#john con

This is a wildly disorganized hodge-podge ramble of an idea with no particular conclusion.

I hate Soulmate fics. All that written in the stars shit. I even hate horoscopes. Team Free Will all the way. The universe can suck it.

What I do like is that souls resonate in patterns all across all their many iterations of the multiverse, which draws certain individuals into each other's orbit in every timeline. However, who they end up with depends on what they choose to do with that unknowable, unconscious attraction and the choices they make. It's sort of a Buddhist concept, souls yoked to each other through the lives they've already lived and bonded with, following after each other unconsciously through each rebirth, but with the freedom to choose in each life, nothing inevitable.

Anyway, my wifey @wonderingtheblue asked me for a Soulmate AU "campfire tale" once and I am of course unable to refuse her anything. So I jotted down the following. Posting it here because I don't have a hope in hell of making it into a fully realized story.

Bear in mind that this was written way before John Constantine ever joined the Legends. Clearly I am psychic.

Constantine tracks Oliver down and tells him that he's had a premonition of the future. (Read a mess of time travelers that landed in his basement babbling about demons and the timeline. Only he's just going with Mystical Knowledge)

He warns that there is Something Dark coming that Oliver is destined to stop. But the thing has decided to pre-emptively cripple Oliver's future by going after his soulmate.

"Wait, my what?"

"Your soulmate."

Felicity is the one who manages to ask, wide-eyed " as in, his One True Love, the happily ever after kind of girl?"

Oliver: *haunted look* "...Laurel."

Felicity: *pouts crestfallen*

Digg: *I've landed in the twilight zone and these mofos have all lost the plot*

Constantine: *brisk, snappish, irritated* "What? No. Do I look like I come bearing tidings from Disney? No, before a bunch of bloody Victorians romanticized and distorted everything, soulmates referred to two people whose lives are irrevocably connected, throughout time and space and lifetimes. It can be a sibling bond, parental, platonic or romantic. You cant really know what its going to be."

Felicity: "So...not Laurel?"

Constantine: "Well, they were very specific that we'll have to find your soulmate first so it's unlikely its someone you've already met."

Oliver: "Who's they?"

Constantine: *flashes back to a chaos of time travellers babbling urgently at him, interrupting his banishing ritual, accidentally kicking Neron in the head** "My....Dark Forebodings."

Digg: *aside, to Oliver* "Oliver this is nuts. Magic? Soulmates? You can't actually believe in this stuff?"

Oliver: "I believe that I have seen things that should be impossible. I believe that Constantine knows more than he's letting on and that if he says something dangerous is coming...it's not something to take lightly. And I believe that soulmate or no, there's someone out there in danger because of me."

Cut to -

Barry: "It's not even dangerous this time!"

Joe: *looks incredulously at him, just about done with this* "THIS time? Barry, you go haring off to God-knows-where every time you get a tip about chupacabras or aliens like Agent Mulder and every time I get to hear AFTER the fact that you nearly landed yourself in jail or got beaten up by a death cult -"

Barry: "The bouncer threw me in a dumpster, Joe, I just knocked my head on a watermelon. He wasn't even part of the cult."

Joe: "...not to mention Singh is about to fire you only months after joining the CCPD -"

Barry: "I never leave any work undone -"

Joe: "...and now you want to go to Starling? Where there's some madman going around with a bow and arrow knocking people off."

Barry: "Well, they've all been criminals with a distinct of lack bystander casualties.- which doesn't make it right! I know! I'm just saying, I'm only going to check out a museum exhibit and speak to an archeology professor, I doubt I'd remotely be on the Hood's radar."

Joe: *pinches nose, huffs* "Who's the professor?"

Barry: *checks folder* "Um...a Professor Ruvé Adams?"

***

Not sure what happens here. Except for assorted images of Team Arrow's reactions to seeing Barry, Barry being attacked by Dharhk, being rescued by Barry's future Flash self who tells him to "go with Oliver"

Barry being drugged/ knocked on the head and having to be carried to safety by Oliver and babbling at him muzzily how good Oliver smells and how sexy he is and how did he manage to be soulmates with someone so hot. Oliver, who has been thinking their bond must be a platonic one because he's (as far as he knows) Straight, is all awkward and like "ah shit. Kid has a *crush* on me. Sigh."

***

The Flash: *eyes blaze gold* "Come with me."

Oliver: *tearing off his bonds, looking around at Darrkh's men unconscious around them*

*in frustration* "Wait!"

The Flash: *looks back, patient, otherworldly*

Oliver: "You say you're Barry from the future. I don't-" *struggling, breathing hard* "what does all of this mean? What does it mean you're my soulmate, why are you different from the Barry I know? What are you?"

The Flash: *simply looks at him*

Oliver: *swallows* "Did I do this to you?"

*The gold in The Flash's eyes recede and he suddenly looks human, albeit still older, ripped and almost unrecognizable as the Barry Allen Oliver knows except for the kindness in his eyes. The man walks toward Oliver and reaches out, a red-gloved hand hovering near his face*

Future!Barry: *gently* "You did nothing to me. This is a gift that has nothing to do with you, any more than being the Arrow had to do with me. This bond...it's not what you think."

Oliver: "I don't know what to think! Constantine said that the bond could be platonic and I thought - but then he - you - I -"

*tries not to think about how sweet and firm and magnetic Barry had felt in his arms, the meditative joy in watching him breathe in his sleep, the intrusive urges to kiss him. The irrational resentment he feels at the boy for forcing Oliver to let him into his circle uninvited. The feeling of constantly being pitched out of control by forces beyond his ken which he both blames Barry for and needs him as an anchor against.*

Future!Barry: *takes glove off and touches Oliver's face, touch electric and encompassing warmth. He holds Oliver's gaze tenderly, gold lightning still sparking in the depths of his eyes.*

*simply* "The bond means that I love you. No matter what kind of love it is, I will always love you. It doesn't mean that either of us are helpless in it. Our bond is a cumulation of choices that we have made in pasts we will never remember, and choices we will make in futures that may never come to pass. The bond is simply a remembrance of that love, beyond time and consciousness."

Oliver: *throat tight. Still struggling*

Barry: *leans in* "You're a bastard about accepting love from anyone. Don't think I don't know that about you. You think you haven't earned this. That you won't deserve it. That it will be one more thing you'll mess up."

Oliver: *looking at older Barry's eyes, young, lost, desperate* "Won't I?"

Barry: *leans in more, smirking, voice deep and mature so unlike the younger Barry's* "I think you're going to have to try very hard. And I think you should stop."

*whispers against his lips* "I'm not leaving you."

*kisses him*

...