Chapter Text
Chapter 1: I Need You Now But I Don't Know You Yet
Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!Reader, Reader POV
Tropes: Soulmate AU, Little bit of Grumpy and Sunshine, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Protective Ben/ Soldier Boy, Jealous Ben/Soldier Boy
Warnings: Self deprecating thoughts, Little bit sad, Cursing, Mentions of drinking, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of Death, Loneliness, Longing, Basically the reader just wants to be loved, Reader wears glasses?, Soldier Boy might be a little OOC.
Word Count: 6.3K
Song Inspiration For Chapter: IDK You Yet (Title of chapter based on song) Y'all should listen to this song because it fits so well!
Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!
Internal Monologue Is in First Person And Is In Italics
A/N: Guys you have no idea how excited I am about this story! It's already shaking up to have a TON of my usual angst, but I'm not surprised.😅 I'm also a little disappointed. I read a soulmate AU fic forever ago for Joel Miller where the birthday was printed on the reader's arm and I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called or find it. If y'all know what it is, please let me know. I'd love to read it again and give the writer a little bit of credit for inspiration. ❤️
January 24, 1919
The date on your right wrist haunted you, the bold black numbers mocking from the moment you learned what they meant. It had to be a celestial mistake, a misprint, something wrong in the stars that shone so brightly over others, but dulled above your head.
Sometimes you thought you were cursed, that some mystical being before your birth marked you, scarred you, and made you carry the weight of the whole world on your shoulders.
That whoever it was made you different on purpose and you hoped one day you understood what that purpose was.
You'd never met someone born with the same dilemma, to be saddled with a soulmate that was born over 100 years ago, and yet here you were.
You'd heard it all growing up, the hushed whispered "freak" from your schoolmates, the odd looks from your neighbors, the pitying frowns of your parents who had known each other since pre-k, and the hug from your older brother as he whispered the familiar phrase “it‘ll be okay" to soothe you.
But you always wondered…
When would it be okay?
You watched all your friends find their happy endings with their soulmates, the birth years printed on their wrists at least within the same few decades, but not you.
You were alone, different, cursed.
The date printed on your wrist made you different, because no one else had a soulmate that was born so far in the past.
Your soulmate's birthday brushed on your skin only brought a wave of disappointment every time you saw it, because what the hell did it mean? 1919? That meant that your soulmate would be over 100 years old when you met him, whoever it was.
If you even met him.
No one lives that long. My soulmate should be long dead. He can't still be alive. Can he?
Each year that passed was like another nail in the coffin, but you celebrated the birthday of your supposed soulmate with a cupcake and a beer, locked away in your apartment to shut out the jeers of those who knew your particular dilemma. And each year when you blew out the candle you wished that it would be the year you met him, but now you weren't sure it would ever happen.
Because it was impossible.
You didn't understand why you were different, why you were chosen to have a soulmate that was long dead. Maybe it was true, maybe you were born late, born under the wrong sign, or maybe you really were cursed.
You'd heard the stories of people who never found their soulmates, urban legends really, but it didn't make you feel any better. The stories of people who wasted away to nothing, driven to the point of insanity because they never found the other half of their soul, alone for as long as they could stand it before they finally crumbled to dust.
You refused to be like them, turning to books for solace and hoping to escape. Slipping into the pages and into other worlds where people found their other half to leave the loneliness that haunted you behind.
And in that solace your found your true love, literature. It wove around you and brought you peace in a world where you felt lost and different.
When you moved away from the small town you grew up in, you got a job as a Literature professor, reading the great works of others, while trying to forget about the date on your wrist and the soulmate you longed for each day.
It was incredibly lonely to think that you'd live your whole life with only one half of your soul.
Every time you opened a book from the era your soulmate was supposed to be born in you wondered if he had read it, wondered what it was like to live in that time, and imagined what it would have been like to be there with him.
Each day you covered up the date on your wrist with a splash of foundation and playfully laughed it off whenever someone asked you if you'd found your soulmate yet. All the while spending year after year fading just a little bit more as you lost the last pieces of hope that you'd ever meet him.
