Archive of Our Own

Luke had been six when he’d first learned about Dreams. His first grade teacher had taught the class that when they were eighteen, they’d begin to have Dreams of their soulmate and would continue to have those Dreams, until they met them.

Six year old Luke hadn’t cared much.

Then, they’d been mentioned every year in Health, a casual little reference until his class was old enough to understand the enormity of it. When he was twelve, his dad sat him down for a proper, sit down Talk. That had been awkward for both of them, but Luke’s dad had already gone through this with Luke’s older brothers. It was only made worse when Luke’s mum tried to help.

After that, it seemed, Dreams were everywhere.

They were in every TV show and movie that Luke watched, soulmates trying to find each other and learn how to be with each other because the universe had deemed them fit for each other. It was in the news as people tried to understand the science and psychology behind the Dreams; every religion Luke had ever heard of explained them as a gift from God or the gods or just the universe, depending on who you asked. In history, he had to do an essay on the Dreams, how they were considered flights of fancy and how the Church had believed they were sent from Satan, up until the seventeenth century when people started to figure out that they were real. The Pope was caught in a scandal of being caught between his duty and his soulmate. Companies advertised services that promised to help soulmates find each other in a world of over seven billion people.

Luke still didn’t care until he was fourteen and Ben was weeks away from having his first Dream. Then, of course, the whole idea practically consumed him.

Ben’s first Dream was uneventful; it seemed that his soulmate was not yet eighteen and so his Dream was just wandering around, exploring the world his mind had built.

Luke was two weeks off of sixteen when sleeping became difficult. Any time he started to drift off, he felt like there was a sharp pull behind his navel, jerking him back awake.

He didn’t sleep at all that night.

He told his mum the next morning, rubbing his eyes sleepily. She hugged him sympathetically. Luke pretended not to see her eyes bright with tears.

“It must be your soulmate’s birthday,” she said. “They’re reaching for you and finding nothing so far, since you’re not of age yet.”

Shakily, she gave him painkillers and circled the date on the kitchen calendar in blue. “Seventh of July,” she murmured. “Eighteen years back, so--1994.” In tiny print, she wrote Lu’s soulmate’s birthday right along the bottom, beneath other notes like Lu swim practice, 6:45-7:55 AM, shepherd’s pie for dinner, and Liz tutoring after school, 3-4:30 PM.

Luke looked at the calendar and shuddered a little. He wondered about the person born on the seventh of July in 1994, what they were like. He wondered if they were a girl with bright blue eyes, if they were anything like Aleisha in his year at school. Luke supposed he’d have the rest of his life to find out, even if that made him terrified.

“Do you want me to call you out sick?” His mum offered.

Luke considered it, then shook his head no.

He went through school that day in a bit of a daze. Everyone else had their soulmates waiting for them too--how many of them had feel that nauseating pull towards something they didn’t yet know?

When he was sixteen, he dated Aleisha. They both knew they weren’t soulmates--her birthday wasn’t the seventh of July, for starters, and his wasn’t the sixteenth of December--but he liked her and she liked him, and that was enough.

When he was seventeen, he felt tugs similar to the one that happened on the seventh of July in November and then again in January.

He didn’t tell his parents about those, though. He knew you only felt tug when something big was happening, and more often than not, when something bad was happening. He told Aleisha, though; if she had opinions on what the tugs could mean, she didn’t voice them. He didn’t voice any theories about her soulmate either, and that was what made their relationship work.

It might have been morbid, being in a relationship just to be in a relationship, but Luke genuinely liked Aleisha. They were good friends, and he wondered what might have been if they didn’t know about their soulmates waiting for them. Probably nothing much--soulmates almost never met when they were school-aged--but still, the idea that the option was taken away was more than a little startling.

He liked her, though, liked kissing her and going on dates. Neither of them could drive, so more than a few of their dates were chaperoned by his mother.

Luke thought he could maybe love Aleisha, even if she wasn’t his soulmate. He shared this with her, quiet and a little ashamed. She usually smiled and said she loved him too, even if they knew they had an end date.

So he went about life that way, knowing his relationship would end soon so he could start his real one.  His excitement and nervousness built as his eighteenth birthday drew closer and closer. His heart was broken a little when Aleisha broke up with him a month before his birthday. Luke understood why she broke up with him--he would, after all, meet his soulmate in a month--but it still hurt. They’d been dating for almost two years at that point.

He missed being able to talk with her about his fears and his excitement, and he missed her as a friend. He thought that it might be for the best, though.

===

They went to Aunt Cora’s for Luke’s eighteenth birthday. Liz knew her sons, she’d explained to Aunt Cora within Luke’s earshot; she didn’t want Luke to have his Dream interrupted by Ben or Jack waking him at midnight. They could take him out for his first legal drink the next night, but Luke’s first Dream would be uninterrupted or she’d be damned.

Luke slid down the wall. Aunt Cora’s dog Woody was overjoyed, wriggling into his lap. He could hear Mum and Aunt Cora making dinner and continue chatting. Absently, he petted at Woody, whose entire body shook with excitement. Luke kind of felt like him, like a soda bottle all filled up with pressure and ready to explode.

He was meeting his soulmate tonight. It was no wonder that he was all filled up with excitement and anxiety and nervousness, all at once.

“Luke,” Aunt Cora called. “Come to dinner!”

He struggled to his feet, since Woody didn’t seem interested in moving off of his lap.

Aunt Cora and his mum had made spagbol with meatballs and chocolate cake for his birthday; they were his favorite foods but they tasted like chalk in his mouth. He was just nervous, he thought.

He helped them clean up, despite Aunt Cora’s attempts to shoo him out of the room. He liked doing dishes, much to Aunt Cora’s surprise. It was usually his chore at home anyways, so he didn’t mind helping out.

After dinner, they settled into the living room to watch a movie (Back to the Future, of course, since it was both Luke and Liz’s favorite movie). Aunt Cora and Liz both had glasses of wine, while Luke stuck to grape juice in a wine glass. It didn’t take long for his mum to dissolve into an argument with her sister.

“Oh, come on, Liz. Let me give the boy his last illegal drink.”

Liz rolled her eyes and let Aunt Cora pour Luke a glass of red wine.

“There now, you’ll be classy with us old ladies tonight and tomorrow nights you’ll go take remarkably un-classy shots with your brothers, and you’ll have spanned all the kinds of indecently drunk.”

“You’re not getting Luke drunk,” Liz said in warning. “Would you have wanted to meet your soulmate drunk?”

“I met my soulmate drunk both times. Made for a fantastic meet-cute.”

Luke stifled a snort. Aunt Cora’s story about how she’d met her soulmate changed every time she told it, but she was his favorite aunt for it. Her soulmate was off--well, somewhere, Luke thought it was possibly backpacking in China. Aunt Cora had refused to go with her, which seemed like Aunt Cora to Luke, at least.

He sipped at his glass as Aunt Cora and his mum bickered. It tasted sharp and sour, like grape juice gone horribly wrong. The idea of being slightly tipsy appealed to him, though, so he kept at it until his glass was empty.

===

Aunt Cora and Liz were sisters as close as he and Jack and Ben, so when their bickering turned into fond reminiscing, Luke padded off to bed. Woody trailed behind him, nails clicking merrily on the hardwood. He left his empty wineglass on the table.

He couldn’t properly Dream until midnight proper, but he could still go to sleep earlier. He wondered if his soulmate was nervously preparing for bed like he was, anxiously waiting for this moment too on the other side of their shared Dream.

Woody curled up on Luke’s feet, settling in with a whumph. Luke messed around on his phone until his eyes blurred, then slipped into a sleep.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he first started to Dream. Part of him thought it’d be like going to sleep in his bed and waking up somewhere else, but he didn’t expect to just find himself in an empty cafe with no memory of having gotten there.

