buckingham (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bakerstreet2016-10-24 10:19 pm
buckingham) wrote in bakerstreet2016-10-24 10:19 pm
Soulmate trash is best trash
soulmate meme ;
▸ post your character ◂
▸ you're now in a universe where destined soul mates exist! ◂
▸ rng for the type of au and for the ~situation~ ◂
▸ tag around ♥ ◂
type of au;
1. tats, your character has a tattoo of the first words the love of their life will say to them
2. familiars, your character has an animal tattoo representing their soul mate on them
3. glow, the first time your character sees their soul mate, their chests glow!
4. world in color, life is literally black and white, until you see your soul mate for the first time
5. choose your own, i'm definitely missing a milly because i'm lazy, pick your own
situation;
1. first meeting, you've never met this person before.
2. childhood mates, you've always known this person -- but on one particular birthday, everything changes.
3. together, you've been in a relationship for awhile now! happily wed or not, you decide.
4. not together, you've known you're soul mates for a long time, and yet have avoided a relationship.
5. choose your own, self explanatory c:
quietly adds to our mountain of aus (also idk 5-1?)
it's a silly word, as far as emma is concerned. she's heard the stories about the marks that could appear on a person's body, but she'd never seen one in person. tall tales, is what she writes it off to be, especially after she's already gotten married, after she's so happy with matthew. her husband balanced her in all the right ways, made her feel so level and happy and complete — and if they didn't have any sort of odd marking show up after they met, then clearly, the whole ordeal could be nothing more than stories.
she'd found her person, and that was what mattered.
or. had mattered.
it had mattered until she'd watched her husband take a bullet in the chest, courtesy of one of the richest, most detestable men emma had ever laid eyes on. bogue had spent so long trying to drive her entire neighborhood from their homes, only because of the land their houses inhabited. it wasn't even nice land, wasn't even a good neighborhood, but the people there were decent, had worked had to have a place of their own, but— they were poor. they didn't have the money to afford houses in nice neighborhoods, to live anywhere closer to the city, but they were hardworking people who did their damnedest for their loved ones.
and now, bogue wanted to buy them out of their rundown homes, to take everything they had, and the worst part? he could. the cops were paid off, no help willing to come, and after matthew's murder, it became clear that bogue wouldn't accept anything less than exactly what he wanted from these people.
and emma wouldn't let it stand.
chisolm was a man met by happenstance. she and teddy had been looking for someone (anyone) to hire, to help, and a licensed bounty hunter was exactly what they needed. they could pay him, they promised, if he'd just see them through the brutal, overwhelming force of bogue's men.
of the inevitability of a real fight.
they'd need more men, chisolm had told them.
emma didn't care.
they'd hire an army, if they had to.
it's not until they meet the second of chisolm's intended, mismatched little cadre, that emma starts to feel uncertain. a conman, a drunk, and emma's opinion of him couldn't sink any lower as chisolm explains exactly who he plans to bring aboard. she's ready to write this "faraday" off, except chisolm thinks he's worth it, says they could use him, and then— then she actually meets him.
he's not much to look at, she decides, and is so busy taking in his appearance that she almost doesn't notice when her forearm suddenly starts to burn. not an overwhelming pain, but hot, tingling sensation that compels her to press her hand against her skin, like the pressure will make it stop. teddy moves towards her with concern clear on his face, but she turns away from him, looking down at her arm with wide, horror-struck eyes as she quickly rolls up her sleeve to see—
a mark.
clear as a goddamn summer's day, stark and coiling on her skin, and she's left too shocked to even process it. ]
What—?
jesus this is long, sorry
Chisolm had moved on with his business, once the arrest was made, and Faraday had gone on with his. They shared a word or two before they parted ways, but Faraday never expected their paths to cross again.
Seems he was wrong, though, and Chisolm buys him a drink to explain the situation. Bart Bogue, being his usual charming self and trying to bully men and women from their homes. Faraday had laughed, told him how terrible those odds were. Chisolm had merely shrugged, told him there was good money in it. Told him a number, and Faraday had paused, whiskey sitting in his mouth.