One Year Ago
You were running late. Frankly you were always running late, but in the city that never sleeps it was to be expected.
It was supposed to be a big day. You had about a hundred papers to grade, a test to proctor, and three lectures to give, but you couldn't complain about your job, you loved it. Loved the groans of your students whenever you announced a test or an essay, loved the soft evenings where you read papers with a cup of tea and learned what in the assigned text was special to your students, and loved to teach from the books that had become home to you, the books that tried to heal your wounded heart.
But today something was different.
Something nagged at the back of your mind, as if you had forgotten that something else was supposed to happen today.
Haircut? No that's not it.
You think as you walk to the large wooden desk in your living room/bedroom. It was technically a dining room table, breakfast table, and your desk, but you'd loved it since the moment you found it tucked into a corner of an antique store in Brooklyn.
Your small studio apartment was quaint, the bedroom and living room divided by a large mid-century wooden screen that you had bought for twenty bucks at a thrift store the weekend you moved into your apartment five years ago. The living room only housed a plump cream colored couch that faced out the window towards the living room window that gave you a spectacular view of the alley between your apartment building and the next. Sometimes you got to watch the couple in the apartment across from you having a terrific fight and then got a front row seat to the loud make-up sex they had almost immediately after.
Large stacks of books dominated every wall stretching up as high up to the ceiling as they could reach, some were pressed against the exposed brick walls, others serving as the base for the coffee table you’d made with a vintage window, and of course there was one stack that towered high above your bed on top of your bedside table. You didn't own a tv, not when you spent most of your time reading.
Being a English professor meant that you could never have too many books not when they were like old friends that pulled you in whenever you opened their yellowing pages.
Meeting with the head of the English department? You bite the inside of your cheek as you shove your notebook, planner, pencil case, and laptop into your leather messenger bag. No, that's on Thursday.
You'd been working on a research paper that you hoped to publish about the Modern Period of Literature in America, but the head of the English Department wanted to see how much you'd done. In all honesty the only reason why you'd started studying the Modern Period of literature was because it was supposedly the time period in which your soulmate grew up and you thought that it would give you some insight into what his life was like.
And despite your being an expert on that time period, the head of the English Department did not share your enthusiasm for it. The only thing the head of the English Department had any enthusiasm for was his self-published book of erotic poetry and staring at your legs for too long while making subtle attempts for you to sleep with him even though he was married.
You fight the wave of revulsion with the memory of the last time you had a meeting with him and give yourself a once over in the mirror hanging on the bathroom door that faces in to your living room. You looked the way that you always did, maybe a little more frantic than usual, but that was expected given the fact that you were running late.
Today you had decided to wear your favorite dark green chunky sweater that you'd knitted yourself, a dark gray argyle midi-skirt, chestnut brown ankle high-heeled leather boots, and your traditional pair of circular black-rimmed glasses.
It's going to be a good day. You smile at your reflection. Yeah, if I could remember whatever the hell it is I've forgotten.
You roll your eyes and grab a bagel from the bag on the counter.
No time to toast it.
You think mournfully before shoving it between your teeth as you run out the door, slamming it behind you so hard that it rattles the watercolor botanical framed prints on the inside wall of the apartment.
"Late again?" Your neighbor, Mrs. Charleson, asks opening the cheerful yellow door of her apartment.
She was wearing her traditional pink cat eye glasses and had her wavy gray hair pushed back by a floral headband. When you'd moved in five years ago, she had brought over some cinnamon swirl muffins and a pot of blueberry tea. She'd just lost her own soulmate and husband of sixty-five years and was looking for a friend about as much as you were.
And although she had about eighty cats, all of which who were named after literary figures (your own cat was named Heathcliff), and often smelled like mothballs, you enjoyed spending time with her. She knew about your dilemma and didn't judge you for it. She didn't throw you a pitying look or make outrageous comments about why you'd been chosen to never meet your soulmate. If anything she acted like the way you thought your mother always should but never did. Not with judgement as your mother did, but with concern and love.
"Always." You shout back, muffled around the sesame seed bagel, stamping your foot to get your boot in the right position.
