tumblr au based off of a textpost. credit goes to tumblr users aceofultron, fuck-me-barnes, and hacash for the basic storyline but the fictional development is mine.
here we go.
i've been considered abnormal for most of my life, not for the usual reasons, it's not just because my hair sticks up funny and i have a quirky personality... my Mark has always been different from everyone else's.
we're all born with these Marks on our skin... much more like tattoos than natural birthmarks. some of them tell stories. some of them are paragraphs, and most of them have meaning. mine is different.
recently i asked my mother what they could possibly mean. she told me i couldn't tell anyone because the general public isn't supposed to know that these Marks carry a road sign that is supposed to lead us to our soulmates.
it wasn't until after the fact that i realized what this was all about.
may twenty-seventh of this year i was admitted to the hospital- nothing serious, just a respiratory infection that had grown worse & worse.. okay, maybe it is something serious. i'm in this dusty hospital with really dusty old people who i swear are coughing up dust as they try to speak to me and i can't take this anymore. i slipped out of the common area and made my way down to the bottom floor and grabbed an apple and sat in the nearest booth, trying to drown out both the happy laughs and devastated cries that come with living in a hospital. i concentrate on chewing the too-sour apple as i untangle my earbuds, too focused to notice the hands trying to get my attention just in front of me. i jump when they lightly tap my shoulder.
there's an awkward, almost shy looking boy sitting across from me, asking questions in sign language. one of my close friends years ago was hard of hearing, even so, all i can pick up so far is the alphabet, so i guess he asks my name. i sign E-M-M-A and smile at him shyly. his name is something beginning with a D.. i can't make out all of it but i pretend i do to avoid making things even more awkward. he's telling me about himself and i think he said he's new but the language barrier is so broken half of what i hear could be wrong. nevertheless i enjoy the conversation and soon i ask him whether we can speak again soon.
and as most cliche friendships go, we grow close simply because the universe has thrown two sarcastic, moody teenagers with a love for sour apples into each other's company for a period of time.
soon enough, D asks me about my birthmark. i smile and tell him i don't have one. that's the first time i'd heard him laugh- it was raw and my definition of happiness, even if he couldn't hear it and be self-conscious about it, he was displaying his joy and comfort with me. i lifted my shirt and explained, in rough words letter-by-letter, that there had never been anything where everyone else's Marks had been. D jokingly told me that it was because i didn't have a soulmate. i giggled, but he'd just brought to life the idea that i'd toyed around with since my mom told me what the Marks had to do with.
D lifted his shirt next and showed me a little sketch on his torso, like a heart or a flower. that was his Mark, just as curious as the absence of mine.
after that night we didn't discuss our abnormal Marks again, but it subconsciously made us draw closer and closer.
a few weeks into our friendship, everyone knew we were close. some of the other girls teased me about my "boyfriend" but he wasn't meant for me.
june 14th at 3:07 i woke up in a cold sweat, partially because of a nightmare and partially because of the phone ringing. i answered, it was a notification from one of the nurses that Daniel wasn't doing well and was on life support to be taken off the following monday, giving him two days to recover. i dismissed it as an all-call and went back to sleep.
it wasn't until the next morning at breakfast that i realized something was terribly wrong. my friend tori kept asking me if i was okay and it finally hit me that D was Daniel and that my best friend in this godforsaken hospital might be leaving me.
god, no no no. it didn't take me long to find out where he was and thankfully the nurses were on lunch so i could slip in without hassle. i talked to him, the first words ever spoken to him. he couldn't hear me but i needed him here. i told him i loved him, god i loved him but i knew the infection in his body was winning and he had to let go. i wept tears onto his skin and traced flowers on his cool, lifeless skin.
my best friend passed at 12:37 pm, but alas, this is not where the story ends.
the next few days were difficult, i didn't leave my bed or sleep much until i finally came to a revelation- the Marks we'd both despised were what were meant to bring us closer in the end- we were each other's soulmates and they signified our last words to each other. D and i were meant to be from the beginning, before we were sick and when we were teased when we were young and even when we teased each other. our love was young and should not have ended so fast and i didn't even know i loved him until he was gone but his silence and my scribbles that i guess resembled flowers were all we need.
love is not about the language you speak alone, but the language you speak when you are together.