The shop was crowded with mismatched tables and chairs, a bright yellow piano with peeling paint tucked into a corner and stacked high with sheet music and books. The remnants of a card game laid across a table, along with white ceramic cups and empty plates. It looked abandoned.

“Hello?” Luke called. There was no reply.

It took him a minute to wind through the tables and get to the door. Instead of stepping out into a sunlit street, like he’d been expecting, he came into a truly enormous ballroom. String music played, eerie in the empty, echoing room. He hurried through to the double doors across the room, up a majestic flight of stairs, and emerged into a park.

There, he wasn’t alone.

A boy with messy red hair was sprawled out in the grass. There was a guitar lying in the grass next to him, but he seemed to be soaking in the sunlight and dozing.

Luke bit back a gasp.

He’d been expecting--well. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, exactly. A girl, maybe. But a boy who played guitar? Luke thought he could live with that.

He took a step forward, and that was enough to draw the boy’s attention.

“Cal,” he called out drowsily, not bothering to open his eyes. “I’m not going with you and Ash, leave me alone.”

“Cal? Ash?” Luke asked, confused. The park was empty except for him and the redhead.

The boy sat up and stared at Luke in shock. “Holy fuck,” he started. “Oh my god. Four. Fuck. Four! Four? Who’s ever heard of four?”

“What do you mean, four?” Luke asked. His voice sounded shrill to his own ears. “Are you my soulmate?”

The boy scrambled to his feet. “Who’re you?” he demanded.

“I’m Luke. My name’s Luke. Are you my soulmate?” he repeated.

“Mikey?” a voice said behind them. Luke whirled to see two more boys, and started hyperventilating. “Michael, who’s this?”

Luke didn’t stick around to hear the answer. He woke up, gasping, and found himself in the guest room at Aunt Cara’s. Woody snuffled around his feet and tucked in next to him.

Three people. There’d been three people in his Dream. He had three soulmates, and they were happy with each other. Who’d ever heard of such a thing, four people being each other’s soulmates? What place was there for him with them?

He drew his knees up to his chest and cried, overwhelmed. Not only three people, but three boys. His future apparently consisted of gay orgies and people who didn’t even know he’d existed, and hadn’t even thought that he might.

Woody whined and nosed under his arms to lick at his tears and offer some sort of comfort.

He didn’t dream or Dream again that night. He didn’t go back to sleep, too scared of Dreaming and encountering the boys he’d fled from.

The next morning, Liz took one look at his tear-stained face and didn’t ask questions. She kept the rest of their family from prying, too, which Luke was grateful for. He loved his mum a lot.

He napped that afternoon but didn’t fall into any sort of actual sleep. When his brothers came, he did his best to seem overjoyed and happy, as if his Dream had gone well.

Luke probably drank a little more than was strictly advisable with his brothers; Jack made sure to get him and Ben home safely, but it was all too easy to slide into a Dream when got back to Aunt Cora’s. In the Dream, he built himself a library without doors. He spent that night moving bookshelves around, playing with the architecture of the room. The whole night, he built his haven, and tried to ignore the pounding on the walls.

Over the next week, Luke got better at building his library. He reinforced the walls and blocked a door whenever his Dreams tried to build one. He gave the room sweeping glass windows with soft window seat cushions underneath; he carefully created an upright grand piano with a wide bench seat, framed by two armchairs; he filled the shelves with all sorts of books, no matter that he couldn’t read in the dream. Just knowing that there were books on anything he could ever want to read and things he would never get to lining the shelves made him happy.

He cursed loudly when he realized his dream was subtly shaping his library to accommodate his--soulmates. The extra armchairs and the wide piano bench left just enough room for four people; there were four window seats; the books were on topics Luke had no interest in himself but that at least one of his soulmates was guaranteed to love. There were four computers arranged in a circle; there was a couch big enough for four people; the room was decorated in four colors. There were elements of the park, the ballroom, the cafe, all mixed in neatly into his library, and he hated it.

Stubbornly, he pushed the armchairs to help block the door that kept reappearing--the damned knocking continued--and stripped away everything that wasn’t there just for him. He tore up the window seat cushions and shoved all the books off the shelves, leaving the room in wreckage.

He sat at the piano and played something simple, a delicate lullaby his mum had taught him early on, before he ever took a proper lesson. The tinkling melody caused the knocking on the door to quiet. Feeling victorious, the lullaby gave way to a proper piece, one he’d done for a recital years ago but still loved. This one was fast and angry, and he broke down halfway through it.

Luke felt like the Dream was sighing at him, like it was saying ‘enough is enough’. The door to the library swung open with a defeated click, the mess he’d made of the library righting itself.

“Hello?” someone--one of the three boys, couldn’t be anyone else--called. “Hello, are you in here?”

Luke could hear the boy picking his way through the maze of shelves, and didn’t look up from the piano keys. He heard the quiet sigh of relief when the boy rounded a final corner and found him sitting at the piano.

“I’m Calum,” the boy said. Luke didn’t turn to see his face. “Can I sit?”

Luke shifted over on the piano bench a few inches.

“Mikey said you sounded Australian, like us. Was he right?”

Luke nodded and played the treble clef of a simple duet. It sounded wrong since he was on the bass clef keys for the piece, and he was only playing one part besides.

He was surprised when Calum mimicked him, on the proper keys in the proper place.

“I can’t play piano, but the Dream is telling me what I need to know,” Calum explained without prompting. “Just like you knew how to find us, the first time you Dreamed.”

Luke still didn’t talk, just tried to remember the right notes to the bass clef portion of the duet.

“Hey,” Calum said gently. “You can talk to me, y’know.”

Luke shrugged. He didn’t know if he wanted to or not.

“Ashton probably would be better at this,” Calum said. “He’s the oldest, so he did it with Mikey and me already. But he’s pulling an all-nighter, the dork, and isn’t sleeping tonight. And Michael’d scare you into blocking us out again.”

“What’s wrong with Michael?” Luke could feel Calum startle, then still.

“Nothing’s wrong with Michael, he’s just...really blunt. It can be offputting if you don’t know him well.” Calum tapped out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. “That one I know on my own.” He sighed. “Between you and Ash, I’m gonna have to take up piano. Clearly it’s important to you.”

“How’d you guess that?”

“Well, you Dreamed one up here, in your Library.” Luke could hear the capital letters when Calum talked, as Calum ran a hand over the smooth black gloss of the piano. “Ashton Dreamed one into his Cafe, too.”

“The Cafe was…”

“Ashton’s Dream? Yeah. That’s why it’s all, like. Done completely. He had two years to build it before he met Michael.”

“Who made the ballroom?”

“There’s a Ballroom?” Calum blinked in surprise. “Michael, then. His changes all the time. Mine’s the Park.”

“So we each have a--place?”

“In the Dreams? Yeah. It’s like--we’re out of our comfort zone, so we Dream a place for us to, like, be comfortable in? Fuck, I’m explaining this so awfully. But, uh. Yeah. The cafe is almost an exact replica of where Ashton works, or so he’s told us. The park’s right near my house. Michael and I played there when we were kids.”

“You knew Michael from before?”

“Mmhm.” Calum turned to face Luke. There was hardly any room between them on the bench. “He was my best friend for ages and ages, but we grew apart when we were older. Big shock when we ended up being soulmates.”

“Why a ballroom?”

“You ask a lot of questions, dude.” Luke looked down, and Calum hurried to reassure him. “It’s not a bad thing! No one ever talks about Dreams outside of them, so. We’re all curious the first time ‘round, I guess.” Calum grinned crookedly. “Mike dreams about stuff going on in his life. He’s taking a ballroom class since my sister’s getting married and we’re both in the wedding party, and she’d kill us if we fucked up our dancing.”

“You’re--you still Dream?”

“Yeah, we figured it was cos we’d not yet met Ashton. Guess it was cos we hadn’t met you, either.” Calum cocked his head. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Um. Luke. I’m Luke.”

