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Lucas Morgenstern was the laughingstock of his family's social circles all because he'd fallen in love with someone who was not his soulmate. It wasn't as if he'd gone into the relationship with Lilian Eden with the idea of ruining his own life with gossip - even though, really, who cared?
Soulmates were not the be all end all of relationships. He'd heard of plenty of matches that ended in failure just in his parent's conservative generation, let alone his own.
It was just…seeing himself in the tabloids, engagement ring suspiciously missing after his fiancée had been spotted out with her rockstar ex fresh out of a world tour, it really stung. Like salt in a wound, when their last argument was still so fresh in his mind.
"I can't believe you don't want to commit to the plans I have for us!" Lilian had accused him, throwing out the words like daggers, ground sharp from her disdain. "If you don't commit to your family's company plan, I can't put my fashion designing on hold for the sake of a family! I will have to work to help support us, and do you want me to do that when I'm pregnant?"
"No, but you know how much the board meetings crush my soul, let alone everything else."
Lucas had gone to business school for a reason, put up with the pushing and pulling of his father's demands - make something of yourself, then and only then can you fuck around with your foolish daydreaming. But trying to settle down and look respectable in business casual while feeling part of his soul dying inside every day… he couldn't go through with it.
Lilian had humored him at first, put up with his eccentricities initially, and seemed to care in her own way. But she hadn't seen fit to give him any hope of getting out of board meetings or doing anything more than grinding himself down to dust for the big bucks.
And when she could go right back to her shitty ex, with tattoos and piercings and muscles that Lucas would never have? Someone beautiful like her surely felt as if her looks were better paired with the bad boy aesthetic.
It didn't even hurt, really, to see them kissing on the front cover of the latest gossip rag that had been tossed in his lap by Gabriel that morning with the date at the top circled - no, what really hurt was knowing that Lilian had had that spark of soulmate energy ignite when she'd first met Adam as a teenager and they held matching soulmarks - hers on her wrist where she'd been caught before falling from tripping, Adam's on his hand where he had been the one to catch her.
Their subsequent relationship had been toxic and a nightmare, and Lucas had been there to help pick up the pieces in their senior year, when she finally turned her eyes on him after years of hopeless pining on his part.
So much for that meaning anything, in the end. It wasn't like he could keep anyone's attention on him for any length of time, hardly even his own family. The only time he spoke to his father at this point in his life was when he'd fucked up once again, and his mother had to remain quiet to keep the peace.
At least now he could be a fuck-up in peace, walking out of a screaming match that would likely end with him being officially disowned and legally cut out of the will. He didn't care what they had to say now, tired of the games and all the endless lies and backstabbing.
His family's social circle was no longer the place for someone like him. Lucas wasn't willing to let himself be suffocated for the sake of an impeccable image. They didn't want to support his goals and dreams? Fine, he didn't need them any way.
Heading out into the rain with no real idea where he was going was…probably not the best idea, but when had he been making too many good decisions lately? Maybe the gloomy weather would help clear his head from the cobwebs that threatened to take hold - or maybe he could wander off and get lost somewhere he didn't recognize, letting something happen to himself and leaving a mystery for his relatives.
That would likely be a lot less embarrassing for them to mop up than the tabloids that would continue to be printed like gospel truth in the coming weeks. Even if they never got an answer as to who did it, that would be acceptable.
A tragedy was infinitely better to frame in memorial photographs than a scandal after years of misbehavior. Now that could be upgraded to 'misguided' and 'wayward' instead of 'not worth shit' and 'deficient'.
Hair plastered to his forehead and clothes clinging to his lean frame, he shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to work up even a bit of extra warmth. The desire for self-punishment still clung to his mind like a limpet, as if he deserved this discomfort for being such a disappointment.
The logical part of his brain knew that was a bunch of shit, but didn't help in the desire to shake the thoughts off. In a few blocks, hopefully, before the weather set in and got worse.