He swallows, sets the glass down on the table between them, and slowly accepts.
Faraday's gaze moves to the woman and the man who arrived with Chisolm – just a quick, cursory introduction initially – and when his eyes settle on her – Emma Cullen. Joan of Arc – he notices her scrutiny and offers a wide, toothy grin. His attention flicks back to Chisolm, lips parting to discuss the deal further, when he feels a sharp jab on the inside of his arm. The corner of his eye twitches, and for a quick second, he rules it off as some weird muscle spasm until it starts burning. Like someone decided his arm was the best place to snub out a cigarette butt. His hand clamps over the spot, but otherwise he says nothing, just waits for the burn to fade away.
It's only then that he notices the woman clutching at her own arm, and he feels those first inklings of icy dread slither into his veins. Chisolm is looking to him, now, something surprised and knowing in his eyes, even as Faraday does his level best to ignore the twinge in his arm, the way the woman yanks up her sleeve to stare at her skin. ]
Alright, Faraday? [ Chisolm asks, gaze darting down to Faraday's hand, still squeezing his arm.
Faraday swallows, forces his hand away from his sleeve, and though the curiosity burns just as hotly as whatever the hell that was, just then, dread keeps him from checking after it. They were fairy tales, he tells himself. Old wives' tales. None of it was true. This was just... a fluke.
He says brightly, eyes fixed pointedly on Chisolm and no one else, ] Just dandy.
[ Business continues on after that over the next day or so, with Chisolm collecting up his misfits as they traveled. One of them has some connections, gets them a couple of vans to make the trip back to the neighborhood that much easier.
Faraday, predictably, spends a lot of that time drinking. Laughing too hard and smiling too wide and ignoring the angry red mark on his arm. Ignoring the flashes of annoyance and anger that can't possibly be his, though he feels them all the same. Ignoring Emma Cullen, because he can feel the red hot irritation whenever her eyes rest on him.
So of course it would follow that they end up in a shitty motel room together, with Teddy Q dozing away on the floor. (Emma was given one of the beds as a matter of course. Faraday had beaten Teddy to the second bed in the room, had grinned that wild grin of his while he folded his hands behind his head. Teddy had huffed in disgust and set up a nest for himself against the wall.) Faraday does everything in his power to avoid looking at her as the three of them got ready to sleep, staring instead at the ceiling, at the floor, at his lap, at the cracked screen of his phone to check the time. (The battery's dying. He forgot his charger in one of the vans, but he can't be assed to get up.)
The room spins slightly around him. He's been working a pretty good buzz all day, and it's served him well, for the most part. Kept him from thinking too hard about the mark on his arm and what it fucking means. Faraday yanks up his sleeve to inspect the mark again, using the yellowish light cast into the room by the lamppost outside. Still there. He sneers at it before scrubbing at it with his thumb for the umpteenth time, as if it were merely a smudge of dirt in need of cleaning, but his efforts yield nothing. Still goddamn there.
His hands fall to cover his face, and he grumbles into the dark room, ]
God fucking dammit.
n e v e r apologize for beautiful things
unfortunately, the mark on her arm makes it a special level of difficult to avoid — not to mention, the near-constant trickle of emotions she's started to encounter that are absolutely not her own. it's like having something (someone) else living in her body, not always present and not stronger than her, but a foreign incident all the same. she realizes that if she's experiencing what can only be faraday's emotions, he must be picking up on hers; he must be feeling the anger and confusion and betrayal that seeps into her, the near resentment that's built closer and closer to the surface, the longer she's had to think on the mark curling across her pale skin.
why not matthew? is the thought she keeps coming back to the most. he was her husband — a good, decent, loving man. she'd given every piece of herself to him (or so she'd thought; already she's sharing a shocking level of intimacy with faraday that she simply hadn't been able to give to matthew, unable to share the length to which her emotions extended for him). but matthew had been so important to her — still is — and here she is, suddenly and startlingly connected to...this man. a drunk. a swindler. crude and loud and obnoxious, and all the things matthew never could have been.
