#two lanes split

Two Lanes Split (Marco lived to the age of 22 without a shadow)

(the au where you have your soulmate's shadow, but the three of them have more than one)

Marco lives to 22 without a shadow. It makes him deadly in a fight, no warning nor signal of his approach. It scares the shit out of people when he appears, sun at his back, bathed in darkness with no shape to herald his arrival. He laughs every time he makes people jump, and he laughs harder-out of spite (out of anger, jealousy)-when they say they pity him for not having a soulmate.

Pops never pitied him, never coddled him for his apparent lack. Merely said that he'd find an answer someday and welcomed him aboard the Moby Dick. Whitey never pitied him either, her own shadow a stocky and short thing with no head that she never talked about.

Then, the morning of the new year after he turned 22, he woke up like normal. He dressed like normal. He stepped into the hall like normal. He glanced down at his sandals, making sure they weren't loose, and then nearly jumped out of his skin with a yelp.

A shadow. A bundle of some kind, indistinct and squirming, followed him as he stumbled backwards into the wall and then his bedroom door. Drawn by the noise, one of the other First Division sailors peeked out of their room. The sight drew a loud gasp from them.

Marco ran, to the only place he could think of as safe.

Later, after calming his first son down, Pops sat with Marco and the two had probably the hardest conversation of Marco's life.

Then, because nothing about Marco's life was allowed to be 'normal' after that-three months later his shadow split into two. Two literal infants for soulmates-literal children as the years went on.