“Good to meet you, Luke.” Calum rubbed at his eyes. “God, it’s been a long week. Mikey hasn’t shut up about you, in the living world. Like, he feels awful about scaring you off like that.”

“What’s he like?”

“Mikey?” Calum blinked. “He’s--he’s a nerd, but a sweet nerd. You’ve got to meet him, though. I can’t do him or Ash justice.”

Luke nodded, taking in more of Calum’s appearance. He was slim and had soft, dark hair streaked through with blond. He had the beginning of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and kind brown eyes.

As Luke watched him, Calum turned transparent for a second. “Oh,” he said. “I think I’m waking up. Probably my dog. Or maybe Michael. I’ll talk to you next Dream, okay?”

Before Calum vanished entirely, he leaned over and gave Luke a short kiss. It didn’t feel like much of anything, since Calum was dissolving into mist.

Luke spent the rest of the night exploring the dream. Ashton’s piano was out of tune but still played well enough; Michael’s ballroom had excellent acoustics for singing, and Luke was pretty sure that Michael and Ashton themselves were in Calum’s park. He was overwhelmed enough for one night, though, so he didn’t seek them out.

Luke wandered the Dream, wondering if he heard laughter over a hill in the Park, or conversation around a corner in Ashton's Cafe. There was definitely no one in his Library.

He wasn't actively looking for anyone, though. He didn't particularly want to, and perhaps it was luck that over the next few nights he didn't. Maybe the Dream was respecting his wishes, or maybe he just managed to avoid everywhere anyone else was.

That luck didn't last. One night, maybe a week after his conversation with Calum, he turned a corner in Michael's portion of the Dream--tonight, it was a chaotic house--and ran smack into a blond with curly hair.

"You must be Luke!" the blond said, and Luke realized this had to be Ashton, since he didn't have vibrantly red hair. "Hey, if we go out Michael’s bedroom door we should get into my Cafe--I hope. When Michael dreams his house, it gets confusing.”

A little shellshocked, Luke followed Ashton up the stairs.

"This is Michael's house?" he asked, looking around.

"Uh, yeah." Ashton was distractedly counting doors. "Michael's is the third one down--Oh, for god’s sake,” Ashton said and slammed the door shut. “Right. Well, how do you feel about finding a spot somewhere else?”

“What’s going on?”

“Calum and Mikey are Dreaming about...things. Physical things. Tongues in places tongues shouldn’t be, hands in pants, y’know. Stuff like that.”

“Oh. Would you be...joining them if I weren’t here?”

“Nah. Michael calls me a prude, but I’d like my first everything with my soulmates to be in real life, you know? Cal and Mikey don’t really have that hangup.” Ashton looked over his shoulder at Luke. “You might want to lock your Library; they like defiling my Cafe to feel like I’m there with them.”

“Right.” Luke concentrated and hoped the Dream was listening to him. He trailed after Ashton as they wandered through Calum’s park. “We could go to Michael’s Ballroom instead?”

“Uh. I think it’s his bedroom right now. When his house is here, anything else he’s ever Dreamed tends to disappear. Cal’s got a treehouse over here somewhere I thought we could go to, if that was okay with you?”

They wandered for a bit, until Ashton seemed to get his bearings. “I think it’s over here,” he said, and they wound around a group of trees to find a ladder.

Luke climbed up after Ashton, trying not to stare too obviously at his soulmate’s arse. It was a little more difficult than he’d have thought it to be.

Inside, the treehouse was exactly what Luke would have thought it would look like. There was a worn rug on the floor that looked like it was made of old t-shirt material, and a bookshelf full of comics in the corner. A barrell held wooden swords and toy lightsabers. Luke tried to imagine the trio playing pretend in the park below with those toys and succeeded. The thought made him smile.

They settled on the floor, Ashton leaning back on his elbows and Luke sitting cross-legged.

“So,” Ashton said. The room fell silent.

“So,” Luke parroted back.

“So, uh, I’m Ashton, your soulmate.”

“I’m Luke, your soulmate.”

Ashton was lighthearted and giggly, Luke soon found out. His birthday was July 7th, making him the oldest of Luke’s three soulmates. He was a uni student in Sydney, lived with his family in a suburb not far away, and worked in a cafe.

Luke felt enormously uninteresting in contrast, but told Ashton what he could about himself. He was halfway through a story about his dog Molly when Calum and Michael climbed the tree house ladder to join them. They didn’t look like they’d just been Dreaming about, well, sex, but then again it was a Dream.

“Well, now you’ll have to start over for Mikey,” Ashton said, a teasing note to his voice. Michael stuck his tongue out and flipped Ashton off. Then he laid on the floor and put his head in Luke’s lap.

Surprised, Luke gently ran his fingers through Michael's hair.

“Oh, now he’s never going to leave you alone,” Calum said. “Head scratches are like catnip for Mikey. Now that you’ve encouraged him, you’ll be his personal head scratch slave for life.”

Michael moaned exaggeratedly and fluttered his eyelashes at Luke, who burst into startled laughter. Ashton leaned over and bopped Michael on the nose.

“Who’s up for twenty questions?” he asked brightly.

===

They met in a park. Not Calum’s park (as Luke had come to think of it), but in Hyde Park in downtown Sydney.

Molly was getting old, and they had to take her to the vet more and more often. It was a sunny, beautiful day, though, and Luke felt guilty for taking her to get stabbed with needles repeatedly, so he talked Ben into letting them stop at the park to play frisbee with her.

Molly wasn’t as quick as she used to be, but she still bounded between Ben and Luke to catch the orange frisbee. While Ben expertly threw it with a perfect spin, Luke was significantly worse at it. Molly didn’t mind, chasing after the disc every time it went wide and bringing it back to Luke to be thrown again.

Of course, Molly didn’t catch it every time, and Luke managed to clock a passerby in the head with the frisbee.

“Sorry!” he called as Molly ran to fetch it from where it had bounced. Ben was covering a snigger. “My bad!”

“Not a--Luke?!”

Luke looked away from Molly sprinting back towards him. “Ashton?” he asked. Molly barrelled into his legs, knocking him over.

Both Ben and Ashton were definitely laughing at him now. Molly dropped the frisbee on his chest, eyes begging for him to throw it again.

Dumbly, Luke sat up and threw it, with a flick of his wrist. Molly bolted off.

Ashton jogged over to help Luke to his feet. “Hey, oh my god.”

“Hi,” Luke said, and blinked. “Hi.”

“You said that twice,” Ashton teased. Even though Luke had met him in Dreams, it was different to meet him in person. He was somehow shorter than Luke had expected. Luke wasn’t sure if that was due to Ashton dreaming himself taller, or Luke genuinely not noticing. “Hi, good to actually, finally meet you.”

Molly nosed her way in between them, and flopped down, panting. She gnawed on the frisbee contentedly.

“Oh, hey, you shouldn’t eat that,” Luke mumbled, and started trying to tug it from her mouth. Molly growled and held on. Ashton laughed.

“This your dog?”

“Yeah, this is Molly,” Luke said. “She’s an old lady.” he scratched behind her ears once she dropped the frisbee, and dimly registered Ben jogging over behind him.

“Luke, who’s this?”

Ashton answered before Luke could. “I’m Ashton,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’re Luke’s brother?”

“Yeah. Ben.” There was a beat of silence where no one moved except for Molly, who rolled over onto her back, exposing her belly. “You the seventh of July?”

Ashton didn’t miss a beat. “That’s my birthday, yeah.” He leaned down to rub Molly’s belly, much to her delight.

“You Lukey’s soulmate?”

“One of them.”

“One of them?”

“I’ve got three,” Luke said quietly. “Ashton, Calum, and Michael.”

Ben whistled. “Better tell Mum that before you bring Ashton home,” he said. “Just so she can get enough matching china for family dinners.”

“You’re not mad?”