Landmarks were passed without a glance at the buildings or storefronts to place familiar locations, passersby with umbrellas or other cover giving him strange looks as he passed, but he paid them no mind either. No one needed to percieve his presence in this state - nor was anyone likely to notice that mattered.
Surely the paparazzi weren't willing to brave this weather with their expensive equipment to possibly ruin it just for a sighting of a disgraced (now former) rich kid.
Interrupting his thoughts, there was a sound, sudden and sharp nearby - the squeal of tires, water spraying and being displaced. Lucas looked up in time to see the delivery scooter, almost right on top of him and the helmeted driver laying on the horn.
He didn't have time to react, heart rabbiting against his ribs in futile realization that he was about to get pretty damn hurt. Oh, those medical bills would hurt until he was able to find work…if he wasn't laid up for months after this and unable to find work at all.
Grabbed around the shoulders and pulled backwards sharply, Lucas gasped and leaned back against the body pulling him out of the way. The person was taller than him, and let go of him as soon as the scooter managed to swerve and come to a skidding stop yards away.
Paying no attention to the driver that had almost taken him out in a blink, he turned back to stare at the man that had pulled him to safety.
A dropped umbrella lay on the sidewalk nearby, and the man's curly hair was already beginning to plaster to his head. He was dressed in a well-worn sweater vest over a button-up shirt with rolled up sleeves, and otherwise looked like someone that had just walked out of one of those vintage 1930s novels that his mother had been obsessed with collecting.
"-what were you thinking, walking along with delivery drivers out without paying attention?!"
The half-shouting brought him back, along with the realization that the other was speaking with a Southern sounding twang. Oh, he was getting scolded like they did down South for sure…
"I…It wasn't like I stepped out into the road!" he shot back, finding only a bit of his nerve. Impressive with tears running down his cheeks from lingering fear. "They aren't supposed to drive on the sidewalks!"
His shouted accusation went to the driver, who had yanked his helmet off. "Get fucked, dude, you two were the only people around for the past block so I thought it was cool! I'm just trying to do my damn job!"
"You're trying to hurt or kill someone is what you're doing!"
"I don't have time for this fucking shit, no one got hurt!" Jerking the helmet back on, the driver skidded on the pavement as he sped off and headed for the abandoned bike lane on the road. At least no one else was likely to get nearly plowed into now…
Pressing a hand to his chest, Lucas turned back to his good Samaritan, trying to get his nerves back together and apologize-
Until he saw the mark against that russet brown skin. "You- did you hurt yourself pulling me out of the way…?"
"Don't be ridiculous, I-" looking down at his own arm, the man blinked slowly. "…There is no way I have that mark on me right now."
"It's right there, we both see it!" Too late, Lucas realized what the implication might mean. "…Oh, shit."
Reaching up to the collar of his sweater, he pulled it down along with part of his shirt near the collarbone, seeing the hints of a mark across his shoulder and down further underneath his clothes where the other man's arm had wrapped around him.
"Christ. Now I have to make sure your lily white ass doesn't get into more trouble! Come on!" A hand grasped at his wrist and pulled, nowhere near as hard as earlier, but Lucas didn't dare pull away.
If what had just happened meant what he thought, he'd just stumbled right into meeting his soulmate without even trying. Wouldn't that be a bitch of a note after what Lilian had done?
"Okay, wait, what is your name?" Stumbling along after the man, Lucas tried not to stare too obviously at the mark he could still see.
As if catching his staring, the man started rolling his sleeves down. "Alexander. And don't bother giving me your name, I already recognize you, Mr. Morgenstern."
"Lucas, please…my father is Mr. Morgenstern." It wasn't entirely unusual to be recognized out on the street, so he let the call out go.
"Yes fine, Lucas, now hurry up! I want to get out of this weather before I catch my death of cold, and you should want the same. There's a place up here where we can warm up."
Following Alexander in silence as he tried to wrap his mind around how wild this day had been, Lucas wrapped his arms around himself again. He wanted to get a better look at that mark on him, see if it went down as far as he thought. That was going to be a bitch of a mark to hide if it was around to stay. Maybe it was time to consider some kind of tattoo design.
