Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.
Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.
All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.
After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.
It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.
And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.
The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.
Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.
ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.
Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.
*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.
If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.
Simon stares at the charge alert on his phone. The atmosphere around him shifts. His smile is wicked under his mask. His baby girl finally used his card.
The charge was only for $20 but it makes his blood rush. Hes providing for her, shes staying at his home, in his bed. Fuck. He palms himself under the table.
He cant wait to come home and reward her. Maybe he'll set her on the counter and eat her for dinner? He bites his lip to keep from groaning. His mouth starts to water thinking about it.
Vs.
You grabbed the wrong card out of your wallet by accident. Didn't even realize it until you didnt have to put your pin in. Your body shivers as if you can sense Simon's intentions.
so apparently some people feel like it’s annoying when someone engages with a lot of stuff from the same person, like going through their ship tag and liking all the content there.
hearing about this, i was immediately paranoid about reblogging literally anything from anyone i don’t talk to on a regular basis.
so to save others from the same paranoia, i’m gonna say that if you like every single post on my goddamn blog it is okay. i might be kind of concerned about your level of time management, going through 23,000 posts, but it wouldn’t bother me.
f!reader, smut mdni, PIV, blood, mentions of violence, size kink.
You only notice it because your hand slips.
It had been curled at the back of his neck, fingers buried in his hair beneath the edge of his mask, holding on until your knuckles went bloodless because there is nothing else to do when Simon Riley is above you like this; one forearm braced beside your head, your knees spread and pulled back to your chest, his weight pressing you into the mattress with his hips grinding slow and mean like he has all the time in the world to ruin you.
You’re boneless under him - open-mouthed, shaking, letting him take you apart more and more with each of those deep, deliberate strokes that make your thoughts scatter into useless little pieces.
All is perfect until your hand slips, and you feel your thumb drag over something tacky.
You blink up at him through the haze, thinking maybe you’re imaging things - but then you see it. There, smeared dark along the thick column of his neck, just under his jaw.
Blood.
Your mouth moves before your brain catches up. “Simon—”
He stops, buried balls deep inside you. His eyes lift to yours from beneath the black smear of his paint. Brown eyes gone flat and dangerous.
“What?”
Your fingers swipe at his throat, and then pull back to show him your now candied fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”
For a second, he just stares at you.
Then his mouth shifts beneath the mask. “S’not mine.”
The room seems to go airless around you. For a moment, your brain does not know what to do with the words.
Not mine.
They land somewhere distant - muffled by euphoria and the heat of him still seated inside you. They should mean something immediately - they should send you upright, sober you, sharpen you. But you’re too gone beneath him, too pliant and overheated and pinned, your thighs trembling around his waist while he stays buried deep enough that every breath you take has to move around him.
So you just stare at him.
At the dark paint around his eyes, at the blood smear, at the shape of his shoulders above you. You stare long enough that the unusual details begin arranging themselves in whatever clear space you’ve got left in your mind.
His gloves, first.
They’re clean. Fresh black tactical gloves, one of them still gripping your hip as he stares down at you in pause. You can’t shake the feeling that they’re different - you know his kit. You know the worn seams, the scuffs, the little frays on the knuckles from use. These aren’t the pair he wore earlier.
Your gaze flicks lower.
His shirt, too.
Not the one from briefing. Not the one with the faded shoulder seam and the dust at the collar. This one is clean, dark, newly pulled on in a hurry. You catch a faint whiff of barracks detergent and bathroom soap with every move he makes.
He cleaned up.
The thought comes through the haze in pieces.
Simon cleaned himself up before he came here but somehow, he missed this. One dark smear beneath his jaw.
You swallow. Your voice comes out thin. “What happened?”
Simon watches your mouth form the words.
Your breathing sounds too loud now, while his somehow stays perfectly even - like he isn’t pressed into you to the hilt - like he isn’t the reason your thighs are shaking around his waist. Like he didn’t come to your room with another persons blood still drying in the place he forgot to wash. He lowers himself closer and the mattress dips beneath the weight of him.
His masked mouth brushes the corner of yours, not quite kissing you but just hovering there - dragging the rough fabric against your skin as he speaks.
“What happened was,” he pauses. “Graves opened his fuckin’ mouth.”
A cold thread winds through the heat in your stomach.
You go still beneath him, even though your cunt is still fluttering helplessly around the thick of him. The name alone does something ugly to the room. Sours the air. Pulls the world back in around the two of you.
“What—” you have to stop to breathe. Your nails dig into his shoulder. “What did he say?”
Simon’s hand slides slowly from your hip.
His palm moves over your waist, up your ribs, dragging goosebumps in its wake. He maps you like he already knows every reaction he is about to get - like he can feel the exact second your pulse jumps. His gloved fingers skim the base of your throat and settle there.
Thumb resting over your pulse. Counting it.
“He said he’d wondered what you sounded like when you begged.”
Your breath locks. You blink at him, stupidly.
For a second, you can’t reconcile the sentence with the room you’re in. With Simon above you. With Graves’s name in Simon’s mouth and blood under Simon’s jaw and your own pulse hammering against his thumb like it wants to betray you.
But Simon says it like he has had the words sitting behind his teeth for hours. Like he has been waiting to put them somewhere. Like he needs you to understand exactly what happened to the man who said them.
“He said,” Simon continues, each word dragged low through his teeth, “that a mouth like yours would be wasted on 141.”
Your nails bite into his shoulder.
“I-I—“ you whimper. “Si—“
His hips move before you can say anything else.
A slow, devastating thrust that punches the air out of you and leaves the rest of his name caught uselessly in your throat. He watches you take it. Watches your face twist. Watches the thought you were trying to form scatter completely.
“That Price needs to put you in your place,” he hisses through his teeth. “That he’d have had you on your knees by now.”
Your stomach twists.
You shake your head, but you don’t even know what you’re denying. Graves. Simon. The heat blooming under your skin. The fact that the words should disgust you cleanly, but Simon’s voice saying them like a death sentence makes something dark and shameful coil inside you.
He pulls out just to thrust in again.
Harder this time - hard enough to break the breath right out of you. Enough to make the headboard creak traitorously behind you. Enough to make your thighs tighten around his waist before you can stop them.
Simon feels it.
“Then he looked at me,” he says, voice dropping into something ruined and vicious, “and asked if I’d taught you to take orders.”
Your heart slams so hard you feel it in your throat, pulsing viscously under his palm. The room narrows to three things - Simon’s eyes, the blood on his neck, and the place where he is still holding you down.
There is blood on him.
Someone else’s blood.
Graves’s blood.
The realization comes slowly at first, then all at once.
You see it too clearly: Simon standing there silent while Graves ran his mouth. Simon listening. The moment the Ghost stops being a man in a room and becomes a consequence. You see the gloves he must have taken off. The blood on the old pair. The careful cleanup after. The way he must have washed his hands, changed, checked himself in the mirror, decided he was clean enough to come to you.
Clean enough. Except for the one place he missed.
Simon watches the realization move across your face.
“Oh God.” You force the words out. “What did you do?”
Your voice is barely a whisper.
His answer is immediate. “I hit him.”
The answer is too simple, too small for the blood under his jaw and the hell in his eyes and that is only because you know Simon.
You know the careful economy of him - the terrifying restraint. The discipline carved into his bones so deep it has become part of his breathing. Simon does not hit men because he is angry. He does not waste movement. He does not lose control unless something in him has already decided the consequence is worth it.
He ends things because he has weighed the cost and found it acceptable.
Your fingers curl tighter in his shirt. “How bad?”
For the first time, something almost like satisfaction passes through his eyes.
His hips roll in one slow, merciless stroke and your back arches before you can stop it. You spread your legs and take him deeper; helplessly, embarrassingly, betraying every sensible thought trying to form in your head.
“How—“ you try to ask again, but the question fractures halfway through another thrust.
Simon lowers his mouth to your ear. “Bad enough Price had to pull me off him.”
Your stomach flips in something stupid. Fear should come first.
It doesn’t.
It should be horror. Concern. Anger. Maybe all three. You should shove at his chest. Demand to know if he’s lost his fucking mind. Tell him he can’t do that, can’t put his hands on Graves over his disgusting mouth and a half-formed threat. Can’t turn command into a blood sport. Can’t risk his place, his rank, Price’s trust, your trust, just because another man said something deserving yet ultimately meaningless.
But what blooms under your ribs is not sensible enough to be outrage - it is hot. It is fucking shameful.
It is dark and possessive and awful in the exact shape of him.
Because he heard another man talk about you. Heard Graves put his hands on you in theory. Heard him degrade you, heard him imagine you on your knees, your mouth, your begging, and decided violence was the only answer he trusted.
Your body betrays you before your pride can stop it - a tight little clench around him.
Simon feels it. Of course he does.
He stills above you, and somehow that is worse than movement. He’s pressed to the hilt again, the pressure of him so intense now it leaves your breath caught uselessly behind your teeth. His eyes narrow in something that sees the betrayal before you can hide it.
Your face burns.
“No,” you whisper, before he even says anything.
His mouth shifts beneath the mask. “Oh.”
The sound is low. Cruel in its understanding.
Your pulse kicks under his thumb. “Simon—”
“There she is.”
Your breath stutters, caught somewhere between a moan and a denial, and you hate that he hears both. Hate that he can read you so easily. Hate that your body has already answered him before your pride can even get its feet under it.
Simon looks down at the place where your legs have tightened, then slowly back up to your face. It’s a deliberate act; he is taking inventory of every betrayal.
“You liked that.” He croons.
You shake your head, but it’s weak. Useless. Barely more than the brush of your hair against the pillow.
“N-no.”
His thumb presses against your throat, not hard, just enough to feel the wild little flutter of your pulse.
“Liar.”
Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. You can’t find a single defence, a single outrage. No clever thing you can throw between you and the truth and it is all because he is still inside you. Still wearing fresh gloves like he thought that would be enough to keep you from knowing. Still carrying that one missed smear of Graves’s blood under his jaw like a secret he failed to bury properly.
And now he has caught you reacting to it.
Caught the hitch in your breath. The clench of your cunt. The heat climbing up your neck. The way your whole body went soft and greedy around him the second you understood what he had done.
Simon’s eyes go darker. Hungry in a way that feels worse than anger.
“You should be pissed at me,” he murmurs.
His hips pull back an inch - just enough to make you feel the loss before he sinks back in, slow and devastating, until your hands shift to grab at his shoulders because there is no dignity left in you. No clean line of thought. No clever answer.
“You should be callin’ me reckless.”
Another thrust. Your eyes squeeze shut.
His hand leaves your throat and for half a second, you think he is letting you breathe. That is until both of his hands find your own wrists and pin them firmly above your head.
Your eyes snap open to meet his, expecting full satisfaction, but what you see is worse.
It’s all of him - the width of his shoulders blotting out the dim light, the black of his mask, the hard set of his jaw beneath it, the blood under his neck, those steady eyes watching you like he has already decided exactly how much of you he is going to take apart before he is finished.
“You should be asking what the fuck I was thinkin’,” he says, and you can almost hear the grin in it.
You swallow. “You can’t—”
He moves again, and the words break apart in your mouth.
Your back arches and your fingers curl helplessly against his grip. Your knees shift higher around his ribs, dragging him closer instead of pushing him away, because apparently your body has no interest in helping you survive this with any pride intact.
Simon’s eyes drop to your mouth, then back up to the glass in yours.
“I can’t what?” He murmurs.
You try.
You really do.
You drag the sentence up through the wreckage of yourself, but he is too deep, too thick, too much. The stretch of him keeps interrupting every thought before it can become language.
“You can’t just—” your breath catches on a thrust. “You can’t hit him because he—”
“Because he talked about fucking you?” Your whole body jolts. His eyes burn into yours. “If that’s what you mean, say it proper. Like you fuckin’ believe it.”
You can’t.
Your mouth parts, but all that comes out is a broken little sound when he grinds deeper, cockhead bullying your walls slow enough to make you feel every inch of him, cruel enough to leave you trembling closer to the edge. Any sensible thought is drowned out by the wave of bliss washing over you.
Simon makes a low sound. A rough breath leaves him.
“Too far gone to scold me now?”
You glare at him, or try to. It doesn’t land.
And it didn’t stand a chance, either. Not like this - not with your lips parted and your eyes glassy and cunt stretched pathetically around him. Not with your wrists trapped above your head and your hips still trying to meet him every time he gives you another devastating inch.
“I’m, mmff—serious,” you whisper.
“So am I.”
“Simon—”
“No.” His voice cuts low through the room. “You don’t get to say my name like that while you’re grippin’ me tighter for it.”
Your breath leaves you in a gasp.
He feels the way you clench again, and you see it hit him. See the slight flare of his nostrils beneath the mask. The way his eyes flutter for just a second. The way something brutal and possessive moves through him before he can smooth it down.
“Mhm. Yeah.” His voice drops into something rougher. “Fuckin’ problem, you are.”
Your face burns hotter.
You want to deny it - you want to shove at his chest and tell him he’s wrong. Tell him it’s just your body. Just the position. Just the fact that he has you pinned and overstimulated and too cockdrunk to think straight.
But it’s useless because Simon would know it’s a lie.
He moves again, slow and deep, and the denial dies somewhere behind your teeth.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Nothing clever now?”
“Mmff.” Your nails dig into your own palms where he holds your wrists down. “Shut up.”
His eyes flash. “There she is.”
“I mean it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
He gives you another measured thrust, and your voice breaks around a gasp. Simon watches it happen with only the most intent focus.
“Try that again.”
You hate him a little. You want him too much for it to matter.
“You’re—” you inhale sharply when he pulls out almost all the way and then back presses in hard enough to make the mattress shift beneath you. “You’re going to get yourself benched.”
“Probably.”
“Price is going to—”
“Already did.”
You blink up at him, breathless and stupid. “What?”
His thumb drags once along the inside of your wrist.
“Read me the riot act.”
Your nerves jump at that. “And you came here?”
“Yes.”
Something in your chest tightens. “Why?”
Simon looks at you for a long second and the room almost seems to shrink around his silence. Your head swims with all of it; the blood under his jaw, the fresh gloves, the heat of him still locked between your thighs.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter. “Because I had to see you.”
God. You think he’s lost his mind.
“Simon—“ your back arches and his mouth falls to your neck. “That’s not—this isn’t—“
He lowers himself closer to you, folding you deeper into the mattress.
“You think I lost it because he insulted you?” You don’t answer. His thumb strokes once over the pulse flying at your wrist. “No, sweet’eart.”
His hips move again, slow enough to be cruel, deep enough to make your eyes flutter.
“I lost it because he thought about touching what’s mine.”
The words hit you low and you make a sound you do not mean to make. Your cunt pulses at the word. Mine. A catastrophic vulnerability to a word you will never ever tire of hearing him say.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s what you like, yeah?”
You squirm under him, helpless. “Simon—”
“He said your name like he had a right to it.” His voice roughens. “Like he’d survive putting his hands on you.” The next thrust punches a feral moan out of you, and the pace turns to something almost vicious. “I had to let him know what mine felt like first.”
You moan, eyes shut. Helpless and needy as a whore.
He pauses again. One hand leaves your wrists and grips your jaw. “Look at me.”
You do.
“Another man touches you like this,” he whispers, a lethal rasp through his teeth, “and I’ll break every finger he owns.”
You shiver. His eyes flick down over your face, your mouth, the wrecked shape of you beneath him.
“And if he talks about you like that again?”
You barely manage the whisper. “What?”
Simon presses his forehead to yours. “I won’t stop at his face.”
For a long second, neither of you moves. Then he rolls his hips, and the whole world narrows back down to him - his body over yours, his hand at your jaw, Graves’s blood drying on his neck, and the awful, devastating tenderness in the way Simon kisses you like he is still trying not to become the worst version of himself.
One of your hands slip out from under his to touch the smear of blood again. Simon catches it and pins it back beside your head.
“Leave it.”
Your breath trembles. “Why?”
His eyes darken. “Because I want you to remember what happens when a man forgets who you belong to.”
And in the back of your mind, you think maybe you should argue. Maybe you should tell him you don’t belong to anyone or that this is crazy or that he’s going to get you both transferred - but then he does what he always does and starts fucking you deep and hard and mean - and your body reacts before your pride can save you.
Simon huffs a quiet, humorless breath. “That’s what I thought.”
Then he kisses you - filthy, possessive, furious, and fucks you like Graves is still in the room and Simon needs the whole world to understand it.
You’re Simon’s for as long as you’re both breathing.
Pornstar!Simon who’s been told he can’t fuck you anymore because the way you sound when he’s inside you makes every other costar you’ve had in the past look bad.
The Director pulling him aside with the footage still looping on the monitor, voice low, telling him it was obvious your moans dripping out wet and broken were real in a way you’ve never given the cameras before, obvious now that every gasp and whimper you’d faked with the others was thin and breathy and hollow compared to this and your former costars were bound to complain.
Said it made the lads before him look like they couldn’t even get you properly wet, let alone fuck the sense out of you. Said pairing you with Ghost again was asking for trouble. Too risky. Too fuckin’ real.
Swinging the monitor around to show Ghost the way he had angled his hips so the camera caught his cock stretching your silky cunt half an hour before, thick enough that your walls flutter around him without any acting, slick spilling out around the base every time he bottomed out.
Your fingers scrabbling along the bed every time he ground himself down, too fucked out to really run from the pleasure the way you wanted to, body shaking brain reduced to static goo.
You having a hard time remembering the scripted words you were given, eyes rolling in your sockets, little whimpers and moans punched out “hn-hn-hn-“ every time his hips met yours and the head of his cock kissed your cervix.
Ghost cooing down at you when you miss your cue for the third time, hand pinning your wrists above your head while the other kept your thigh shoved wide, voiced amused when he asks “wha’s amatter? Cat got your tongue, dove?”
Ruined any possibility of you answering when he fucked you deep, making your cunt visibly pulse around him on the monitor, arousal drooling down his balls.
You tried. You really did. You mouth opened, some broken attempt at the first word, but it dissolved into another punched out moan the second he angled just right, letting the camera see the way your eyes rolled in their sockets.
His thumb stroking once over your clit, almost gentle, almost fond. “Tha’s it,” he murmured, “take it. Fuckin’ take it.”
Another missed cue. Another low, rough chuckle. He didn’t really give you room to think. Just kept you pinned and full and dripping while the cameras roled and the script stayed forgotten on the floor somewhere behind the lights.
