Chapter Text
Virgil knew what it was before the lesson in school. Most kids did. He had asked his parents about it in a panic the first time it happened, marker marks appearing on his skin without his doing accompanied by a strange, tingly feeling.
His mother had simply smiled, telling him to ask his father and turning back to her phone call. His father gave an exasperated sigh before sitting down and explaining.
It was called a “soulmate.” Someone whose soul was tightly linked to his own, a bond that could not be broken except through death. Because soulmates were so hard to find, the universe had taken pity and given them a way.
Any mark you made on your skin, whether it be with ink, paints, or something else, would also appear on your soulmate’s skin. That way, if you ever met them, you could know they were your soulmate through those marks.
Virgil’s father explained all of this to him in a bored tone of voice before shooing him away, claiming he had work.
Virgil was fascinated. Someone out there was destined just for him. Someone out there would love him no matter what, just like his parents loved each other. He was too scared to write to them on his skin (he couldn’t write very well anyway, being so young), but he knew they were there. And he couldn’t wait to meet them.
They were finally formally taught about soulmates when they were eight. It was a nationwide event, like the way they did those big tests for the highschool kids, so all the kids learned about soulmates at the same time and didn’t freak out when writing appeared on their skin. It was a generally ignored fact that most kids already knew about soulmates at this point.
Virgil followed his teacher with the rest of his class to the cafeteria. The principal stood on the small stage at the front of the large room, usually used for the sub-par performances of various elementary classes. The weird folding lunch tables that everyone hated had been folded in such a way that they now appeared as benches.
Virgil was glad his teacher had trouble rounding up the class to get to the assembly, it meant that he got to sit closer to the back. Less of a chance of being noticed.
Eventually the principal called for quiet and all the third grade classes fell into whispering instead.
“C’mon, kids! Listen up,” a teacher called from the sidelines. “This is important stuff!”
The cafeteria only got a bit quieter after that, but the principal deemed it acceptable enough to start her lecture.
“Alright, guys, I know a lot of you already know this stuff from your parents, but we still gotta talk about it, okay? How many of you have heard of soulmates?”
Almost every hand in the room shot high in the air.
“Great!” The principal said, moving closer to the front of the stage. “If you didn’t raise your hand, your soulmate is a very special person meant just for you! Now, a lot of people think it’s gonna be really, really hard to find their soulmate, but there’s a special way you can talk to them and recognize them if you ever meet. How many of you have ever drawn on your skin?”
Guilty hands slowly made their way into the air. The principal smiled knowingly.
“It’s okay,” she said, a bit of laughter in her voice, “most of us have, right? Even if it wasn’t on purpose, The reason us grown-ups have always told you not to is because anything you write on your skin will appear on your soulmate’s skin too! We didn’t want you guys to scare your soulmates off before they knew! Now, how many of you have ever had your soulmate write on their skin before, seen it on yours?”
Hands shot in the air again. Virgil wished she’d stop dragging this out. He knew all of this already. He slouched down further in his seat and crossed his arms.
“It tingles a little, right? It feels kind of funny. And sometimes, if you two talk enough, you can even feel your soulmate’s emotions when they write to you! And they can feels yours!”
Virgil perked up a bit. This, at least, was something new.
“This can only happen if your soulbond is really, really strong, though! You have to be really good friends!”
The principal gave the students a big, plastic-seeming smile. Virgil grimaced.
“Are there any questions you guys have about soulmates?”
A few hands shot up. The principal pointed at one, a smaller girl in the front.
“Am-am I gonna marry my soulmate?”
The principal smiled again. “Yes, you will all marry your soulmate.”
Virgil wrinkled his nose a little bit. That sounded a bit too happy and perfect to be true. Kind of like that Cinderella movie his mom made him watch with his baby cousin that one time.
The principal picked on another hand, a kid in Virgil’s own class a few seats down.
“What if I don’t have a soulmate?”
The principal frowned. “Well, everyone has a soulmate, silly!”
For some reason, those words triggered an eruption from the eight-year-olds. Questions started flying out of mouths without permission from the principal or teachers.
“What if I never meet my soulmate?”
“How many soulmates can I have?”
“Can I get another soulmate?”
“What if my soulmate dies ?"
The principal got a slightly panicked look on her face at all the noise.
“All right!” She shouted over the swarm of third graders. “Your teachers and parents can answer any other questions you may have, go ahead and follow your teachers back to your classes!”