Ben ruffled Luke’s hair. “I’m furious you didn’t tell us, but mad at you for having three soulmates? Nah. It’s out of your control. You talk to Ashton here, I’ll take Molly to get some water so she doesn’t overheat.”

The two of them loped off, leaving Ashton and Luke staring at each other shyly.

“So you didn’t tell your family about us?” Ashton asked. He carefully folded himself to sit cross legged.

Luke flushed. “They know about you,” he hedged.

“But not Mikey or Cal.”

“No?”

“Good job you met me in person first, then.” Ashton braced his elbows on his knees. “Hey. It’s scary, I get it. We’d just--like to know your family, is all.”

“That’s the whole problem,” Luke said, and covered his face, humiliated. “Mum would buy matching Mr and Mr and Mr and Mr towels. Dad would be awkward and weird. Ben and Jack would make awful jokes all the time so I don’t feel weird about it. I just--didn’t know how to say anything. It’s not exactly normal.”

“Four point six percent.”

“Huh?”

“Four point six percent of people have plural soul mates.” Ashton met Luke’s eyes. “Zero point zero zero three percent of people have more than two.”

“So we’re freaks.”

“That’s three in a thousand, Luke. That’s 21 million people in the world with three or more soulmates. 21 million people just like us.”

“That’s still weird. That’s not normal.”

“Really, what is?” Ashton grabbed Luke’s hand. “Hey. We’re not freaks. It’s normal and natural.”

Luke looked away from Ashton. “It feels weird.”

“Yeah, it’ll feel weird for a while.” Ashton hummed under his breath, a tune Luke recognized.

“You like 21 Pilots?” he asked.

Ashton beamed, and they were off into a discussion about their favorite bands. Luke shouldn’t have been surprised that he had something like this in common with Ashton, but he was, a little. He hadn’t expected the universe to be quite so considerate.

“Can I kiss you, Luke?” Ashton said suddenly.

Luke looked down at the grass and then back up at Ashton. “Yes, please.”

They were close, so close, when Ashton’s mobile buzzed. He glanced at the screen and cursed. “Fuck. I’m late to pick up my sister from rugby--”

“Your sister plays rugby?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty damn good at it--don’t tell her I said that, I’ve been trying to get her to play something safer, but, uh,” Ashton dug in his pockets and produced a sharpie. He scribbled a string of digits onto the back of Luke’s hand. “That’s my mobile. Text me whenever, yeah? I’ll hold your kiss hostage until then.”

Ashton pressed a quick kiss to Luke’s cheek and dashed off.

Luke looked at the ten numbers and grinned. Here was something tangible, a connection to his soulmates that wasn’t just in Dreaming.

Ben made fun of Luke the whole way home for the dopey smile on his face, but Luke couldn’t bring himself to care. Molly was practically wriggling with happiness, and Luke kind of felt like he was too.

===

Luke met Michael a week later, when he was wandering around the grocery store confusedly trying to find the exact kind of mayonnaise his mum wanted for potato salad and failing miserably.

He bumped into someone as he straightened up from searching the bottom shelf, and there was Michael.

“I thought your hair was red?” Luke blurted out. He clapped his hands over his mouth when he realized he hadn’t even said hello.

Michael just snorted. “I changed it, like, yesterday. I have to go brunet in a month for Mali’s wedding, so this is my last crazy color for a bit. It’s purple now, see?” He gestured vaguely to his head before realizing how ridiculous the gesture must look. “So, uh. Hi. How’re you?”

“I’m looking for mayonnaise,” Luke said, without thinking, and then gestured wildly. “No, um, I mean--I sound like an idiot, sorry.”

“You do, a bit, but it’s cute. I’m picking up eggs and milk and took a shortcut through this aisle. Good thing I did, huh?”

Luke looked down. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah.”

===

Luke didn’t meet Calum for a few months even though he started spending more and more time with Michael and Ashton.

“He’s doing a football camp in Brazil,” Michael explained, one afternoon where the three of them were sprawled out on Ashton’s couch. “He was a scholarship student there for four years running, and they offered him a job this year, so he’s taking a semester off from uni to, y’know, work. He took the job before we knew you--well, before we knew you existed, and he couldn’t really back out so late.”

“Calum plays football?”

“Yeah. He’s really good, too, but he doesn’t want to go pro.” The pride was evident in Michael’s voice; Luke wondered why Calum would choose not to play professionally if he was good and loved it.

“Why not?”

Ashton and Michael exchanged a glance. “Us,” Ashton said finally. “Poly soulmates are a thing, yeah, but...people get invasive with footie player’s lives. We’ve tried to tell him we’d be able to handle it if he wanted to play, but...well--”

“He decided it’d mean having to pick one of us,” Michael finished. “It’s been an ongoing argument for awhile now. He’s made up his mind, though, and he’s possibly the only person in the world more stubborn than me.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a big deal, Luke. Calum likes his classes, and he likes coaching at the camp.” Luke would’ve believed Ashton if it weren’t for the look Michael shot him. Ashton quickly changed the subject.

That evening, Luke googled the time difference between Brazil and Australia, and guessed when he thought Calum might be sleeping. It meant going to bed at an ungodly hour, but Luke didn’t mind, if it meant one on one time with one of his soulmates.

Calum didn’t seem surprised at Luke’s presence. Then again, not much seemed to surprise him.

Tonight Calum’s Park seemed to have a football pitch marked out on the wide grass field below the treehouse. Logically, it shouldn’t have fit, but the physics of Dreams didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about what logically should or shouldn’t have fit.

Calum was running up and down the pitch, feet flitting around a red and white football.

“Wanna play?” Luke asked, jogging up to his soulmate. Calum grinned widely, stopping the ball by stepping on it.

“You any good?”

“Not so much,” Luke admitted. “But it’ll be fun to play with not my brothers.”

“What’re your brothers like?” Calum asked.

“Big, tall, blond.”

“Oh, so just like you?”

Luke barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess. Ben and Jack get mistaken for twins sometimes, but Mum had three of us within three years, so we’re all pretty close. Ben plays rugby--”

“So does Ashton’s kid sister,” Calum said.

Luke nodded. “He said, when I met him in Hyde Park.”

“I’m going to kick Michael and Ashton’s asses for meeting you first,” Calum grumbled. “Right, so your brother plays rugby?”

“Yeah, Ben. Jack was on the swim team, and I was for awhile too, but I’m more into boxing and wrestling.”

Calum nodded. “Your last name is Hemmings, right?”

“Yeah?”

“My sister, Mali-Koa, knows a guy named Jack Hemmings. He’s a few years younger, but--”

“Was she part of the cinema club at the rec center?” Luke bit his lip, toying with the lipring he’d gotten only a couple weeks before.

“Yeah! That’s how she knew him.”

“I know her too,” Luke said, and took advantage of Calum’s disbelieving stare to steal the ball from him. “Gotta think fast!”

Calum shrieked and gave chase.

When Luke had first met Calum, the Dream had given Calum some of Luke’s piano knowledge. Luke was pretty sure something similar was happening here, since he wasn’t normally this good at footie. The game went on for some indefinite amount of time; Luke wasn’t sure if five minutes or five hours had passed. Time in the Dream was weird like that.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, Luke flopped onto the grass. Laughing, Calum settled next to him.

“You’re not half-bad,” Calum told Luke.

“I think the Dream was making me better,” Luke grumbled, and then asked “why don’t you play professional football? You’re in Brazil, for god’s sake.”

Calum sighed. “You’ve been talking to Ash and Mike.”

“Sorry?”

“No, don’t be. Though seriously, did you not notice how weird Ashton’s and my sleep schedules were?”

Luke blinked at the change of subject. “No? I just figured your sleep schedules were as weird as mine.”

Calum barked out a laugh. “Okay. Fair point. But seriously, mine’s weird because I’m not in the same timezone as you, and Ashton’s is weird...well, his is just fucked up in general, the weirdo. A lot of late nights working on compositions and papers.”