The director was still talking but Ghost wasn’t listening, instead, just reached over and rewound the tape instead. Watched the part where you tried to speak again. Watched the way your body gave out for him and only him. Watched his own hand on the screen, thumb stroking your clit.
He hit play once more. Let it loop. Thumb hovering over the button, already deciding he didn’t give a fuck what the director had to say about it, he was gonna fuck you again no matter what.
thinking about teasing ghost all day, making suggestive jokes in every meeting, walking way too close every time you go past him, finding any excuse to set a hand on his arm or shoulder.
and he’s really trying to stay unfazed, he knows you’re doing it just to get under his skin, probably a stupid bet with the two sergeants that send him knowing looks whenever you walk by.
that is until late afternoon, when everyone’s responsibilities are done for the day and all that’s left to do is wait for supper while playing some poker in the rec room.
you get there and despite all the available chairs, you sit on his lap, happily announcing you’re a team now. you make sure to place your ass right on the half-chub he’s been sporting all day due to your actions, hiding your triumphant grin behind your cards. the whole time you insist on being the one to pick new ones and pushing forward your shared chips, making sure to rock back-and-forth against his more than evident bulge.
no one says anything when ghost suddenly slams the cards down, nor when he grunts a strained “word with you, runt” before he’s tugging you up and out of the room.
that’s how you end up here, folded up in half, knees pressed to your chest and held down by the bulk of ghost’s weight. tears stream down your cheeks, a bit of drool catching on the corner of your lip as you barely have time to recover from the third orgasm he’s pulled from you just with his mouth and fingers.
“this what you wanted?” he asks with a scoff, sliding his cock against you, just so you feel how hard and fucking big he is. “this what you’ve been begging for all day, isn’t it?”
your head falls against the pillows, back arching as much as it can while he pins you down, when he pushes into you. he’s so thick and so big and hard- it feels like your hole is being stretched thin, like you’ll just be spit in half.
“Simon!”
It makes him laugh, the fact that only now, all brainless and fucked out, do you actually use his name. Perhaps the fact that you’re cumming again just from the stretch also amuses him, pushing a little further in despite the way your walls clench around him.
“ ‘s too much,” you whimper, words slurred and thick, your tongue feeling heavy and like it’s covered in molasses. “w-wait… d-don’t— holy fuck! don’t move yet.”
“move?” yet another scoff leaves him, and he adjusts over you, guiding one of your hands down and between your bodies, wrapping it around his base and showing you everything he hasn’t pushed in yet. “we’re not even halfway in, runt.”
I truly believe Soap has three wants when he comes to America to watch Scotland play in the World Cup: support his team by watching some games, get wild drunk, find a wife. Those aren’t necessarily in order of importance either.
He barely makes it out of the airport, walking with the lads in their matching kilts, putting on a show for the cameras that have come to see the Scots arrive, before he sees a pretty girl walking down the street, thinks ‘oh, she’s the one’ and just never lets her go 😔.
He doesn’t even book a hotel room, decides he’s gonna move into hers after the first second. She agrees to drinks and he follows her home after and barges in. Makes himself cozy in her bed. Their bed now. She thinks he’s just forward and Scottish people are weird. He doesn’t understand American customs…..he’ll will sneak out after they fuck. He stays all night and swipes her key in the morning, attaches it to his key ring.
Tells her to hurry in the morning with a slap on her ass, they’ve got places to go, beer to drink, games to watch. The lads are waiting to meet her.
Of course he makes her watch all the games with him and the boys. Makes her wear a skirt that somewhat matches his kilt, he wants everyone to know that she’s his girl just by the pattern on her clothes. It doesn’t hurt that it gives him easy access to run his fingers over her panties whenever he wants. Doesn’t hurt that he can lift her skirt up as they walk down the street, get a nice look at her. Doesn’t hurt that he can slip a finger inside her while they wait for beers at the bar. Doesn’t hurt that when his friends are turned away, he can put his hand up her skirt and quickly press his thumb against her asshole, tell her how he’s gonna fuck that pretty hole later, laugh at the shriek she lets out. It’s humiliating. It’s the hottest thing that’s ever happen to her. She feels like everyone can see her dripping down her thighs.
When they get to the pub, he pulls her down next to him, pulls her so close she feels like she might start getting claustrophobic. He makes sure she never takes her hand off his upper thigh, even when his friends laugh or complain he’s gonna flash everyone with how high he’s dragging his kilt up. Keeps her hand locked under his, moving her hand around as he sees fit, as the night goes on he pulls her hand closer and closer to his cock.
He turns and pushes his mouth against her ear to tell her what a tease she is. Like he’s not dragging her hand along his cock himself! Tells her she’s gonna make all the boys jealous. Tells her that his team is very important to him, that this game is serious, and if she doesn’t stop he’s gonna have to drag her to the ally and fuck her, he’s gonna teach her pussy a lesson for making him miss the game. He coos at how red her face is.
She’s confused by him and slightly (more than slightly) creeped out by some of the things he says and does. But fuck it. She’s young, he’s actually very good with his tongue, he doesn’t live here, he’s gotta go home eventually, and it all reminds her of some of those cheesy smutty romance books she finds herself reading. She thinks it’s just a fun, weird World Cup hook up….Scotland can’t possibly go that far into the tournament right???
Soon he’ll be gone and she’ll have just a funny but strange story to maybe post on tiktok someday or tell her daughter years from now. But no. He buys a plane ticket for himself AND her, has her stuff packed and ready to go the night before. Tells her she’s coming with him. He can’t just let her go now, she’s his girl! He’s ready to settle her down with a baby back in Scotland. She’s the one.
As soon as they get to Scotland he takes her over to his mums. His mum and sisters greet them at the door with “oh! We’ve heard so much about you! We’re so happy you’re finally here!” He’s been telling his family about his American fiancé back in the states for 6 months now…
delete xavier and rafayel for stalking mc. delete zayne for abusing his power as a medical professional. delete sylus for being physically aggressive in the main story. delete caleb for the incest implications.
notice how the whole house would be mad????? NO ONE WANTS THAT. this game is a work of fiction!!!!!! it is a story. it isn’t real life. it is for entertainment.
we’ve been entertained thus far, but this is where we draw the line???
The best part of getting older is aging out of the demographic that gets killed in horror movies. I am now the age of the kooky local at the gas station who warns the band of college kids not to go to Camp Murderblood
halfway through his list of reasons he's toying worh himself through his pants, stroking and moving it, showing off the outline. his other hand is over your shoulder, gently brushing fingertips over your tit.
"you know i'm huge, right?" he says. "Pornstar big."
"Shut up."
"i'm serious. im massive." "touch it and see."
when you go to reach, he's pushing down his pants to give you a proper handful of the biggest cock you've ever seen-
Some people met theirs at six years old. Others died without ever learning their name. Plenty divorced them. Plenty married someone else entirely. There were support groups, government registries, psychologists who specialised in soulbonds, and entire supermarket aisles dedicated to products designed around them.
Soulmates weren’t fairy tales. They were biology. Or fate, depending on who you asked.
An overwhelming majority of the population shared pain. 75%, according to the latest census.
A scraped knee here became a scraped knee somewhere else. A headache echoed across cities. Broken bones were shared. Childbirth had become an odd source of sympathy from complete strangers who suddenly found themselves doubled over in agony while their soulmate was on the other side of the world.
The remaining 25% were… stranger.
Shared dreams. Shared senses. Shared emotions. Occasionally something so rare that medical journals spent decades trying to categorise it.
Writing was common enough to earn its own chapter in school textbooks.
Anything written directly onto one soulmate’s skin would appear on the other’s moments later. Ink. Paint. Marker. Charcoal. Anything that bonded to skin.
The world adapted.
The first time a corporate lackey woke up with eyeliner because their soulmate had gone clubbing the night before, an industry had been born.
Make-up companies sold soulmate-safe eyeliner, lipstick, sports chalk, and any makeup that used synthetic compounds specifically designed not to transfer across writing bonds.
But it cost a shit tone more than the ordinary stuff, so most people didn’t bother.
It was just another part of life.
Damian Wayne had never considered himself lucky. He simply acknowledged facts.
His soulbond was uncommon, but it suited him.
Charcoal had always stained his fingertips. From the time he was old enough to hold it properly, he’d sketched anatomy, architecture, animals, weapons, portraits.
His mother insisted observation was as important as combat. His grandfather insisted beauty existed to be conquered.
Damian decided beauty should simply be understood.
As his sketchbooks multiplied, so did the messages.
A doodle across his wrist. A rough smiley face. Practice strokes. Sometimes things he assumes to be his soulmates friend’s crude humor. Occasionally an absent-minded note written during lessons somewhere across the globe.
He never replied.
Not because he lacked curiosity. He was plenty curious.
But curiosity was a weakness.
That lesson had been taught long before he could remember learning it. The League did not celebrate soulmates. They acknowledged them.
A soulmate was another variable. Another vulnerability. Another weapon waiting to be used.
Children raised within the League were instructed never to trust the bond. Never to assume affection. Never to reveal themselves first.
If your soulmate became known to your enemies, they ceased being a blessing and became a target.
His grandfather called them leverage. His mother called them responsibility. Neither called them love.
By the time Damian was ten, he’d already concluded that the outside world was naïve.
Children giggled over mysterious wounds appearing on their arms. Teenagers filled notebooks trying to guess who was on the other side. Adults got tattooed to find the other before they’d ever exchanged names.
Ridiculous. Your soulmate was simply another person. Potentially useful. Potentially dangerous. Nothing more.
Then Father took him to Gotham. The city believed in soulmates just as readily as it believed in monsters.
Robin learnt pretty quickly that civilians asked too many unnecessary questions.
“Have you met your soulmate?”
“What bond do you have?”
“Is it true you bats don’t have soulmates?”
He ignored every one.
His bond remained hidden beneath gloves, sleeves and armour. His teammates knew he possessed one, none knew which.
Which was intentional.
Dick guessed shared pain, trying to bond with him. Drake theorised dreams. Todd insisted it had to be shared aggression.
Damian allowed the misunderstanding to continue. Knowledge was power, there was no reason to surrender it.
Besides, his soulmate had never written anything worth answering.
Not yet.
You’d spent most of your childhood convinced you were defective.
Not in the way children sometimes decided they were adopted because their parents said no to dessert, no. You thought that something inside of you had been assembled incorrectly.
That fate hadn’t seen your file cause the page accidentally got stuck to another’s.
Everyone had a soulmate.
It was one of the first things children learnt in school, somewhere between tying shoelaces and basic maths. Teachers would explain the different soulbonds with colourful diagrams while students excitedly compared scraped knees and odd dreams.
“I saw them by the ocean last night!”
“My soulmate likes spicy food.”
“I broke my arm when I was five because my soulmate fell out of a tree.”
Children always had stories. You never did.
No mysterious bruises. No shared dreams. No sudden cravings. No inexplicable emotions. Nothing.
At first your parents smiled. “They’re probably just a late bloomer.” “Some bonds take longer to show.” “Just wait.”
So you waited.
You turned seven. Nothing.
Eight. Nothing.
Ten. Still nothing.
Eventually your parents stopped saying, “Just wait.” And started booking appointments instead.
Doctors asked endless questions. Had you ever blacked out unexpectedly? Experienced vivid dreams? Random pain? Hearing voices? Objects appearing? Writing?
You answered no so many times it became automatic.
Test after test came back blank. There wasn’t anything medically wrong with you.
“Symptoms usually present in early childhood,” one specialist explained gently while flicking through your file. “It’s… unusual.”
Unusual.
That was the word everyone preferred. Not broken. Not defective. Just unusual.
Children weren’t nearly as polite.
“What do you mean you don’t have one?”
“Everyone has one.”
“You must be lying.”
Some looked at you with pity. Others with suspicion. One kid had actually asked if soulmates could reject people before they were born.
You laughed along.
Then cried in the bathroom afterwards.
By fifteen, you’d stopped expecting anything to happen. You’d accepted it. Maybe fate had really skipped you. Maybe whatever invisible force connected billions of people had simply… forgotten.
Life moved on. It had to.
School still expected assignments. Friends still invited you out. The world didn’t stop just because yours felt slightly emptier than everyone else’s.
There was only one strange thing.
Your fingers.
Every now and then they’d end up stained a dusty grey-black. Not all of them. Usually just the pads of your fingers. Sometimes the side of your palm.
Like charcoal.
You’d notice it halfway through class or while eating dinner.
“…Huh.”
You’d scrub at it absent-mindedly. Soap didn’t work. Water didn’t work. Hand sanitiser didn’t work.
It never smudged onto anything else either. It simply existed. Then it’d disappear by the next morning as though it’d never been there at all.
You blamed whatever you’d touched that day.
Cheap pencils, old books, dust, maybe the graphite from your mechanical pencil had somehow stained your skin.
It wasn’t worth thinking about. There were bigger things to worry about than mysteriously dirty fingers.
After all, if you actually had a soulmate..
Surely something would’ve happened by now?
↑↓←→
The questions never really stopped. They just became less frequent. Less innocent.
Children asked because they were curious. Adults asked because they couldn’t imagine another answer.
“So..” a co-worker leaned against the break room counter, stirring too much sugar into their coffee. “Have you met your soulmate yet?”
You smiled automatically. “No.”
“They overseas or something?”
“Maybe.”
“Long-distance must suck.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
They laughed.
You laughed too. It was easier. People preferred believing your soulmate was somewhere out there rather than accepting you might not have one at all.
The truth made them uncomfortable.
Eventually the conversation drifted elsewhere. It always did. You’d become good at redirecting it. Years of practice had a way of doing that.
Nowadays, the mention of soulmates barely stung. It was more like pressing on an old bruise. Tender, but manageable. Something you’d learnt to live around.
Your phone buzzed. A message from a mate.
Movie tonight?
You smiled.
Only if you’re buying popcorn.
Hell no.
Then no deal.
A few more messages followed before the conversation inevitably dissolved into memes and poorly edited reaction images.
Normal.
Wonderfully, painfully, normal.
You slipped your phone into your pocket and reached for your bag.
Halfway there, you paused.
“…Seriously?”
Grey-black dust coated the tips of your fingers again.
You rubbed your thumb over your index finger. Nothing came off.
“Must’ve touched something.” You couldn’t even remember saying it aloud anymore. It had become a habit.
See charcoal → Blame the environment → Move on.
You grabbed your bag anyway. By tomorrow morning it’d be gone. It always was.
Outside, the city carried on around you. People hurried between work and home. Couples argued over dinner plans. Parents held children’s hands as they crossed busy streets.
A teenager absent-mindedly scribbled something across their forearm while waiting at the lights, grinning when fresh handwriting appeared beside it a heartbeat later.
Their soulmate had replied.
Lucky them.
You looked away before they noticed you staring. There was no point wondering what it felt like. You’d made peace with the fact that you’d probably never know.
Or at least, you’d gotten very good at pretending you had.
Jason had made every news station in Gotham before breakfast.
Damian hadn’t intended to watch it. He’d walked into the kitchen cause Alfred had insisted everyone eat together while they were all in Gotham, only to find the tv already running quietly in the corner. A familiar image occupied nearly every channel. Red Hood disappearing across a rooftop. The freeze-frame paused just as the damaged plating along his hip shifted enough to expose black ink beneath.
A soulmark.
The reporters seemed incapable of discussing anything else.
“The identity of Red Hood’s soulmate remains unknown…
…social media has already begun comparing the mark to historical soulmate registries…
…raising renewed questions about whether Gotham’s vigilantes are adequately protecting those connected to them…”
Damian looked away before the segment finished.
People had always been intrusive where soulmates were concerned. They asked strangers questions they’d never dream of asking otherwise. When were you meeting them? Were you together? Were you trying? Had you rejected them? Did they reject you? Had they wanted you when they saw you?
It was strange what the existence of a bond entitled complete strangers to know.
Todd hadn’t commented on it once. Neither had Father.
Though, neither needed to.
The manor simply carried on as though nothing had happened, despite the fact every member of the family had undoubtedly seen the footage already.
Alfred served breakfast. Dick complained about the coffee. Tim answered emails between bites without looking up from his phone.
Only the occasional glance toward Jason betrayed that anyone had noticed at all.
Damian appreciated that.
If the mark had belonged to him, he would have expected the same courtesy.
←↓→↑
He found himself wondering whether his soulmate had seen the broadcast.
Statistically, they probably had. Everyone watched the news after a vigilante was involved.
Would they have recognised the mark for what it was? Would they have wondered what sort of person belonged to Red Hood? Would they have imagined someone dangerous?
The thought irritated him more than it should have.
His soulmate had no reason to concern themselves with another person’s bond. Their attention belonged elsewhere.
His gaze dropped, almost unconsciously, to the inside of his own wrist.
Nothing.
No fresh handwriting wound around his skin. No absent-minded doodles.
Nothing had appeared there in years.
When he was young, the messages had arrived often enough that he eventually began expecting them.
Never on a schedule or enough to establish a pattern. Just, frequently enough that every few weeks he would wake to find unfamiliar handwriting stretching across his arm.
Are you there?
Sometimes that was all. Other times there was more.
Today’s been really bad.
I don’t want to be by myself right now.
The handwriting had always been clumsy.
Large letters that struggled to stay in straight lines, becoming neater with every passing year as childish motor skills gradually matured into something steadier. Occasionally there would be little smudges where the side of a hand had dragged through still-wet ink.
He had read every message.
Yet he had never answered one.
At the time, the decision had been obvious.
The League did not encourage soulmates. They acknowledged their existence because denying reality served no purpose, but sentiment had never held any value there. Your soulmate represented another avenue through which enemies might reach you. Another weakness to be managed.
Replying achieved nothing.
Years later, Father had reached the same conclusion for entirely different reasons.
Bruce had never instructed him not to respond, but he had agreed that anonymity offered protection. A soulmate nobody could identify was a soulmate nobody could target.
Objectively, Damian knew he had done the correct thing. Which only made one question increasingly difficult to dismiss.
Why had they stopped?
They had simply… disappeared. The last message had appeared years ago. Nothing after that.
No questions. No frustrated scribbles written during boring classes. No childish attempts to reach whoever existed on the opposite end of the bond. Just silence.
He had assumed, at first, that they were waiting. Perhaps they expected an answer. When none came, they would eventually try again. They always had before.
Except this time they hadn’t.
It should not have occupied his thoughts as often as it did.
People moved on. Children abandoned imaginary friends. Adults stopped believing in impossible things. Perhaps they had simply reached an age where writing to someone who refused to acknowledge them became embarrassing.
A reasonable conclusion.
One he found himself disliking more every time it occurred to him.
