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He’d first noticed the marks at the age of 6. Tony had been trying to listen to his Year 2 teacher, but kept drifting off, gazing at the class outside having a PE lesson. All of a sudden, there had been a tingling on his arm. Looking down, he noticed a small frowning face drawn there in pen. Only many, many years later would he come to learn just how apt this first ever mark was. Nevertheless, it had confused him. He hadn’t drawn it, and neither had the boy sitting to his left. Moments later a few small z’s appeared over the top of the face’s head, right before his eyes. He’d immediately asked his teacher about it and after being told to discuss it with his parents, had come to discover what soulmates were. It sounded very romantic and cheered him up to no end thinking about a girl his age sat out there probably bored to death in her own class. Wanting to keep her waiting no longer, he picked up one of his ballpoint pens and drew something in response, just underneath the earlier marking.
Gordon was 8 and had already known about soulmates thanks to his older brothers. But, unlike a few people in his class, had never experienced what it was like to look down and see a drawing on your skin that hadn’t been there moments earlier. But, this English class had been particularly bad (it wasn’t his fault that numbers made more sense than words and times tables made more sense than semicolons, it’s just how he was), so he’d found himself drawing a little face to express just how much he wanted to be out of there. It was only after he’d gotten home from school and was attempting some homework that he’d felt it. A tingle. A tingle he’d only ever had described to him before. Looking down, right underneath his own little face, was another face. This one, however, had a huge smile. This elicited a similar expression on Gordon’s features. Homework forgotten, he’d run to find his family, leaping with joy because somewhere out there, there was someone meant for him, who saw that he’d been bored, and had tried to cheer him up.
The marks kept being swapped as they grew older. Tony would write down the equations he was struggling with in his maths homework only to receive a barely legible scrawl of an answer, Gordon would look up the songs to which Tony wrote the lyrics to over their forearms (he wasn’t exactly a fan, but felt like he should try, just for his soulmate). They had quite the connection going. There had been the brief moment once or twice that felt like an argument. Like when he’d said he didn’t know who Mick Jagger was, or, even worse, when they’d found out their soulmate was a man; their arms had laid bare for weeks while they both came to terms with this. They’d always managed to smooth things over with each other though. Their calendars were now populated with dates special only to someone they’d never even met before. Each time it was either of their birthday’s they’d wake up to a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY scrawled across each of their arms, a little badly drawn cake doodle left on their wrist with an ever increasing number of candles stuck into it as the years had gone by. The first year, when Gordon had mentioned it was his birthday, Tony had drawn only seven candles on the cake, Gordon had had to add another two. Thankfully, he’d only thought it cool that his soulmate was older than him. Plus it came in handy when revision time rolled around.
With each remark, each small drawing left on whatever bit of skin they had exposed to illustrate upon, they’d come to know each other better and better. It had been his soulmate that Gordon had gone to when he was worried about going to university at 16 and he’d been well soothed by the reply he was given (MJ was good at that kind of thing, which is what he’d taken to calling his soulmate since they would never receive any marks that had each other’s name on and it had gone down well after the Mick Jagger argument as an apology). Tony had gone to Pythagoras (because that always seemed to be the solution to most of the maths problems he struggled with and it turned out his soulmate was also the solution for a lot of his big problems) when boarding school was hitting him hard. Even years later during university when he woke up in a cold sweat, memories of those days still with him despite time having passed, he’d grabbed one of the pens off of his bedside table and reached out to Pythagoras to see if he would tell him about his day. They’d learned each other's favourite foods (chocolate cake for Gordon, fish and chips for Tony), favourite subjects (while Gordon still had a penchant for Maths, as they got older they both had started leaning to Politics) and favourite flowers (the answer had decisively been a rose). All of these had been littered across arms, pens and pens worth of ink leaked into their own bodies and someone’s miles away. It was a comfort to both of them, knowing no matter how shitty things got, someone would be there, on the other side. No hours of waiting in between text messages or hangouts because they’d both taken to carrying an army of pens around with them. You could distinguish each other’s marks from their own not only through handwriting, but because Tony had taken to buying multi-coloured pens to try and brighten the other’s day up. It hadn’t worked so far, he’d just received a comment about how buying black pens was far cheaper and he should really be thinking about budgeting now that he was a university student.
