Chapter Text
“Do you understand why you’re here today, Mr. Parker?”
Collie glared at the counselor sitting in front of him. Her tired, condescending face, the notepad she had been scribbling in for the past hour without explaining what she was writing. He understood that this was just her job and she needed to ask these questions, that maybe outside of this little room she might actually be a cool person, but in the moment he could not help hating her fucking guts.
“Mr. Parker? I need a response,” she pressed and, yeah, Collie hated her.
The entire session so far had been just that, her asking obvious questions and him being forced to respond through his clenched jaw. Words couldn't describe how much he hated being here, how much he had hated this whole week so far.
“I’m here because some asshole was asking to get punched, and I gave him what he was fucking asking for,” he responded. It was the wrong answer, one that would erase any progress his counselor thought he made and earn him another session. He did not give a fuck.
His counselor sighed and wrote something else down. “Ok,” she said, “Are you saying you think violence was necessary?”
“I'm saying it was justified.”
More scribbling on her fucking notepad.
“He was calling my friends slurs for Christ’s sakes, someone was gonna start a fight eventually. What, was I supposed to wait for it to be him? Wait for him to-”
“If I understand correctly,” she interrupted, “the man you gave a concussion has not only dropped most of his charges, but is also being investigated for a hate crime. While you, the instigator of physical violence, have only been punished by a court order to come to these sessions. Is that correct?”
Collie wanted to argue that while, yeah, that is technically true, it doesn't take away from the unfairness of the whole situation. He really, really wanted to argue about the unfairness of the situation, but he kept his mouth shut and nodded his head.
“So then what more do you want, Parker? Because by all accounts, this is the best case scenario.”
She waited for his response, like she did after all her questions, with that aggravating patience dripping from her face. Like if she was just patient with him, eventually he would relent, and she could say they made progress.
“Doesn't make it fair,” he spat, still refusing, progress be damned.
She sighed. “Alright then, we'll wrap up today on that note,” she said, tearing out a page from her notepad and handing it to him. “This is your homework for this week.”
Before he could say anything, she interrupted. “Don’t make that face, it's nothing difficult. Just write down seven things you find ‘unfair’ during the week. You can go a bit over seven if you want, but try to get at least one instance per day.”
“And what's that supposed to do?” he asked. “Trying to prove something about me?”
But she just shook her head and kept her voice neutral.
“We'll discuss that next session. Have a good week.”
The second the dismissal left her mouth, Collie stood up and stormed out of the room.
‘Have a good week’ he thought, seething, because was there ever a greater insult? You have a good fucking week. Fuck you all the way to hell.
And to think, all of this because he gave some racist homophobe a well deserved sock in the jaw. Welcome to America, where if you defend yourself and your friends from a man who’s seconds away from a hate crime, they stick your ass in anger management and call it the ‘best case scenario’. What a fucking joke.
He walked away from his counselor’s office, shooting a quick text to McVries. He had insisted on giving Collie a ride. Probably felt guilty about the whole thing, like it was his fault Collie was stuck in this situation.
Collie took out the crumbled paper from his pocket, already having something unfair to write on it.
But as if his patience hadn't been tested enough, he bumped head-first into some lanky guy as he was walking out of the building.
He was probably nothing more than an inch or two shorter than Collie, but he looked smaller, scrawny limbs engulfed in loose fitting jeans and an old, discolored sweater. He had messy blonde hair with dark, overgrown roots, and an annoyed look on his face that said he was about to cuss Collie out for bumping into him.
“Watch where you’re fucking going, you piece of shit,” Collie said first, beating him to it.
But then, the guy fucking laughed at him, chuckled like he found it funny. His annoyed face slowly formed the most obnoxious smirk Collie had ever seen in his life.
“Ok, meathead,” the asshole mocked, then disappeared into the counselor’s office.
All of Collie’s rage fizzled out in an instant, and he stared at the door to the office in shock. ‘Meathead’. There was only one person he knew in the entire world that would say that. And he knew it for a fact, because those exact words had been tattooed on his wrist since he turned twelve. So it had to be..
A car honking startled him out of his shock, and he turned to see McVries and Ray in a pickup truck, there to give him a ride. Collie gave one last glance to the office, still not believing what had just happened, and then climbed into the truck without a word.
“How was it?” McVries asked in that slightly teasing tone that would usually earn him a ‘fuck off’. When he got no answer, he grimaced. “That bad, huh?”