Because that implied they had given up.
On him.
Damian closed the sketchbook resting on his desk with more force than intended. The sound echoed briefly through his room before the manor settled back into its usual quiet.
He remained staring at the cover for several long moments.
He had done exactly what he was taught.
Exactly what logic dictated.
Exactly what would keep both of them safest.
So why did it feel strangely.. wrong that they had finally listened?
Your parents used to joke that they had never really known privacy.
If your father stubbed his toe in the kitchen, your mother would wince from the garden. If your mother caught the flu, your father would spend the week curled beneath blankets beside her, feverish despite never catching the virus himself.
Broken bones, headaches, paper cuts, childbirth. Nothing belonged to just one of them. The pain had always been shared.
But in a way, so was relief.
You grew up watching them laugh over bruises that appeared in matching places, your father kissing your mother’s scraped knuckles that had never touched the pavement because he had been the one to fall.
They carried each other’s suffering so naturally that neither of them seemed to remember there had ever been a time when they hadn’t.
“That’s what soulmates do,” your mother would say whenever you asked.
“No one hurts alone.”
It was spoken like a promise. A fact as certain as gravity. As ordinary as breathing.
You believed it. Everyone did. Then, slowly, your parents stopped talking about your soulmate.
First, they stopped asking whether anything new had appeared. Then the appointments became routine instead of hopeful. Then they stopped mentioning them altogether.
Your father buried himself in research.
Your mother lingered outside your bedroom more often than she used to.
One night, you woke to voices drifting through the hallway.
“…there has to be something they missed.”
“They didn’t.”
“They’re wrong.”
“They’ve repeated every test.”
“They’re still wrong.”
Silence.
Then your mother’s voice, barely louder than a whisper. “What if…”
Another silence, longer this time.
“What if there isn’t anyone?”
You had never heard your father shout before. “There has to be!”
“There doesn’t.”
His voice cracked. “Don’t.”
“You know it’s possible.”
“No.”
“If they’re right..” she whispered. “…then one day they’ll get hurt, and no one will feel it with them.”
The house fell silent.
You stared at the ceiling until morning.
After that, something changed. Your parents still loved each other. They still loved you. But grief settled into the spaces between them.
Your father refused to accept the diagnosis. He found specialists halfway across the country, obscure researchers overseas, experimental studies no one had ever heard of. Every answer that came back the same only convinced him the question hadn’t been asked correctly.
Your mother went with him every time. But eventually even she had stopped believing that there would be a different answer.
When she stopped asking for another opinion, your father never forgave her for it.
Years later, they divorced.
Two people who loved each other deeply enough to share every wound, discovering there was one pain they couldn’t carry together.
You.
Neither of them blamed you.
They looked at you with the same expression people reserved for tragedies no one had caused.
You grew older. Doctors wrote papers about you. Researchers asked for blood samples. Every form returned with the same impossible conclusion.
Inconclusive.
You tried telling yourself it didn’t matter. People survived without parents. Without friends. Without homes. You could survive without a soulmate.
Except no one else ever had. Not once. There hadn’t been a single case of someone born without a soulmate ever.
You weren’t unlucky. You were impossible. And impossibilities weren’t supposed to exist.
Sometimes you’d catch your parents looking at you when they thought you weren’t paying attention.
You couldn’t tell if it was disappointment, resentment, or grief.
You stopped wondering why fate had forgotten you.
It followed you through school. Through birthdays. Through every doctor who couldn’t explain you. Through every pitying glance. Until, one day, it stopped sounding like fear.
It simply sounded true.
You should have never been born.
The food on the plate in front of you had gone cold a long time ago.
You’d bought it mostly to justify occupying the table, pushing fries around the paper tray more than actually eating them.
Around you, the food court buzzed with the usual afternoon crowd. Children tugged exhausted parents toward the dessert stands. Teenagers laughed too loudly over shared drinks. Somewhere nearby, someone dropped a tray, followed immediately by the chorus of sympathetic groans from strangers.
You were halfway through convincing yourself to leave when a shadow fell across your table.
“Mind if I sit here?”
You glanced up.
Whoever this person is was about your age, maybe a little older. Attractive enough that a few nearby heads had already turned in their direction before looking away again.
“There are plenty of empty tables.”
“There are.” They smiled easily. “But you are sitting at this one.”
You stared for another second before giving a small shrug. “If you want.”
They slid into the seat opposite you without hesitation.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
You expected the silence to become awkward. Instead, they stole one of your fries.
“You weren’t eating them.”
“I was considering it.”
“Well, now you have to. Can’t let me win.”
A laugh escaped before you could stop it. It surprised both of you.
Then they were grinning. “I knew you could smile.”
You rolled your eyes, though there wasn’t much annoyance behind it.
This person was.. easy. Felt like the sort of person who filled silences without suffocating them.
Conversation came pretty naturally after that. Nothing particularly important. Complaints about the shopping centre. The impossibility of finding decent coffee. A movie neither of you had actually finished despite insisting you’d eventually get around to it.
It was pleasant. Dangerously so. You caught yourself relaxing.
Then your phone buzzed and you caught the time.
“I should get going.”
“So soon?”
“I’ve got things to do.”
“Fair enough.” They stood as you gathered your things, rocking back on their heels for a moment before patting their pockets.
“Damn.”
“What?”
“I don’t have any paper.”
“…Congratulations?”
They laughed. “I was trying to ask for your number.”
“Oh.”
You hadn’t expected that.
“I mean…” They rubbed the back of their neck sheepishly. “You’re hot. So I thought I’d at least give it a shot.”
You hesitated just long enough for them to snap their fingers.
“I’ve got an idea.”
Before you could ask what they meant, they reached for your wrist, uncapping a pen they’d pulled from their pocket.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
Without really waiting for an answer, they turned your arm over and, with surprisingly neat handwriting, scribbled a phone number across the inside of your forearm.
The pen tickled against your skin.
“There,” they said, clicking the cap back on. “Now you don’t have an excuse.” They winked, gathering their things.
You looked down automatically to the black ink stretching across your forearm.
Their name: Ash. Their number: 0401 863. ‘Call me’ written smaller underneath.
It should have been nothing. Just ink. Just another stranger taking a chance.
Instead, it made your chest tighten. For a fleeting, impossible second, your mind brought up a memory your body hadn’t forgotten.
Small hands. Crayon pressed too hard against skin.
Are you there?
Another message.
Please answer.
Another.
I think something’s wrong with me.
You blinked hard.
The memory vanished as quickly as it had come.
“…You okay?”
You looked back up, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.
“Yeah.”
Your fingers unconsciously drifted over the fresh ink. “I just…”
You couldn’t explain why seeing words on your arm suddenly made your chest ache.
“…haven’t written on myself in a very long time.”
The afternoon was loud. Far too loud for Damian’s liking.
He sat at the edge of the group, his posture perfect, expression a mask of practiced indifference. Public outings required a level of restraint that felt unnatural to him.
Dick was laughing at something Jason had said, and even Bruce seemed slightly less tense than usual.
Damian didn't care about the noise. Or about the conversation. He was mostly preoccupied with the sensation of the sunlight hitting his forearms. For the first time in years, he wasn't wearing the long sleeves or the tactical gloves he used to shroud his skin.
He had decided, with a cold sort of logic, that the bond was dead.
The silence from his skin had lasted so long years of nothingness that he had finally accepted the most likely reality: his soulmate had stopped looking for him. You had given up.
He was fine with that. It was efficient.
Then, the sting began.
It wasn't a sharp pain, but a slow, itching warmth, as if a heated needle were dragging across the underside of his left forearm. Damian stiffened. He kept his hands resting on the table, but his heart gave a singular, heavy thud against his ribs.
No, he thought. Not now.
He watched the skin. It started as a faint, dark smudge, then the lines began to bleed through the surface of his flesh, as if an invisible hand were pressing a pen into his muscle.
Dick was the first to notice the change in his posture. "Dami? You okay?"
Damian didn't answer. He couldn't. He was too busy staring at his own arm.
The writing was appearing in elegant, sweeping loops. Cursive. It was beautiful, flowing, and utterly offensive.
Ash
0401 863
Call me ;)
Damian’s breath hitched. His eyes scanned the script, his brain overworking with the mechanical speed of a detective.
He knew your handwriting. He had spent a decade studying the messy, jagged print of the messages he had received as a child.
His soulmate’s handwriting had always been blunt. Childish, hurried, and unrefined. You’d written in print, scrawled in desperation.
This wasn't it. This was polished. This was intentional. This was the handwriting of a stranger.
Someone had held your arm. Someone had pressed a pen to your skin. Someone had dared to claim a space on a body that belonged, by divine right, to him.
"Whoa," Jason leaned in, his eyes widening as he spotted the dark lines on Damian's arm. "Is that... is that a soulmark? Since when do you have a writing bond?"
The table went silent as the family stared. For the first time in his life, the secret was out. The quiet, private connection he had guarded like a weapon was visible for everyone to see.
"Damian?" Bruce asked, his voice low, laced with a rare note of surprise. "You never said-"
"Be quiet," Damian snapped, his voice cutting through the air like a blade.
He wasn't looking at them. He was staring at the name. It felt like a slur.
Ash
He could feel the phantom sensation of the stranger’s hand on his skin, a greasy, intrusive warmth that made him want to scrub his arm until it bled.
It had been years. He had waited in the silence, convinced you had forgotten him, convinced you had moved on to a life where he didn't exist. And then, finally, the silence broke. The bond had screamed back to life after years of dormancy.
But it wasn't a "hello." It wasn't an "are you there?" It wasn't a cry for help.
It was a phone number. It was an invitation. It was a stranger's attempt to steal the only thing Damian was supposed to truly call his own.
His hands curled into fists on the table, his knuckles turning white. The rage was quiet, but it was absolute. Someone was touching you. Someone was talking to you. Someone was trying to take the person who had spent a lifetime writing into the void, waiting for a response that wasn’t coming.
And the response was a stranger's name.
"Damian, you're shaking," Dick said softly, reaching out a hand.
Damian pulled his arm back, tucking it close to his body, hiding the elegant, loathsome cursive from their eyes.
His gaze was dark, focused, and predatory.
The sound of the city became nothing more than a dull roar in the background. Damian didn't hear Bruce's worried voice or Jason’s insensitive joke. He didn’t see Tim and Dick’s shared glances. The only thing that existed was the black ink on his skin.
He slid out of the booth, his movements jerky and frantic.
"Damian, where are you going?" Bruce asked, his voice sharp and commanding.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. If he spoke, he was afraid of what might come out.
He stormed away from the table, ignoring the confused looks from his family, and practically ran toward the restroom.
The moment he locked the door behind him, he collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold tile. He yanked his sleeve up, his fingers digging into the skin around the words.
Call me ;)
He hated it. He hated the person who had written it. He hated the precision of the cursive, how confident and sure it looked. This was a person who had no idea who they were dealing with. They had no idea that by writing on his soulmate, they had essentially written a death sentence for themselves if he could ever find them.
But as he stared at the ink, the rage began to ebb, replaced by something far worse.
He felt sick.
He felt small.
He hadn't answered his soulmate.
For years, he had read your heartbreaks, your fears, your lonely pleas, and he had met you with sterile, echoing silence. He had waited. He had played a game of patience, convinced that if he just waited long enough, you would eventually find him on your own.
And now you had. You had found someone else.
"You should have kept writing," he whispered, his voice cracking. He pressed his forehead against his knees, his eyes burning. "You should have waited for me."
He felt pathetic. The great Damian Wayne, the heir to the League of Assassins, was currently huddled in a public restroom tearing up over a phone number.
He felt like a child again, the one who would read the messages on his arm and then uselessly try to rub them away with a damp cloth, pretending they never existed, even as he felt his heart break every single time.
He reached for the paper towels on the dispenser and grabbed a handful, soaking them in water. He held his arm out, his hand shaking, and began to scrub at the ink.
At the name.
He rubbed harder. The skin turned red, the water and rough paper scratching at the surface of his flesh. He wanted it gone. He wanted the name to vanish, to disappear as if it had never been written. He wanted the stranger to be erased from existence.
But the ink wouldn't budge.
"I'll find you," he whispered, his voice ragged. "I'll find you and I'll make sure you never forget who you belong to."
He didn't have a plan. He didn't know who the person was or where you were. But as he sat there in the dim light of the restroom, his chest heaving and his arm raw and red, there was a new, sharper purpose in his eyes.
He had ignored you long enough. Now, he would be the one doing the hunting.
The evening had passed in a blur of crowds, train announcements, and familiar exhaustion that settled over Gotham once the workday ended.
By the time you unlocked your apartment door, your attention was fixed on the familia routine. Keys in the bowl beside the entrance. Bag on the chair. Shoes kicked off near the wall.
You were halfway through rubbing at your eyes when something on your arm had caught your attention.
For a moment, your brain failed to make sense of what you were seeing.
The writing was gone.
You stared down at your forearm.
The name that had been written near your wrist had disappeared beneath a thick streak of black ink. The number stretched somewhere underneath it, hidden beneath layer after layer of aggressive, uneven marker.
Whoever had done it had covered the writing completely, obscuring every letter beneath a blown-out dark smear.
A hundred explanations flashed through your head, each more ridiculous than the last. None of them made sense.
Slowly, you turned your arm beneath the light.
The ink stayed where it was. Fresh enough that it still looked almost glossy beneath the overhead lamp.
Your fingers brushed across it. Dry.
You frowned.
The stranger's number should have still been there. You'd checked it at least three times on the train ride home.
Twice because you were considering calling, then again because you couldn't quite believe someone had actually flirted with you so outright.
Now it looked as though someone had taken a marker and buried every trace of it.
Your stomach tightened. Your mind going back years ago.
To one of many small examination rooms. Familiar bright white walls. The smell of disinfectant.
You were eight years old, legs dangling from a chair too tall for you.
"Have you ever tried writing on yourself?" the doctor had asked gently.
You remembered laughing.
Of course you had.
Every kid who hadn’t gotten hurt by another yet did.
You'd covered your arms with marker for years. Names. Questions. Drawings. Entire conversations directed at a person who never answered.
Nothing had ever happened.
The specialists called it unusual. Some forums called it heartbreaking. Or fake.
Your gaze dropped back to the black ink covering your arm. Something had written over that number. Something had responded.
You didn’t feel any excitement. Or hope. If anything, what you felt seemed closer to dread.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope was what had kept your parents scheduling appointment after appointment, convinced the next specialist would finally have an answer. Hope was what left your mother crying behind closed bathroom doors after another inconclusive test. Hope was what taught you, over and over again, that wanting something badly enough didn't make it real.
You'd spent years trying not to care. Years learning how to ignore the empty space where everyone else seemed to carry certainty. One strange mark wasn't enough to undo that.
You pulled your sleeve down over your arm. The black streak vanished beneath the fabric. Better. Safer.
"Means nothing," you muttered.
You didn't believe your own words.
The rest of the evening passed normally enough. Dinner. Dishes. Television playing quietly in the background. The ordinary rhythm of a life that had long since moved on from childhood fantasies.
Yet every so often, your hand drifted toward your covered forearm.
Every time it did, the same feeling returned. An uncomfortable awareness that something had changed. After years of silence, something had finally answered.
And you had no idea whether or not that was a good thing.
→↓←↑
You shuffled into the bathroom still half asleep, already thinking about getting an energy drink more than anything else.
The mirror was fogged around the edges from the shower running in the neighbouring apartment, and the cold tiles beneath your feet made you wish you’d bothered finding your slippers.
You rolled your sleeve up almost absent-mindedly. The black streak was still there.
You reached automatically for the sink, wetting a corner of the hand towel before rubbing experimentally at the edge of the ink.
Nothing.
“Figures.” The muttered complaint barely left your mouth before something caught your eye.
You frowned. The towel paused against your skin.
You leaned closer to the mirror.
Yesterday, the marker had been solid. Messy, thick, almost violent in the way it covered the stranger’s handwriting. Now there was a gap big enough for your skin to show through.
You were certain it hadn’t been there before.
For a ridiculous moment, you wondered whether you’d accidentally rubbed some of the ink away on your sleeve.
Then you noticed the line beneath it. Fresh ink.
Your stomach sank. The handwriting wasn’t yours. It wasn’t the stranger’s either. The stranger had written in looping cursive, every letter rounded and practiced. This was precise. Almost painfully neat. Each stroke looked deliberate, measured before it had ever touched skin.
Three words.
Don’t call them.
You read them once. Then again. Your eyes drifted over the sentence a third time, as though repetition alone might make it mean something different.
It didn’t. It remained exactly what it had been the first time. An instruction.
Not a greeting. Not a question. Not even an explanation. Just…
Don’t call them.
You found yourself looking around the apartment before you could stop yourself. The living room. The kitchen. The locked front door. Empty.
“…Okay.” You laughed under your breath.
Nothing about this was funny, but the alternative felt insane.
You’d spent most of your life wishing something - anything would happen. That one day there’d be a mistake. A delayed bond. An explanation.
Now, standing alone in your bathroom with unfamiliar handwriting on your arm, you wanted a perfectly rational answer more than anything.
Your fingers hovered over the words. Careful not to smudge them. The ink was dry. As though it had been there for hours.
You swallowed.
Then, before you could talk yourself out of it, you walked back into the kitchen, dug through the junk drawer until you found an old biro, and returned to the bathroom.
The tip hovered over your forearm.
You stared at the empty patch of skin beneath the unfamiliar message for nearly a minute.
This was stupid.
You knew exactly how soulmate writing worked.
Or rather, you knew how it was supposed to work.
Children discovered it by accident. Teenagers filled each other’s arms with jokes. Adults stopped because texting was easier. Nobody your age stood in their bathroom writing into empty space. Not unless they’d completely lost it.
“Whatever.”
The pen touched your skin. Your handwriting hadn’t changed much since childhood.
Still print. Still slightly untidy. Still pressed a little too hard.
Who are you?
You capped the pen almost immediately afterwards.
Nothing happened.
You’d expected as much.
You were already turning away when warmth spread beneath your skin. It wasn’t painful, just unexpected.
You looked down instinctively.
The place beneath your question tingled, the sensation travelling slowly enough that you could follow it with your eyes.
And then Ink.
Not appearing all at once. Growing. One careful letter after another.
The ink surface beneath your skin one deliberate stroke at a time, each line settling into place before the next began. There was no rush to it. Whoever was writing wasn’t hesitating, but they weren’t hurrying either.
Like they knew you would wait.