"Tea later?"
"Mhmm."
"Get some earl gray macaroons!"
You make it down the stairs successfully without falling, before throwing yourself against the door that leads into the black and white tiled lobby. Your high heeled boots clack loudly against the floor and you step out onto the crowded sidewalks of the early morning.
Fall was just beginning in the city, your favorite season. The leaves in Central Park were turning reddish brown and yellow and there was a wonderful chill that swept through the crowded streets.
You wove through the people, walking in the direction of NYU and looking down at the antique wristwatch perched on your left wrist to confirm what you already knew- that you were going to be late for your 8:00 am lecture on 20th Century American Romantics.
Shit.
The city is lively for a Monday morning. The chatter of people on phones, the buzz of traffic, the high pitched screech of horns, and the smells of the city wafted over you. It was so different from the small town you grew up in, but you loved being here. Here no one knew you, no one judged you, no one muttered something under their breath about you, and no one grabbed their children and crossed the street as if you were contagious.
You felt free.
You round the corner still looking down at your watch, weaving in and out of the foot traffic the best you can, when someone bumps into your shoulder. Whoever hit you was solid, broad, and much taller than you. The bagel drops from your mouth as you jostle from the bump, and you let out a low groan.
There goes my breakfast.
You look up prepared to curse out the offender when you stop. Whoever it was hadn't stopped moving, but you catch a flash of his bright green eyes as he passes, meeting yours for only a moment.
But that moment seems to last a lifetime.
He was tall with wild dark brown hair so long it touched his shoulders and a scraggly beard that fell over his chest almost to his collarbones. He looked dirty, almost worn, and was wearing a faded maroon track suit that had some writing on the sleeve in another language that you couldn't place. But his eyes were a brilliant green, so beautiful that they took your breath away.
As soon as his eyes meet yours, your skin hums, body lightening, warmth unfurling like the petals of a flower in the center of your chest curling outward reaching for the sun above. All sounds of the city vanish, leaving you only with the manic thud of your heart. Everything in your body turns towards the man, cells vibrating, reaching out, wanting more, begging you to grab him and hold him close. Electricity pulses and dances along your skin making your hair stand on end and goosebumps erupt along your flesh.
The birthday inscribed by the stars on your wrist sears against your skin like a brand beneath the foundation you smeared over it this morning. You look at him as if seeing for the first time, as if the past years of your life have been colorless, as if you'd been living in a cave for centuries and he's your first glimpse of sunlight, and as if you'd never seen the stars and he's the midnight sky.
You'd never felt any of this before.
The man's eyes widen as he looks at you, people passing between the two of you in a faceless blur, and you wonder if he feels it too.
He has to…
But the man shakes his head and turns his back on you continuing on his path down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, adjusting the strap of the bag on his shoulder as he goes.
"Wait-" You start to say, but your phone rings loudly in your pocket breaking the spell, and as you look down to retrieve it, you lose the man in the crowd.
What the hell just happened?
The rest of your day is chaotic, almost a blur, your body still humming from seeing that man on the street, wrist aching where the birthdate on your wrist burned against your flesh so hot that it seared through the foundation you brushed meticulously over the skin this morning to cover it up. It was no longer black, but flashed a brilliant gold with every shift of your wrist in the light as you moved your arm when teaching, peeking out beneath the sleeve of your sweater. Every flash distracted you from your lecture. Even your TA, Tate, who sat in the front row of your class began to notice how often you lost your train of thought.
You barely got through your 8:00 am lecture, stumbled through you 9:00 and 10:15, and canceled your 2:00 class much to the chagrin of your students who were expecting a test.
When Tate finally asked you if you're feeling alright, you wave a hand and tell him to take the rest of the day off, while you barricaded yourself in your office and stared at your wrist for hours, running your hands over the golden date confused. The birthdays always shone gold after two people found one another, and when your soulmate died, it went back to black, as if a reminder that the world had faded.
It was weird to see it shine so brightly when you'd lived your whole life staring at the mark and wishing for it to go away.