One step at a time. Led into the interior of a cafe that seemed to match Alexander's aesthetics, Lucas winced when he saw the highly polished floors and stayed near the doors to try and wring some of the water out of his drenched clothing.
"Allie, is that you finally showing up?" A woman's voice echoed through the shop, before a tall woman with short, platinum hair appeared behind the main counter. "Oh, and you brought a friend!"
"Not exactly, Rose," Alexander muttered to her, moving closer to talk to the woman quietly.
Trying to avoid eavesdropping since he'd done more than enough fucking up for one day, Lucas stayed by the door and took in the shop's layout.
This was a cafe he'd never remembered passing by, its location beyond his usual haunts. The design style was quaint and comfortable, and the warm interior would be nice to take a bit of time in while processing how everything had just changed in a blink.
"-here, dearie, I've got a towel for you to start drying off with." Jumping when the woman - Rose - came up behind him and draped a towel over his shoulders, Lucas glanced back at her with a weak smile.
"Thank you, I'm sorry if it's any trouble…"
"Oh hon, you've had a day. C'mon, take a seat. You can rest here until the weather lets up. Alexander here will wanna look after you too!"
"Why would he-" he started to ask, then caught sight of that mark again as Alexander came closer, already wearing a dry shirt that had come from somewhere unknown.
His hair was still damp and a bit of a mess with curls half-plastered to his skin, but he'd cleaned up enough to avoid looking like a drowned rat.
Certainly more than Lucas could say at the moment.
He was glad that he didn't have to hear any snarky commentary as he snuck off to the cafe bathroom to get dried off as best as possible, trying to avoid looking at himself to see how pale and drawn he looked in the mirror.
Alexander was waiting for him at one of the booth tables, motioning to bring him over. The weather had driven away customers for the moment, leaving them the only two in the cafe.
A cup of hot chocolate was pushed into his hands after he sat down, and he gave Rose a grateful look. If nothing else, these two were already being nicer to him than anyone else of late had been.
"…We need to talk about the elephant in the room," Alexander said after a moment of silence lingering between them, looking as if he'd tasted something sour briefly. "Do you have a full mark where I touched you?"
No mincing words, this guy.
"Yes, I've got a mark. Bigger than yours."
"So I guess that answers my question about why you were in the tabloids so much recently." Sipping at the black coffee that had been brought to him, Alexander stared over the rim of the cup searchingly. "Do you think they'd have a field day with your situation now if anyone found out about you literally stumbling into your soulmate after your ex-fiancee was spotted kissing her ex who is also her soulmate in public?"
"Please don't make me think about that possibility," Lucas whined, shrinking down in his seat in the booth. "I barely even had time to accept that Lilian is moving on without me…"
"Al, let up on the guy," Rose called warningly from where she was working stocking the pastry case. "Don't make me wallop you one for you already moving on to bullying your soulmate after, what, only thirty minutes?"
"It's not bullying, I'm simply making sure that I don't have to worry about someone else swooping in on this situation." Sniffing faintly, Alexander lifted up his coffee cup again to take another drink.
"Wait, you…you aren't going to just tell me to fuck off and leave you alone?" Lucas had gotten that impression from the other man due to the whole…meet stupid they'd just gone through. And after how his own non-soulmate had just dealt with him, he wasn't thinking very highly about his chances of moving on with someone that he actually had a connection with.
"Not if he sees you as a challenge, dear," Rose pointed out sweetly. "Finish your hot chocolate, you need to get warm or you'll get sick and he'll have to nurse you back to health!"
"ROSE! Don't you have work to do?" Alexander sounded highly annoyed, but a pretty blush had colored his cheeks.
"Nothing any more interesting than this! But I'll leave you two alone for a bit, gotta get some pastries in the oven anyhow. You two boys play nice now~."
Lifting his mug of hot chocolate and almost wishing that it could swallow him whole, Lucas down a good half of it before setting it back down. He found dark eyes staring at him, and tried not to squirm. "Yeah…?"
