Larry One-shots

You're hands touching me

Prompt: Soulmate au - your body is marked with where your soulmate will touch you for the first time.

The black marks begin to appear on the body around age 14, they document where your soulmate will touch you for the first time. When the mark is touched you will feel a burning sensation in the area signifying that you have found your soulmate. The mark will not disappear once touched but will turn brown or red, like a typical birthmark. This happens to show others that you have found your soulmate.

The textbook Louis had to read for his SRE class had a long and boring section on soulmate marks. Louis was 14, nearly 15, and his mark still hadn't appeared on his body like the rest of the people in his year's had. This outcasted him because he couldn't talk with the others and make up fantasies on how they would meet their soulmate and what they would look like and be like. His mother assured him that it was normal for a soulmate mark to appear anywhere from age 13 to 16 and to not worry that he was a late bloomer in that regard. Louis thought his mum's words were stupid, she found her soulmate when she was 15 – not even a year after she got her mark, of course she would tell Louis not to worry about it. She was normal and Louis wasn't.

The week before his 15th birthday Louis began to think that he didn't have a soulmate. It wasn't unheard of, after all. If you never get a mark and are 16, you will never get one meaning you don't have a true soulmate. Louis was running out of time. All he wanted was to get his mark, find his soulmate and have a happy, storybook ending.

The mark appeared on Louis body overnight. It was the day before his 16th birthday. He had already been called out on it at school and teased for being the lonely boy without a soulmate that no one would ever love, and Louis was starting to believe them so much so that he stopped checking his body for the coveted mark. But then everything changed.

The mark appeared.

Surprisingly, he didn't notice it at first. This was surprising, not because the mark was in a hard to see spot or was fairly small but because he had a large handprint at the base of his neck, the index finger curling round to his carotid artery, it looked like it strangled him. His mum noticed it first.

"Good morning Lou-" She gasped when she looked up, hand coming up to cover her mouth.

"What is it mum?"

"I think you should look in the mirror, darling." Johanna said, trying to calm her breathing at the excitement of her son finally having his mark. Louis sighed and made his way over to the mirror in the front hall before yelling out.

"What the bloody fucking hell is that thing on my neck!" His mum rushed in, shocked that her son wasn't happier that he had gotten his mark.

"It's your soulmate mark, dear."

"I can see that mum," Louis rolled his eyes as he continued touching the black spot. "It's just a hand on my neck. The love of my life is going to almost strangle me when we first meet, great, the kids at school will love this." He huffed out in annoyance.

"I'm sure we can cover it when you go so that it looks less, you know." She gestured her hands around to give emphasis on the fact that she didn't really know what she was talking about.

"What, violent?" he said sarcastically.

"Yeah, violent." Johanna muttered under her breath as she brought Louis in for a hug. She kissed him on the forehead before telling him to get some breakfast and get ready for some Christmas tree shopping.

-

Over the years, Louis had tried to cover his soulmate mark. Turtlenecks in the winter were a god send and covered up the black handprint perfectly but in the summer, it was a different matter. Louis hadn't even come close to finding a t-shirt that would cover the mark in the summer but not make him unbearable sweaty. So, he went without, trying to wear the strangling somewhat proudly all whilst receiving looks as though he was the scum of the earth. For some reason, having his soulmate mark there made him easy, a slut or a whore, which Louis could never understand. It's not his fault that his soulmate decided the best way to greet someone was to strangle them.