But he's not here, he's gone. I don't know where he went or how to find him…
Your friends back home described finding their soulmates before, tried to explain to you what it was like when they locked eyes with them for the first time, but everyone was different. No one could describe exactly how they felt when it happened.
Deep down you thought that it should feel like what happened when you locked eyes with the man on the street, like nothing else existed, just him and you but-
He acted like it was nothing like I was just another person and not the other half of his soul.
You swallow the lump in your throat, emotion from a lifetime of disappointment building, and finally the tears begin to crest and fall over your cheeks. You'd never heard of a one sided soulmate before, of only one person feeling drawn to the other one.
Then again, I've never heard of someone printed with the date of a soulmate who was born so far in the past.
Seeing him for the first time was like taking a bullet to the chest, the sharp spike, followed by the force of gravity jolting you into reality.
But why him?
You think again about how weathered he looked, like he'd been living under a rock for the past hundred years. And then you see the flash of his brilliant green eyes again in your mind, just for a fleeting moment, but it's enough to make the warmth trail along your skin, like the soft caress of a lover.
Was he really born in 1919? Or was this just another joke? Another way for the universe to laugh at me?
Frustrated tears blur your eyes as you stroke the birthdate on your wrist, heart breaking all over again, because it seemed that even if you had found the man the universe designated for you, he didn't care.
One Year Later: Present Day
You sigh loudly and hold up another dress in front of your body looking at yourself in the mirror. You had no idea what you were going to wear to Annie and your brother Hughie's housewarming party and you only had about another thirty minutes before you had to leave.
Your brother had been living in New York longer than you had, but he still made time for you. The two of you got lunch every week and it was your fault that he met Annie.
Meeting her yourself had been a complete fluke. You'd been sitting at your favorite bench in Central Park by the pond, reading your favorite book, allowing the gentle prose of the author to whisk you away for a few minutes, when someone sat down beside you and promptly began to cry.
And when you asked her what was wrong she'd told you everything about her problems at work and although you'd never been the best at comforting other people, you'd taken her to the closest coffee shop and the two of you had bonded over Chai Tea lattes.
You'd invited her over to watch a movie with your brother one Saturday night and then had a front row seat when the two of them realized that they were meant to be together. You'd tried to be happy for them, but the whole time Annie gushed about Hughie and Hughie stared at her like she was the last glimpse of the sun before it dropped below the horizon all you could think about was that it would never happen to you.
And now one year later, the two of them were finally moving in together in a fancy apartment uptown and you didn't want to imagine what the rent was. Your own studio was enough for you and you were lucky enough to have one that was rent controlled.
But you figured due to Annie being one of the Seven, she was probably making more than your measly teaching salary could ever amount to.
Learning that she was Starlight had been surprising, you weren't a supe, not even close and you didn't want to be. You had your hands full with teaching college kids, and didn't want to think about what it would be like to have superpowers or really what you would do with them. You certainly didn't need them to be a teacher and you didn't want to have them.
Plus, you always worried that you'd get some weird power like shooting webs out of your butt or making it rain blood. You didn't want to take that chance and shooting up Compound V felt like Russian Roulette.
You also worried about your brother working so closely with supes. The two of you hadn’t met any growing up and you worried that he was putting himself in danger every day when he went out to deal with them. But you were happy that Annie went with him, because you knew that she wouldn't let anything happen to him, she loved him too much.
As you hold up a black dress in the mirror you see a flash of the golden birthdate on your arm, and you're unable to fight the emotion that builds in your chest when you do.
It had been a year since it happened, since you locked eyes with a complete stranger on the street and felt your soul intertwine with his and he turned his back on you.
You'd understood that.
Understood that for some reason he decided to turn away like you meant nothing to him, like you weren't the other piece of his soul, and like a part of him didn't call out to you, a lighthouse over a stormy sea to a sinking ship.
It had broken you more than the first time you realized what the date on your arm meant. It always seemed ridiculous that something that brought happiness to millions of others made you feel broken, like there was something wrong with you.
And in that moment on the street something felt right for a few seconds, you felt whole for the first time in your life, only to have everything dashed against the rocks all over again.
