You know those aus where the significant events of your life leave marks on your skin? What about a soulmate au where the significant events in your life leave marks on your SOULMATES skin?
Griffance au where Griffin has a collection of white ginger flowers that sprout from his ankles, because Lance’s family is a grounding force in his life. His mother tells him that there were five to begin with, when Griffin was nothing but a baby himself, but more appear so quickly that Griffin has never seen so few of them on his ankles. By the time Griffin is fifteen there are so many that he can't really them all since the petals overlap and the stems all twist together. He does not know it when he's growing up, but there is one flower there for each member of Lance’s family. The five he starts with are for Lance’s closest family members - his mother, his father, and his three siblings; Marco, Luis, and Veronica.
Griffin’s back is a mural, a tribute to Lance's greatest passions. His lower back is painted with the sea, rolling waves and calm water with vague shadows showing things hidden in unseen depths. His upper back is painted with the night sky, inky blackness spreading from shoulder to shoulder punctuated by the bright white stars that Lance sees from his bedroom in Cuba. Around the time he turns twelve, a small space craft is added to the scene, Lance’s love of flying marking Griffin's skin. When Lance hits his teenage years and his self-confidence begins to waver, the middle of Griffin’s back begins shading itself in with purples and blues, a sad sky to reflect Lance’s saddest moments. It creeps along the space, slowly filling in until the sky touches the sea.
Lance has a small, rounded triskelion behind his ear, because Griffin is an only child and his parents are everything to him. They are a unit of three. He loves and respects them both, listens to everything they tell him even if he doesn’t always follow their advice. Griffin’s father is a pilot in the Air Force and the first time he takes Griffin flying, an aircraft embeds itself over Lance’s heart. Lance’s passions are many and varied, but Griffin is the sort of person who lets one thing take over his entire heart. Lance might have room to love the sea and the sky in equal measure, but Griffin doesn't have the room in his heart to be as passionate about something else as he is about flying.
Around Lance’s wrist is the image of a braided leather bracelet that grows as he ages, a sign of the hardwork and determination that Griffin puts into everything he does. Red and yellow and orange beads begin to weave into the leather when they are older, starting with the first time Griffin gets upstaged by Keith in middle school. Their symbols of his anger and rage and jealousy, appearing every time Griffin gets angry because he’s trying so hard to reach his goals and others always seem to be getting what Griffin has been reaching for his entire life without even half of the work.
Lance McClain and James Griffin join the Galaxy Garrison on the same day.
Neither of them know that the other bears their marks. Neither of them know that the person whose body carries their soul is in the same place as them, so close to them but so far at the same time.
That first day, when the entrance ceremony has ended and the freshmen begin moving into their dorms, a lei etches itself along Griffin's collar. It's a sign of how deep Lance and Hunk's bond will be that they mark each other immediately, that the mark appears as something so large and vibrant, that it appears so close to Griffin's heart and throat. Hunk wraps himself around the most vulnerable parts of Lance's soulmate because Hunk is someone Lance will trust with the most vulnerable parts of himself and that bond cements itself the very first time they meet.
Griffin gets another mark the day Lance has his first cargo pilot class. It's a duck on his rib-cage - a Campbell Teal, beautiful but flightless.
A few weeks into the school term, Lance finds a Lignum Vitae - Jamaica’s national flower - on the palm of his right hand. It rests in the place where Griffin and Kinkade touched during their first handshake. It's taken time for them to grow close, but their more than roommates, careening towards close friends, and the bond is strong enough to mark them.
The first year at the Garrison rolls by.
Griffin and Lance know of each other - because Lance is loud and charismatic and it's impossible for anyone in the Garrison not to know him while Griffin is second to Keith, standing between Lance and his rival - but they do not really know each other, are not friends or even really acquaintances.
They are faces in the hall to each other, constantly passing each other without knowing how important they can be to each other.
Lance gets a small, tarnished silver medal in the crook of his elbow. A visual reminder of Griffin's struggle to feel like he's doing enough, to feel like he's good enough.
Their second and third years in the Garrison pass.
Keith drops out at the end of third year.
Lance gets moved into the fighter class, but he gets constantly berated by Iverson for not being Keith.
Griffin takes his shirt off to change one day and Kinkade points out that the ship on Griffin's back is rusted and tarnished. He does not know that the reason it looks that way now is because Iverson's words have been seeping into Lance's head and heart, poisoning Lance's dreams.
Griffin begins noticing Lance for the first time. He begins to see how smart Lance must be to be on their level even without taking their classes, how hard he must have worked to be only a few steps behind them in their final year, how strong Lance must be to look Iverson in the eyes each day.
He doesn't get much further than noticing, though, before Lance and both of his teammates disappear in the middle of the night.
Griffin doesn't know that the events are related since it'll be days before the Garrison fesses up to the fact that Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are missing rather than having snuck out of runaway, but the moment that Lance touches Blue a thick, large blue V is painted onto Griffin's chest right below the lei that Hunk left on him all those years ago. It matches perfectly with where the V on Lance's Paladin armor rests.
Griffin will get more marks in the future, but nothing will ever be as large as the V on his chest.
There is no event that shapes Lance more than his position as a Voltron Paladin does.