Collie shook his head. “No, it’s just… I think I just met my fucking soulmate.”
———
Eleven year old Collie Parker had been more excited about his soulmate than he cared to admit. The whole concept of a soulmate to him was really nice to think about, that there was someone out there that would just get him, without being intimidated or put off by the shit he’d say. To Collie, who didn’t have much friends other than the couple people who had been forced to get to know him because of proximity on the reservation, the thought was something of a comfort.
So on the night before his twelfth birthday, the day most people got their words, he sat alone in his room and stared at his wrist with the most anticipation he had ever felt in his life. He thought about what the words might be, came up with scenario after scenario of how he would meet what he assumed would be the love of his life. What would she be like?, he wondered. He hoped she would be someone cool, like his mom, or that girl he sometimes saw at the local powwow that he had wanted to talk to but hadn’t known how to approach.
But then he felt the numb sensation on his wrist, and watched the words he had been waiting his whole life to see begin to spell out, “Ok, meathead.”
He had stared a little longer, like maybe more words would appear with some kind of explanation. But nothing else came or changed, and Collie couldn’t stop himself from yelling out, “What the fuck?”
His mom had laughed at him about it the next morning when he angrily asked her what the hell ‘meathead’ even meant.
“I think it’s like, someone stupid,” she explained, finding it funny. “Whatever you say to your soulmate first, they’re gonna respond by basically calling you a dumbass.”
“But that’s not fair!” he complained. “Everyone else gets nice words, why does mine think I’m a meathead?”
“Who knows?" she had told him, and it was pretty much the end of it.
It didn’t matter. On that day, Collie had lost all hope on his soulmate being some perfect being that would magically descend one day from the sky. The bar had been set pretty low.
And yet.
“Your soulmate?” Ray asked in disbelief, McVies next to him in a similar state of shock. “You mean you just found your soulmate in your anger management class?”
Right. Because not only was his soulmate some random white guy in fucking Maine, he was also probably some psycho who needed anger management classes.
“What the fuck?” Collie yelled, feeling all the angry confusion he had when the damned words first appeared on him.
McVries laughed at him. “What, you didn't like her?”
Collie shook his head and put his face in his palms. “Not even a ‘her’. Pretty sure it was a guy.”
“Oh.”
Tense silence filled the pickup truck as Ray and McVries probably yelled at each other over the telepathic bond they seemed to have. Collie had half a mind to tell them to shut up, but they technically weren't talking so he kept his mouth shut.
“I mean,” Ray started awkwardly, “there's no shame in it. I didn't know I went both ways either, til I met Pete.”
“That's not the issue,” Collie interrupted, realizing as he said it that he didn't even really know what the issue actually was. Just that there was one and he was mad about it.
The two stayed quiet, waiting for him to explain himself. When he didn't, Ray broke the silence again. “Well what was he like?”
Collie thought back to the brief interaction they had. “Skinny. White. Punchable face.”
That got a laugh out of Ray. “Haven't you learned your lesson about punching dudes in the face?” Collie gave him the finger.
“Ok, but what was he like?” Ray kept questioning. “Or like, what was his name?”
“Don’t know, I didn’t really ask.”
His two friends both made faces of bewilderment at each other. “How’d you forget to ask your soulmate for his name?” Ray asked.
He shrugged. “We didn’t really talk. It was just the first words and that was it.”
“Shit, Collie,” McVries interjected, “Sounds to me like you didn't even give the guy a chance.”
Collie threw his head back and stared at the car ceiling. “I don't know,” he said, “ it just wasn't what I was expecting.”
“And what were you expecting?” McVries asked.
He contemplated it, thought of how he always knew his words weren't anything too promising.
“I don't know.”
McVries gave him an amused chuckle, then faced back forward to start the car. “Well he is your soulmate for a reason,” he said, Ray nodding his agreement next to him.
It was easy for them to say, they’d probably have found each other even without their words. Even now, the two seemed to work as a unit, McVries driving Ray’s pickup truck, Ray reading off directions in the passenger seat. He didn’t think he could ever reach that kind of mutual understanding with anyone, soulmate or not. Maybe McVries and Ray were just different.
But as Collie watched the way their hands intertwined, slightly hidden from view, an inkling of hope resparked in him. That maybe, just maybe, him and whoever the asshole was could somehow get there.
Somehow.