Virgil’s class followed the teacher back as rambunctiously as possible with him trailing grumpily behind. When they got back to their room, everyone was talking loudly and excitedly about their soulmates. The teacher tried to regain control, but soon realized it was futile and settled for simply supervising the overexcited children to make sure nothing got too out of hand. The school day was nearly over anyway.
All of Virgil’s classmates eventually decided they were going to start writing to their soulmates immediately so they could find them sooner.
Virgil wasn’t certain that that was how it worked and simply ignored them all. He grabbed a book off the bookshelf the teacher let them have free reign of and started reading quietly at his desk. The teacher caught his eye and smiled. He had always been appreciative of Virgil’s quiet nature in a class full of such loud kids.
Virgil continued to read until he felt that tell-tale tingle on his right arm. It was soft, gentle, slightly ticklish.
In blue ink on his forearm appeared, Hello!!
It wasn’t the usual navy blue ink his parents used to sign their names on his homework forms either, it was a lighter blue. Sky blue. Baby blue. And it sparkled .
His soulmate wrote using glitter pens . Virgil wrinkled his nose. He hated the things.
The tingling started up again and Virgil thought his soulmate was trying to get his attention again since he hadn’t replied, but it felt different this time. While not painful, the writing wasn’t as soft this time. It felt… louder somehow, even though written words couldn’t exactly be “loud.”
Greetings! Appeared on his arm below the previous writing. It was a completely different kind of handwriting, and written in red pen instead of blue. It was, once again, glittery.
Virgil had… two soulmates?
Before he could work up the courage to ask his teacher to explain, another tingling sensation started directly below the other two. It was much more clinical this time, though not unpleasant.
Salutations. Written in black ink, directly below the red. Virgil took a moment to figure out what the word meant, but then he remembered it from that book his uncle gave him last Christmas, Charlotte’s Web. This handwriting was arguably the neatest out of all of theirs.
Virgil had three soulmates? He waited a few seconds to make sure there wasn’t another.
He hesitated for another few moments after that. Should he greet them as well? He probably should, they had all done so, after all.
Virgil grabbed his favorite purple marker from his backpack and started writing before he could talk himself out of it.
Hey
None of them wrote back for a few minutes.
The loud red one wrote next. How is it possible to have three soulmates? Appeared to the side of the greetings, written smaller to fit. Everyone else just has one .
The clinical one wrote again. I’m not sure, I’ll try to figure it out.
The first one wrote. Well I think it’s great! More to love!
Virgil couldn’t think of a reply.
While he was staring at his arm, a few of Virgil’s classmates walked up. Virgil didn’t notice, too lost in his own head. One of them grabbed his arm and yanked it towards them.
“You have three soulmates?” The boy asked.
“No fair, I want three!” The girl next to him cried.
They were being loud enough that the other students all went quiet to hear what was going on. The teacher started making his way over.
The boy sneered. “No, you don’t. He probably has three because he’s not good enough for them. The universe had to give them more to make up for it, even it out.”
The girl looked disgusted. “Oh.”
All of Virgil’s classmates held similar expressions. Sure, Virgil had never been well-liked, but he had never been outright hated. Not until this moment.
The teacher looked like he had no clue what was going on or what to do. Virgil didn’t blame him. He didn’t either.
From that day forward Virgil was shunned and ridiculed by everyone who knew about his soulmates, and word spread fast. He had taken to wearing long-sleeve shirts or hoodies and completely stopped wearing shorts in order to hide the soulmarkings.
His parents weren’t too pleased when he finally told them either. They immediately took him to a doctor, certain there had to be some mistake. The doctor tried to explain to them that, while rare, having more than one soulmate was completely safe and healthy, but his parents refused to believe it. He told his soulmates as much.
He broke out the gel pens his parents had bought him shortly before the soulmate assembly. They were specifically designed to write well on skin, meant specifically for soulmarkings. He chose the purple.
While he hadn’t spoken much to them since the first time two weeks ago (at all, really), his soulmates did. Whether it was some silly joke, lines for a play, notes from school, or even just little doodles exchanged throughout the day, they all continued to communicate excitedly while Virgil sat silent. They sometimes asked about him. Little, “ Purple, you okay? ”s since they decided to stick with the colors they first used, but he was always too afraid to respond.
He was almost too afraid to write to them now. Virgil slid up the leg of his pajama pants (for his arms were covered in blue, red, and black doodles) and shakily brought the purple pen to his skin.
