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Murdoc accepted pretty early, that hed never actually have a soulmate, or at the very least even if he did he'd never find them, the words plastered in pretty black letters on his skin are too generic , so many have said those exact words, some right to him, some right near him, but none have ever had the words he said back to them written on their own skin.
After a time that fact suited him, he'd lost faith in the subject far after the time he should have , far after knowing his father had been his mothers soulmate , far after knowing that hadn't made her suffer less, far after she lay crumpled on the floor in a heap with blood dripping over his fathers words branding her as his, red mixing with black as she still looked up at him with a love that to him had looked more like madness.
His father gave him little but hate and bitterness towards the world, bitterness that leached out and manifested itself in the form of wanting to hurt others and taking great joy in it, as if he can rectify all his past sorrows on the flesh of man, and he thinks then what room is there left for love ?
So yes, he throws the notion away.
Then he meets a woman, she doesn't bear his mark, but he doesn't carry her's ether, and it shows. He doesn't love her, not really, not the way a soulmate does, but she tolerates him, both his crassness and the man he must pretend to be, so, no not love, but fondness blooms in his chest.
She still dies.
Dies just as Cassian is born , and as he looks into green eyes, even as he feels that fondness wither crippled in his ribs, something long and forgotten throbs to life in his chest , it flushes outward and fills his whole being , he sees the words "your beautiful" scribbled in cursive on the babes shoulder, and couldn't agree more. And thinks this, this is what it must be to love, or as close as he will ever come to it, and c
Cassian becomes the first thing he's loved since his mother.
It does nothing to stop him from growing even more cynical, or realizing a blatant truth, that his soulmate would have to bear him, bear the brunt of him the way his mother had bore his father, take his blood and hate and pain, the way his mother bore his fathers fist, his crass humor and hurtful wit, bear it all and throw it back at him like waves battering off stones and still be able to forgive him afterward,and that, that soul he will never find.
So he gives up and ravages the world in the meantime.
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Angus macgyver accepted pretty early that fate might hate him, its the first thought hed had sitting in first grade as he learned about soulmates, as he learned what all the black marks all over his classmates meant, only to look down at his own arm, and see not words but...
music notes
They dance up his arm all the way to his elbow, at first hed liked them very little, "Its a whole verse!" His teacher had said as shed gently clasped his arm "Its alright Angus, its unique, its cute. " he hadn't thought so, at the time , it had just been one more thing to make him different, to separate him from others like his name or his brain , tho ms peters had said those were cute to.
To his first grade mind, they were like a vex, what good was it? He couldn't read them, tho he wanted very much too, he could read his classmates very well, but not his own, and hed feared hed never be able to, feared his soulmate would walk or run by humming or singing, and he'd never know it.
The prospect had had his shoulders slumping, until Wilt, small and nowhere near as painfully shy, bounded over to him hand held out, and a sad smile plastered on his face.
"I can't read mine either."
And he'd looked at the small, oh so very small scribbled writing on wilts hand, and smiled just as sadly as hed looked back in Wilt's eyes and told him what it'd said, and Wilt had beamed, hugged him long and hard, said "You to ! ill help you read yours to !" And he'd wrapped his arms around the other boy, "Thank you Wilt." "Call me Bozer."
They'd been friends ever since.
His mother dies, his father breaks, and that familiar fear tickles in the back of his head, his father stays for 2 years with his broken and jagged edges, until he too disappears. His faith in soulmates wavers all over again, but his grandfathers sits him down, makes him promise not to, so he does, says hell keep looking even as he doesn't know for sure if that's entirely true, but he loves him, so he agrees to try.
He learns to read music after that, learns to read it very well, so he knows the intricate notes that clime up his arm are indeed a whole verse...
A whole verse of home on the range
And even then so young he'd thought, what the actual hell and floundered again, he'd thought he'd never meet someone singing to him, he knows he'll never meet someone who sings that at him! But he finds he can't betray his promises. He doesn't stop looking, but he pushes the concept to the side.
When he meets penny parker he thinks, maybe he hasn't given up after all, but the first thing he says to her is stuttered and its nowhere on her skin, but he loves her in a way, and she loves him back in her own, and he thinks that's good enough, maybe the best he'll ever get.
When he meets Jack he can't stand him, when he gets to know Jack he almost wished it was him, he doesn't think he's ever loved someone the way he loves Jack , its like Jack is his friend, his father, and his brother all wrapped into one, Jack loves him back , and Jack sings ... a lot, but Jack has never belted home on the range at him despite his roots, and mac knows deep in his bones, that while he loves Jack genuinely, it is not in that way , nor does Jack love him in that way ,he comes to realizes that Jack is a different kind of soulmate, and it suits them just fine.
