Chapter Text
Lucas remembers tossing and turning in bed the night before he turned sixteen.
His maman had prepared a warm cup of chamomile for him in hopes that it would calm him down—but the moment she turned to leave, Lucas had just jolted awake, blankets pooled around his waist, nerves shot.
He remembers sweating under the thin fabric of his jumper, leg bouncing in a nervous stutter underneath his scratchy sheets. He remembers thinking—how could I sleep, when I’ve waited for this my whole life?
He got through the night, in the end. He had fallen into a restless, fevered slumber, and the chamomile tea had grown cold by his bedside table.
The next day, he had woken up to it. His mark.
The light pooled into his room, and he had stared at it in awe. ‘Eliott,’ it had said, in the most careful cursive, small and sure over the skin of his wrist.
Small and sure right where his pulse is.
Eliott.
***
Eliott Demaury is careless with Lucas’s heart.
The minute he moved to Lucas’s school, he had sparked the interest of almost everyone that had seen him.
Eliott, from L, with his languid smile and messy hair.
People talked about him relentlessly, and Lucas has heard bits and pieces of it, back when he didn’t know him. He’d heard the rumors, drifting in and out of conversation, tones hushed and voices low.
They said Eliott didn’t believe in the whole soulmate thing. That the reason he wears that camel jacket all the time is because somewhere, burrowed underneath all that fabric, is his mark, hidden away like a secret.
The day Lucas saw it—his name—on the crook of Eliott Demaury’s neck, he had locked himself in an empty classroom, trying and failing to catch his breath.
See, it was right there. Lucas. Dark and overbearing in his embarrassing chicken-scratch. It was on Eliott’s skin.
And Eliott—Eliott gives away his time and attention to someone new so often, it’s reckless.
Eliott hides his mark from the world like he doesn’t have someone out there with his handwriting on their skin, fucking waiting on him.
Lucas held onto his wrist like it was something burning.
The palm of his hand covered Eliott’s handwriting in it’s entirety like he was shielding it from something that hurt.
***
Lucas buries the feeling down.
He wades through months, watching his soulmate kiss everyone in the world but him.
The thing is, he doesn’t know how to say it without scaring Eliott off.
Because every time Lucas sees him–sees the gold of his hair, and the creases by his eyes when he laughs–he feels them, the words, bubbling up his throat and clawing their way out of his mouth.
Hey, I think you’re it for me. I’m really, really sure that it’s you.
Every time Eliott’s eyes meet his, every rare, embarrassingly lucky moment that they do, Lucas wants to reach out and grab him by the shoulders; wants to shake him senseless and say, I saw your mark.
You threw your head back laughing, and there it was, on the small space where your neck meets your shoulder–i saw it, and it matches mine, and it’s you. I’ve waited for you my whole life. It’s you.
But Eliott never speaks to him–never purposefully glances his way, never really looks. Eliott is so far out of Lucas’s league, he’s practically in another dimension, and all Lucas wants is for the dull ache where his soulmark is, to stop.
All Lucas wants is for Eliott to see him.
He finds himself, most days, staring at his wrist in the lowlight of his room. He’ll come home exhausted and sit by the edge of his bed, memorizing the curves of Eliott’s handwriting, letter by letter.
There are times he’ll let himself wonder if Eliott’s ever at home, doing the same thing. If he’s as endeared by Lucas’s shitty handwriting the same way Lucas is with his.
The thing with wishful thinking, though, is that it hurts. So Lucas doesn’t let himself dwell on it for too long—doesn’t let him sink into self-pity, or embarrassment.
Lucas doesn’t let himself think of the fact that Eliott could’ve found him, if he wanted to. His name was right there, on Lucas’s wrist, for everyone to see. Lucas had made it so fucking easy.
He doesn’t let himself think of the fact that, the reason why Eliott hasn’t found him yet, is because he didn’t even really want to look.
***
Yann is the first one to notice Lucas’s sour mood.