By the time the sentence finished, your pulse had climbed into your throat.
Don’t accept things from strangers.
You frowned.
That wasn’t an answer.
Your eyes flicked up to the question still sitting above it.
Who are you?
They’d ignored it completely.
Another line began to appear. The warmth returned beneath your skin, travelling just ahead of the fresh ink.
Don’t let anyone else touch you like that again.
Your eyebrows slowly pulled together. “…That’s what you’re worried about?”
After everything. After years of nothing. After every specialist, every appointment, every unanswered question.. Whoever was on the other end had apparently decided that the pressing issue was a phone number.
You looked down at the biro still resting in your hand.
It felt strangely inadequate now.
Slowly, you uncapped it again. Your handwriting looked clumsy beside the careful precision of theirs.
You didn’t answer my question.
You hesitated, then added another beneath it.
Who are you?
The reply came quicker this time. Almost immediately.
The familiar warmth spread beneath your skin, and before you’d even finished reading your own words, fresh ink had begun to weave itself between them.
That doesn’t matter yet.
The sentence continued without pause.
Tell me whether you called them.
You blinked. “Seriously?”
The absurdity of it almost made you laugh. That was it? No introduction. No explanation. Not even an acknowledgement that this was impossible. Just another question about someone you’d shared fries with for twenty minutes.
Your fingers rubbed absent-mindedly at the bridge of your nose. “This is unbelievable.”
You looked back down at your arm. The neat handwriting stared back at you.
You sighed through your nose before writing again.
No.
The ink had barely dried before another reply began. Only two words this time.
Good. Don’t.
You stared at them. The corners of your mouth twitched despite yourself.
“You’re bossy.” There was no irritation behind the words. Mostly disbelief.
You’d finally found the person who was supposedly meant to answer every question you’d spent half your life asking, and apparently they preferred giving orders instead.
Damian hadn't realised how completely his priorities had shifted until he found himself standing in front of the Batcomputer, staring at an unfinished mission report he'd been pretending to read for nearly ten minutes.
He couldn't remember a single word.
His eyes kept returning to the faded writing winding around the inside of his forearm.
Nine messages. That was all.
It should have been insignificant.
He had exchanged more words with criminals before incapacitating them.
Yet somehow those nine short sentences had managed to uproot routines that had taken years to build.
He read them again.
Who are you?
Don't accept things from strangers.
Don't let anyone else touch you like that again.
You didn't answer my question.
Who are you?
That doesn't matter yet.
Tell me whether you called them.
No.
Good. Don't.
His thumb brushed unconsciously across one of the final words. Good.
It shouldn't have brought him relief.
But it did. An almost embarrassing amount.
The stranger had failed. You hadn't called them. Whatever smile you'd given that person, whatever polite conversation you'd entertained, whatever curiosity they’d mistaken for interest had ended there.
You had chosen not to continue it.
Damian hadn't realised how tightly he'd been holding himself together until that single word had loosened something inside his chest.
Not enough. Never enough. But enough that he could breathe again. For the first time since your messages appeared.
Then the relief faded. Because relief left room for thought. And thought was infinitely crueler.
Someone else had reached you first. Someone else had stood close enough to touch your wrist. Someone else had looked directly into your face. Someone else knew what colour your eyes were.
Damian didn't.
Someone else knew how tall you were. How your voice sounded. Whether you smiled with your mouth closed or laughed loudly enough to turn heads.
Someone else had information Damian should have had years ago.
The irrationality of the thought didn't make it disappear. He understood perfectly well that you hadn't betrayed him.
How could you? You didn't know him.
As far as you were concerned, your soulmate had ignored every message you'd ever written.
Every birthday. Every question. Every lonely evening. Every desperate attempt to find the person destined to answer.
He had been silent.
Not by choice. But silence looked the same from the other side.
He knew that.
If the positions had been reversed… If he had written for years.. If every answer had been met with nothing.. Would he have waited forever?
…
He wanted to say yes.
But he couldn’t.
His hand curled into a fist.
You'd lived an entire life while he wasn't there. Years of mornings. Of birthdays. Of scraped knees, illnesses, graduations, celebrations, disappointments.
Had someone hugged you when things became too much? Who comforted you when you cried? Who celebrated your successes? Who remembered your favourite food? Who knew your drink order? Who made you laugh after terrible days?
Questions multiplied faster than he could suppress them.
Did you live alone? Did you have roommates? Did you lock your doors? Did you own any means of defending yourself? Were you careful walking home at night? Had anyone ever hurt you?
Yesterday had already answered one of those questions.
Yes. Someone had.
Maybe not physically. But someone had ignored your discomfort long enough for you to write to a stranger instead.
To him.
You had reached for someone you couldn't even identify because the people around you hadn't been enough.
That thought settled somewhere deep beneath his ribs. Heavy and permanent.
He looked again at the sentence he'd written. Don't let anyone else touch you like that again.
He hadn't thought before writing it. There hadn't been time. Logic had come afterward. The wording had been possessive. Demanding. Unlike him.
No. Exactly like him. Just... stripped bare.
He closed his eyes. You must have thought he was insane. Some anonymous soulmate who vanished for decades only to return issuing orders. He would have been irritated too.
No.
He would have blocked himself.
Yet...
You hadn't.
You'd argued. Questioned him. Demanded answers. But you hadn't stopped writing.
Why?
Curiosity? Hope? Loneliness? Or had something inside you recognised the same impossible pull clawing through him?
He hated not knowing. He hated uncertainty. He hated relying on something as intangible as fate.
His entire life had been built on eliminating uncertainty. Gather information. Observe.Investigate. Prepare. Control what could be controlled. The League had taught him that. His father had refined it.
The soulbond ignored every single one of those principles.
It had expected him to wait. To trust. To believe.
He had. For years.
Where had it gotten either of you?
You alone in a shopping centre. Him halfway across the city learning about it after the fact.
No. Enough.
He opened his eyes.
The Batcomputer came alive beneath his fingertips. Monitors illuminated one after another, blue light reflecting across his face. Access permissions unfolded without resistance.
Traffic cameras. Retail security networks. Public transport footage. Cell tower data. Facial recognition databases. Search parameters. Time. Location. Shopping centre.
He could hear his father's voice in the back of his mind.
"People deserve privacy, Damian."
Normally, he would have agreed. He would have waited until you chose to reveal yourself. Normally.
Yesterday someone had approached you.
Tomorrow someone else might.
He had spent years believing fate would keep you safe until it brought you together. Yesterday had demonstrated exactly how fragile that assumption was.
For most of his life, Damian Wayne had believed his greatest weakness would be failing his mission.
He understood now that he'd been wrong.
His greatest weakness had a heartbeat.
That somewhere out there, someone was completely unaware that the heir to Batman was already searching every camera in Gotham just to catch a single glimpse of the face he'd imagined since childhood.
His finger pressed the key.
The search began.
↑←↓→
Finding you hadn’t been particularly difficult. Not once Damian started looking.
The shopping centre gave him a face. The face gave him transport records. Transport records became a place of work. A place of work became an address.
Within four days, he knew more about your routine than you did.
You bought the same energy drink from the convenience store three mornings out of five, apologised to inanimate objects whenever you bumped into them, and forgot to eat lunch often enough that the café downstairs had begun recognising the pattern.
You had a habit of reading while waiting for pedestrian lights to change. You wore headphones without turning any music on whenever you didn’t want strangers talking to you. You checked your pockets twice before locking your front door.
You laughed with your whole face. You rubbed your eyes whenever you became overwhelmed.
You were, Damian decided, catastrophically easy to lose.
And even easier to protect.
The first time he introduced himself, it was as Damian Wayne. Not your soulmate. Just the youngest Wayne.
Professionally interested in one of Wayne Enterprises’ newest projects.
Your company had recently entered into a partnership with Wayne Enterprises.
You’d smiled.
Held out your hand.
Introduced yourself with the same easy politeness you seemed to offer everyone.
He’d looked at your outstretched hand for the briefest moment before taking it.
His fingers closed around yours carefully. Almost reverently.
“So,” you’d said with an awkward laugh, “I guess we’ll be seeing each other a lot.”
“Yes.”
You’d mistaken the certainty in his voice for confidence.
It wasn’t. It was a statement of fact.
After that, he simply… remained.
Meetings that didn’t strictly require his attendance somehow did. Business lunches became routine. Coffee would already be waiting on your desk before you arrived.
When your workload became unreasonable, departments quietly shifted resources without anyone quite understanding why. When your apartment building’s security contract came up for renewal, Wayne Security acquired it. When your favourite café struggled financially, it received an anonymous investment.
You never knew.
You only noticed that life had become a little easier.
Financial inconveniences disappeared before they had the chance to reach you.
You thanked luck. Damian thanked himself.
The rest happened so gradually that even you struggled to pinpoint when it had changed.
His hand settled against the small of your back whenever crowds became too dense.
He began walking you to your car after evening meetings.
Your favourite snacks appeared in his office because “you always steal mine.”
He started calling you when you worked late.
Then expecting you to answer.
Then asking where you were if you didn’t.
“You don’t have to keep looking after me,” you’d laughed one afternoon as he wordlessly took the heavier stack of folders from your arms.
“I know.”
“You do realise I’m an adult?”
“I am aware.”
You smiled, shaking your head. “You’re impossible.”
Damian looked at you for a long moment.
No. He thought quietly. I’m simply making up for lost time.
You never noticed the way his eyes lingered on your forearm whenever your sleeves rode up. Or how his expression softened whenever your handwriting appeared there.
The conversations continued. Always through ink. Never in person.
You still didn’t know.
You still believed your soulmate was someone else. Someone you hadn’t met.
Damian intended to keep it that way.
Not forever.
Just until he’d repaired everything the years of silence had broken. Until you trusted him without hesitation. Until you looked for him first. Until your apartment felt less like home than Wayne Manor. Until every decision you made instinctively accounted for him. Until loving him became as natural as breathing.
Then, and only then, would he tell you the truth.
By that point, Damian no longer believed it would matter.
Because by then, there would be nowhere else in the world you would ever want to be except exactly where he’d spent the years wishing you had always been.
Beside him.
You had skipped breakfast after oversleeping, rushed through the front doors of Wayne Enterprises with your hair still damp, and spent the next four hours buried beneath spreadsheets.
Around noon, someone knocked once on your office door.
You looked up. Damian stepped inside carrying a paper bag from the café downstairs. "I noticed you didn't eat."
You smiled despite yourself. "You came all the way down here for that?"
"You become irritable when your blood sugar drops." He set the bag on your desk with the same care he used when placing files in front of Bruce during board meetings.
"I thought you would appreciate the reminder."
It was thoughtful. You thanked him.
By the second week, he stopped asking if you'd eaten. He already knew.
"I brought lunch."
"I'm actually going out with the accounting department."
"You aren't."
You frowned. "We already planned it."
Damian removed a small container from the paper bag before speaking.
"They rescheduled."
"What?"
"They've been called into an emergency budget meeting."
Your phone buzzed. Every person in the group chat was apologising.
Sorry! Something came up.
Rain check?
You stared at the messages. "...That's weird."
"It happens." Damian placed a pair of chopsticks beside your lunch. "Eat before it gets cold."
You hesitated. Then opened the container.
It kept happening.
Whenever coworkers invited you somewhere, plans somehow dissolved before they happened.
A canceled reservation. An urgent meeting. Someone suddenly calling in sick.
After a while, people simply stopped asking.
It wasn't deliberate. It was just easier to assume you were busy. So lunch became something you shared with Damian.
Every day.
Without either of you ever discussing it.
↑←↓→
It was raining when you left the office.
Not super hard, just enough to make the pavement shine beneath the streetlights. You shoved your hands into the pockets of your coat and hurried toward the subway entrance, already thinking about the leftovers waiting in your apartment.
"You'll catch a cold."
You didn't have to turn around. "I'll survive."
Damian fell into step beside you, holding a black umbrella over both of you despite the fact that he'd appeared from nowhere. You hadn't seen him leave the building.
"You've said that before."
"I've also survived before."
"That isn't the point."
You sighed. "Then what is?"
"The point is that your zipper is broken."
Instinctively, you glanced down at your coat. The zipper caught halfway, as it always did. You gave it another tug before giving up. "I know. I'll replace it eventually."
Damian's eyes lingered on the torn seam near your wrist. "No."
You frowned. "No?"
"You won't."
"I literally just said I would."
"You said 'eventually.'" His tone remained perfectly even. "That generally means you have no intention of doing it until circumstances force you to."
"You don't know that."
"I do."
Something about the certainty in his voice irritated you.
"You don't get to decide whether I'm going to buy a coat."
"I already have."
You stopped walking. "So that's it?" You laughed once, short and incredulous. "You've decided for me?"
"You require one."
"I require money more."
"You have sufficient savings for the amount you have worked."
"How would you know what my savings look like?"
For the first time since the conversation began, Damian hesitated. Only for a fraction of a second. "It isn't relevant."
"It becomes relevant when you somehow know how much money I have."
"I know enough."
The answer settled uncomfortably in your stomach. You wanted to ask another question. Instead, you started walking again.
Neither of you spoke for the rest of the trip.
←↑↓→
Three days later, the receptionist downstairs smiled as you entered your apartment building.
"A package came for you this morning."
"I wasn't expecting one."
"It didn't have a return address."
The box was surprisingly heavy.
Inside was a winter coat. Not just any coat. The exact one you'd stopped to look at in a shop window two weeks earlier.
You remembered standing outside the display for maybe thirty seconds before deciding it was too expensive.
You'd never mentioned it to anyone. Not even Damian.
There was no gift receipt.
Nothing except a small envelope tucked beneath the tissue paper.
Inside was a single card.
Your previous coat no longer provided adequate protection. Dispose of it.
No signature. There didn't need to be one.
The coat fit perfectly.
→←↑↓
"You bought me a coat."
Damian didn't look up from the documents spread across his desk. "I replaced one."
"I never asked you to."
"No."
"I told you not to spend money on me."
"I didn't." He finally looked up. "I spent money on an item."
"...Which you then gave to me."
"Correct."
"So you spent money on me."
"No." His expression remained completely serious. "I spent money maintaining an asset under my care."
You stared at him. "An asset?"
He frowned slightly, as if that wasn't the word he'd intended. "A responsibility."
"I'm not your responsibility."
"You are."
"No, Damian. I'm not."
"You arrived at work soaked twice last week because you refused to replace damaged clothing. You developed a cough yesterday."
"I would've bought one eventually."
"You were cold."
"I said I would've bought one."
"But you didn't." He spoke with the same patient tone someone might use while explaining something obvious to a child. "Intent is meaningless if the outcome remains the same."
You opened your mouth to argue but he continued before you could.
"When Titus refuses to come inside during winter, I don't leave him outside because he wishes to stay there."
"...Did you just compare me to your dog?"
"I compared your behavior."
"No. You compared me."
"I compared two living beings who consistently underestimate environmental hazards."
"One of those living beings is a German Shepherd."
"Yes."
"And the other is me."
"Yes."
He didn't understand why that distinction mattered. You could see it in his face. To Damian, the comparison wasn't insulting. It was practical.
Titus couldn't accurately judge the risk of prolonged exposure to the cold.
Neither, apparently, could you.
The fact that you could speak, hold a job, pay taxes, and argue with him didn't alter the underlying equation in his mind.
Capability wasn't measured by adulthood. It was measured by whether you could reliably keep yourself safe.
He'd already reached his conclusion months ago.
You simply hadn't realised he'd been treating you accordingly.
↑←→↓
It started with coffee.
You'd been ordering the same thing from the café in the lobby since your second week at Wayne Enterprises. Large latte. Whole milk. Two pumps of caramel. It was practically muscle memory. Every morning you'd mumble, "The usual, thanks." Tap your card against the terminal, and collect your cup without thinking.
One Tuesday, you took a sip on the way to the elevator and frowned.
Less sweet.
You glanced back toward the café, wondering if the barista had simply forgotten the syrup. It wasn't worth walking back over, so you drank it anyway.
The next morning it tasted the same.
And the morning after that.
By Friday, you assumed they'd changed the recipe.
A few weeks later, you found yourself standing in line behind two coworkers from accounting. They were chatting idly while the baristas rushed through the morning crowd.
"The usual?" the girl behind the register asked as soon as she saw you.
"Yeah, thanks."
She nodded before you'd said another word. "Oat milk latte. One pump vanilla."
You blinked.
"...Sorry?"
"Oat milk latte?" she repeated, already reaching for a cup. "One pump vanilla."
"No, I usually get caramel."
She looked genuinely confused. "You used to."
"I.." You laughed awkwardly. "No, I still do."
She glanced toward another employee behind the espresso machine. "Didn't they change it?"
"They?"
"The gentleman who usually orders for you."
Your smile faltered. "What gentleman?"
"The one who's in here all the time." She frowned, trying to remember. "Dark hair. Gorgeous. Kind of intimidating."
Your stomach sank. "...Damian?"
"That's his name!" She smiled, relieved.
"He said you'd been trying to cut back on sugar. We've been making it that way ever since."
You stared at her. "I never said that."
"Oh."
Her smile dimmed. "I just assumed.." She looked embarrassed. "I thought he was your assistant."
You didn't answer.
You took the coffee she'd already made, murmured a thank you, and walked away before she could apologise.
Halfway across the lobby, you took another sip. It wasn't even bad. In fact.. It tasted exactly the way you expected your coffee to taste.
You couldn't remember when your own preference had changed.
Or whether it ever had.
That Saturday you decided to stop at woolies on the way home.
Your fridge was nearly empty, and for once you had no plans. No meetings. No dinner at Wayne Manor. No texts from Damian reminding you that you'd skipped lunch.
You grabbed a trolley and headed toward the produce section.
Before you'd made it ten feet, someone in the green Woolworths uniform looked up from unpacking a crate of avocados.
"Oh! You're here yourself today."
You smiled politely. "I usually am."
He laughed. "No, your assistant normally collects everything."
The trolley came to a stop. "My assistant?"
"The bloke."
He pointed vaguely toward the online pickup counter.
"Tall. Black hair. Doesn't smile much."
Your grip tightened around the handle. "I... don't have an assistant."
The employee looked between you and the pickup shelves, clearly thinking he'd made some sort of mistake.
"Oh."
A pause.
"I just figured.." He rubbed the back of his neck. "He knows your order off by heart."
"My order?"
"Yeah."
He gestured toward the refrigerated section. "Every Tuesday. Same online pickup. Chicken breast, brown rice, spinach, Greek yoghurt, blueberries, eggs, almonds..."
