, "Hey, I know we took comfort in both not having soulmates, but- are we?"

Vyncent doesn't make him ask. His eyes flicker between William's face in the mirror and the soul mark, and instead of saying anything he turns around and pulls the hem of his shirt up to his neck.

"What colour is it?"

Reading people has never been William's best skill. Reading Vyncent is even harder, given the cultural differences. So he doesn't try to decipher how Vyncent feels based on his voice, he just stares at the heart on Vyncent's back, in the exact same place as his own. And he answers, voice softer than he expected, "Indigo."

There's a long beat where neither of them move. Then William turns to face him right as Vyncent drops his shirt back down and turns at the same time. And William is made acutely aware of many things - how he's still shirtless, the coolness of the sink at his back, the fact he's been dreaming about this moment since he was 13 years old, that Vyncent can move incredibly fast when he wants to...

And how it feels to finally kiss Vyncent Sol. He barely processes it as Vyncent moves closer to him, stays standing where he was even as Vyncent reaches out and rests his hands on William's shoulder and hip. He's so warm, skin to skin, and Will thinks he could hear Vyncent's heart pounding as they draw closer and then lean in as one.

There aren't fireworks, but they don't need them. It's a little awkward, because clearly neither of them are used to this, but William tilts his head just right and suddenly the cold doesn't matter, the fact he never believed this could ever happen for him doesn't matter. He can feel Vyncent's heart, his breath, and his hands feel like they're burning him in a way he could get addicted to.

He doesn't want it to end, but he knows they definitely have to talk and maybe let him put a shirt on, so he pulls back first. He's never been this close to Vyncent's face before, and he wants to memorise it instantly. He's so gorgeous it's- distracting, right, because he wanted to talk.

"So -"

"Oh, I -"

They both stop and have to hold back laughter. Vyncent rests his forehead against William's and Will has to seriously focus to stop himself from falling through the floor at the gesture.

"I- Was that OK? Sorry, I-"

"No, hey, it was- more than OK, Vynce, really." He moves his hands up from where they'd settled on Vyncent's sides and holds his face and his hands. "It was perfect. I l- We're soulmates!" He laughs, more than he has in weeks, a full laugh that shakes him and then shakes Vyncent as he joins in. "We're rucking soulmates, Vynce! The real thing!"

Vyncent stops laughing before him. It takes Will a minute to get himself under control again, and when he looks up he can see Vyncent watching him with pure fondness in his eyes and thinks, maybe, if he hadn't been in love already then he definitely is now.