So I was thinking about a soulmate Au where people have tastes, smells, sometimes sensations or visions based upon what their soulmate is doing. It’s not constant, but it’s a sort of brief telepathy. They may also have dreams that briefly ‘connect’ them in a sense, although communication between two soulmates is rare, it is occasionally possible if the connection between the soulmates is particularly strong. I got to thinking about what that would be like in a scenario with Stevetony as the pairing and a blurb happened. I may write more later :D
WARNINGS FOR: Howard being an abusive piece of shit. Also extensive talk of drowning for obvious reasons-and ANGST, lots of that.
Tony dreams of the ocean first. Not a white sand beach or the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean his mother loves so much, but a dark and choking thing. Swirling dark, an impenetrable wall of water so cold it burns. Tony dreams of drowning first. Tony dreams of regret, and fear, and a resolve so strong he still wakes shaking with that certainty.
He tastes too, blood behind his teeth, like he’s been punched in the mouth, sucks it back behind his lips, doesn’t spit it out (he knows what being hit feels like, tastes like after all). Sweet pungent cigar smoke sometimes filters into his senses, like Obie’s, blown in his face with no regard for young lungs. It’s a Comfort, sitting with Obie and showing him new designs, his small hands dwarfed by Obie’s large ones as he points at things and asks what they are. Tony smiles, and breathes in hazy air with the bright feeling that someone feels pride in what he does. He likes that taste when it comes, wonders what his other half is doing now, thinking now to evoke such a thing.
He wonders if his soulmate will be proud, if they will love him. Tony wants so desperately to be loved. He knows, it doesn’t matter what his soulmate looks like, he’ll cherish them. Hold them close. Careful careful like his mothers’ pearls when he buckles the tiny filigree gold clasp around her wrist. His mother who is not Howard’s soulmate. His mother who teaches him to play the piano and cries tears clearer than the ocean in his dreams when she thinks no one is looking.
Sometimes he catches whiffs of cologne. It’s woodsy and fresh, similar but different to Howard’s favorite scent-and he wonders, locked away in his room, drawing the watery shapes he sees in dreams across paper-he wonders if his other half is his father’s age. Thinks of the whispers that follow Howard. “Such a young son” they say, reading his father’s gray hair like the rings on a tree. He listens and wonders if he finds his One, will they brush him aside? Will they call him foolish, will they look at his designs for clean energy and solar fuel, and crumple them up, wad them up like paper, like his heart every time Howard turns away.
He knows there are soulmates who are friends, he wonders if his will be a friend and a lover. It doesn’t matter at all though, Tony will love them no matter what. That resolve burns in him, drives him on. What kind of man would his soulmate love? Tony doesn’t know, but he sets out to become that person with a single minded focus. He builds wonders, blows past records others have set before him, uses everything in him to build a future for the one calling to his soul. He immerses himself in it, ignores the bitter taste of sadness when Howard kicks him out for refusing to build, refusing to contribute to a world his soulmate would not like. Maria is proud but sad, as she always is. She insures he is not cut off completely, she sends packages with his favorite sweets, letters asking him to come back home. Promises that Howard misses him, promises that he’s changed. Obie comes to visit him later, sweet words and cigar smoke ringing around his head in clouds of lies. Tony ignores him.
Sometimes he wonders if that would have changed things. If him being with his parents somehow would have prevented the accident. If his absence had driven Howard to drink more. It doesn’t matter now. The rain drives down as they lower his parents into the ground, Obie’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, but not as heavy as the dreams that night.
“Are you looking for me?” He calls, staring out into the black expanse of swirling water. The weight of the ocean is crushing him down, but he’s trapped. Metal skeletons bear him down, glowing controls grow dark. In that murky deep a pair of hands reach for him-gloved hands in brown leather-and Tony reaches back desperately.
Tony wakes with a gasp before their hands can touch.
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