But you hadn't forgotten him, couldn't forget him. His green eyes haunted you and each night you dreamed of him.
You saw pieces of his life, his memories, felt his pain, his anger, his frustration, and deep down his fear whenever you fell asleep. You'd never heard of that before, of a soulmate dreaming the memories of another.
You'd asked your neighbor, Mrs. Charleson if she had dreams of her soulmate's memories, she'd said no, but then she said that she'd heard about it, thought that it was only a myth, but it meant that the souls were fated to spend more than one lifetime together.
As if you knew what that meant.
It had broken your heart even more when she said that, because if that were true why did he turn away?
How could he turn away? Why did he leave me standing in the street and acted like I wasn't his other half?
It made you think that maybe he wasn't impressed with you and that he was disappointed that you of all people were his soulmate.
You'd had a mental breakdown at Mrs. Charleson's apartment when you went home early the day you met your soulmate or whatever the hell he was.
She'd made blueberry tea and rubbed you back. And when the tea hadn't worked she had cracked a bottle of red wine and ordered greasy takeout food that the two of you ate on her floral couch while her cats circled like sharks looking for a piece of your chicken and broccoli.
You would have called Annie, but she and Hughie were out of town on a long weekend getaway.
And when you went back to your apartment and crashed into your bed, you'd dreamt of him for the first time.
The memories you'd seen when you closed your eyes that night were not happy at all. You'd seen the early years of his life being berated by his father, years of him drinking and fucking his sorrows away, and then the worst, him being tortured in what looked like a lab. He was a supe, that much you could gather from the memories. But they were filled with pain, suffering, frustration- you'd never met someone who'd been through so much before. Endured so much torture.
You still didn't know his name, didn't see enough of his life to figure out who he was, only that he was different than you in almost every single way. The memories were terrible, filled with blood, death, and pain. It scared you to see your soulmate that way, see him so angry and see him hurt and kill people. You couldn't imagine the kind of man he was, the kind of man who could burn someone beyond recognition and feel absolutely nothing.
It was confusing. You didn't understand how someone who was supposed to be the other half of your soul, was the complete opposite of you. Someone that was filled with so much rage and pain was the man the stars declared was for you.
It doesn't matter anyway. He saw you and didn't want you.
You ignore the lump of emotion in the back of your throat and hold up a navy blue dress, but you hang it back in your closet with a sigh. Nothing seemed to be appropriate for you to wear to the party and you hadn’t been shopping for a new outfit in ages. Not to mention you knew that no matter what you wore Annie would look flawless.
You loved your brother's soulmate, but sometimes you were intimidated by how pretty she was and how together she was. It made you a little self-conscious about the long skirts, sweaters, and blazers you wore when you were at work and you were not together at all.
You seemed to always be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, frantically running from place to place and trying not to lose the last bit of sanity you had left. While Annie was confident, poised, and glided into each room.
Finally, you reach for a pair of your favorite blue jeans and the same green chunky knit sweater you were wearing the day that you saw him for the first time. The sleeves were long enough to cover the mark on the wrist. You hadn't told your brother or Annie about that day and you didn't want them to see the golden date on your wrist and ask you where your soulmate was.
Guess I'm going a little more casual today.
On your way out you give your cat, Heathcliff, an affectionate scratch behind the ears and grab your purse. You were running a little early this time, early enough to pick up a Snake Plant around the corner at your favorite plant shop, 'Please Don't Die,' as a housewarming gift and then stopped at the liquor store next door to grab a bottle of Annie's favorite wine.
You figured that you'd end up staying late and drinking wine with her long after the party was over.
Hughie opens the door of the apartment when you knock. "Thank God you're here! Annie is freaking out and driving me up the wall-"
"No I'm not! I'm just expressing all the things that have to be done within the next five minutes or I really am going to go crazy!" You hear his soulmate shout back when Hughie lets you in.
The apartment is fancier than yours, all white walls and glass windows that display a view you would kill for. Your brother is wearing a nice light blue button down shirt and navy tie, and his hair is it's usual fluffed and curly self. He looks happy and it warms a piece of your heart because you knew how much that he deserved it. And that's all you wanted for your older brother.
