CC next, @tkdgirl2012 I promise! I’m not just skipping that. I wrote from Ray’s POV so it turned into a rambling mess in places but I hope you like it!
Ray Palmer had never been one to believe in absolutes. He was technically Jewish, but his religion had lapsed as he grew older and he didn’t find himself missing it all that much. Christmas was a nice tradition for family, when you had one, and that was about it when it came to religion.
Absolutes weren’t his thing, and the more time he spent flying around Star City in his suit, or watching Felicity work magic with computers, or just generally knowing that Barry Allen existed, the less he believed in them.
When he was small, he’d woken up to see words tattooed along his arm. He knew it happened to some people, that the words of their soulmate – something distinctive, something you’d just know – would appear on their bodies, but it didn’t happen to everyone.
In fact, it rarely happened at all.
But whereas most people obsessed over it and made entire webpages devoted to the concept of a soulmate and what it meant to have half of a soul out there waiting to rejoin, Ray had simply... continued.
She’d asked once, as they lay in bed, if the tattoo on his arm meant something, and he said, “No. It doesn’t mean anything.”
If she’d thought it weird, she’d never said.
He’d never believed that she was his soulmate, but he’d never loved her any less for it. Soulmates were a strange concept, the idea that you could have only one, that if they died you’d be forever without half of your soul, that somehow the soul – this supposedly essential part of any human – could be broken and split between two humans, but that for some reason your soulmate would surely be nearby, not in a backwater village in Japan while you were living it large in Central City or something.
No, Ray had never believed Anna was his soulmate, but he’d never believed in soulmates at all.
When she’d died, he never felt he’d lost a soulmate – just that he’d lost the love of his life.
The Waverider had dealt another blow to any remaining fragments of belief he may had held in fate or destiny – the thought that they could alter time, that one wrong move could wipe a marriage from existence, or a person, or an entire timeline could shatter and disappear left him with a feeling proof, that there was no such thing as soulmates, or divine intervention or anything like that.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t still looking for love.
For some reason though, his heart had decided to yearn for Mick Rory. He knew why: the man was handsome as hell and twice as sinful, his smile lit up the whole room for Ray whenever he bothered to use it, and he was smart when he let himself be, he just lacked direction and schooling.
But sometimes his intelligence shone through like a beacon, and Ray would find himself just staring at him like he was the sun itself come to light up his world.
“What’s the delay, haircut?” Mick grumbled, coming to rest by his side, eating a banana.
Ray hated him a little for that and he averted his gaze quickly. “I’ve been trying to activate the crystals,” he said of a piece of old technology they were trying to keep out of the hands of the next set of bad guys, “but it’s missing a piece.” He let out a sigh and gestured at it. “You know how you get the IKEA box and in the IKEA box there’s a leaflet and the leaflet tells you how to put the cabinet together?”
“Right. Of course not. But we’re missing the leaflet,” Ray said with a sigh. “I think we’re going to have to go back. It’s probably written on the wall of the cave or something. I can’t believe I was so stupid that I didn’t make a note of—”
“Dimittere me ad Deum,” Mick said.
Ray froze. He looked around at him. “Did you just call me dumb?”
Mick looked at him like he truly was. “You ain’t stupid, haircut,” he said. “I said: dimittere me ad Deum. Latin or some shit like that, right?”
Oh yes. Yes, it was Latin, and now he’d listened to it his forearm was itching. “How do you...”
“I pay attention,” Mick said. “It was painted on the walls. Figured it might be important so I read it a few times.”
Ray mouthed at him. “Dimittere me ad Deum,” he said, with the correct translation, and the crystals came alive. “Aha! Mick you genius!”
Mick munched on his banana.
Ray finished up, taking the crystals to Sara, and then...
“Hey Mick, got a minute?” he said, ambling as far as the door to his room but not going inside.
Mick looked around at him. “Sure.”
Ray hesitated a moment, then moved inside and sat down on one of his chairs. “So uhh... I wanted to talk about that Latin.”
“What about it?” Mick leant against the wall.
“I uh...” Ray wasn’t sure how to broach this topic. He wasn’t even sure if Mick liked guys, let alone felt romantic attraction towards them.
He was okay with the idea of a friend soulmate though, if he wasn’t.
He pulled his jacket off, rolling his sleeve up, and showed Mick the tattoo. “I have this.”
Mick squinted. “Ya got it tattooed?”
“No.” Ray ruffled up a little and huffed. “I’ve always had it. It’s one of those soulmate tattoos.”
Mick eyed his arm. “Soulmate what now?”
Of course he didn’t know. Why would he? Why would anything be easy?
“Uhh.” Ray pulled some faces. “Some people wake up when they’re little and they have these tattoos – marks, really, since tattooing involves ink and this is more of a birthmark since it comes from my body naturally – and they’re meaningful words of someone they share a soul with.” He shrugged. “Once you hear them you just know, according to the websites.” He’d researched, he’d just never believed.
Mick snorted. “So you think I’m some kind of soul mate?”
“Well... Yeah.” Ray shrugged a little and swallowed. “Maybe? It felt right. You said these words. I think—I really think it means we’re meant to be.”
Mick’s entire stature changed, his body snapping upright a little and his knuckles going white around his beer.
“Mick?” Ray said. “What—What’s wrong?”
Mick let out a grunting noise and rolled his sleeve up, glaring at his forearm for a moment before showing it to Ray.
It means we’re meant to be was written on Mick’s arm, almost obscured under old burns.
Ray’s eyes widened. “You have one too.”
“Never knew what it was.” Mick said with a shrug. He yanked his sleeve back down. “Guess it’s you.”
Ray felt his face almost break under the size of the smile on it as he leapt to his feet, but he froze when Mick thrust a hand out towards him.
“Hug me, I’ll kill you,” he said.
Ray considered that for a moment, then shot him a grin. “You’d only be hurting yourself, Mick.”
Mick groaned and just went back to his beer.