“So the football thing?” Luke prodded gently.

Calum sighed. “Right. So I’m decent at footie, but not as good as Michael likes to say I am. He’s got an overinflated opinion of my skill.”

“But the scholarship thing--”

“I maintain that it was luck the first year, and they liked my sense of humor so they kept inviting me back.” Calum leaned back on his elbows, watching Luke with calm, steady eyes. “So, I’m good at playing footie, but I like...I dunno, I like refereeing and coaching better, and I like playing to play, y’know? Going pro would mean getting traded and super intense sessions, and I’d rather not have footie ruined like that for me. And the chances of me becoming successful at it are ridiculous, and I don’t want to put any of you through that. Like, Australia doesn’t have any good teams--”

Luke couldn’t help it; he snorted.

“Well, it’s true.”

“Oh, I know. I’m laughing because it’s true,” Luke said. The sound of chatter drifted over the hills of the park; Luke wasn’t sure if it was Ashton and Michael or if it was a sound he was dreaming up.

“Right, so I’d have to go somewhere else to play, like Europe, or South America, and I wouldn’t be in a super high level team, so it wouldn’t pay all that well, and either I’d have to be away from you three or you’d have to come with me, and...I dunno, it just didn’t seem worth it.” Calum shrugged. “Michael and Ashton think it’s because I’m scared of getting famous and having people poke at our personal life, but there’s a ton of factors? I dunno.”

“It makes sense,” Luke said. He pulled little tufts of grass out, only to have his hands batted away by Calum’s.

“Don’t ruin my grass,” Calum scolded.

Luke blinked. “Can’t you just Dream more?”

“I mean, yes, I could, but it’s a bad habit.”

“Dreaming more?”

“No, picking grass.”

Calum wavered. “Oh, fuck, I’m waking up. Right, get my number from Mikey and we’ll text--” As Calum got more and more translucent, his voice faded too.

Ashton wandered over the hill, catching sight of Calum just as he disappeared.

“Oh, fuck,” Ashton complained, flopping down next to Luke. “Did we miss Calum?”

“Yeah,” Luke said, and leaned his head on Ashton’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

===

Once Luke knew which day Calum was due back from Brazil, he put it on the family calendar in bright red ink. It only took a few days for Ben and Jack to surround it with little cartoon hearts and tease him enormously.

He and his family had had a long conversation about his multiple soulmates and how he wanted them to behave around the three boys he’d be spending his life with. While it had been awkward, it had quickly been decided that they’d treat his relationship with his three soulmates the same way they treated Jack and Celeste. In theory, Luke had thought that was great. In practice, it meant that he was teased enormously about being such a sap that he had to have three soulmates to satisfy him.

Really, though, Luke was so excited that he didn’t mind the teasing as much as he normally would. He remembered how excited Jack had been to meet his soulmate, and he was pretty sure his excitement was tripled.

They kept meeting Calum at the airport a surprise: as far as Calum knew, it’d only be Michael and his family there.

“My brother’s moving in with his soulmate,” Luke said apologetically in a Dream where it was just him and Calum. “And then we’re all going to see my grandparents. I’ll meet up with you once I’m back, okay, it’s just that it’s their fiftieth wedding anniversary and I’m not losing my position as favorite grandchild, okay?”

Calum had pouted. “I just want to meet you in real life,” he whined. “And Ashton’s bailing because his stupid sister has a stupid rugby tournament in Canberra and his mum can’t drive her so he has to take her.”

Luke felt a little bad for lying, since he knew Ashton very definitely wasn’t going to Canberra with his sister for a rugby tournament, but he thought the surprise would be worth it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Do I get a kiss to make up for it?”

Luke giggled. “Not until we meet in real life.”

“Oh, god, Ashton’s gotten to you,” Calum wailed. “Oh, the humanity, oh the horror!”

Luke rolled his eyes and kissed Calum on the cheek.

“I will accept this,” Calum said. “Right, want to play footie, since you’re here?”

Luke nodded and surged to his feet.

For the next week, Luke was a nervous wreck. He and Aleisha had decided to take the “let’s be friends” part of their breakup as an actual offer of friendship, and so he spent a week chattering at her nervously. Aleisha still hadn’t met her soulmate yet, though she dreamed of him; she mostly laughed at Luke nearly tearing out his hair whenever she brought up meeting Calum for the first time.

Michael was grumpily jealous of their friendship, no matter how often Luke reassured him that absolutely nothing was going to happen with Aleisha.

“I have three soulmates, Michael,” Luke said exasperatedly. “Getting involved with Aleisha would mean juggling four relationships, and I can barely handle you and Ashton all at once.”

“You dated her,” Michael replied stubbornly.

“And she dumped me,” Luke countered. “She’s got a soulmate, I have three soulmates, and at this point I really do want to stay friends with her. So fuck off and stop trying to manage my friendships.”

“He’s got a point,” Ashton said helpfully. “You’re friends with Jess and we don’t complain.”

Michael sulked. He only stopped when Ashton produced his sister’s sharpie collection and coaxed him into making an obnoxious sign for Calum.

When the day came, Luke was absolutely buzzing. Jack and Ben laughed their asses off at how excited he was, but piled into the van with their parents to go meet Calum at the airport. Ashton was already there, holding a cardboard tray of coffees.

“Calum’s family refused to leave until Michael stopped hyperventilating,” Ashton explained. “I couldn’t sleep so I got here like. Four hours ago. I’ve been people watching and writing scores.”

Luke sat next to Ashton and rested his head on Ashton’s shoulder. He skimmed over the score Ashton had written and hummed along. His family wandered off to buy balloons from the little kiosk, but Luke settled in.

Michael arrived just as Calum’s flight landed; they waited together in a nervous cuddle for the hour and a half it took Calum to get through customs.

Ashton saw Calum first and jumped up, nearly knocking Luke and Michael over. Then it was just chaos. Luke had thought it would feel like the movies, with slow-motion running and a dramatic soundtrack. What it was actually like was more of an ungodly shriek from Calum and then an absolute dogpile right in the middle of the international baggage claim.

“Oh my god it’s you,” Calum gasped, burying his face in the crook of Luke’s neck. “It’s you.” Distantly, Luke could hear his mum cooing and taking photos and his brothers introducing themselves to the other boys’ families, but he was too busy appreciating the fact that they were all tucked together in a cuddle pile. He was pretty sure it was Michael’s hand sneaking into his back pocket and found he didn’t really care.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said, and looked up to see Ashton crying. “Oh my god you sap.”

“It’s not every day you meet your soulmates,” Ashton said primly. “I can’t believe you’re all here.”

===

They went on a date, all four of them. It was awkward and fumbling as they tried to figure out what they want and how to make it work. By ten minutes in, though, Luke was laughing so hard his sides hurt.

This was the end of the Dreams, Luke realized. All four of them have met, all four of them are here. Fate has done her work; there’s no need for the Dreams anymore.

As Calum pulled out Ashton’s chair with an exaggerated bow, Luke couldn’t help but beam. These were his soulmates in the flesh, three beautiful boys who would always align with him in crucial, key ways.

They already as good as belonged to each other: as soulmates, they had rights to each other. Not marriage--that was still a step they needed to choose--but visitation and guardianship rights, legal recognition that their relationship meant something.

“You okay, Luke?” Calum asked, ever attuned to whenever someone wasn’t paying attention to his stories. “You zoned out.”

“Just thinking.”

“Well, obviously. What about.”

“Dreams.”

“Oh, well, everyone thinks about those. The real question is why you aren’t admiring my biceps in this shirt.”

That startled another laugh out of Luke, like most of the ridiculous things his boys did. Ashton pulled a face at Calum’s flexing and groaned when Michael followed suit.

They had a future ahead of them. Luke couldn’t imagine any of these boys grown up and adult-like, but he was excited to see it happen and be there with them.