it could have been matthew, should have been, but with the mark standing out on her skin, mirrored exactly on faraday's, it becomes clear that it isn't and was never meant to be her late husband.
and that...hurts. that hurts in a completely new and aching way, a sort of soul-deep pain that undoubtedly wafts through whatever odd link she now shares with one of her ramshackle, hired soldiers. but god, wouldn't it have been better if she'd never known? if she'd never had to go through this, if she'd gone to her grave believing all those stories of marks and soulmates were fairy tales, and that matthew had been her true love?
god, what a disgusting joke the universe has chosen to play on her.
in the dim light of the cheap motel, emma lays with the blankets pulled tight around her shoulders. silently, still near fuming, she watches as faraday rubs at the mark on his arm, makes out the disgusted look on his face (a look often mirrored on her own).
quietly, but still loud enough to be heard, she speaks to him (the first words she's said properly since their meeting): ]
Try all you like. It's not goin' anywhere.
[ she'd given it her best go already — multiple times, in fact. ]
no subject
Oh, are you talkin' to me now?
[ Bitter. Annoyed. Never mind that he's hardly made an effort, himself. The instant that mark had burned its way onto his arm, he had made a point of avoiding her, of keeping some level of distance. Chisolm was the only one who paid it any mind, having been there at that first meeting. Faraday's also pretty sure Teddy Q has sent a few dirty looks his way, though that could have been more from the kid actively disliking him. No telling how much he knows about whatever tragedy has befallen Faraday and Emma.
And it could be nothing but a tragedy, the two of them being what they are. A fiery, wholesome woman, determined to see her home protected. A gambling drunkard, drifting from town to town and looking to make a quick buck. If this mark means what he thinks it means, then it's never going to work – and she must know it, too. He's felt it time and again, that anger, something that felt terribly like disgust. Sadness and regret and an overwhelming bitterness. Familiar, in a way, but somehow even more damning now that he knows it's not coming from him. The drink helps to take the edge off of it all, but sometimes it still crashes over him in a wave.
This... whatever it is, is sure to end in a fiery explosion.
Faraday's willing to bet on it.
He shoves himself up, sitting against the cheap headboard bolted to the wall. The room tilts, but he grits his teeth, forces himself to stay upright. He scrubs his face one more time before huffing out a sigh, dropping his hands to pull at the mark on his arm again. ]
What the hell is it?
[ Quieter, this time, resigned. Asking the question while knowing the answer. ]
no subject
the mark is there, and it's clearly not budging. ]
Are you honestly sayin' you haven't the faintest idea what it could be?
[ her words are flat, making it clear that she doesn't believe for a second he's completely ignorant about...this. this legend suddenly made reality. ]
Or are you too drunk to remember stories that simple?
[ there's an extra edge of disapproval in the hushed tone as she pushes back her blankets, sitting up just as he had to stare bleakly down at the mark. ]
no subject
That shit's a myth.
[ An answer to her question, though without putting the concept into actual words. He knows – of course he knows – but saying it aloud just gives it legitimacy that Faraday refuses to provide.
He prods at the mark again, thumb running over it as if to test its permanence – though he's done the same thing millions of times by now. Same results, every time: the mark doesn't budge. Moves along with the stretch and pull of his skin, just as well as any tattoo would. ]
It's not real. This ain't fairy tales where a kiss can wake you up from the dead. They're just stories.
no subject
Does this look like a story to you, Mister Faraday?
[ it's nearly a hiss when she speaks, trying to keep her voice down to avoid waking teddy. he doesn't need to be in the middle of this, doesn't need to listen in.
if he can sleep right on through, that'll suit her just fine. ]
If it's not— [ she stops herself, unable to spit out the words, ] that, then what the hell do you think it is? Enlighten me, because any other explanation is far more welcome than the reality sittin' in your bed.