As time went on, they found themselves celebrating milestones together. When each of them graduated a small cap had been drawn on the inside of their wrist, along with a message. On Gordon’s big day he received “Happy being smart day you nerd!” whereas Tony had gotten a “Congrats for making it this far and not dropping out because of your dumb band.” Which Tony had thought was quite rude because Ugly Rumours was a great name for a band and even though Pythagoras had pretended not to like the lyrics he’d hastily conveyed through his penmanship, he knew he must have been lying. His soulmate couldn’t not like his music, that would be an injustice. He should know, he’d ended up in Law. Tony had received a barrage of insults and quips about this (“why do you hate yourself and those around you?” had been one of his favourites), but he’d powered through anyway. And he thinks it may just have been worth all of the nervous breakdowns the exams had given him to see the little gavel that had been drawn on his wrist the day he was accepted into Lincoln’s Inn. He knew that despite the teasing that his soulmate accepted him, but this just felt like further proof that they were actually made for each other and that the universe hadn’t made a mistake.
Gordon had had many conversations about Politics with MJ in the past. Usually at 1am or later, sharing ideologies back and forth, only pausing in fervent scribbles to move onto the other side of their arm and then vigorously scrub at their arms with a nail brush to have fresh canvases to work on after thirty minutes. He didn’t much mind the other man’s thoughts. He was secretly thanking god that he wasn’t a Tory. On the night that he’d been elected as an MP he hadn’t been able to fully share the good news with MJ (occupations were also a no no in the soulmate game), but he had divulged that he’d gotten a job he really wanted and the shoddy bottle of champagne and the WELL DONE!!!!!!!! That spanned his entire forearm had cheered him up enough. He’d had to wear his suit jacket to give the speech, but he left the congratulations there as a reminder to himself. Gordon hadn’t even washed it off when he’d gotten home, deciding to leave it there until his morning shower as an anchor to reality. He’d won. He’d won and he had a soulmate that was proud of him even without knowing the full extent of the situation. That was a pretty sweet deal if he said so himself. The same night MJ had let him know he’d got some rather brilliant news too, so they were both celebrating. It felt nice, even as they both sat alone in their empty flats, coming down from the adrenaline and the high that had been going since the polls officially closed, that it felt like there was a phantom there, cheering them on and relishing in the day’s events with them. They may just have been words etched into their arms, but it felt like the voices were ringing out across the air surrounding them.
First stepping into Parliament after being elected was a rather daunting, yet exciting thing. For Tony it was more exciting, for Gordon it was 100% nerve wracking (he would have said 110% if he was one of those people that didn’t care about Maths, but since his second favourite subject had never left him, he’d stick to being accurate). They had to give maiden speeches alongside every other newly elected MP and they’d both struggled with wording. Possible lines had been exchanged via their arms, their soulmate either ticking to approve it, making small tweaks such as word changes or punctuation, or, in quite a few cases, a big X to show just how much that is not something that could be said at one’s place of work. These usually came when Gordon got irate about something, or one of them had had a drink at the end of the night, or when they’d both stayed up late rehashing their days and discussing the latest thing they’d discovered about each other and gotten exhausted enough to be deemed drunk. They were limited by what they could say, however, which was extremely irritating for Tony; he didn’t like seeing a few new lines of dialogue from Pythagoras only to notice half of it omitted thanks to the soulmate overseers. Luckily, he had a new office mate with which he could also bounce ideas from. Gordon Brown the man was called and his first thought was he was incredibly grumpy and surly. But Tony had always won people over, so this wouldn’t be a problem. It was only as he stood in the background watching the man give his maiden speech, though, that he thought that maybe, just maybe, Gordon had won him over first. He’d said as much to his soulmate that evening, carefully choosing the words 'officemate did a cool thing today which impressed me a lot! How’s things with your desk buddy going?’ He’d received back a ‘guess he’s alright, expected better with the personality he gives off, but can’t win ‘em all.’ It made him smile slightly. Tony knew that if he were there he would most likely live up to his expectations. After all, they were most literally made for each other, he had to have the ability to impress him or what was the point?