===

It took them a few years to sort themselves out. They were learning to love each other, learning to work around all of their wants and needs, and reach a point where everyone was happy.

That wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Being soul mates didn’t necessarily guarantee perfection or even happiness, as they quickly discovered. As hard as it was to manage a relationship with two people, it was exponentially harder to manage four vastly different personalities.

It took them awhile to figure out how to manage dates, that they could date each other one on one instead of in groups, necessarily, and even longer to figure out that sometimes they each needed time away from their soulmates.

When Luke was nineteen, they started looking for an apartment together. With all four of them working and attending uni, it was difficult to find time for all four of them together. Michael got it into his head that the best option would be to move in together; they’d put it to a vote and started the search. Six months later, they were getting increasingly frustrated. Everything they found was either too small or too objectionable; they couldn’t find a flat in the right area at the right size.

Luke had mostly given up and let the other three worry about it. Today, he was sprawled on a couch, half-heartedly poking at an essay due later that week.

“We found a flat!” Michael shrieked.

Luke, shocked at their entrance, fell off the couch.

“Who let you in?!”

“Your mum made us keys months ago,” Ashton said dismissively. “And we found the perfect flat.”They'd been taking turns touring flats with a real estate agent; it had been Michael and Ashton's turn to go together today, since Calum was coaching one of his little kid teams and Luke had been combating a hangover that morning.

"Define perfect," Luke asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Close to uni, good neighborhood, in our price range, 2 bedroom with a decent kitchen," Ashton rattled off.

"With all four of us covering rent, it's perfect," Michael said.

"How far is it from work?"

"It's not a bad walk, except for Calum, and he mostly bikes."

Luke hummed. Ashton sat beside him.

"What does Calum think?"

"You know Calum doesn't care where we live. But he already said yes."

"It's perfect, it really is," Michael whispered. "Or, as perfect as we're going to get now."

Luke hummed again. "Okay."

"Okay?" Michael perked up. "Okay!"

"I want to see it first," Luke warned, but Michael was already tackling him in glee.

"We're going to live together!"

When Luke's mum got home, she found Luke beaming happy at the bottom of a dog-pile. Immediately, she was bombarded by information about the perfect flat.

She went with them to make sure it was really as good as it seemed; one it had gotten the official Mum Seal of Approval, they started the process of moving in.

It took a month to complete everything and collect their bits and pieces of furniture in order to move in together.

Ostensibly, the apartment was a two-bedroom place. It had just enough room for four people to split into two bedrooms, with a kitchen and a living room, and an extra half-bathroom. Technically, they set up so that Michael and Luke shared one room and Ashton and Calum the other. They’d picked that particular rooming split based on what time each of them liked to get up: Calum and Ashton went on early morning runs together while Michael and Luke both preferred to sleep until afternoon when given the chance. In practice, though, all four of them fell asleep together in one of the rooms.

Ashton and Calum’s room was the slightly bigger of the two, which meant that there was just slightly more room for four people to maneuver. More often than not, they’d all be piled into the one big bed, limbs all tangled together. They were all close enough to the same clothing size too, and had similar enough taste in fashion that it only took a month for all their clothes to become communal clothes in the laundry baskets that Ashton meticulously folded every week. Not even underwear was safe from their sharing habits.

“Calum,” Ashton called, brandishing a pair of brightly patterned boxer-briefs that Luke thought had started out as one of Michael’s. “Is this clean or dirty?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“I’m pretty sure I peeled them off you last week and I can’t remember if they got washed or not--”

“Well, ask Michael, it’s his turn on the rota for laundry--”

“Well if it was Michael’s turn they’re definitely not clean--”

“I object!” Michael shouted. He was sprawled out on Calum and Ashton’s bed, trying to take apart his XBOX controller. Luke knew for a fact that they’d find tiny screws in the sheets later when they all went to bed, and there’d be a halfhearted argument about making Luke and Michael sleep in the other room, and take apart their shit there if they were going to be leaving tiny screws everywhere.

That’d be about when Michael would distract Ashton with kisses, and then either they’d all end up incredibly well fucked or someone would end up sleeping in Luke and Michael’s room, and they’d end up sleeping on the smaller bed in there. Luke was pretty sure their room splits wouldn’t stay like this for long.

He was right: it only took another three weeks for Luke and Michael’s room to be turned into a guest room/study room combo, where they’d go when they wanted some peace and quiet from the others. Ashton set up his drum kit there, though it somewhat nullified the quiet room effect.

Luke’s piano tucked into the living room, against the wall that separated their communal space from the kitchen. Somehow all their textbooks managed to get stacked on top of it, much to Luke’s eternal despair. Michael and Calum’s guitars were kept next to Luke’s piano, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to spend evenings playing covers and dicking around with shittily written songs. Or, in Ashton’s case, well-written songs. As a music production major, he wasn’t half bad at any of the instruments they kept in the apartment.

It didn’t take long for the apartment to feel like home; it was Luke’s favorite place to be, in close quarters with his soulmates.

“Calum, what’s for dinner?” Michael called, dropping his bag on the floor near the door. He’d hang it up once he got his coat and shoes off; Sydney was strangely, bizarrely cold this winter.

“Spag bol,” Calum shouted back. Luke grinned from where he was tucked up on the couch with his advanced Calc notes, revising for an exam. Calum was blasting eighties hits from his laptop. “And garlic bread. And chocolate cake if you’re very sweet to me.”

“I’m always sweet to you!”

“Tell that to my hair.” The four of them had gotten a little drunker than strictly advisable the week before, and Michael had convinced Calum to bleach the front section of his hair blond. Drunk Calum had loved it; Sober Calum, not so much.

“Your hair is gorgeous, babe.” Michael dropped onto the couch next to Luke. “Hey, Lukey.”

Luke leaned over to give Michael his welcome home kiss; he lifted his notes off his lap so Michael could put his feet there.

“Ash is still at work,” he said. Michael was the worst at remembering everyone’s schedules, even though he and Ashton had put up a whiteboard with their classes and work shifts marked out so they could plan time together as a foursome.

Michael hummed. “He’ll be back for dinner?”

“He’ll be back for dinner or I’m making him sleep on the couch!” Calum yelled from the kitchen. The Romantics blared on.

“Calum made the meatballs and sauce from scratch,” Luke confided to Michael quietly. “He’s really proud of it.”

Surprisingly enough, Calum had turned out to be an excellent cook. When they’d moved in together, the only meal any of them could put together was premade takeaway. After a month of living on nothing but pizza and lo mein, Calum had pitched a fit about eating so unhealthily and come home with a cookbook. Six months later and he cooked all their meals; Luke and Michael had to sneak their junk food and takeaway date nights behind Calum’s back in order to avoid offending him.

On the upside, Luke was eating healthier than he ever had before. On the downside, he hadn’t had Maccas in months, and sometimes he just really wanted their particular brand of awful food.

“Not the noodles?”

“No, but I’m pretty certain that’ll happen next time. We might have to get, like, a noodle maker for him for Christmas.”

Michael’s expression was mournful. “Whole-wheat noodles?”

Luke smacked him. “You love Calum’s food.”

“I absolutely do. I also miss having soft, squishy boyfriends.” Michael poked Luke’s stomach, as if to prove his point. “Where’s my nice pillow gone, huh?”

“Just wait until Cal and Ash get you to go on morning runs with them,” Luke pointed out. “They’ve been after me for months, you’ll be next.”

Michael made a face. “God, no.”

“You could always come swimming with me and—“

“God, no.”

“Don’t blame me when death comes for you.”

“Death’s coming for who?” Calum asked, poking his head out of the kitchen. “Mike, it’s your turn on the rota to lay the table.”

===

Luke ended up being the one to run to the store at six AM for yogurt, because Ashton was on his run and forgot his phone and Michael bites when woken.