He kept listing items one after another. Healthy. Measured. Predictable. Almost identical to what Damian packed for lunch whenever he insisted on bringing you food. Nothing like what you usually got.
"You've got one of the easiest orders to pack in the system," he continued with an easy laugh. "Never changes."
You looked down into your empty trolley. "I don't remember ordering any of that."
He blinked. "...Really?"
"I haven't done online groceries in months."
"Oh." His smile returned, uncertain now. "I guess whoever orders for you just has your account."
You wandered the aisles in a daze after that.
You picked up a box of sugary cereal, then hesitated.
Hadn't you loved this?
Or had you only bought it once?
You reached for the frozen buffalo chicken protein pizza.
No. You preferred the greasy cheesy ones.. Didn't you?
By the time you reached the checkout, your trolley contained almost nothing.
A loaf of bread. Milk. Pasta.
You couldn't remember what else belonged in your kitchen. Everything you reached for came with a second thought.
Damian doesn't buy this.
Not I don't like this. Damian doesn't buy this.
Somewhere, without noticing, you'd stopped shopping for yourself and you'd started shopping according to habits that weren't yours.
When you unlocked your apartment later that evening, you opened the pantry and simply stood there.
Brown rice. Herbal teas. Wholegrain crackers. Natural peanut butter. Every shelf was neat. Organised. Restocked.
You tried to remember buying any of it.
You couldn't.
The only thing you were certain of was that Damian liked all of it.
For the first time since you'd met him, a thought occurred to you that made your skin crawl.
You couldn't remember the last decision you'd made that had remained entirely your own.
↑→↓←
Which doors you were expected to use. Which routes you naturally took through Wayne Enterprises without thinking. Which elevators always seemed to arrive when you were alone, and which ones never did.
It wasn’t obvious enough to call it anything. That was the problem.
If someone had asked you directly whether you were being controlled, you would have said no. You still had your job. Your own apartment. Your own name on the lease. You could leave the building whenever you wanted.
Except you didn’t, not without telling Damian first.
And somehow it had become normal.
It had started as courtesy. You told him when you were heading home so he didn’t “worry about your commute.” Then it became easier to mention where you were going so he wouldn’t text. Then it became automatic, like checking the weather before leaving the house.
Now, when you didn’t say anything, things got complicated.
A car would be waiting when you stepped outside anyway. A message would arrive asking if you’d changed plans.
Once, when you’d tried to leave without telling him at all, security had stopped you at the ground floor.
“Mr Wayne requested confirmation,” the guard had said, checking a list he clearly thought you belonged on. “Just routine.”
You remembered standing there, keycard in your hand, realising you didn’t know when your movements had become something that required confirmation.
You hadn’t argued. There was nothing to argue against that didn’t make you sound paranoid.
So you went back upstairs, and sent Damian a message saying you’d “forgotten something.”
He replied almost immediately.
Good. You’re learning to check in properly.
You stared at the screen for a long time after that.
The worst part wasn’t the obvious things. It was the gaps.
Like how your phone stopped suggesting certain places because you “never went there anymore.” Or how your usual café no longer even appeared in your saved locations. Or how friends stopped inviting you out because every time they tried, schedules collapsed in ways no one could quite explain.
You told yourself it was coincidence until coincidence became too consistent to ignore.
When you asked Maya, your coworker from accounting, the one person who still occasionally tried to include you in plans, she hesitated.
“I mean… it’s always something,” she said carefully one afternoon over coffee. “You’re either busy or something comes up right after you say yes. It’s like… bad timing, constantly.”
“I don’t cancel things,” you said automatically.
She gave you a look you couldn’t quite read. “I know. That’s why it’s weird.”
She didn’t say Damian’s name. No one ever did directly when it felt like it might matter.
But it hung there anyway. Unspoken.
The moment you started to properly feel it, really feel it, was the night you tried to stay out late.
It wasn’t even rebellion. It was exhaustion. You’d been at work too long, your head aching, your phone already buzzing with reminders you hadn’t asked for. So when Maya suggested grabbing dinner nearby, you said yes before you could talk yourself out of it.
For once, nothing immediately fell apart.
No cancelled booking. No sudden emergency. No interrupted plan.
You almost relaxed.
Then your phone rang.
Damian.
You stared at the screen for a few seconds before answering.
“You’re not home,” he said without greeting.
“I’m out.”
A pause. Not surprised. Measured.
“With Maya.”
“Yes.”
Another pause, shorter this time.
“I see.”
Something in his tone made you feel sick. “I didn’t tell you because I thought it didn’t matter,” you added quickly. “It’s just dinner.”
“It matters,” he said simply.
Then, after a beat: “You’re deviating from routine again.”
“I’m allowed to have dinner with a friend.”
“You are allowed to leave the environment I’ve structured for your stability, yes.”
You closed your eyes. “There is no environment you’ve structured for me.”
Silence on the line.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “You’re tired. Your judgement will be impaired tonight.”
“That’s not your call.”
“It is when you don’t recognise your own limits.”
Something cold settled behind your ribs. Across the table, Maya was watching you now, pretending not to.
“I’m fine,” you said, quieter.
“You’re not,” Damian replied.
And then, almost gently, “I’ll send a car.”
“I don’t need one.”
“You do.”
You stood up so abruptly your chair scraped the floor.
“I said no.”
The line went cold.
“I hear you,” Damian said.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, he added: “But you’re still not staying out late.”
You stood there holding your phone, realising slowly that he hadn’t threatened you. He hadn’t raised his voice. He hadn’t even argued. He had simply stated the outcome as something already decided.
Maya said your name, cautiously, and you barely heard her..
You weren’t being managed. You were being kept track of. And you were just now realising how much of your life now required permission you didn’t remember giving.
↓↑→←
The sleek, black sedan pulled up to the curb of the restaurant with a silent, predatory grace. The driver was a man who looked like he had been trained to move without making a sound.
He simply stood by the door, waiting. He didn't look at Maya. He didn't look at the other patrons. He looked only at you, with the expectant, neutral gaze of a handler waiting for a well trained pet to finish its meal.
You felt Maya’s eyes on you, heavy with a mixture of pity and confusion. "Are you.. is everything okay?" she whispered.
"It's fine," you lied, the words tasting like ash. "Just... a long day."
As you slid into the back of the car, the scent of the interior, expensive leather, rain, and that faint, sharp undertone of mint that always seemed to cling to Damian’s presence hit you.
The seat was heated, perfectly adjusted to a temperature you hadn't chosen but always found comfortable. The door closed with a heavy, pressurized thud, sealing you into a private, silent world.
You didn't have to check your phone to know he was watching. You could feel the weight of his attention even from miles away.
When you finally reached the penthouse, the lights were dimmed to a soft, amber glow. The apartment was silent, save for the low hum of the climate control. You kicked off your shoes, feeling the sudden, overwhelming urge to just crawl into bed and disappear, but the routine wouldn't allow it.
Damian was waiting in the living area. He wasn't sitting on the sofa like you expected. He was standing by the floor to ceiling windows, a glass of dark liquid in his hand.
He didn't turn when you entered. He didn't need to. He knew the cadence of your footsteps. He knew the exact moment you crossed the threshold.
"You're late," he said. It didn’t sound like a scolding.
"The dinner ran long," you replied, trying to keep your voice steady. You walked past him toward the kitchen, but he moved with a sudden, fluid grace, intercepting your path.
His tall, lean frame cast a long shadow over you. He reached out, his hand moving to your chin, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw with gentle pressure.
His touch was reminiscent of how he handled the high bred hounds at the manor. Firm, possessive, and entirely devoid of the hesitation one might show a peer.
"You look disheveled," he murmured, his eyes scanning your face, searching for any sign of distress, any sign of 'damage' caused by the outside world. "The city is loud, chaotic. It's too much for you. You shouldn't be out there so late, where things are unpredictable."
"I'm not a child, Damian," you said, though the words felt weak even to your own ears.
"No," he agreed, his thumb moving to brush against your lower lip. "You are much more precious than a child. You are.. delicate. You require a specific kind of stewardship."
He leaned in closer, his scent that cool, sharp mint enveloping you. "When you wander without a leash, you get lost. You get tired. You let people like Maya fill your time with trivialities that serve no purpose for your well being."
A shiver ran down your spine. He spoke of your life as if it were a garden he had planted. He didn't see your independence as a virtue, he saw it as a vulnerability.
"I have dinner planned for you tomorrow," he said, his voice dropping to that smooth, harmonic register that usually calmed you, but now made your heart race with a strange, trapped sensation. "Something light. Something that will help you recover from today's.. exertion."
He stepped back, finally releasing you, but the space he left behind felt cold. He turned his gaze toward the window again, the conversation effectively over.
"Go wash up," he commanded softly. "I've already laid out your clothes. The silk ones. They're softer on your skin."
As you walked toward the bedroom, you realised with a sinking heart that he hadn't even asked how your night was. He hadn't asked if you enjoyed the food or if Maya had said anything interesting. He only cared that you had returned to the enclosure. He only cared that his most cherished thing was back where it belonged: within his reach, under his eyes, and entirely under his care.
You felt like a bird in a gilded cage, and the most terrifying part was how much you had started to rely on the bars to keep you upright.
You had found it tucked away in a drawer of a desk in the library at the manor. A drawer you were never supposed to touch, a space meant for his private ledgers.
It was a small, leather bound sketchbook. Looked to be as old if not older than Damian himself.
You had opened it, expecting business notes or tactical maps.
Instead, you found your own soul.
Every "Are you there?" you had scrawled on your skin as a lonely child was there, preserved in his precise, elegant ink. Every "Please answer" was captured in his beautiful, sweeping script. He hadn't ignored you. He had collected you. He had been reading your heart for years, documenting your loneliness as if it were a sacred text.
The notebook slipped from your hands, hitting the thick rug with a dull thud.
Page after page of your own handwriting stared back at you. Preserved.
Every childish question. Every lonely afternoon. Every desperate, humiliating attempt to convince yourself someone might be listening.
You remembered writing most of them.
You remembered crying after some of them.
You remembered eventually stopping.
Your entire life reduced to paper.
"You were always a curious one," a smooth, deep voice drifted from the doorway.
You bolted upright, your heart hammering hard against your ribs. Damian stood there, silhouetted by the warm light of the hallway. He didn't look angry. He didn't look caught. He looked... satisfied.
"You-you’re.." you breathed, the words trembling. "My soulmate..?"
Damian crossed the room, his movements silent and predatory. He didn't stop until he was hovering over you.
He sank to his knees in front of you, reaching out. His fingers tangled in your hair, petting you with that same, terrifyingly gentle devotion he gave to his most prized pets.
"I was observing," he corrected softly, his deep emerald eyes locked onto yours. "I was waiting until you were ready. Until the world had finished bruising you so that I could be the one to mend you."
"You've been mending me?" You let out a breathless, hysterical laugh. "Damian, you've been curating me! The cars, the security, the 'routines'.. you weren't helping me live. You were making sure I didn't wander off!"
"And why shouldn't you be kept close?" He leaned in, his forehead resting against yours.
His scent that cool, intoxicating mint filled your senses, making your head swim. "The world is a jagged, cruel place. It doesn't know how to handle someone as precious as you. They see a person, they see a worker, a friend, a stranger. They don't see the miracle that you are."
"I'm not a miracle," you protested, trying to push his chest away, but your hands felt weak against his lean muscle. "I am a person. I have a life. I have choices."
"You have my choices," he whispered, his hand sliding down to cup your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin with a rhythmic, soothing motion. "And they are all designed for your happiness. Is it so wrong to want to ensure your comfort? To ensure you are fed, rested, and loved without the interference of the mundane?"
He leaned forward and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your temple. It burned. Felt nothing like the passion you’d always hoped for.
"You're sick.." you whispered, the word feeling absurd in the face of his overwhelming tenderness.
Damian pulled back just enough to look you in the eye, a small, boyish grin the one that usually looked charming but now looked devastating touching his lips. "A harsh term. I prefer... devoted."
He stood up, reaching down to take your hand. He didn't pull you, he simply offered his palm, waiting for you to take it. It was an invitation, but you knew it was also a command.
"Come," he said, his voice a warm, melodic hum. "You've had a shock. You're trembling. Let's get you settled. I've had Alfred prepare that tea you like, and the new linens are ready." His voice was calm.
If anything, faintly disappointed when you didn’t move. Like bat-cow had wandered somewhere she wasn’t meant to and now required collecting.
You looked at him. Really looked. For the first time since meeting him, pieces that had never seemed connected began slotting together with nauseating precision.
The lunches. The phone calls. The coat. Your coffee. The security downstairs who somehow always recognised you. The reception staff who smiled before you’d spoken. The meetings that always happened to include Damian, regardless of whether they had anything to do with Wayne Enterprises. The quiet, invisible way your life had bent around him until his presence no longer felt unusual.
You couldn’t remember when that had happened. Perhaps that was the point.
“…It was you.”
It came out barely above a whisper. “The whole time.”
Damian crossed the room without hurry.
He stopped close enough that you could smell the familiar scent of mint clinging to his clothes. “I had intended to tell you.”
“When?”
“When it no longer frightened you.”
You laughed. A small, broken sound that didn’t resemble amusement.
“You’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”
“I omitted information.”
“You watched me tell you about my soulmate.”
“Yes.”
“You listened while I told you I wished I’d been born normal.”
His expression changed then. Something softened around his eyes. “I know.”
“I know,” he repeated quietly. “I read every one of those thoughts long before you said them aloud.”
He reached past you, lifting the notebook from the floor with surprising care before setting it back on the desk.
“I remember every message.” His fingertips rested against the worn leather cover.
“‘Are you there?’”
Your breathing caught.
“‘Please answer.’”
You couldn’t move.
“‘I think something’s wrong with me.’”
He recited them without looking.
He already knew them. Every single one.
“I was eight,” you whispered.
“I know.”
“I thought…” Your voice failed.
“I know.”
You stared at him. “You don’t understand.”
“No.”
He looked back at you with complete certainty. “I understand perfectly.” There was no hesitation. No apology. No shame. “I know what you believed.”
His gaze drifted briefly toward your forearm before returning to your face.
“I know how often you blamed yourself.”
He lifted a hand, brushing an invisible crease from your sleeve with the same absent care he’d shown a hundred times before.
“I know you stopped buying caramel because I preferred vanilla. I know you only pretend to like herbal tea. I know you sleep better if the room is colder. I know you become overwhelmed when supermarkets are crowded. I know you forget to eat whenever work becomes stressful.”
A flicker of genuine confusion crossed his face. “I know you better than anyone.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Of course I have.” The answer came so naturally that, for a second, it almost sounded ridiculous that you’d asked.
“I lost so many years.” His voice remained even. “I have been correcting that.”
He looked around the room. At the books on the shelves. The chair by the window. The cup of tea growing cold beside the sofa. Your home.
Then he looked back at you. “I have spent every day since finding you making your life easier.” He smiled softly. “You call it manipulation because you insist on imagining the life you had before I arrived.” He stepped closer. “So do I.”
There was no triumph in his expression. Only something devastatingly gentle. “I remember the person who apologised for taking up space. The person who believed fate had simply… forgotten them.”
His hand settled lightly against your cheek. “I remember because I was the one reading it.”
“You keep looking at everything I’ve done and asking yourself how I could justify it.” His forehead rested lightly against yours. “You’ve misunderstood.”
His voice dropped into something almost unbearably soft. “I’ve never had to.”
There wasn’t the slightest doubt in him. Not after the notebook. Not after the messages. Not after so many years. In Damian’s mind, he’d already spent a lifetime loving you.
The only difference now was that you finally knew his name.
Please comment and reblog :)
13K+ words, 77K+ characters, 1K+ sentences, 1K+ paragraphs, 47 minute average reading time, 1 hour 11 minute average speaking time.
I lowkey really rushed this one to get it out before the end of the month, so I apologise if it’s obvious
Yandere Tim Drake x Soulmate Reader (Warnings: very brief mention of past sh, unconscious groping, etc.)
Everyone had a soulmate.
It was simply a fact of life, as ordinary and inevitable as the tide rolling against the shore or the sunrise spilling gold across Gotham’s skyline each morning.
Most people shared pain.
A scraped knee for one meant a sting of sympathy for the other. Broken bones, headaches, paper cuts, small reminders that somewhere in the world existed another person tethered to your life by an invisible thread.
Others shared emotions, dreams, memories.
Tim Drake had words.
Two simple words etched into the inside of his left wrist in neat black script.
That’s mine
His mother had cried when she first saw them.
Not because she was upset, quite the opposite. Janet Drake had spent years documenting soulmate phenomena across the globe, and a verbal bond was extraordinarily rare.
His father had immediately started researching statistics.
Less than three percent of soulmates received words. Less than .5 percent remembered hearing them.
“You’ll know them the moment they speak,” his mother told him one evening as she adjusted the cuff of his tiny dress shirt before another charity gala. “Isn’t that exciting?”
Tim looked down at his wrist.
That’s mine
“I guess.”
His mother laughed softly. “You don’t sound very excited.”
Tim shrugged. At eight years old, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel.
Soulmates mattered. Everyone knew that.
His classmates talked about theirs constantly.
Some compared phantom aches from their shared-pain bonds. Others spent recess imagining how their lives would be together.
Tim listened more than he spoke.
He preferred facts. Questions. Patterns.
How could words know who they belonged to before either person was born? Were they predetermined? Did people still have choices? What happened if soulmates never met?
His teachers rarely had answers.
His parents were usually too busy to discuss it.
The Drakes loved him. Tim knew they did. But love and presence weren’t always the same thing. His father spent most of his time working. His mother traveled constantly. Some months, he saw them more in framed photos scattered around the house than in person.
The manor was always full of staff and tutors and carefully planned schedules, yet somehow felt impossibly empty.
Tim grew used to eating dinner with adults paid to be there.
He learned early how to entertain himself.
Books, puzzles, documentaries, the small television in his room, where he rewatched recordings of the Flying Graysons until he knew every movement by heart.
People left. That was simply another fact of life.
His parents always came home eventually, but there was always another trip. Another meeting. Another promise of next week.
Sometimes, late at night, Tim would trace the letters on his wrist with his thumb and wonder.
That’s mine
Possessive. Confident.
The opposite of everything Tim felt.
Whoever they were, they sounded like someone who knew exactly what they wanted.
Someone who would point at him without hesitation and say, Mine.
The thought warmed something quiet inside his chest.
Maybe one day there would be someone who chose him first. Someone who stayed.
