Chapter Text
Will's father was not his mother's soulmate.
When he grew up, he knew that. He - like his many half brothers and half sisters - were products from non-soulmates. Their parents did not dream with their mutual father when they slept. Which made sense since none of their parents wound up happy with their father.
But Will's mother knew happiness with him. She called him her sunshine boy and smothered him with kisses. Unlike many of his brothers and sisters, he had a happy childhood. His mother never let on how she felt without a soulmate at her side, until one morning when Will woke up and ran down the hall, joyfully shouting.
"Mama! Mama! My soulmate! I saw my soulmate!"
She blinked at him from her bed, startled from her own dreams. Yet she held her arms out with a smile and he leapt across the covers into them.
"Mama, he's a /boy/," Will whispered to her, tucked up tight against her side.
"Some people have girls and some people have boys," his mother soothed, her hand clutching tight at his pajamas. "Did you like him?"
"He's older than me!" Will bounced a little, energy bursting out of him in small streaks of light. His mother held tighter. "I saw him and he saw me and we played together! It felt like-like-" He struggled for the words. "The first bite of an apple!"
"I'm so happy for you baby." Her voice wavered over the words. Will pulled back.
"Mama?"
She smiled, eyes wet as she stroked his unruly curls away from his face. She sniffed in hard before speaking, "You hang on to him, okay? You stay strong for him."
"But he's so old, Mama! He's a giant!"
"I'm sure he just seems tall now, as you grow, you'll catch up." She kissed his fingers. "Now, how about we have a special breakfast? Go check and see if we have syrup for chocolate milk."
Will squealed and leapt from the bed, charging down the hall. He flung open the fridge and found the brown bottle immediately. He ran back down the hall - until sobs stopped him short. She wept into her hands, not seeing her little boy peek around the doorframe.
It would be years before he understood why she cried.
Every night Will met his soulmate sometime during his dreams. His mother tried to explain where the dream was meant something important, but he didn't think there was anything important about a strange forest. His friends at school glared at him and grumbled, wishing they shared dreams every single night. Once someone called him a liar, and Will got in trouble for pushing the boy off the jungle gym.
"You could have really hurt him Will!" his mother scolded as she drove him home from the principal's office. "His parents are taking him to the hospital to make sure he didn't break his wrist."
"He didn't," Will grumbled, slinking low in the backseat. "It's not even sprained - he's just being a baby."
"You don't know that-"
"Yes I do!" Will kicked the front seat and his mother made a noise of impaitence. "It just hurts a little and he scraped his knees."
At the stoplight his mother shut her eyes tightly and gripped the steering wheel. "Will, your hair," she tried to keep her voice light. Will yanked his hood up.
When Will tried to tell his soulmate about his day, the boy seemed puzzled.
"You go to... school?" he asked.
"Yeah, a big building with lots of other kids." Will climbed higher up the tree they found in their dream.
"Oh." His soulmate looked like he understood. "I'm with a lot of kids too." He glanced out at the huge hill in the distance. "It's nice to be outside though. Anche se frequantemente è solo un sogno - even if just a dream."
"Do you remember his name yet?" his mother asked as she cleaned up breakfast dishes one morning, after Will told her about some game in a big box his soulmate was excited over.
"No." Will slipped his arms through his backpack. "I know it sounds funny. He says words differently and sometimes can't remember them."
"Well if he speaks another language he might be from another country." She kissed his curls. "Now, Will... please... no more sunbursts at school, okay?"
"Okay!"
Then the dreams stopped.
Will cried. He didn't even remember the other boy's hair color, but he had gotten so used to dreaming of him every night he felt the loss keenly. It hurt in a new way, like almost falling back in his chair.
"W-where'd he go?" His mother's kleenex muffled his question as he blew into it.
"Sometimes you don't sleep at the same time." His mother wiped away the tear streaks on his face. "He may have moved. Maybe he lives somewhere else now and has a really different bedtime."
Another week went by. No soulmate in his dreams. Just the standard weird stuff and one nightmare about a monster under the bed. Finally Will faked being sick to stay home and try to sleep during the day. He always had trouble with sleeping when the sun was up, but he still tried. Yet no boy with a crooked smile that felt like the fuzzy in a warm blanket.
Then a monster really did come for him.
"He has to go to camp," the strange woman with little horns snapped, crossing her arms tightly. She had stopped the monster, just in time. "He's /leaking/ his powers."
"He has it under control." Will could hear the waver in his mother's voice. It scared him. "He's still a little boy! He can't-"
"This was just an underpowered harpy. What do you expect when he gets older and bigger things come for him?"
Will heard the sob. He retreated back down the hall and buried his head in his pillow. He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't going to cry!
He tossed and kicked off his blanket. All he could see was that winged monster coming after him, diving down-
Then it was gone, and he was at the edge of a field growing plants. A boy crouched at the plants, fiddling with the budding flowers. Will broke into a grin as the peaceful feeling of being home fell over him.
"You're back!" Will cried.
His soulmate looked surprised. "Of course I am." The funny way he said his words made Will smile.
He flung his arms around his soulmate's chest, as high up as he could reach. "I'm so glad!"
"You're so...strano? Uh... Different?"
"Are you trying to say 'strange'?" Will asked.
"No... weird. That's it."
Will laughed. "You have no idea." He bit his lip, wondering if it was okay to tell. Mama said never ever tell anyone, but soulmates were supposed to know everything. And it wasn't like the boy would remember in the morning anyways.
"My sister congratulated me for having my soulmate dream, said better late than never."
"Cool, a sister! Older or younger?" Will leaned forward eagerly.
"Older."
"I don't have any sisters or bro-" Will stopped awkwardly. "Well, I do. But I don't live with them."
His soulmate shrugged. "All I have is my sister."
"And me," Will said with a grin. His soulmate beamed back his crooked smile.
"And you."