Wrapped in his oversized parka and clutching a container of yogurt, he made a pitiful enough sight that the store owner gave him a free chocolate bar.

“New dad?” the woman asked, giving him a sympathetic expression as she bagged the yogurt and the laundry detergent Calum had texted him they needed.

“Might as well be,” Luke said, and clutched the bag to his chest.

She laughed and waved him out the door.

===

When Luke was twenty, Calum broke up with all three of them and went backpacking in Europe for a year. He didn’t contact any of them in that time, and Michael was worried sick the whole time. It was strange being in the apartment then, seeing the places where Calum would have fit, or finding a stray shirt of his or a recipe card scribbled out in his handwriting. Luke and Michael tried to pick up the slack in cooking meals, and found it just wasn’t the same.

When Calum came back, they nearly lost Michael, who’d grown so frustrated with the situation that he refused to talk to Calum for three months. It took another month for the topic of Calum maybe moving back in to be broached, and six more beyond that for their apartment to feel like home again.

Michael was remarkably good at holding grudges, and he was definitely holding a grudge against Calum.

"I know I pissed him off," Calum admitted quietly. He was living with his parents again. Michael had made it very clear that if Calum moved back in, he was moving out. "I didn't expect him to be this mad for this long."

"You pissed us all off," Ashton said frankly. "But you're back now, so bygones are bygones."

"Still," Calum said, and looked sad. "I kind of fucked up."

"Oh, not kind of." Luke looked up from his phone. "You very definitely fucked up in the biggest way possible. You went to Italy?"

Calum was used to Luke's subject changes and didn't even blink. "Yeah, and Greece, Germany, France, Ireland, and England. And a whole lot of other places I just passed through instead of staying in."

Luke had always wanted to travel. Maybe he and Calum could travel together sometime down the road, and maybe Ashton and Michael would come with them. Well, assuming Michael ever forgave Calum.

Their apartment hadn’t really felt like home since Calum had left; with him kicking back on their couch, it felt as homelike as it had in months. Or, well, it did until Michael came in and stopped dead at the sight of Calum on their couch.

Luke went silent, staring back and forth between the two of them. Ashton was equally silent.

Michael folded his arms and stared Calum down. "You abandoned us," he said sharply. His expression was as stony as Luke had ever seen it.

"Yeah," Calum replied. He met Michael's eyes without flinching. "I got scared."

"So you ran the fuck away?"

"Yeah, because I was fucking terrified. We're not even twenty-five yet, Mike, and we're as good as married, all four of us. It's fucking terrifying."

Michael just scowled harder. Ashton took Luke's elbow and tugged him out of the room.

"They need to work this out between them," he said, shutting the door firmly behind them. Luke could hear Michael and Calum starting to yell at each other. "C'mon, you and I can do date night and place bets on how long it'll take them to hate-fuck each other back into loving each other. You've been wanting to see that new Marvel movie, right? We can go make out in the back row like we're still in college."

Luke made a face. "I mean--first, it's Marvel, not DC. Also, Michael would kill me if I saw it without him, and I'd really rather not get banned from another cinema? Like, being banned from two cinemas is enough for me for my entire lifetime." He tried to ignore the increasingly loud shouting coming from behind the closed door.

"We can go walking in the park, admire the sunset," Ashton suggested. He handed Luke one of their many oversized hooded sweatshirts. He himself retrieved Calum's jacket. "What?" he asked defensively when Luke raised his eyebrows. "He's been gone awhile and it smells like him."

"You're a sap."

"I'm your sap."

"And Michael and Calum's, if they stop shouting."

Ashton smiled knowingly. "They will, they always do."

They walked for quite a while, holding hands. Luke loved having Ashton's palm pressed to his and their fingers interlocked; the only thing he liked better was when Michael was demanding a piggyback and Calum was holding his other hand.

They wound up in Calum's park, a twenty-minute walk away. It had quickly become one of Luke's favorite places to sit and think, since it reminded him of Calum. Ashton was fond of the park too, since he and Calum had taken their morning runs here for the past year and a half.

"Wanna make out?" Ashton said when they reached the big oak tree in the center of the park. They'd often spent afternoons here making out and revising as a trio while Calum had been gone.

When they returned from the park, Michael was in the kitchen, looking extremely well-fucked.

"Told you so," Ashton said to Luke.

"You made up?" Luke asked Michael.

Michael shrugged loosely. "We got most of it out, I think. I'm still pissed, but--I think I'll be able to forgive him eventually."

Calum wandered out of their bedroom, buck-ass naked. "I hope you can forgive me eventually, or the sex we just had is going to be super awkward." Like Michael, he was a mess, with scratches down his back. He hooked his chin over Michael's shoulder, only to be shoved off playfully.

That was when Luke realized everything would be okay.

===

When Luke was twenty-two, Ashton graduated and started searching for a full-time job. He found a fantastic one at a company that wanted him, with only one drawback: it was in Adelaide, and they lived in Sydney. If he went, that would be a two hour flight or a fourteen hour drive away from where they currently lived, and they’d have to manage long-distance somehow.

“You can’t move to Adelaide,” Luke shrieked. Ashton folded his arms and glared. In the kitchen, Luke could hear Calum and Michael having a similar argument. “Adelaide’s fucking--Adelaide’s forever away!”

“It’s a fantastic job,” Ashton said stonily. Luke was having none of his explanation.

“We just got Calum back, we can’t lose you too!”

“You aren’t losing me, I’m just--I’m working, is all, Luke, it’s the best job I could ask for. It’s a start at what I want to do, in a field I’m excited to work in, at a company I’m thrilled about, with good pay--Luke, this is as perfect as it’s going to get!”

“It’s in Adelaide. You might as well be in Tasmania! Not somewhere we’d be able to easily visit you, or go with you, but fucking Adelaide.”

“You can come with me! Houses are cheaper there, the schools are good--”

“Houses? Schools--Ashton, you’re talking about kids now?” Luke shrieked.

“Of course I’m thinking of kids!” Ashton exploded. Luke could hear Michael and Ashton’s argument in the kitchen come to a halt. “I’m thinking of kids and a house for Calum with a kitchen and a game room for Mikey and a music room for us, and jobs we all love in a nice city and Adelaide has those things, okay, we can start being adults!”

“I’m going with him,” Michael said from the doorway. “Ash and I--we’re going to Adelaide.”

“So first Calum left me and now you two as well?” Luke snatched his keys off the hall table and ran barefoot out of the house. He ended up at Ben’s house, crying.

It took Luke three days to come to terms with the move and come back home.  In that time, Ashton and Michael had started packing. When Luke entered, Calum and Ashton were out, but Michael was sitting in the middle of the living room, carefully splitting their xbox game collection.

“Hey,” Luke said quietly.

“Hey, you’re back.” Michael stood and hugged Luke, and then stood there awkwardly.

“I get why you’re going,” Luke said finally. “I don’t like it.”

“I know, but it’s only for a bit until you and Cal can join us.” Michael kissed the top of Luke’s head and went back to packing.

So Michael and Ashton went to Adelaide, and for a year they were split into pairs, Michael with Ashton in Adelaide and Calum with Luke in Sydney. Luke and Calum found new roommates who didn’t know they had two more soul mates across the country; it was easier to let people assume it was just Luke and Calum. They didn’t ask if Michael and Ashton were doing the same thing in Adelaide.

The Dreams started again. Luke was in the middle of a particularly sexual dream of Michael when he realized and immediately woke out of shock. He called Michael, who a) was put out that his Dream Luke had vanished just as they were getting to the good part and b) agreed to use this new knowledge to fuck with Ashton and Calum.

“How long do you think it’ll take them to catch on?” Michael asked. Luke could hear Ashton snoring through the phone.

“Ashton? A week. Calum? Never.”

Michael snorted. “Any idea what you’re going to do?”