"I want to make this clear right now," Alexander gave him a hard look. "I'm not into dating or relationships, and I never have been. So just because I'm humoring this potential soulmate bond between us doesn't meant that it will ever develop into something serious. I won't ditch you, don't give me that kicked puppy look, I just want that reality to be clear now."
Even though he felt a flutter of disappointment in his chest, Lucas ducked his head in a nod. "I understand. It's…it really feels stupid how I conveniently found you in such a dumbass way, and under the circumstances I can't expect a guarantee of much more right now. But with everything going to shit in my life right now, I'd be willing to accept anything friendly."
"For God's sake, please don't cry again," Alexander pleaded, seeing the too-bright look in his eyes. "Look, let's talk about something else. Anything other than those stupid chit-chat topics that everyone uses, something more interesting like…"
"What would you do if you turned your soulmate mark into a tattoo?" Lucas asked the question on a whim, already thinking of possibilities for himself. If he was going to lean into this disgraced Morgenstern heir, he might as well go full bore with it.
In spite of his buttoned up look and appearance from the thirties, Alexander looked suddenly interested. "Funny you should ask, because I wanted to get into tattoo art but my maman discouraged me. Thought it was better for me to work at the cafe here with dear Rose. More steady and reliable work."
"Wait, you work here?!" Lucas looked around. He couldn't lie and say he wasn't intrigued. "I'm so sick of the high society places I was always getting dragged around to, this place is a dream for me…"
"Well, maybe Rose will put both of us to work, since you're probably being ripped out of that inheritance right about now, huh rich boy?"
"You know it, even if my soulmate looks like a librarian and my mother would love you for that alone…"
"What are the odds of your mother throwing you a bone with some money?"
Despite himself and lingering bad feelings about how the meeting with his family had gone, Lucas burst into startled laughter. Maybe getting to know this guy wouldn't be so bad after all.
Waking up to the sound of humming in the bathroom, Lucas grumbled and curled up under the blankets again. Keekee was already under there, from where she'd stolen a spot at some point in the night, and the tuxedo cat made a soft mrrp noise before cuddling up to his side. It was far too early to be considering getting up, even if the finishing touches to the tattoo was on the agenda.
It turned out, covering up such a large soulmate mark took quite a bit of time, and had been ongoing for the course of the past year and a half. But at least now he had the freedom to take care of such body modifications, not having to hear pearl-clutching or pointless complaints about how he'd 'become a degenerate'.
"What kind of degenerate takes care of a kitty by feeding her only the highest quality pet food blends, hmm my sweet Keekee…?"
"Mrowr," Keekee answered, tail twitching where it rested against Lucas' bare ribs.
"I knew you'd be on my side. You always are…" trailing off in a wide yawn, he draped his arm across his eyes.
And wanted to jump out of his skin a few moments later when a cold hand somehow snuck under the covers without him noticing and landed on his ribs. "Jesus fuck, Al, I was trying to catch a few more winks!"
"Lazy layabout," Alexander chided him, though there was fondness in his tone. "Don't you have finishing touches on your mark today? You need it to look it's best when we're in the Keys later this week."
"Easy for you to say when yours has been done for months." Twisting to pull the blankets away from his head, Lucas glared up at his boyfriend.
As if to appease him, Alexander leaned down to kiss him. "And fix your morning breath," he deadpanned as he pulled back. "You could peel paint off the walls in here."
"Yeah, yeah." Waving the taller man off, Lucas sat up. Keekee shifted to his lap, kneading the fabric of his ducky pajama pants, and he reached down to scratch her favorite spot between her ears.
The sound of rumbling purrs filled the room, and Lucas smiled sleepily. "Gonna have to get you cleaned up for this weekend too…my spoiled baby."
Once she'd had enough attention, Keekee jumped down from his lap and trotted off to the next room.
That was Lucas's cue to get up. Once the cat had been in bed long enough, so had he. One morning routine later, he shuffled out into the main living space of the apartment, still half awake but at least more presentable for the day.
