My Only Lover(s)

Two Is Better Than One

Harry stared in wonderment at his reflection. It wasn't so different from the day before. His eyes were still the same old green, his hair still the same wild, chocolate curls, but he had changed, and his stomach was filled with butterflies at what that meant.

There on either side of his pelvis sat two, newly appeared, soul marks, one for each hip.

Harry couldn't help but touch them, his fingertips brushing gently against his skin. They were flowers, with five petals, but he wasn't sure what kind. He imagined, if he closed his eyes, they'd be white, and they reminded him of wild strawberry flowers.

The marks sort of looked, to Harry at least, like scars. They were slightly raised and just a shade pinker than his natural milky, white skin. They didn't hurt at all though. For some reason he'd thought they might. He imagined he'd wake up in the middle of the night to a searing pain, only to discover the mark of his mate being carved into his skin by some unseeable force. He hadn't. There had been no pain, not even an itch, and yet when he woke up that morning he could feel them there.

Harry, suddenly snapped out of his daze, and scrambled for his phone sitting at his desk. He wondered if maybe he should phone his mum, but it wasn't like he'd actually met his mate yet, so instead he called Ed.

He dialed in the number as quickly as he could, which wasn't very, because even though it was the twenty-first century he still had a flip phone, and he fumbled with the buttons.

"'Hello?" Ed's voice was groggy, it was only six in the morning after all, but this felt too urgently important to Harry for him to await until a decent hour.

"Ed, what do I do?" Harry was pacing now, back and forth, in what little open space he had in his dorm room. He nearly tripped over his feet at least twice.

"It's Harry, love-" Ed whispered quietly, Harry guessed to his mate Cherry, before bringing the phone back to his face, "Slow down, Harry. I think this is the fastest I've ever heard you talk. What's the matter?"

Harry took a deep breath in through his nose out through his mouth, "I got my mark."

Ed barely even waited for Harry to finish before screaming; "OH MY GOD! Congratulations!"

"What am I supposed to do now though? Do I just wait?"

"Didn't you pay attention in sex ed?"

"Mr. Maxwell was really boring and it didn't seem that important at the time."

Ed sighed heavily, "You need to go to the I.S.M.D.B. website to submit a picture of your mark. If your mate is in the system then you'll find a match."

"Okay," Harry mumbled as he typed it into his laptop. The thing was a piece of junk and took fifteen minutes just to turn on, "What does that stand for again? International Soul Mark something bank?"

"It's the International Soul Mark DataBase, Harry."

"Oh! The site loaded! So now I just take a picture," Harry clicked on the photo iPhone before he saw himself appear on his screen. He lifted up his shirt before moving a little closer to the screen. He didn't want to show his face for some reason. It was embarrassing enough that he was already displaying his bare hips for the whole internet to see.

"Oh, and while you're at it send it to me too, I want to see what your mark looks like."

Harry entered his photo into the database and while the screen buffered he sent the picture to Ed.

Harry heard Ed's phone beep when he received the text but otherwise the line was silent.

"Ed? Did you get it?"