Chapter Text
Sean’s TiMER was installed when he was 14, like most kids he knew. It immediately began counting down. He wouldn’t be meeting his soulmate until he was in his mid twenties. That was fine with him. He had fun in highschool, he joined a band and played videogames and got good enough grades for his parents to mostly leave him alone. He went to college, which wasn’t great, and met a girl online, which was. They both knew that what they had wouldn’t be forever, but they enjoyed their time together anyway. He learned some Korean, even went to visit once, and played more videogames.
Stuck out in the country with little to do he spent more and more time on the computer. That was how he found out about let’s players, people on youtube who posted videos of themselves playing games. It seemed a bit silly at first, but it was a nice enough way to pass time, watching people play games and tell jokes. After a few months he bought a nice webcam and started a channel of his own.
It was fun, being a Youtuber. He wasn’t famous, far from it, but he was making friends and keeping himself busy, and that was something. He started following more and more people. Some of them held his attention more than others.
Pewdiepie with his handsome voice and silky blond hair and over the top acting, and Markiplier who was just as handsome and amazingly fun to watch.
A few months later and he found himself in the odd position of almost being Mark. Pewdiepie featuring him had ballooned his subscriber count and suddenly he was getting more attention than he could handle, and people like Mark were chatting with him and asking to do collaborative videos. Those were some of the best times of his life. He had more fans than he could count and he got to do something he enjoyed every day. He was able to move away from his family and into an apartment, and soon he would be going to America for the first time. It was almost too much to process. He didn’t notice his TiMER was low until the night before the flight. He was going to time out in America.
His flight to PAX was long and mostly uneventful. He had spent most of trying to do anything but stare at his own wrist, watching the time slip away. He had forgotten the time difference, and it seemed like the thing wouldn’t actually hit zero till well after he landed. Getting off the plane and checked into his hotel was chaos though, and soon enough his TiMER was the farthest thing from his mind. He was jetlagged and already a bit buzzed from the drinks he had on the plane, and his hotel room wasn’t ready. He pulled out his phone and saw he already had a few messages from Mark, Bob and Wade, who had asked him to have dinner with him that night so they could meet each other in person before the convention the next day.
-Hey! What Hotel are you in? --Markimoo
-I’m in the Mariot, you know that one? --Jackaboy
-I might know it… I’m in it!! --Markimoo
Sean grinned and hit the call button. “Hey! Mark, you at the hotel? There’s some issue with my room so I’m down in the lobby. Maybe I can dump my bags in your room so we can head out to dinner?”
“Yeah man, sounds good. I’m on the third floor, room 313, just come up.”
“Ok, be right there.” Sean grabbed his bags and found the elevator, making sure he pressed the right floor. “Damned American floor numbers…” he muttered under his breath.
The hotel was large, much larger than any he had been in before, and the halls were pretty crowded, so it took him a bit before he found his way to Mark’s room. By then he was feeling dead on his feet, and his bags were weighing him down so much he thought his arms would fall off.
However, any thoughts of tiredness, of anything at all, completely stopped when the door opened.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
BEEP BEEP
Sean winced when he heard his bag hitting the floor, thinking of the delicate electronics inside.
Mark’s eye went wide as he looked down at left arm, his wrist covered by the sleeve of his lucky flannel.
“Is that…?” Sean blinked a few times, trying to make his brain engage. “Is that a TiMER?”
Mark nodded and rolled up his sleeve slowly, showing Sean the blinking panel embedded into his wrist.
“Oh.” For what may have been the first time in his life, Sean didn’t have anything to say.
“Hey Mark, Sean! You guys are in this hotel too?”
Both of them turned to see Bob and Wade coming down the hall. Neither of them had pressed the button on their TiMERS to stop the sound, and as the other two men approached, their faces changed, the smiles melting away into confusion.
“Uh, Mark?” Wade stopped a few feet away. “Is that your TiMER?”
Mark blushed. “Yeah…” He quickly pressed the button on his wrist, silencing the beep, and Sean did the same.
Bob looked between the men and cleared his throat loudly, grabbing Wade by the arm. “Well! We will see you too at the restaurant downstairs in an hour ok? We have a reservation. Wade and I are going to go for a drink.” He elbowed Wade in the side, prompting the other man to stammer out a quick response.
“Uh, y-yeah. Dinner. Later. See you guys!”
Sean sighed as the men practically ran down the hall. It wasn’t really the first impression he had hoped for.
“Maybe, maybe you should come inside.” Mark pulled the door open wider and motioned for Sean to follow him into the room.
Mark had managed to get a better room than Sean had because he had booked early. He had a full suite with a kitchen and a nice view of the city out the window. Sean could even make out the convention hall in the distance.
Mark gestured for him to sit. “So, I guess we should talk about...this.” He held up his arm, pulling the sleeve back again to reveal the now blank TiMER. He glanced at it. “You know, I don’t think I ever asked how long you had on yours.”
Sean shrugged, looking down at his own wrist. The blank TiMER was a little disconcerting to see. He could barely remember what his arm looked like without the little plastic bar and the flashing countdown numbers. “I guess most people find it kind of rude to ask about, right?” He laughed suddenly. “In my early videos I used to let it show, and then Felix told me I should cover mine up, like you and him do, so fans wouldn’t be tracking my countdown. After a while, I stopped thinking about it myself.”
Mark let out a small laugh and for a moment Sean couldn’t help but think that maybe things would be ok. Mark was a great guy. A guy, but that was ok, Sean had never been too picky on that point, and he liked video games and Youtube and silly jokes. And Mark WAS good looking, he had to admit. In person he a bit shorter than Sean had thought, actually the same height as Sean himself, but he was solidly built under this blue flannel shirt, and his eyes were bright behind his glasses.
Sean shifted in his seat, suddenly very aware of his scruffy face and rumpled clothes from his long flight. He probably smelled like airplane, not the way he would have wanted to meet his soulmate. He tugged self consciously at his oversized hoody, wishing he had thought to wear something nicer to travel in.
Mark looked around the room, pointedly not making eye contact with Sean. “You know, after all this…” He gestured vaguely at his wrist with his other hand. “Maybe you should just stay in this room. I mean,” he shot a quick look at Sean, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Would that be okay with you?”
Sean nodded hurriedly, a blush spreading across his cheeks. “Yeah, yeah, I guess that sounds good.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a small laugh. “no sense in playing coy about the whole thing, huh.”
Mark nodded and left the room to call Wade and Bob and let them know they would be ready to go eat soon. Sean watched him leave with a strange feeling twisting up in his stomach. This wasn’t how the TiMER was supposed to work, was it? he knew Mark. They talk at least once a week, they skyped and texted and played games together. This wasn’t really their first meeting, why did the TiMER have to wait so long to let them know? Most people were able to meet their soulmate with a clean slate, now he wasn’t sure what he supposed to do.