Lassie Takes a Shot

Soulmates.

They started appearing about 160 years ago when the population of Earth began to dwindle, due in part to war and the fear of rejection from other individuals.

Some divine force, which many were skeptical of, had decided that soulmates were a necessity to ensure the safety of humanity, but as the populations began to swell, the possibility of finding one's soulmate dwindled to next to nothing and people stopped looking.

Of course, little Carlton Lassiter didn't care about any of that. He was so excited, upon his 9th birthday, to feel a slight twinge in his shoulder, one he couldn't have possibly caused himself as he was lying in a pile of blankets, sick with the flu.

Despite the weakness he'd felt, he'd run to his mother, pulling his shirt off to show off his bruise, proud. In his childlike glee, he missed the way that his mother's smile was tight.

She'd been one of those people who had given up on finding her soulmate and married his father for love, but they weren't compatible. They fought and pushed and screamed at one another all the time and they were both miserable for it.

She'd never tell her son that, of course.

After finding that first bruise, he'd spend days looking for new bruises or scrapes to show off to his classmates.

He finally had a soulmate.

~~~

Lassiter groans as he accidentally brushes against the scrape on his knee. It wasn't particularly painful, but it was located in such an inconvenient spot and it caused a dull throbbing throughout his whole knee making it difficult to chase after his prey.

He'd long since given up on looking for his soulmate, finding the idea ludicrous and evil. If he didn't have proof of soulmates littering his body, he'd have never thought they were real to begin with.

Soulmates, he decided, were the bane of his existence, the worst things to have ever been created.

Much like his mother, he had married for love, rather than marrying his soulmate. He and Victoria had been happy, but one day she ran into him, her soulmate. She had come home that day with divorce papers and a sad smile and he could do nothing to convince her to stay.

When he got older, he saw it in his mother, the way that not being with her soulmate had aged her until she met Althea and left him with his father.

His father had not at all been happy to be left with her child. He never wanted a kid in the first place and Carlton had been the one to suffer.

No. Soulmates were the worst gift mankind had ever received and he was absolutely certain that he never wanted to find his.

Of course, with his job, it wouldn't be easy to discover who his soulmate was anyway. He found it difficult to differentiate his soulmate's bruises from his own.

Being a detective came with it's perks after all.

"Carlton!" O'Hara shouts, dragging him from his increasingly morbid thoughts, babbling about some thing or another as she led him out to his car.

~~~

O'Hara and Guster were having some sort of conversation that he was only half paying attention to, thoughts focused on the fake psychic they were attempting to find.

They had found a clue on his nightstand, something that led them towards an old, empty car lot. They were headed that way when he feels it.

Carlton gasps, hand shooting to his shoulder as if to brush away the phantom pain. He rips the buttons off his shirt, pushing it over his shoulder as the searing pain grows stronger.