The doctor say’s we’re rare but okay
It was a few minutes before a response came. It was the smart soulmate, the black ink and clinical touch. Yes. While rare, we are perfectly healthy. Are you surprised?
Virgil hesitated to respond. No but my mom and dad don’t like it
This time the gentle, caring one wrote back. Well that’s not very nice! I’m sorry!
The loud one replied before Virgil could. I think it’s cool there’s four of us! Like Blue said, more to love!
Virgil picked up the pen again. The kids at school don’t think so.
He felt tingles from all three, but he rolled his pant leg back down and tried to ignore it. He didn’t feel much like talking anymore.
There wasn’t enough leg space left anyway.
A few weeks after the doctor’s appointment, Virgil woke up to the house feeling somewhat off. He had gotten used to the tense air ever since his parents started trying to “cure” his soulmate issue, but something was even more different this morning.
He shrugged off the feeling and got ready for school, smiling slightly at his soulmarks before he got dressed and covered them up again. His soulmates were pretty chatty people. He’d come up with nicknames for each of them now, too.
The gentle and loving light blue ink was his Heart. They were kind and caring, always asking how the others were doing. Even though the bond wasn’t strong enough to feel emotions yet, everything they wrote was full of love, Virgil could tell.
The loud yet kind red one was his Royal. They always made jokes about being royalty and loved fantasy genre, from what Virgil had gathered. They were also really into theatre and they were going to play the part of royalty in their school play soon.
And last but certainly not least, the smartest of them all, in black ink, was his Brain. They were crazy smart. They probably didn’t even need to study. They always had the right answer for everything, and yet somehow they never made the others feel stupid for not knowing.
They sometimes asked about him, especially his Heart, but he was always too scared to write back.
His parents drove him to school that day in a tense silence. That wasn’t unusual these days. What was unusual is that they asked him to take the school bus home.
Virgil furrowed his brow. “Why?”
His father seemed frustrated. “Because your mother and I have a meeting, that’s why! Now get out of the car, go to school.”
Virgil nodded. “Okay. Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. I love you.”
They didn’t say it back. Virgil tried not to let it hurt him. They were probably just stressed out about their meeting.
So Virgil went through his school day, enduring the teasing and bullying of his schoolmates and letting the gentle tingles of his soulmates soothe his frayed nerves.
Crumpled up papers and trash were thrown at him on the school bus. Words that he should never repeat were shouted at him. Virgil stared out the window and tried to ignore it all. He failed.
He got home and his parents weren’t there. It was fine, they did have a meeting. Virgil went to unlock the front door, but found it already unlocked. He hesitated. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.
He made his way inside slowly, carefully, looking for danger in all corners. He eventually made his way into the dining room and saw something out of place. A bright white sheet of paper on the dark wood of the dining table, cleared of any other objects. He picked up the note with shaking hands.
Virgil,
We decided it’s best if we separate for now. We just can’t have someone with your condition under our roof. It’s unnatural, it’s not right, and we can’t fix this. It’s better off for everyone this way. We aren’t equipped to deal with this. Go to the neighbors. They’ll help you call the police. We already disconnected the house phone. We won’t be coming back.
-Mom & Dad
Tears streaked down Virgil’s face. His hands shook violently.
This would be the first time this happened. It certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Virgil sank to the ground, trembling so much that he dropped the note. Sobs wracked his body. He rocked back and forth on the tile floor of the dining room. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs.
Was he dying? Is this what dying felt like? It must be. There was no other explanation. The realization only made it harder to breathe. Made the tears come faster.
Should he tell his soulmates? He had no pen, no marker. He couldn’t get himself off the ground.
Oh gosh, he was going to die and his soulmates would never know.
Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh. This was the end.
Maybe it was better off this way? He was a burden, after all. A freak. Unnatural. Unlovable even to his parents. Maybe his death would be a service to them.
Minutes felt like hours and hours felt like days. It took a long time for Virgil to be able to get up. Long after the sobbing and shaking stopped (the thoughts stayed), he pulled himself off the ground, exhausted.
He trudged up the stairs, packing his gel pens and all the clothes he could fit into his backpack. He didn’t take anything else, knowing it would be lost or stolen somewhere along the way anyway. Virgil took one last long look around his room. He felt like he was going to cry again, but he held it in. He had to be strong. He had to be a big kid. He was alone now.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he left his old room, his old home, and made his way next door. They would call someone for him.
They would send him where he belonged.