“Timothy!”
He glanced up from his wrist. His mother’s assistant stood in the doorway.
“Your parents are leaving for the airport.”
Tim slipped his sleeve back down. “Okay.” He followed the familiar route downstairs.
His father kissed the top of his head absentmindedly while checking his watch. His mother promised she’d bring him something back from Singapore.
Three weeks, this time. Maybe four.
“We love you, sweetheart.”
Tim smiled because he knew he was supposed to. “I love you too.”
Then the front doors closed behind them. The house settled into silence.
Tim looked down at his wrist.
That’s mine
Someday, he thought, he’d meet the person those words belonged to.
Someday, there would be someone who wouldn’t leave.
He had no way of knowing that in less than a year, standing on a crowded beach with salt in the air and sand clinging to his toes, he’d hear those exact words spoken aloud.
Or that he would spend the rest of his life trying to find them again.
Everyone had soulmates.
You grew up with the knowledge the same way you grew up knowing the sky was blue and the ocean was deep.
It simply was.
Some people shared pain. Others shared dreams or emotions or marks or memories.
Your soulmate had words.
Four of them, written in dark script along the inside of your wrist.
Can I see that?
Your dad had laughed the first time you asked what they meant.
“I don’t know, Bub. That’s the fun part.”
You traced the letters with your fingertip. “Do you think they’re nice?”
“I think,” he said, setting down the book he’d been reading, “that someone who asks permission before touching your things probably has good manners.”
You considered that very seriously. That sounded nice. Most things about soulmates sounded nice.
You didn’t think about it much. Your soulmate existed somewhere in the world. Eventually, you’d meet them.
Until then, there were more important things to worry about.
Like whether you could convince dad to cut the crusts off your sandwiches. Or whether the stray cat behind your building would finally let you pet it. Or if you’d be allowed to stay up past your bedtime to watch Cartoon Network.
Life was small in the way childhood always was.
Warm hands on your shoulders. Stories before bed. The magical fairies who always put your favorite snacks in your bag. Someone waiting for you after school.
You never doubted that you were loved. Not once.
Even when your dad got busy. Even when money was tight. Even when life became messy in all the ordinary ways life tended to.
You were never alone.
So while other children treated soulmates like missing pieces, you thought of yours more like a surprise waiting to happen.
Someone to look forward to. Who would eventually become important. But not yet. For now, your world was made up of smaller certainties.
The comfort of home. The sound of laughter from the kitchen. The warmth of sunlight spilling across your bedroom floor. And the beach.
You loved the beach.
Especially during summer.
The wind carried the sharp scent of salt through the air as waves crashed against the shore in a rhythm you could never quite predict.
Dad sat further back beneath a striped umbrella with a book open in his lap.
Every so often, he looked up to make sure you were still nearby.
You always were.
You darted along the shoreline barefoot, collecting seashells and smooth pieces of sea glass in a small plastic bucket.
The ocean foam chased your feet. Seagulls cried overhead. Children laughed nearby.
Everything felt bright.
A stronger gust of wind swept across the beach. Something light slipped from your hands and tumbled away across the sand.
You gasped.
Then immediately took off after it, your laughter carried away by the ocean breeze.
Tim almost said no when his mother asked.
Not because he didn't want to go, but cause experience had taught him not to get too excited.
Plans changed. Flights got moved forward. Meetings ran long. Emergencies happened.
He'd learned years ago that disappointment stung less when he expected it.
So when Janet Drake appeared in the doorway of the study where he'd been working through a puzzle book and said, "Your father and I have the whole weekend free," Tim had looked up suspiciously.
"The whole weekend?"
His father leaned against the doorframe behind her, smiling. "The whole weekend."
No phones. No assistants. No business dinners. Just the three of them.
Tim waited for the catch.
There wasn't one.
"Anywhere you want to go," his mother promised. "Your choice."
For a moment, Tim considered museums. The aquarium. The planetarium. Then he thought about summer heat and salty air and waves crashing against the shore.
"The beach," he decided.
His parents exchanged a surprised look.
"The beach?" his father repeated.
Tim nodded.
He'd only been a handful of times before, always during business trips when his parents could spare an hour or two.
He liked it. The patterns of the waves. The seashells hidden in the sand. The endless horizon stretching farther than he could see.
Mostly, he liked that people stayed at the beach. No one seemed in a hurry there.
"Then the beach it is."
True to their word, they left early the next morning.
The drive felt strange in the best way. His mother sang quietly along to the radio. His father let Tim pick the music. Nobody checked their watches. Nobody took business calls. For once, Tim had their full attention.
The feeling settled warm and unfamiliar in his chest.
By the time they reached the coast, the sun sat high overhead.
The beach was crowded.
Children raced through the surf. Couples crowded beneath colorful umbrellas. The air smelled like sunscreen and salt.
His parents set up their chairs a short distance from the water.
His mother pressed sunscreen into his hands with strict instructions to reapply every few hours.
His father handed him a towel for swimming.
Tim smiled.
Then headed toward the shoreline. The ocean foam curled around his ankles as he walked.
He searched carefully through the wet sand, studying each shell before deciding whether it was worth keeping.
Behind him, he could hear his parents talking softly.
Every so often, he glanced back to make sure they were still there.
They always were.
A sudden gust of wind swept across the beach.
Something colorful tumbled through the air a few feet ahead of him.
A small shovel.
Tim moved before he thought about it, stepping forward and catching it before another gust could carry it away.
He turned it over in his hands. Bright plastic swayed lazily in the sea breeze.
Then he heard a voice behind him.
"That's mine!"
The world stopped.
His breath caught. Heat rushed through his body so suddenly it made him dizzy.
Slowly, impossibly slowly, Tim looked down.
The words on the inside of his wrist burned.
That's mine
Every sound around him faded beneath the rushing in his ears.
He knew those words. He'd traced them countless times. Dreamed about them. Wondered about them. And now they belonged to a voice. To a person.
Tim turned around and saw you.
You stood a few feet away, slightly out of breath from running, your bucket swinging from one hand.
You were younger than him. Seven, maybe.
Sand clung to your knees, your hair messy from the wind, and there was a tiny gap where one of your front teeth had recently fallen out.
You looked completely ordinary.
And somehow, you were the most important person Tim had ever seen.
You frowned when he didn’t say anything. “Um… my shovel?”
Right. The shovel.
Tim handed it back with shaking fingers.
Then, before he could lose his nerve, he blurted out the question you’d imagined hearing for years.
“Can I see that?”
Your eyes widened. Then, almost immediately, your gaze dropped to your own wrist.
Tim followed it.
When you looked back up at him, confusion and wonder mixed across your face.
Slowly, you held out your arm.
His words.
His exact words.
Tim stared. His soulmate. He’d found them.
You stared at him with equal fascination. “You’re my soulmate?” The question came out small.
Tim felt something inside his chest loosen for the first time in his life. “Yeah,” he whispered.
You grinned. Just like that. No hesitation or uncertainty. Just simply joy.
“Cool.”
Cool. As though the entire universe hadn’t shifted beneath his feet.
Like you hadn’t just become the answer to every question he’d ever asked late at night while tracing words on his wrist.
Your excitement was immediate and uncomplicated. Tim envied that.
Before he could think of what to say next, an adult voice called your name from further down the beach.
You waved in their direction.
“My dad’s over there!”
Tim glanced toward the striped worn out umbrella and the man watching the two of you with open curiosity.
You turned back to him. “Want to play?”
The answer should have been obvious. Still, Tim had never been asked that question with such easy sincerity before.
He nodded. “Okay.”
And somehow, that single word changed everything.
The two-year age gap disappeared within minutes.
You talked enough for both of you, filling every quiet moment with stories while Tim listened intently.
You showed him the smooth sea glass you’d collected.
He taught you how to tell the difference between oyster shells and clam shells.
You built sprawling sandcastles connected by winding trenches that the tide eventually claimed.
You chased waves until your shorts were soaked.
You buried his feet in the sand.
He let you.
When seagulls stole one of your crackers, you laughed so hard you nearly fell over.
Tim found himself laughing too. Really laughing. Not the polite smiles he wore at galas. Not the careful amusement he showed adults. Something warm and bright spilled through him every time you smiled at him. Like sunlight after weeks of rain.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn’t feel lonely.
It was strange. How someone he’d only known for a few hours could make the world feel different. Like he’d spent his entire life holding his breath without realising it. And now, sitting beside you in the sand while you proudly displayed a misshapen seashell you’d declared lucky, Tim finally exhaled.
This was what everyone talked about when they talked about soulmates. Not destiny. Not marks. Not magic. This.
The feeling that you’d found someone who fit beside you so naturally that being apart suddenly made no sense at all.
You looked up at him and smiled.
Tim smiled back.
Mine, he thought.
For the first time in his life, Tim knew exactly what he wanted.
And for the first time in his life, he believed he could have it.
→←↓↑
The sun began to sink lower in the sky far too quickly.
Tim noticed because your father stood from his chair and started packing away towels.
No. No, it couldn’t be that late already.
You were still explaining your very serious theory that seagulls were secretly spies.
“We have to go soon,” your dad called.
You looked up, your face immediately falling. “Aww.”
Something uncomfortable twisted in Tim’s chest.
“Can we stay a little longer?” you asked hopefully.
Your dad checked his watch and shook his head apologetically. “We still have to drive back.”
You sighed dramatically before turning back to Tim. “I guess I have to go.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Tim’s eyes dropped to your wrist.
Can I see that?
Then to his own.
That’s mine
Proof.
Even if you left, the words would stay. You couldn’t disappear completely. Soulmates always found each other. Everyone knew that. His mother had told him so.
You stood, brushing sand from your shorts. “Can we see each other again?”
“Yes,” Tim answered immediately. Too quickly. His cheeks warmed.
Your smile returned instantly. “Okay!”
Of course you would. You were soulmates. That was how this worked.
Tim stood too, suddenly aware that he didn’t know your last name. Or your phone number. Or where you lived.
Panic flickered briefly beneath his ribs. “We should-”
“Timothy.”
His mother waved from several yards away. “We need to get going soon.”
Not yet.
Please, not yet.
He looked back at you. Your father had already gathered your things.
Adults were always in a hurry.
The thought came suddenly and irrationally.
Adults ruined everything.
“Can I have your number?” Tim asked.
You blinked. “My what?”
Right. You were seven.
Your dad laughed as he walked over. “I don’t think they know our number by heart.”
Heat crawled up Tim’s neck. Of course you didn’t.
Think.
Addresses. Last names. Anything.
“Maybe we can write letters!” you suggested brightly.
Your father smiled. “That’s a good idea.”
Relief rushed through Tim so hard his knees felt weak.
Yes. Letters. Of course.
Your father knelt beside you. “Why don’t you get something to write on?”
You nodded enthusiastically and ran back toward the umbrella.
Tim turned to his parents, excitement bubbling in his chest so fiercely it almost hurt.
His mother was smiling.
His father looked amused.
“Soulmates, huh?” Jack asked softly.
Tim couldn’t stop smiling.
“Yeah.”
His mother squeezed his shoulder. “We’re happy for you, sweetheart.”
Everything felt right. Perfect. As if the universe had finally clicked into place.
You returned moments later with a purple marker and a wrinkled napkin.
Tim carefully wrote down his home address. Double-checked it twice, then handed you the marker.
You copied yours beneath it in large, uneven letters. Your handwriting tilted crookedly across the paper.
Tim thought it was the most important thing he’d ever held.
You tore the napkin in half.
One for you.
One for him.
Insurance.
Smart.
His soulmate was smart.
“I’ll write first,” you promised.
Tim folded the paper carefully and tucked it into the pocket of his shorts. “I’ll write back.”
You grinned.
“Deal.”
Then your father called your name again.
This time, you couldn’t delay. You waved at him. Then at Tim.
“Bye, Tim!”
His chest squeezed painfully. “Bye.”
You ran back toward your dad.
Halfway there, you turned around one last time and waved again.
Tim waved back immediately.
Only when you disappeared into the crowd did he lower his hand.
The beach suddenly felt quieter. Emptier. But it was okay. Because he had your address.
You’d write first. Then he’d write back. And this wouldn’t be goodbye.
Soulmates always found each other. Everyone knew that.
Tim pressed a hand over the pocket holding your half of the napkin.
The paper crackled softly beneath his palm. Safe.
Everything was going to be okay.
He had no way of knowing that by the time he sent his first letter, your family would already be gone.
No forwarding address. No phone number. Nothing.
Just two words inked onto his skin.
And the memory of a summer afternoon that would define the rest of his life.
The Batcave was quiet at three in the morning.
Not quite silent. Computers still hummed softly. Monitors cast blue light across polished metal surfaces. Somewhere overhead, water dripped steadily through ancient stone.
Most people would have called the hour late. Tim called it productive.
A half-empty coffee cup sat forgotten beside his keyboard.
Three different cases waited on adjacent screens.
An unsolved string of robberies. A League of Assassins weapons shipment. A missing persons report.
Tim ignored all of them.
Instead, he stared at a photograph taken twelve years ago.
The image quality was terrible. The edges were worn from use, the colors faded by time.
Two children sat cross-legged in the sand beside a lopsided castle.
A nine-year-old Tim grinned openly at the camera. The seven-year-old beside him was laughing.
Tim had memorised every pixel.
He knew exactly where the sunlight hit your face. Knew the shape of your smile. Knew the tiny crack running through the plastic bucket sitting between you.
The original photo lived in a fireproof safe upstairs.
This was one of the digital copies. One of hundreds.
His fingers drifted to his wrist.
That’s mine
The words had never faded.
Not after his mother’s death. Not after his father’s funeral. Not after becoming Robin. Not after being pushed into Red Robin. Not after years of searching.
They remained as dark and certain as the day he’d first heard them.
Proof that you existed. That you were still out there.
Tim had built entire investigations from less.
Over the years, he’d searched for you with a determination that bordered on insanity.
School records. Property databases. Archived census information. Social media. Facial recognition software. The Batcomputer.
Every new technology became another opportunity. Every dead end became another reason to keep looking.
He’d found international criminals more easily than he’d found you.
It shouldn’t have been possible.
But all he’d ever had was a nickname, a childhood address, and a photograph.
The apartment listed on the napkin had been empty by the time his first letter arrived.
Moved. No forwarding address.
The landlord hadn’t remembered where.
Your father’s phone number had been disconnected within the year.
After that, the trail vanished.
You vanished. Just like everyone else.
Tim pressed his thumb against the words on his wrist, digging in hard enough to sting. The area was crowded with thick, old scars, but the words were still clear. Even when things were at their worst, he’d never dared to slice through the letters.
Across the cave, laughter echoed from the stairs.
Dick. Jason. Damian.
Family.
People who stayed. Mostly.
Tim minimised the photo before any of them could walk over and see.
He’d made rhe mistake once.
Dick had found him at sixteen, sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor surrounded by maps and newspaper clippings.
“What’re you working on?”
Tim had frozen for a second too long and Dick had seen the picture. Seen the soulmate mark. The pure desperation.
Tim still remembered the concern in his brother’s voice. “You know they’ll come back into your life eventually, right?”
Tim hadn’t answered. Because that wasn’t what scared him. Finding you had never been the problem. Losing you again was.
And what if, after all these years, you met Dick first? Dick, with his effortless charm and easy smiles.
What if you met Jason? Jason, who filled every room he walked into.
What if you met Damian? Brilliant. Confident. Unapologetically himself.
Fuck.
Tim rubbed a hand over his face. The thoughts were irrational. He knew that.
You were soulmates. His soulmate.
His.
The universe had written your first words onto his skin before either of you were born.
Still, the fear remained. Because soulmates weren’t guarantees.
He’d seen enough failed bonds to know that. People walked away from soulmates all the time. People chose other people. People left.
The words on his wrist proved destiny.
They didn’t prove love.
His computer chimed softly. A notification. Another failed search parameter.
Tim closed it without reading.
He’d check again tomorrow. Run new algorithms. Cross-reference new databases. Keep looking.
He always kept looking.
Because somewhere out there, you still carried four words on your wrist.
Words he’d spoken before he knew how much they would matter.
Words that had become the center of his entire life.
Can I see that?
You probably traced them absentmindedly while waiting in line for coffee. Probably laughed when people asked about them. Maybe you told the beach story sometimes. Maybe you didn’t remember it at all.
The thought hollowed him out.
He remembered everything.
The sound of your laugh. The way you buried his feet in the sand. The gap between your front teeth. The way you’d turned around to wave at him one last time.
He remembered because he’d never stopped needing to.
Because forgetting had never even been an option.
Tim opened the pic again. Zoomed in, just a little. As if getting closer to the screen could somehow bridge twelve years.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered into the empty cave.
The promise was soft. Certain. The same way those words had always been.
He’d spent more than half his life searching. And Tim Drake was not someone prone to giving up.
University wasn’t anything like you’d expected.
Everyone had promised it would be the best years of your life.
Mostly, it was just busy.
Assignments piled up faster than you could finish them. Your sleep schedule was held together by caffeine and wishful thinking. Half your meals came from the campus café because grocery shopping required a level of organisation you simply didn’t possess.
Still, you liked it. You liked the freedom. The independence. The way nobody cared if you wore the same hoodie three days in a row.
Your world had become pleasantly ordinary.
Evening lectures. Study groups. Late-night takeout with friends. Dinner with your dad every Sunday evening.
Life moved forward in small, comfortable routines.
Soulmates fit somewhere inside that routine. Not at the centre of it. Just… there. A fact of life. An eventuality.
You’d never been one of those people who obsessed over their soulmate mark.
Maybe it was because your bond wasn’t particularly unusual. Words were rare, sure, but not unheard of.
Or maybe it was because the words themselves didn’t tell you much.
Can I see that?
People asked about them all the time. Friends in high school had theories.
Maybe your soulmate worked in museums. Maybe they were an artist. Maybe they were just really nosy.
You usually laughed and changed the subject. Because the truth was, you didn’t know.
You’d heard the words once. Apparently.
You remembered flashes of a beach. A boy. Older than you, maybe.
The memory shifted every time you tried to hold onto it.
Childhood was like that.
Important moments blurred around the edges until you weren’t sure whether you truly remembered them or had simply heard the story too many times.
Your dad remembered more than you did.
Every few years, he’d bring it up with a fond smile.
“Remember when you met your soulmate at the beach?”
You always laughed. “Not really.”
His expression turned wistful every time. “You were inseparable all day.”
You believed him. You just couldn’t remember. Not properly. There were no photos. No letters. No evidence beyond four words inked onto your skin.