[ the reality of faraday, with that mark clear as day on his skin. ]
no subject
Not much, though, not with the way Emma is breathing fire at him, and he bristles under the harshness of her words. ]
Just 'cause we're marked don't make the stories true.
[ Which he feels is a fair point. Stories like these always ended up going through changes; a game of telephone, where things got exaggerated or downplayed or whatever. But he can feel heat flooding their connection, waver after wave of anger and annoyance practically filling him up to the neck, and all he can do is let it in, because Faraday's never exactly been known for his own self-control to begin with.
He scowls at the goddamn mark and yanks his sleeve down to cover it – he can hardly stand looking at it. ]
It can't be true. I mean— [ He cuts himself off, waving between the two of them. ] —look at us. We ain't exactly compatible.
no subject
I should say not.
[ if this...soulmates business was determined by compatibility, she's certain she'd have been marked with matthew. if ever there had been a match, it had been between her and her husband.
lord, but she can't even imagine herself with faraday.
and right now, it's unbelievably uncomfortable for her to feel emotions flowing through their bond, because she knows they're not her own. they're similar, reflected in certain ways, but they feel alien in her body. it's not her own mind she's feeling, and that throws her all kinds of off-kilter. ]
What do you think it means? What other possible justifications can you summon up that could explain this?
[ she can't make herself look at faraday, instead scowling at the wall across the room. ]
Stories like that get passed on for a reason. They exist this long because there's some measure of truth.
no subject
You say all that, but you sure as hell don't want it to be true. I can tell. You ain't exactly been subtle about it.
[ Granted, neither does he want those stories to be true, but he's also not the one lying down and letting the universe run roughshod over him, as he thinks Emma is. His own anger has been directed at this situation, at the terrible hand they've been dealt; he doesn't know or care enough about Emma to have too many strong opinions on her, either way, considering the way they've actively avoided speaking to one another till now. ]
I don't want this, whatever this is. You sure as shit don't, either. [ Because he's felt that, the way resentment creeps through their bond, slow and thick like molasses. ]
no subject
she can't get rid of the mark, and that's real enough for her now. ]
Of course I don't want this.
[ the words are like venom, spit with absolute distaste. ]
But I can't make this damned mark vanish, now, can I? Hardly means I'm going to— fall into your arms, or whatever foolish expectation comes along with this sort of thing.
But that doesn't make it less real. Wishin' for it to be gone can't shut you out of my mind, apparently.
[ because she realizes the foreign feelings have to be his, with no other explanation for it — and that just rankles her. ]
no subject
He started it, though, and that sting turns into a sort of hollow victory, as if he could turn to the universe and go, You see? You fucked up. ]
Then just ignore me.
[ He snaps it back at her, voice still low in deference to the man still sleeping in the corner, though no less waspish. (Faraday wonders if young Theodore over there could sleep through the end of the world, considering he and Emma have kept up a near constant state of bitten out whispers this entire time.) ]
You've done a damn good job of that already.
[ They both have, to be fair. Slipping in and out of circles when one approached or left, wandered forward or drifted back when the other neared. ]
So I stay out of your way. You stay out of mine. We get this job done, and our paths diverge again. Don't gotta— don't gotta draw this bullshit out anymore than necessary.
no subject
[ —but is it?
that thought comes completely unbidden to emma, accompanied by what has to be misplaced...disappointment? she has no reason to feel that, she tells herself, no reason to experience a hollow, sinking loss in the back of her mind as her mark gives a particularly bothersome surge of heat.
she suppresses a wince (along with those strange feelings), and just covers her mark again, willing it to settle. ]
Once our business is— is finished, I never want to see you again, you hear me?
no subject
No time to dwell on it, though, because Emma speaks again, and his anger sparks all over again, washes over his confusion. ]
Don't gotta tell me twice.
[ He falls back into bed, a little harsher than necessary. His fingernails bite crescents into his palm, and he grits his teeth against another of those little flares, like an ember crackling and popping out of a campfire. ]
The second you pay me, I'm outta there.