“I just want to know what Ashton’s planning.” For the time they’d been together, Ashton and Luke had celebrated their birthdays jointly. This year, they were separated and their schedules didn’t any of them time to be together for the whole month of July. Luke knew Ashton had something up his sleeve, but Ashton refused to divulge his plans to anyone. It was driving Luke insane, because Ashton usually never kept anything from him.

Ashton did catch on within a week, but mostly because Michael kept trying to turn their Dream into an Inception-style adventure and he usually dreamed of ordinary things like grocery shopping and driving a vanful of children to footie practice. Frustratingly, even when Ashton thought he was talking to dream Luke, he still wouldn’t spill about his plans for their birthdays.

Calum figured it out in one of their regular skype calls, one of the ones where they each set up their laptops in their respective kitchens and left it running while they went about their days--homework, cooking dinner, laundry--so they could talk and manage their long-distance relationship.

“I keep Dreaming of your stupid Library,” Michael said. He was leaning on the counter in his and Ashton’s kitchen; his face filled up most of the screen. Behind him, Ashton was shimmying to something on the radio and cooking something. “And Calum’s cooking--Calum, I miss your cooking.”

“Get him to teach me something in a Dream,” Ashton called.

Calum toppled off his chair. In the five seconds it took Luke to turn around and check that Calum was in fact, alive, Ashton had started cackling.

“Our Dreams started again?” Calum shouted indignantly from the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You thought the clowns Mikey Dreamed up for you were normal dreams?” Ashton asked incredulously. “Calum, do we need to get you to see a psychiatrist?”

“I just thought they were, like--nightmares! You know I dream weird shit when I’m sick! I’ve got a cold! I thought it was the, y’know, Nyquil!”

“Wait, does that mean you thought your brain dreamed up when Michael and I dressed ourselves like Vegas showgirls and never mentioned it to any of us?”

Calum was steadily flushing a deeper and deeper red. “The sequins were hot!”

“Luke, smack him upside the head,” Michael ordered. Luke obeyed. “Seriously, Calum?”

“Sequins, strategically placed feathers--I’m not objecting to any of it!”

“Oh, for the love of--I’m never wearing sequins, Calum.” Ashton had his chin hooked over Michael’s shoulder. “Ever.”

“I’m not expecting you to, really. I’m just--my birthday, maybe?”

“Speaking of birthdays--”

“Still not telling you, Luke.”

Luke pouted. Michael sighed.

“I wish I could kiss the pout off your face. Cal, kiss Lukey for me?”

“And for me?” Ashton chipped in.

Calum was still sulking a little, but he obliged and gave Luke two showy kisses, making sure that Michael and Ashton could see him dipping his tongue into Luke’s mouth. They’d gotten practised at this, how best to put on a show for their boys.

When they split apart, Ashton and Michael were gaping dopily.

“God, you two are hot,” Michael sighed, and leaned back to kiss Ashton lazily.

Luke would never fail to be proud of his ability to produce that kind of reaction.

Ashton’s big birthday plans ended up being a weekend with the four of them at the beach. It was one of Luke’s favorite weekends ever, even if he did end up with sand in some very uncomfortable places.

===

Calum and Luke finished university a year apart from each other--Calum had to play catchup after his gap year. Luke had a degree in accounting and started looking for jobs in Adelaide, so they could maybe make this whole soulmate thing easier. Calum started preparing for a university transfer for his last year.

They’d stayed in contact with Michael and Ashton--of course they had, they’d learned their lesson from Calum’s year long absence--band broke the news on one of their monthly cross-country visits. They Dreamed of each other, kept everyone updated on what was happening in their split life, but there were things they kept from each other.

As it turned out, Ashton and Michael had been trying to sort out a move back to Sydney, and they had to straighten out that whole mess.

Luke was twenty-five when they finally settled, for what they assumed could possibly be forever. Ashton was working as a sound engineer, designing video game soundtracks and scores; on a visit to his company, Michael had hit it off with the game designers and had shown a knack for programming and debugging. He didn’t have a degree in it, but was learning on the go, taking night classes and working out bugs as he went. Luke was settling in as an accountant at an office downtown, and Calum had gone into teaching, of all things.

Luke flopped onto the couch, nearly jostling the wine glass out of Calum’s hand.

“Careful!” Calum yelped, and tried to put his glass on the end table without spilling. It was a more difficult task than it seemed, since Luke was trying to limpet onto his side.

“I want someone to kiss me,” Luke whined. Ashton’s laughter was bright and stunning. Calum gave Luke a quick peck, which only caused Luke to sulk.

“I need someone to make out with me,” he corrected. “Please?”

Calum obliged, with a series of long, sweet and slow kisses. Whenever Luke tried to hurry it up, Calum pulled away and slowed him down with languid slips of his tongue. Shivers rolled down Luke’s spine when he felt Ashton settling in behind him.

“Do I get a turn?” Ashton rumbled, and then Luke was pulled away from Calum for a harsher kiss with Ashton. He gasped; it was jarring to go from Calum’s careful, toe-numbingly slow kisses to Ashton’s heavy, core-melting kisses.

He lost track of time as he was passed back and forth between two of his boys. There was a gap between them without Michael, but this was a thoroughly pleasant way to spend the evening. It only took a little coaxing to get Calum and Ashton to lose their shirts, and a little more to lose his own, and then he had miles of skin to touch and explore for the millionth time.

Luke’s favorite tattoo of Calum’s was their initials inked into the skin of his wrist in a little infinity symbol; he pressed his lips there as Ashton kissed Calum. Then Calum was pulling Luke up for another kiss, and Luke lost all track of time entirely.

“Now this is what I like to see when I get home.” Luke broke away from where Calum was kissing him and Ashton was sucking a lovebite just below his ear to see Michael leaning in the doorway. “My harem ready and wanton for me--”

“Isn’t wanton a noodle?”

“--draped luxuriously across the sofa of my home--”

“No, that’s a wonton. I think?”

“--their lithe, well-oiled bodies undulating--”

“Lithe?”

“Oiled?”

“Undulating?”

Michael scowled. “I’m trying to be romantic.”

“You’re failing, dear.” Ashton looked entirely unimpressed. “And you haven’t kissed any of us hello, so it’s within my power to banish you to the couch.”

“But you’re all on the couch,” Michael said. He flashed them all what was clearly supposed to be a winning smile. Calum threw a pillow at him.

Luke was mostly just upset no one was kissing him anymore and said at much.

Before anyone could react, Michael was flinging himself across the room to land on top of their cuddle pile. He kissed Luke sloppily as Ashton protested beneath his weight. The next thing Luke knew, Ashton was pinning Michael on the floor, leaving Calum and Luke on the couch.

Luke knew how this was going to end, with plenty of nakedness and orgasms. He was looking forward to it, honestly. He was a little tipsy, and spending his evening making out with his lovers and soulmates in their own house; they’re finally together for what looked like forever. Happiness bubbled up from every cell of his body, causing him to giggle into his kiss with Calum.

“What’re you laughing about, silly?” Calum asked, groping a little at Luke’s ass.

“Just happy.”

“You would be happy. Greedy little bastard, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a greedy little bastard!” Luke protested, but he was laughing and so was Calum.

“Oh, you so are,” Michael pitched in. “But you’re our greedy little bastard.”

Luke squeaked.

“Oh, be nice to little Lukey,” Ashton said. “He’s delicate for a greedy little bastard.”

Indignant, Luke disentangled himself from Calum and bolted for their bedroom. “I hope you all enjoy the couch!” he shouted. He could hear the veritable stampede coming down the hall behind him and was tackled onto their bed by Ashton before he could lock them out. Calum piled on after, with Michael on top of the heap, an honest-to-god crush of love and affection.

“Could whoever’s groping me please stop?” Ashton asked. Luke laughed, warm and bright, and was silenced by a kiss from Michael. The angle was awkward, with two other people crushed between them, but Luke couldn’t imagine a better place to be.

God, he loved his life.