Sometimes you wondered if your soulmate remembered. Or if they’d forgotten too.
The thought never upset you.
Life was busy. If they were meant to come back into your life, they would.
You traced the words on your wrist absentmindedly as you sat outside the library, waiting for your next class to start.
Can I see that?
Around you, campus buzzed with life. Students hurried between lectures. Someone laughed nearby. A group passed carrying redbulls and complaining about an upcoming exam.
Your phone buzzed. A message from your dad.
Don’t forget dinner this weekend.
You smiled despite yourself.
I’m nineteen. I won’t forget the dinner we plan every week.
The typing bubble appeared instantly.
You’ll still be my kid when you’re ninety.
Shaking your head, you slipped your phone back into your pocket.
You had a lecture in ten minutes. An essay due next week. Plans with friends on Friday. A whole life unfolding in front of you.
You stood and adjusted your bag over your shoulder.
Completely unaware that, less than twenty miles away, someone was running your photograph through facial recognition software.
Unaware that someone had spent the last twelve years searching for you.
That somewhere beneath Gotham, a man who knew the exact shape of your childhood smile was whispering your name to himself like a prayer.
To you, your soulmate was a pleasant mystery.
To Tim Drake, you had become an obsession.
←↓↑→
The Batcomputer chimed again. A different sound this time.
A match.
Tim froze.
The notification sat in the corner of the screen for almost three full seconds before he trusted himself enough to breathe.
Possible facial recognition match found.
Similarity: 91.3%
His chair scraped violently across the cave floor. “No…” The word barely made it out.
His fingers were already moving. Open. Enhance. Cross-reference.
The photo filled the monitor.
Not the child from the beach. An adult. Older. Nineteen.
Your jaw had sharpened. Your hair was different. You’d grown into your features the way children always did.
But your smile..
His heart stopped. It was you. It had to be. The same eyes. The same crooked little smile he’d memorised from a photograph so faded he’d reconstructed parts of it by hand.
He didn’t realise he was crying until a tear landed on the keyboard.
“I found you…” The words cracked apart in his throat.
Twelve years of dead ends. Of wondering if he’d imagined that day on the beach.
And here you were. Real.
Tim laughed. It sounded dangerously close to a sob. “You’re okay.”
His hands shook so violently he mistyped twice trying to open the source.
A public Instagram account. Must’ve been someone else’s, since you’d been tagged.
A university friend, judging from the captions.
He clicked.
More photos. You outside a café. You in the library. You wearing an oversized hoodie while holding a coffee nearly as big as your head.
You’d always hated crusts. You pushed your sleeves over your hands. You still smiled with your whole face. Every tiny detail hit him like another heartbeat.
He couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop smiling.
“I found you.”
You looked… Happy.
His chest hurt.
You’d grown up. Without him. Without a single letter. Without remembering him.
Guilt settled somewhere deep inside his ribs.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner.
I’m here now.
I’ll never lose you again.
He clicked the next post. His smile disappeared. You stood beside someone about your age. Their arms wrapped around your shoulders. They leaned over to kiss your cheek.
You were making the most exaggerated expression of disgust imaginable, nose scrunched, lips pulled away dramatically while the caption underneath read:
Admit it, you love me ♡
Anyone else would’ve laughed.
Tim knew it wasn’t romantic. He could see that. He understood body language. Read micro-expressions. Built psychological profiles from less. They were friends.
Just friends.
But then why were they touching you?
His breathing slowed. The cave suddenly felt much colder.
Their hand rested so naturally against your shoulder. Like they’d done it before.
They’d probably hugged you. Sat beside you. Heard you laugh. Been there while you were becoming.. you.
They’d lived twelve years Tim had been denied. Twelve years that should have been his.
Jealousy wasn’t the right word. It felt uglier than that. Hungrier.
Tim rested his forehead against his clasped hands. “That’s selfish.” His voice came out hoarse.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Of course you hadn’t. You deserved friends. You deserved people who loved you. People who looked after you. You deserved everything. He should be grateful someone had been there while he hadn’t.
He should.
…
But why did it feel like something inside him was being torn apart?
Why couldn’t he stop staring at the place their lips touched your cheek?
Why did he want to beat-
No.
Tim squeezed his eyes shut hard enough to hurt.
Don’t think that. They’re important to you. If they’re important to you…
Then they’re important to me.
The words sounded rehearsed. Like he was trying to convince himself.
Another notification blinked in the corner of the monitor.
“Replacement patrol assigned.”
Followed almost immediately by another from Bruce.
Where are you?
Tim didn’t even look. His eyes never left your face.
“I found you.” This time, the whisper wasn’t joyful. It was reverent. Almost prayerful.
“Please..”
His thumb brushed lightly across your smiling face on the screen.
“Please still want me.”
Months passed before he let himself stand within twenty metres of you.
Not because he lacked the opportunity. He just couldn’t risk ruining it.
You deserved a proper reunion. He’d rehearsed it hundreds of times.
“Hi.”
Too casual.
“You probably don’t remember me…”
Too pathetic.
“We met once, years ago.”
Too unbelievable.
So he waited. And watched.
He learnt your timetable before he ever learnt the sound of your adult voice.
Tuesday lectures started at one thirty. You always arrived a few minutes early.
You bought the same coffee every Wednesday, except during exam weeks, when you switched to doubles without even realising you were doing it.
You texted your friends while waiting for pedestrian crossings.
You hummed when you cooked.
You don’t lock your front window.
Tim fixed that after you went to sleep.
The first time he’d climbed through your garden to latch it from the inside, he’d almost laughed at himself.
This is insane. He knew that. He also knew the suburb’s burglary statistics.
The window stayed locked after that.
You never noticed.
Good.
You weren’t supposed to.
He never took anything. That would’ve made it real.
Instead he’d straighten the photo frame you’d knocked crooked. Move your forgotten wallet a little further from the edge of the kitchen bench. Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm after it chirped once at three in the morning.
Tiny enough things that you might’ve assumed you’d done yourself.
He wasn’t trying to change your life.
He was only… smoothing the edges. Helping. Protecting.
The files on the Batcomputer grew thicker.
Medical history. University records. Favourite takeaway. Allergies. Blood type. Emergency contacts. Your friends.
Every single one received their own folder.
It’s not like Tim distrusted them. It’s just that if one of them ever needed help getting to you, he wanted to know before they did.
He read their social media. Their public records. Their routines. Who they dated. Whether they drank too much. Whether they drove distracted. Whether they’d ever hurt anyone. If they were kind to you.
Tim found himself quietly grateful.
If they made you cry, he’d spend the rest of the night staring at their name.
His fingers hovering over keyboards. Databases. Background checks. One command. He could dismantle someone’s entire life before sunrise.
He never pressed Enter.
Because that wasn’t what you would’ve wanted. And your happiness mattered more than his anger. It always would.
←↓↑→
Bruce noticed first.
“You’ve stopped sleeping.”
“I’m busy.”
“You haven’t been running facial recognition software anymkre.”
Silence.
Bruce sighed. “You found them.”
Tim didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Bruce’s expression softened for only a second. “I’m glad they’re alive.”
“So am I.”
Another silence.
“You haven’t spoken to them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Tim looked back towards the glowing monitor. Your face smiled back from a candid photo one of your friends had uploaded that afternoon.
What if you looked at him and didn’t remember? What if twelve years had turned him into a stranger?
He could survive broken bones. Gunshots. The Joker. He wasn’t sure he could survive watching confusion replace your smile.
So instead, he watched from afar. Close enough to stop anything bad from reaching you. Far enough that you never had to know there had been danger at all.
If someone followed you home, they found another route. If your tire went flat, roadside assistance somehow arrived before you’d even finished pulling over. If your wallet went missing, it appeared at the nearest police station before you’d cancelled your cards.
Tim preferred it that way. Because heroes weren’t supposed to ask for thanks.
And if protecting you was the only place he still belonged, then that was enough.
It had to be.
Because wanting anything more felt unforgivably selfish.
Some nights, though, when he watched your bedroom light switch off, he’d rest two fingers against the computer screen.
“I miss you.” A tiny, tired smile.
“You don’t even know me.” His voice cracked. “But I know you.”
He swallowed hard. “And that’s enough. It has to be.”
You’d always considered yourself a pretty lucky person.
Not lottery-winning lucky. More ‘weird little coincidences’ lucky.
Like the time your car decided to die halfway home after a late shift.
You’d barely managed to pull onto the shoulder before an RACQ van rolled around the corner.
The bloke had laughed.
“Perfect timing.”
You’d laughed too. “What are the odds?”
Or when you’d realised you’d left your wallet at the café.
You’d panicked for all of thirty seconds before the staff smiled and held it up.
“Someone dropped it into us.”
No cash missing. Cards untouched. You’d gone home convinced there were still decent people in the world.
Then there was the time your smoke alarm had stopped making that awful chirping noise before you’d gotten around to buying batteries.
You assumed you’d imagined hearing it.
Then the dodgy latch on your bedroom window had somehow started working again.
Finally.
About bloody time.
You made a mental note to thank your landlord.
You forgot.
Life just happened like that. Little inconveniences solving themselves. Disasters never fully becoming disasters.
You figured everyone had stories like yours.
Didn’t they?
→↓←↑
“You are,” Your friend declared, pointing a chip at you across the table, “the universe’s favourite.”
“Oh, piss off.”
“I’m serious.”
“You spilled an entire iced latte over your assignment yesterday.”
He crossed his arms, dropping the chip into his mouth. “And then the professor gave us a forty-eight hour extension.”
“That was for everyone.”
“Exactly.” He grinned.
“You just benefit the most.”
You rolled your eyes. “I think you’re confusing luck with chronic incompetence.”
“I think,” he replied, “you’ve got some weird guardian angel following you around.”
You snorted so hard your drink nearly came out your nose.
“Imagine.”
“Oi, don’t laugh. Nan swears everyone gets one.”
“If mine exists, they’re exhausted.”
“They’re probably on stress leave.”
You both laughed until people started looking over.
Sometimes, though, there were moments.
You’d catch yourself glancing over your shoulder after leaving uni.
It always felt like someone had said your name. But there was never anyone there.
Just people walking. Cars passing. The breeze.
You’d shake it off.
Your friends called you observant.
You noticed when someone changed shampoo. When lecturers looked more tired than usual. When strangers were having bad days.
But somehow, you’d never notice the black motorbike parked half a block away. Never notice that it wasn’t always the same bike. That the familiar silhouette perched on rooftops when you walked home after evening classes. Or the pair of blue eyes lifting from a rooftop scope the second you glanced upwards. Because every time your gaze drifted a little too close, he was already gone.
Because why would you? No one expects to be the centre of somebody else’s universe.
Not without knowing it.
Somewhere in Gotham, Tim closed another file. Today’s entry was short.
Ate lunch.
Laughed with friends.
Nearly got hit by a cyclist while reading a text.
Smiled twenty-three times.
His lips curved despite himself. “Good.”
He closed the document. Another day where nothing bad had happened to you. Another perfect day.
Exactly as it should be.
Tim wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He never was anymore. Watching you had become as habitual as checking the weather before patrol or reviewing overnight reports from the Titans.
One monitor displayed Wayne Enterprises’ quarterly projections while another quietly cycled through public posts from accounts you’d been tagged in over the past twenty-four hours.
One of your friend’s account refreshed.
A new post. Six photos.
The first was all of you crowded around a tiny restaurant table littered with empty plates and cocktail glasses, your smile wide enough to crinkle your eyes.
The second was a blurry group selfie that looked like it’d been taken after far too many attempts.
The third showed someone holding up printed boarding passes.
The fourth made his stomach tighten.
It was you, sitting cross-legged on somebody’s lounge room floor with travel brochures scattered around your knees. You were laughing so hard your head had tipped backwards, completely unaware of the camera.
The caption was simple.
Can’t believe we’re finally doing it. Goodbye Gotham. Next stop: Europe!! ✈️
The comments underneath were worse.
You’re actually leaving us.
Don’t forget us when you’re famous overseas.
Still can’t believe you’re moving.
Going to miss you so much.
Tim reread that last one. Then the one before it. Then the caption again.
His cursor hovered over the screen.
“…Moving?” The word sounded foreign in his own voice.
He opened your calendar. Nothing.
Your university timetable. Nothing.
Your employment records. Nothing.
He searched airline databases. Nothing.
He frowned. That didn’t make sense.
If you were emigrating, there would’ve been paperwork. Visa applications. Employment sponsorship. Rental listings. Passport activity beyond an ordinary holiday.
Unless you’d only decided recently. If you’d kept it private. If he’d missed something.
Tim’s fingers were already moving before he’d consciously decided to investigate.
Searches multiplied across the Batcomputer. Passport usage. Banking activity. University enrolment. Rental history. Government databases. Public records. Flight manifests.
The cave filled with the quiet clatter of keys.
Hours passed unnoticed. Eventually, one search returned a result.
Three return tickets. Departure in eleven days. Return scheduled just over three weeks later.
Tim stared at the itinerary for a long moment. Three weeks. Not forever. Just three weeks.
His shoulders sagged so abruptly it almost hurt.
He laughed once under his breath, embarrassed by the sheer force of the relief flooding through him. “You idiot…”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They’re coming back.”
Of course you were.
He’d panicked over a holiday.
His heartbeat gradually settled.
He closed the flight information. Then his eyes drifted back to the Instagram post.
Goodbye Gotham.
Going to miss you.
Still can’t believe you’re moving.
They’d all thought it looked permanent too.
He wasn’t stupid. The wording was misleading. Anyone could’ve misunderstood.
But the thought of you leaving for twenty-one days was unfathomable. You’d be where every system he’d quietly built around your safety became useless.
Where there only needed to be one delayed ambulance, drunk driver, pickpocket in the wrong place, one stupid accident.. and he would be exactly where he’d been twelve years ago.
Too late.
His fingers folded together beneath his chin.
He remembered another disappearance. Another day he’d told himself he’d find you tomorrow.
Tomorrow had become twelve years.
He’d promised himself that would never happen again.
Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, he reopened your file. Thousands of pages. Medical records. Class schedules. Emergency contacts. Favourite cafés. The names of everyone you’d ever trusted. Months of observation. Years of restraint.
He looked at the date stamped across the oldest folder. All this time waiting, for what?
Permission?
A perfect reunion?
Some magical moment where you’d look at him and everything would make sense?
What a ridiculous fantasy.
You didn’t remember him. You never would. Not unless he made you.
He had mistaken absence for kindness. Distance for love.
He’d stood outside your life for months, convincing himself that watching you from the shadows was enough because it made you smile.
And where had that left him?
Watching another goodbye. Waiting for another disappearance. Still pretending he could survive it.
A quiet laugh escaped him. Ashamed. “I’ve been an idiot.” The words echoed through the empty cave.
He’d treated his own devotion like something shameful. Something to hide. As though loving you enough to dedicate every waking moment to your safety was a flaw instead of the truest thing he’d ever felt.
No one else loved you like this. No one else could.
Your friends loved the version of you they saw between lectures and dinners. Your family loved the child you’d once been. Tim loved every version.
The child on the beach. The teenager he’d reconstructed from scattered photographs. The adult who forgot to lock windows, who hummed while cooking, who laughed with your whole body when something was funny.
He loved the life you’d built without him. And perhaps that had been his mistake.
He’d mistaken love for spectatorship.
Love wasn’t standing fifty metres away making sure you got home safely. It wasn’t fixing broken latches in the middle of the night and leaving before sunrise. It wasn’t pretending he didn’t exist.
Love was being there.
His gaze drifted back to your smiling face.
“You’ve waited long enough,” he murmured.
For a moment, it almost sounded as though he was speaking to you. Then he smiled.
“No more.” The words weren’t a promise to himself. They were a decision.
He reached for his phone. For the first time in months, he wasn’t planning how to keep watching you.
He was planning how to finally walk into your life.
And this time, he wasn’t ever going to leave.
↑←→↓
The house had taken longer than he would’ve liked to build. Because nothing ever felt good enough.
Tim replaced every piece of furniture twice before he was satisfied. The mattress in the spare bedroom became a king-sized one after he remembered you tended to sleep diagonally whenever you had nowhere important to be the next morning. The kitchen cupboards were stocked with your favourite brands, each item selected with the quiet certainty of someone who had spent years memorising details you never realised you were giving away.
The coffee in the pantry was the same blend you bought every Wednesday.
The toothpaste in the bathroom was the brand you preferred.
The shampoo smelled exactly like the one you'd used six months ago before switching to something else.
You'd liked the old one better.
You just hadn't known it.
Fresh towels sat folded neatly on the shelves. Spare chargers waited beside every bed. Books you had once picked up in stores and put back down rested untouched on shelves already prepared for you.
Every room carried traces of you.
The wardrobe had been the hardest part.
Not expensive things. Not things he wanted. Things you would have chosen.
A ridiculous pair of fluffy socks shaped like little sharks that you’d laughed at for almost five minutes in a department store before deciding they were “too expensive for socks”.
Tim had bought them the following afternoon.
There were plants in nearly every room because you’d once spent fifteen minutes helping a stranger rescue a dying fern from the clearance section at Bunnings.
Healthy, thriving ones.
Nothing in this house would be allowed to die. Not if he could help it.
Music speakers sat discreetly throughout the house.
A shelf waited half-finished in the study because you’d once mentioned you wished you knew how to build furniture yourself.
Tim had watched hours of woodworking tutorials that night.
Just in case you ever wanted to learn.
The entire house was filled with preparations for conversations that had never happened.
Future memories assembled in advance.
A life rehearsed over and over by a man who had spent too long alone.
The only parts that didn’t belong were the things that had never been negotiable.
The cameras. One in every room. Carefully hidden. The reinforced glass. The electronic locks. The steel shutters concealed inside the walls. The security system that could seal the entire house down in seconds.
The absence of anything sharp enough to become a weapon.
Tim stood in the middle of the lounge room long after everything was finished.
His gaze drifted slowly across the room.
The couch where you'd sit. The blanket folded over the armrest. The coffee mug already waiting in the cupboard. The spot beside him.
He turned slowly, searching for flaws.
His eyes landed on one of the cameras. A small black lens hidden in the corner.
His expression crumpled. "...I'm sorry." The apology came out quietly. Almost embarrassed.
"I know you'll hate these."
He stared at it for a long moment. As if he could already see the disappointment on your face. The fear. Anger. Betrayal.
His throat tightened.
"I know." His voice cracked slightly.
"I know you will."
His gaze dropped toward the front door.