Already sitting at the table with his archaic newspaper half-folded in his lap, Alexander motioned to the plated food. "Your favorite pancakes to motivate you for today, and I even ordered the sparkly sugar syrup you like so much."
"Oh, it really is a special occasion if you're letting me eat glitter for breakfast." Hurrying forward with new motivation and skidding a bit on the tile, Lucas caught himself on the chair back with a nervous giggle.
"Merda, you are lucky I love you," Alexander said with a huff. "You would be hopeless without me."
"You know I was, better than anyone else." Not following the mental rabbit hole that particular thought led to, Lucas settled at the table and tucked into the pancakes. He was starving, having skipped food the night before while stumbling home from his bar shift, but wouldn't dare admit that to his boyfriend.
The scoldings were scary enough when he was looking after himself.
"Are you at Rose's for mid-shift?" he asked, after swallowing a mouthful of food.
"Yes, and Nanako is in with me. She'll be demanding pictures of your finished piece soon, so make sure you take care of that tattoo so it's perfect for her crazed sensibilities."
"Fujoshi is more invested in our relationship than we are sometimes," Lucas muttered under his breath, though he was smiling as he did so. The girl could be…crazed, but she meant well. Mostly.
If Alexander heard the commentary, he didn't say anything about it.
Finishing off the last of his coffee, he neatly folded the newspaper that would be scanned back over later and stood up. "I have an errand to run before my shift, darling. Make sure you get to the parlor on time, because I can't wait to have fun with you and the rest of our matching mural…"
Shivering slightly at the promise in that tone, Lucas swallowed another mouthful of food before giving a soft whine. Would be way too undignified to require the heimlich at the breakfast table! "Okay, okay…one more kiss?"
"You're lucky that you're cute, lily," Alexander teased, bringing out the joking nickname for Lucas' skin tone that had stuck.
This kiss was a bit more bite-y than the one from earlier, and Lucas was nursing a bruised lip by the time Alexander pulled away, but he couldn't find it in him to care. The man's attention always brought him to his knees, and had done wonders in chasing away the ghosts of his past.
"Finish your breakfast and get going." Going against his teasing admonishments a bit, Alexander ruffled his hair and messed up whatever measures he'd tried to take in the bathroom mirror to fix himself up. "I'll see you later tonight."
Thoroughly feeling as if his brain had been turned into scrambled eggs, Lucas nodded and waved his boyfriend off. It gave him time to get himself back together, knowing that he had to hurry up for the secret appointment that came before the parlor.
He was picking the ring up today, to be sure it was ready to be packed safely for their trip. "Wish me luck, Keekee," Lucas whispered to her on his way out the door. "I'm going to officially get you a second dad to spoil you rotten!"
Rubbing against his legs to show her encouragement, Keekee purred loudly.
Snatching up his keys and wallet on the way out the door, Lucas dashed down the apartment stairwells to get to ground floor, immediately peeking out to be sure there were no bikes or scooters coming. Couldn't get potentially laid out and fuck up their plans!
He couldn't wait to get his hands on this ring - engraved with antlers and a ruby as the stone, with the snake motif of his soon-to-be-finished tattoo engraved on the inside along with his initials. It was the perfect accompaniment to the matching tattoo that Alexander had gotten, and he couldn't wait to slide it onto his finger at the zero mile marker…the perfect place to signal the beginning of their new life together.
And maybe a silent fuck off to Lilian, who had always wanted to go on vacation to Florida where she could show off her beach body. Surely she wasn't doing much of that now, knocked up with Adam's second kid!
Pushing the mean and vengeful thoughts away, Lucas resettled his mind on what he was going to do. First, get the ring for Alexander. Then finish up the tattoo that represented both him and his hopefully soon-to-be fiancé. He couldn't wait to find out how the fitted pieces, twining snakes and leaping stags, actually looked in practice when they were wound together skin against skin.
Body art in every sense of the word, worth every bit of discomfort in trying to sit still for the tatttoo artist to complete. A small price to pay for the sake of the man that had changed the trajectory of his life so thoroughly.