“M’just tired,” is all Lucas says, voice rough and entirely unconvincing. Yann is his best friend because Yann knows not to push. He doesn’t prod at Lucas’s lie, even though he knows him enough not to believe it.
Instead, Yann grabs Lucas by the shoulders and smiles a little, soft. “It’s Daphné’s birthday tonight, and you’re coming.”
Lucas rolls his eyes, but is too fond to say no; knows he’s going to be lacing up his sneakers and pulling a jacket on by the end of the night, anyway.
He stares at Yann’s mark as his hands leave Lucas’s shoulders, the font loopy and big on his forearm.
Emma.
***
It’s a few hours late into the night, and Lucas is drunk enough. He’s had one too many red solo cups pushed into his hands by Yann, Basile, and Arthur. At first, he’d drunk whatever concoction was handed to him to humor them. Now he’s drinking because there’s nothing better to do.
The playlist had gone awry—some obscure, washed-up song that nobody really listens to anymore echoing through the walls. Everybody else keeps dancing anyway, too inebriated to really care.
Lucas is on the kitchen counter, watching the strobe lights fade out into a soft glare as his eyesight goes blurry around the edges.
Eliott Demaury is walking toward him before he blinks it away.
He’s beautiful, and Lucas is kind of angry, because he doesn’t even know who Lucas is, and still, Lucas wants to reach out and touch him. He takes another sip of the vodka-tequila-fruit-punch monstrosity in his hand and looks away.
He plans to sit it out and stare at his cup until Eliott leaves. Instead, Eliott sidles up to him, stealthy and quiet, and leans against the counter, incredibly close to Lucas’s hip.
“Hi,” he says. When Lucas looks at him, it’s to a smile, grey-blue eyes crinkling at the corners, endearing and entirely too unfair. Lucas nods at him, because it’s all his brain knows to do, and Eliott’s smile creases down into something easier, something like a smirk, something kind of like flirting.
“Are you here alone, or...” Eliott raises one perfect eyebrow, and doesn’t end the sentence. Lucas’s head hurts.
“Uh, I’m with my friends,” Lucas half-laughs, head falling down to look at his shoes. “But they’re with their soulmates, so.”
Eliott lets out a wry laugh at that, nodding at Lucas’s response. “Ah.”
And, like. Ah? Lucas’s breath hitches, and he fights the urge to scream.
Lucas is drunk enough, and brave enough, and a little angry at Eliott, so his tone is careful with what he says next, but Eliott would notice that it has venom to it, if cares enough to pay attention to do something other than flirt with Lucas, right now.
“And your soulmate?”
“Haven’t really found him yet.”
Lucas stands, then. He rolls his eyes as he turns to face the sink, hands shaking as he grips the counter. He’s frustrated, and a little sad, and still so stupidly hopeful it makes his heart ache. He wants to yell at Eliott and say, but I’m here. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
Instead, in a fit of careless desperation, he empties his cup into the sink and makes a show of it—his wrist, his mark, eliott’s name, bold and obvious and there, under the fluorescent kitchen light.
He hears Eliott’s breath hitch and thinks he’s made a mistake.
Before Lucas can draw his arm back, Eliott reaches out to grab it, hand searing against Lucas’s skin.
Lucas’s head jolts up to look at him, wide-eyed and suddenly so, so scared. Eliott’s eyes are unreadable as he looks down at Lucas’s mark, the focus so intense that it’s enough to make Lucas’s head reel. His thumb is running slow over Lucas’s wrist, stopping by each and every letter.
It would be intimate if Lucas didn’t know that this would be the monumental instance that Eliott Demaury would break his heart once and for all.
His mouth opens, like he wants to say something, but he takes one look at Lucas’s eyes and folds in on himself, a hand going to tug roughly at his hair.
When he looks at Lucas one last time, his eyes are so, so blue, and Lucas thinks he sees a flicker of something there, until Eliott just—
Eliott just leaves.