Toward the locks. The barriers. The things that would keep you inside. The things that would keep you from leaving him.
His hand pressed against the wood.
"And those." The words barely escaped him.
"You'll think I'm a monster."
A small laugh escaped him. Broken and humourless.
The painful part was knowing that you'd be right.
His eyes burned. "You won't understand."
The house blurred slightly.
"You'll think this is about control."
His fingers tightened against the door. "It's not."
The lie sounded weak even to him. Because it was about control. Partly. But mostly it was about terror. The unbearable, suffocating terror of losing something he had never truly possessed.
"I just..." The words stopped. His throat worked.
He looked around the house again. At the rooms prepared for you. The meals he imagined cooking. The books waiting on shelves. The life built entirely around your absence. And suddenly the entire thing felt pathetic.
A shrine pretending to be a home. A love story with only one participant.
Tim swallowed hard.
"I tried doing it the right way." Years of restraint condensed into one broken sentence.
"I really did." His voice was barely audible.
"I waited."
For you to notice. For you to choose him. For one day to become the day. For years. Nothing.
His eyes closed. And for the first time since finishing the house, he looked genuinely miserable.
None of this felt like winning. It felt like surrender. The last desperate act of someone who had run out of ways to be patient.
His hand remained on the lock. As though he hated it. As though he needed it.
"I'll take them away."
The promise came quickly. Desperately. Like he needed you to hear it.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
Not anytime soon.
But someday.
If you stayed.
If you smiled at him.
If you stopped looking at him like he was something frightening.
"If you trust me."
Airport security had never made you nervous before.
Annoyed, sure.
You’d complained about taking your shoes off often enough, rolled your eyes at the queue crawling forward centimetre by centimetre, and wondered more than once why your bag was always the one selected for a random inspection.
But nervous?
Not until a woman in a navy security uniform approached with an apologetic smile. “Excuse me?”
You looked up from your phone.
“Would you mind coming with me for a moment?”
Your stomach dropped. “..Sorry?”
“There are a couple of questions regarding your luggage.”
“My luggage?”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
Your friends exchanged confused looks.
“What happened?” one of them asked.
The woman simply smiled again. “It shouldn’t take long.”
That wasn’t exactly reassuring.
You followed anyway, trying to ignore the dozen increasingly ridiculous possibilities running through your head.
Had someone packed something into your suitcase?
The further you walked from the terminal, the quieter everything became. The constant announcements faded. The crowds disappeared.
Eventually, the woman stopped outside an unmarked door and opened it.
“Someone will be with you shortly.”
You stepped inside. The room looked more like an executive meeting room than airport security.
Dark timber. Leather chairs. A wall of monitors. A coffee machine in the corner.
And someone already waiting.
He stood the moment you entered.
For a second, your brain failed to process what you were looking at.
People that attractive belonged in advertisements. On giant billboards. In impossibly expensive campaigns designed by teams of professionals whose entire careers revolved around manufacturing beauty.
Not standing ten feet away. Not breathing. Not real.
He was tall enough to seem imposing without trying, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked less worn than sculpted onto him. The cut was perfect. Every line sharp. Every detail precise.
Yet somehow it wasn't the suit that drew your attention.
It was him.
Dark hair, slightly too long, falling across his forehead in a way that should have looked careless but somehow only made him more devastating to look at. It softened features that would otherwise have been almost unfairly severe.
His face looked like something an artist would've spent months trying to get right.
Strong jaw.
Straight nose.
Cheekbones sharp enough to catch the light.
Everything balanced so perfectly it bordered on irritating.
But it was his eyes that made it impossible to look away.
Blue.
Not the bright artificial blue magazines edited into existence.
Something deeper. Cooler. The colour of the sky just before a storm.
The kind of eyes people wrote poetry about when they ran out of better ideas.
And they were looking directly at you.
As though the moment you entered the room, everything else had ceased to matter.
Your pulse skipped.
This was ridiculous. You weren't sixteen. You weren't the type to lose your ability to function because an attractive man happened to exist in your vicinity.
And yet, there was something profoundly unfair about the way he carried himself.
The quiet confidence. The effortless posture. The controlled stillness that made every movement feel deliberate.
Even standing up from a chair somehow looked elegant. Like he'd spent his entire life accidentally making everyone else look clumsy by comparison.
Then your brain finally caught up. Recognition hit like a delayed collision.
You knew that face. Everyone knew that face.
Interviews. Magazine covers. Business journals. Wayne Enterprises.
"...Tim Drake?"
Something happened to his expression after you’d said it. A subtle shift.
The carefully composed businessman vanished for half a second.
Enough to reveal something underneath. Something startlingly human.
Relief.
His shoulders loosened almost imperceptibly. His gaze softened. And suddenly he looked less like the impossibly wealthy CEO you'd seen in magazines and more like a man who had been holding his breath for a very long time.
"Hi." His tone was lower than you expected. Warm. Gentle. The sort of voice that made people instinctively lean closer.
You found yourself staring again.
The newsletters had lied.
They captured the symmetry. The beauty. The impossible genetics. But they missed everything else.
The intelligence behind his eyes. The exhaustion buried beneath them. The strange sadness lingering at the edges of his smile. The tiny imperfections that somehow made him even worse. A faint crease near one cuff where he'd clearly adjusted his sleeve too many times. A loosened breath. The tension hidden beneath composure. Nervousness.
The realisation struck you so abruptly you almost laughed. Tim Drake looked nervous.
Which made absolutely no sense.
Men like Tim Drake weren't supposed to get nervous. Especially not around strangers. Yet there it was. Written in the subtle tightening of his jaw. The way his hands remained carefully still. The fractionally too-long pause before speaking.
As though meeting you mattered far more than it should. Far more than it possibly could.
Recognition fluttered strangely in your chest. An inexplicable feeling that you knew him.
That if you crossed the room and took his hand, it would fit.
You frowned at yourself.
What the hell was that?
“I’m sorry,” you laughed awkwardly. “This is probably a stupid question, but…”
Your eyes met his. For the briefest second, the entire room felt impossibly still.
“Have we met before?”
His breath caught.
As though the question alone had knocked the air from his lungs.
A thousand emotions crossed his face too quickly to name.
Hope. Relief. Grief. Love so overwhelming it almost looked painful.
Then he smiled. Small and beautiful. Heartbreakingly fragile.
“No.”
The answer came after a beat too long. “Not in a way you’d remember.”
You opened your mouth.
Before you could ask what that meant, a sharp, chemical smell drifted through the room.
Your head suddenly felt heavy.
You blinked hard.
The floor shifted beneath your feet.
“..What…”
Your knees threatened to give way. Strong hands caught you before you hit the ground.
Instinctively, you tried to pull away. You couldn’t. Your limbs refused to cooperate.
Panic surged through you.
“Hey-” Your voice came out slurred. “What.. did…”
The room blurred. You forced yourself to look up one last time.
Tim was already kneeling in front of you, one arm supporting your weight with impossible care, the other brushing your hair back from your face as though you were something precious enough to break.
The look on his face wasn’t triumphant nor cruel. It was devastated.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and his voice shook so badly it barely sounded like speech.
“I tried.”
His forehead rested against yours for the briefest moment. “I waited as long as I could.”
The last thing you saw before darkness swallowed everything was Tim Drake looking at you like a man who had finally reached heaven,
and hated himself for the path he’d taken to get there.
↑→↓←
The silence in the bedroom was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic, shallow sound of your breathing.
Tim sat on the edge of the mattress, his weight barely making a dent in the expensive linens.
His suit jacket discarded on the floor, his shirt unbuttoned halfway to reveal the tension in his chest. It was damp with sweat, clinging to the lean muscles of his back as he leaned into your space.
He looked wrecked. His hair was a mess, his eyes were bloodshot, and there was a frantic, starving look in them that made the air in the room feel thick. He looked like a man who had finally been allowed to touch the altar after years of kneeling in the dark.
He watched you. Not looking away even to blink.
His hand reached out, his fingers trembling as they made contact with your skin.
He started at your ankle, his touch light, almost hesitant, as if he expected you to bolt upright and scream the moment he touched you.
He traced the line of your leg, his thumb brushing over the softness of your calf, moving upward with a slow, agonising patience.
He wasn't just touching you; he was memorising you. He was verifying that you were solid, that you were warm, and that you were finally, truly, here.
When his hand reached your hip, his touch grew a little more firm. He slid his palm under the hem of your shirt, the heat of your skin seeping into his calloused fingertips.
He let his hand wander, trailing over the curve of your waist and the soft swell of your stomach. He moved with a desperate kind of reverence, his eyes fixed on where his hand met your flesh.
He leaned forward, his movements slow and deliberate, until he was hovering just above you.
He buried his face into the crook of your stomach, pressing his nose against the warmth of your skin. He took a long, shuddering breath, inhaling the scent of you. The soap you’d bought, the skin he’d dreamt of, the reality of you.
He stayed there for a long time, his forehead pressed against your abdomen, his breath warm against your skin.
He sounded broken, a low, jagged exhale escaping him every time he breathed you in. He gripped the fabric of your clothes, his knuckles turning white, as if he were terrified that if he let go, the entire room would dissolve and leave him standing in an empty house again.
He wasn't being careful anymore. He was greedy.
He let his hands wander upward, his thumbs tracing the line of your ribs, his touch heavy and insistent.
He watched the way your chest rose and fell, his eyes tracking the movement of your muscles with a terrifying, hungry focus. He was memorising the architecture of you.
Then, he lowered himself.
He didn't just lean in, he collapsed against you. He buried his face in the heat of your skin, his nose pressing hard into your chest, inhaling you with a sound that was half sob, half growl.
His mouth followed the path of his hands. He pressed hot, wet kisses along your side, his lips dragging over your skin with a desperate, uncoordinated hunger.
He moved lower, his face pressing into the dip of your waist, his breath hitching as he felt the warmth of you.
He was acting like a man possessed, his movements frantic yet strangely worshipful.
He shifted, his heavy thigh sliding between yours, forcing your legs apart to make room for him.
He was pressing himself against you, the hard, insistent length of him straining against the fabric of his trousers.
He reached down, his hand sliding lower, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your underwear.
He didn't hesitate. He slid his hand inside, his fingers seeking the heat of you. He wasn't being clinical, he was searching, his touch clumsy and urgent, his fingers trembling as they found you.
He let out a low, broken sound. A whimper when he finally made contact, the sound entirely too small for a boy of his stature.
He leaned up just enough to look at your face, his eyes dark and blown wide with a terrifying kind of devotion.
He looked pathetic.
Shaking, sweating, and completely at the mercy of someone who wasn't even awake to see him.
"You're so perfect," he whispered, his voice cracking. "It's not fair. It's not fucking fair."
He leaned back down, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, his tongue tracing a wet, hot line that made his own body shudder. He was worshiping you, and he was doing it with the desperate, starving energy of a boy who knew he didn't deserve a single second of it.
He pulled back just an inch, his lips hovering a fraction above your skin. The heat from his mouth a stark contrast to the cool air of the room, but he was trembling with the effort of not sinking teeth into you.
He looked up at your face, his eyes searching yours even though he knew they were closed.
"I should stop," he whispered, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. "I should wait until you wake up. Until you can actually look at me."
But his hand didn't listen. His fingers were still buried deep in the waistband of your underwear, his thumb sweeping against your heat with a slow, rhythmic pressure that was meant to be soothing but felt entirely too hungry.
He watched your face, waiting for a frown or a groan, his heart hammering against his ribs so hard it felt like it might bruise.
He wanted to worship you properly, but he has also waited so long that he was practically starving to death.
With a shaky, defeated breath, he leaned down again, but he didn't go for your core this time.
Instead, he pressed his cheek against your thigh, his eyes closing as he let himself simply be near you.
He moved his hand in a steady, agonisingly slow motion, a gentle friction that was almost a tease. He wasn't trying to make you finish. He was just trying to feel the life in you, the pulse of your blood beneath his palm.
"I'll be good," he promised, his voice a wrecked, low murmur against your skin. "I'll be so good for you. Just.. let me stay like this for a little longer."
He let his hips grind weakly against yours, a desperate, uncoordinated movement that was more about seeking comfort than seeking pleasure.
He reached up with his free hand, his fingers tangling in your hair, pulling your head slightly toward him as if he could coax you into waking up just to tell him he was doing a good job.
He pressed a final, lingering kiss to the inside of your knee, his lips trembling.
"When you wake up," he breathed, his forehead resting against your hip, "everything will be different. I promise. I'll give you everything. Just.. don't leave me again."
↓→←↑
Consciousness returned in fragments.
The first thing you noticed was the weight on your mind. Everything felt slow, wrapped in thick cotton, every thought taking just a little too long to surface. Your eyelids were heavy enough that opening them felt like lifting something far larger than yourself.
The second thing you noticed was the silence.
No traffic. No voices outside. No distant hum of aeroplanes climbing into the sky. Just… Quiet.
Your eyes cracked open.
The ceiling above you wasn’t familiar.
Cream plaster. Dark timber beams. Soft morning light spilling through linen curtains that shifted lazily with the breeze.
For one impossible second, you wondered if you’d somehow slept through your holiday.
Then memories crashed back all at once.
Airport. Security. The room. Tim Drake.
Your body jerked upright. The room spun so violently you almost fell straight back onto the mattress.
A hand caught your shoulder before you could.
“Easy.”
You recoiled instinctively.
Tim immediately let go.
He stepped backwards so quickly it was almost clumsy, both hands lifting into the air like he was surrendering.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse.
“I just… you nearly hit your head.”
You stared. He looked different. Gone was the immaculate businessman from the airport.
He’d changed into a plain black jumper and loose track pants, sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows. His hair looked like he’d run his hands through it a hundred times. Dark circles sat beneath eyes that hadn’t slept.
He looked exhausted. But he also looked terrified. Not of what he’d done.
Of you.
As though the expression on your face mattered more than the fact he’d just kidnapped someone.
“…Where am I?”
“My home.” The answer came quietly.
“Our home.” He sighed, taking his hand through his hair. “I should have said that. I meant our. Sorry.”
Your stomach twisted. “What?”
“I bought it years ago.”
He glanced around the room almost shyly. “I.. thought you’d like it.”
Silence settled between you. Then he laughed. Not because anything was funny. He sounded like he was about to cry.
“I know how insane that sounds.”
Your breathing quickened. “You kidnapped me.”
“Yes.”
“You drugged me.”
“…Yes.”
“My friends-”
“They’re safe.” The response came instantly.
“They think you missed your flight and decided to stay behind. They’ll worry for a while, but they’ll stop. I’ll make sure they’re alright.”
You stared at him. He wasn’t denying any of it. He wasn’t making excuses. Wasn’t pretending this was for your own good.
He simply stood there looking unbearably guilty.
“I know what this is.” His voice cracked. “I know what I am.”
His eyes dropped to the floor.
“I stopped trying to convince myself I wouldn’t do this a long time ago.”
He laughed again, quieter this time. “I just kept hoping I’d be stronger before it came to this.”
You looked towards the bedroom door. It wasn’t locked. You were almost certain of that.
He noticed.
“You can try.” His smile was small. Heartbreaking.
“I’ll stop you.”
The words weren’t threatening. They were apologetic.
“I’ll hate myself for it.”
Another shaky breath. “But I’ll still stop you.” His shoulders sagged. “I can’t lose you.”
You looked back at him. For the first time since waking, you really looked. His hands were shaking. His breathing wasn’t steady. His eyes were fixed on you with such desperate concentration it was almost painful to witness.
Then your gaze caught on his wrist. The sleeve of his jumper had ridden up. Black ink curved around the inside of his skin.
Two simple words.
That’s mine
Your stomach lurched. Without thinking, you looked down at your own wrist. To the words that had always stained your skin. Words you’d laughed about with your mates.
Can I see that?
Your fingers slowly brushed over the faded script.
Tim saw where you were looking. His entire body went still.
“So..” Your voice barely worked. “It was you.”
He closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
“You knew.”
“I’ve always known.”
“Since when?”
A long silence. “Since I was nine.”
You couldn’t breathe.
“I met you once.” His smile was impossibly soft.
“On Gotham Beach. You thought I was trying to steal your shovel.”
His eyes shimmered. “And then..” Very gently, almost reverently, he repeated the words that had altered both your lives. “‘That’s mine.’”
His gaze drifted to your wrist.
“I don’t think..” He swallowed. “…I took another proper breath after that.”
The room was silent again.
“So all of this..” Your voice broke. “all these years… were you?”
There wasn’t a second of hesitation.
“It’s always been me.” He stepped closer.
“I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. I know you’ll hate me.” His eyes finally met yours again. Filled with absolute, devastating devotion.
“But I need you to understand one thing.”
His voice became impossibly quiet. “I never wanted a prisoner. I wanted my soulmate.”
He laughed through tears.
“I just wasn’t strong enough to live in a world where I’d already found you.”
His lips trembled. “…and then had to spend the rest of my life pretending you belonged to somebody else.”
Another tear slipped down his cheek. “I’ve built companies. Saved cities. People think I’m clever.” He smiled weakly.
“But the smartest thing I’ve ever done..” His gaze softened with an affection so overwhelming it hurt to witness. “…was finding you.”
He looked around the room. “And the worst thing I’ve ever done was bringing you here.”
His shoulders finally gave out beneath the weight he’d been carrying for years.
He sank slowly onto his knees. His head bowed. His hands rested uselessly in his lap.
“You can hate me.” His voice was barely audible.
“You probably should.”
Another shaky breath. “But…”
He looked up at you with the same expression he’d worn in the airport. Like a man placing his entire existence into someone else’s hands. “…please don’t leave me.”
“I don’t know how to exist in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”
Outside, the wind stirred the trees beyond the window. Somewhere, impossibly far away, a plane crossed the morning sky. The holiday you’d planned would go on without you.
Photos would be posted. Memories would be made. Life would continue. Just not yours. Not anymore.
Perhaps soulmates weren’t proof that fate was kind.
But simply proof that fate existed.
Please reblog and comment!! :)
12K+ words, 70K+ characters, 2K+ sentences, 1K+ paragraphs, 43 minute average reading time, 1 hour 7 minute average speaking time.
One night stand Gaz that you met in Italy who speaks perfect Italian and you think is a local until he shows up around your neighbourhood in London (you only ever spoke to him in shitty Italian which he indulged in because you said you wanted to practice, and which you must have really needed because you clearly didn’t listen to any of the things he rasped in your ear while bottomed out in your cunt about following you home and making you his)
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