Nikki gives him hope, and crushes it all at once, he wasn't hers , she'd known that , they both had, but she'd loved him, or said she had, and in equal measure a part of her had dug inside him and made a home in his chest, and in hindsight hed accepted it if only to be loved after losing so much , but even he can only take in so much water before he needs to come up for air.
So he accepts fate hates him, he gives up, but he saves the world in the meantime.
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Angus MacGyver throws him off a balcony. With nothing but a wine bottle, and Murdoc feels passion fill his dead and empty veins for the first time in years, and his limbs tingle with the feel of it, and he finds he wants this, wants it more than anything he's wanted in a long time.
He doesn't have to separate MacGyver from his little ragtag group, they do it for him, luring the boy to the junkyard from there is easy, he knows he fanboys over the phone, can't help it he's more than impressed at this point , the boy comes running , and by the time the boy gets there he's revved up and ready to play.
"I'm here." That's the first thing Mac says, but Murdoc's heard it so many times , maybe that's why even as his gut twist in some profound instinctual way, he brushes it to the side , instead he comes out from the cars he's hid behind, whistling "their song" stalking forward like a predator, until he comes to face macgyver then he struts like a peacock.
He tells the boy to remove any weapons. The boy removes his jacket instead, the little moment of vulnerability has shivers going down Murdoc's spine. This boy, MacGyver, is more fascinating than he ever imagined, and he tells him as much, acknowledges it out of respect, and maybe something else.
It will do nothing to stop him from killing him.
MacGyver isn't sure what to expect as he walks through the junkyard, but the last thing is soft drones of home on the range to echo in the air around him, its hardly the first time he's heard it, but it sends chills down his spine and his hair on end, his gut twist hard, finally he's had enough.
"Ok, I'm here !"
Murdoc comes to face him, and something in him twist further, but he ignores it, he's not ready to give up just yet, which is why when Murdoc's done dolling out praise mac neither expected nor wants, he pulls a stunt and runs under cover of smoke as his heart pounds.
Murdoc yells to him, telling him there's no one quite like him, and he's exactly as advertised, that he's delighted, and something in it has him running faster, all the while his guts still twisting.
MacGyver is dragging that passion from him again, so much so that even in his frustration that mac is finding new ways to elude him even on his own turf, Murdoc cant be completely pissed. He's trying still to focus, but it's hard through his excitement, the chase through the junkyard as Mac barley escapes him is exhilarating, he hasn't felt anything like this, hasn't felt anything period in a long time.
It comes crashing down tho, right when Murdoc corners him in a wall of destroyed cars, and for a moment, Murdoc thinks on the irony , how fitting that the destruction of something so beautiful should take place among so many broken things, then the thought is cut off as Mac smirks at him "Look. " he says
And Murdoc does.
And he's caught.
The langley, J ack, comes around, a gun held to Murdoc's head , but he only has eyes for Angus, if he's going to be beaten, hed rather make it all the way to third base so to speak , he tells the boy as much , but to his surprise he sees only empathy reflected in the eyes staring at him a hint of something sad underneath, and he knows somehow he's vaguely forgiven his trespasses.
Something deep throbs in his very bones and it has his hands rising, before he can really stop himself ,he's brought down to his knees ,he pays it no mind tracks the boy with his eyes instead , macgyver has now not only brought passion back into Murdoc's life but also did what no other has, he's survived him, confirmed the potential Murdoc had seen in him along with his respect.
And that's the moment he fell in love.
Murdoc can't keep his eyes off him. They roll over him, taking in every detail, drinking the boy up like water, that's how he sees it.
A sleeve caught on all those sharp edges, as MacGyver tried to round a tight corner and treas terribly right passed the elbow, and Murdoc sees the music notes that dance up his arm, in the same tune, same chores he whistled not moments ago, and he can't help it.
He laughs.
And Mac looks at him, startled, and right before the langley can snap the cuffs on him twist his hand around, in a way that makes his own sleeve slip down easily past his wrist, past where bold black letters stand stark against pale skin.
And macs breath hitches as he reads.
I'm here.
The shock makes it hard to see anything, but Mac drags his eyes back up to meet black, and Murdoc is smiling, all teeth and want, and 2 people think a very different thought at once.
No
Yes