Annie appears, wearing a white dress that wraps over one shoulder and falls to her ankles, effortlessly elegant as usual. It made you feel self-conscious that you'd worn jeans, when Annie was wearing something that made her look like a Greek goddess.
"I am so underdressed." You mutter to yourself
"No! You look great babe. I love those jeans on you." She smiles pulling you in for a hug.
"Well-"
"But please let me do something with your hair." Annie touches the messy bun at the back of your head making a face.
"What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing, I'm just going to spruce it up a little bit for you."
"But-"
Annie pulls the bottle of wine and the plant from your arms and shoves them at Hughie. "We'll be right back." And with that she drags you to their shared bedroom.
20 minutes later your hair has been perfectly curled and styled by Annie's skillful hands. She'd even adjusted your make up so that now you're wearing a bold red lipstick and a dark eyeshadow that matches your ensemble. And even you have to admit that you look better than you did moments ago. You usually didn't wear that much makeup, sometimes it made you feel like you weren't you, but what Annie had applied seemed stylish.
"Thanks Annie."
"Of course." She smiles brightly and leads you back out into the large kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances and real marble countertops. "How have you been? Did you finish that paper you were writing?"
By now several people have already begun to gather at different parts of the apartment, talking quietly with one another, while sipping drinks and eating finger food. The sound of their chatter is masked by the Billy Joel song playing from the speaker in the corner.
"Yeah. I submitted it, now I'm just waiting for the department head to read it." You frown at the thought.
"You don't think he'll like it?" She moves to the freezer to grab a bag of ice.
"Dale doesn't like the modern period of literature as much as I do so I'm expecting him to have a lot of critiques and reasons why he doesn't like it." You take the bag from her and set it on the counter.
"Sorry."
"It's okay. I'm used to it. He's never ecstatic about my research work." The thought makes you frown. "Even though he knows it's my specialty and the reason why he hired me."
"Isn’t he the creepy married guy that keeps trying to take you to dinner and wrote all those sensual poems about women who sound nothing like his wife?"
"Yep."
"Ew." Annie's face scrunches up in disgust.
"My thoughts exactly." You sigh looking around the kitchen for an ice bucket. "Do y'all have an ice bucket somewhere or-"
"It should be in that cabinet." She points behind you just as you hear someone knock loudly on the front door.
"Perfect."
The ice bucket is acrylic, see-through, and light pink, but you find it easily. The ice clanks against the sides as you pour, not bothering to watch Hughie open the door for whoever it was that hit the front door of the apartment with so much force you thought it would cave in.
Annie leans against the counter pouring herself a glass of wine and groans to herself when she sees who Hughie was greeting.
"What's wrong?" You ask her, your tongue between your teeth as you try not to spill any of the ice over the perfect countertops.
"I didn't think he would come." She grumbles.
"Who?"
"Ben." Annie all but sighs the name.
"And why didn't you want him to come?" You ask, pouring more ice into the bucket.
"He's just kind of rough-"
"Rough?"
"He works with Hughie. He's a supe. Thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread or whatever.” She sighs again and takes a sip of her white wine to calm down. "Actually he used to be Soldier Boy."
"Soldier Boy? You mean the supe from the 80's that died?"
Hughie didn't tell me he had a dead man working with him.
"It's a long story." Annie waves her hand as if to dissipate the thought, but it doesn’t make you any less curious. "Now he works at the bureau with Hughie trying to keep supes in check. Usually he and Butcher bump heads."
"Oh."
Hughie didn't talk much about what he did with Butcher, or really who he met, but after Homelander disappeared and Stormfront took over as leader as the Seven more supes began to come out of the woodwork, supes that had been afraid before, but now had no one to keep them in check. And although The Seven were feared in the city, no one was feared as much as Homelander.
"I'm sure that he won't try anything Annie. And if he does I'll keep him in check." You smile at your friend.
It's her housewarming party and supe or no if he's a prick I'm going to kick his ass out. Annie doesn't deserve to feel stressed today of all days.
"Thanks babe."
"What are friends for?"
She squeezes your arm and walks away to talk with MM who stands with a little girl who must be his daughter. You'd only spoken to him a handful of times, but he was always eager to talk about her achievements in school. He was so proud of her that it made your heart warm. Her mother wasn't his soulmate, but there hadn't been any hard feelings between MM and his daughter's mother.
That wasn't unusual. You'd known several people who decided to date other people before meeting their soulmate as a way of passing the time. You'd always thought it was ridiculous to commit yourself to someone else and fall in love with them, only to have your heart broken when they met who they were meant to be with.
It was why you hadn't tried to date anyone, because you might have never met your soulmate, but the other person you'd be in a relationship with would. And you didn’t want to give your heart to someone only to have them leave you when they met their other half. Which meant that you were probably going to die alone, especially because your soulmate doesn't want you. It hadn't helped that you'd seen a few memories from your own soulmate with other women over the years, women that didn't look anything like you, women that seemed more confident, more beautiful, and more stylish than you.
Maybe that's why he didn't want me.
Your feel the familiar twinge in your chest when you thought that and fought the tears that burned when you thought of how happy Annie and Hughie were. You didn't want to cry at their party.
The familiar question rises in your head again:
When will it be okay?
Probably never.
You turn toward the freezer holding the now half-full bag of ice intent on putting it back when someone bumps into you. The bag slips from your hands and ice goes skittering across the perfect hardwood floors in every direction, but just when you start to drop to pick it up, you feel a large hand grip your shoulder.
A gasp escapes from your mouth as it makes contact.
As soon as the palm touches you, you feel nothing else, not the shift of the sweater against your skin, not the slight chill from the air conditioner, not the brush of your hair against your cheeks, all you feel is the warmth radiating through your clothes and soaking into your skin from the person's hand.
The hand moves to cup your chin gently, the shock of the person's skin touching yours makes the feeling increase ten-fold as the hand tilts your face up to meet the eyes of the person who bumped into you.
You know it's him before your eyes meet his, know that it's the man from the street who you saw for only a few seconds a year ago, but this time when his beautiful green eyes meet yours everything you felt that day comes roaring back.
He's taller than you remember, shoulders proud and broad stretching a dark gray button down shirt over his chest that have the sleeves rolled up revealing tanned arms. His hair is shorter, still dark brown, but now only long enough to cover the tops of his ears and his beard is shaved so that only a thick dusting covers his cheeks, but it's still him. And he's more handsome than any version you could come up with in your mind.
All sound in the room vanishes, the drone of chatter fades, the clinking of glasses disappears, the only sound that remains is your own heart thudding in your chest and you swear you can hear his beating at the same frequency, both of your hearts calling out to one another.
Your entire body feels like it's vibrating, as if every cell is moving so fast that they're heating you from the inside, leaving behind a molten puddle of what you used to be. A golden cord weaves around the two of you securing your heart to his in your mind, making you gasp as it hooks to his heart binding his soul to yours. Time stops as he gazes at you, something brightening in his green eyes as they absorb your own gaze.
The man doesn't move. It almost looks like he's stopped breathing, and you realize that you haven't taken a breath since he touched your shoulder. His eyes drop down to your right wrist where your hand rests over his heart, where he knows his birthday will be.
You don't remember reaching out to touch him, but now that you realize it, you can feel his heart beating beneath the palm of your hand like a fluttering bird, gentle and judging by the memories you had witnessed from him, nothing about this man was gentle.
"I've been looking everywhere for you sweetheart." The man rumbles, the words vibrating against your fingertips where they rest against his muscular chest. He smiles down at you and somewhere deep down you feel something break open that you thought was locked away long ago.
And as you stand there looking up at the man you thought you'd never see again, the autumn sun warm against your back, you feel a flicker of something that could grow into a blaze spark to life in your chest.
A/N: I hope y'all loved the first chapter as much as I loved writing it! I've never written a soulmate AU, so I am a little nervous about it, but I think that it's going to be a lot of fun! And yes, I did give Ben the same birthday as Dean Winchester (not the same year). In my head Ben is Dean from a different universe, and it just made sense to me. 😂