Strange occurrences had started occurring recently though. They had each dubbed their forearms and wrists as material to write to the other on or doodle freely over, the back of the hand and the palm had been assigned to writing notes to yourself that you needed to remember. This had worked perfectly for them so far. Neither had much understood or had use for anything written on the space, just some shopping lists or appointment reminders, a book to return at the library once Gordon had been teased about for weeks (MJ thought that anyone who actually took out a book about Economics that was heavy enough to be used as a murder weapon was out of their mind). Except, now meeting reminders had started to appear. This wasn’t unusual, but the numbers of rooms the meetings were in seemed to align with rooms in Parliament. The names matched up with people they also knew too. In fact, it all came to a head when Tony had noticed a ‘meeting w/ Harriet cmte rm 7 @2.30’ scribbled on the back of his left hand. It had been one of the only times that he had truly been shocked by something written on him. Because if he hadn’t have seen it materialise he probably would have guessed he wrote it himself without realising as that’s exactly where he was heading this afternoon. To committee room seven. To meet with Harriet Harman. At two thirty PM. Well, shit
Gordon noted that Tony, the guy who he’d shared an office with for a few months now and considered a friend, had been antsy all day. The man wouldn’t stop fidgeting, whether it be bouncing his leg or fiddling with his fingers, at least one part of him had been moving since they’d gotten into the office. He felt like he’d gotten to know him pretty well over the long days of work, so he knew this was out of character. It looked like nerves. But anyone who knew Tony, knew that, while not impervious to anxiety, he had a masterful way of not letting it show on the outside. Probably some skill he’d learned so he wouldn’t have bad reactions to be picked up by other politicians or, even worse, by the press. Whenever Gordon had tried to broach the topic with him, the man had been eerily quiet, brushing the question off. It was most unnerving. The nerves became even more apparent as they headed down to the committee room Harriet had summoned them to for some generic meeting. They’d had about 15 of these a week, so he wasn’t sure what had Tony almost falling over his own feet to get there. He grabbed a pen from his coat pocket. ‘Office mate is acting very weird. Not sure if he has been possessed? If I go radio silent from now on please grieve appropriately. If my handwriting gets any neater, then know they’ve gotten to me too.’ It felt like a nice return to normality to send a message out into the ether and wait for MJ’s response. The man walking next to him in real time seemed to jump.
“Okay, what’s got you on edge today? And don’t say nothing or try to deny it because we both know I know you’re lying and we both know you know I know, so let’s just skip straight to it.” Gordon finally got out. The slight snort from Tony felt a bit like an achievement and a small pang went through his chest at the sound.
“I had a note on the back of my hand.”
“And?” Tony seemed to sigh, as if asking how Gordon could have the audacity to ask such a stupid question.
“And. It was from my soulmate. But it was a note about a meeting. In committee room seven. At two thirty PM. With someone named Harriet.” He elaborated. Realisation dawned in Gordon’s eyes. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”
“So your soulmate’s a politician?”
“I guess.”
It’s not like it was unheard of. There were a few cute love stories that had happened in the Houses of Parliament, passed down like old folk tales to new MPs.
“At least they’ll understand the workload.”
“I suppose.” Tony responded. “Does yours?”
“I wouldn’t know. Haven’t met him yet.” Gordon shrugged, not really feeling the need to dive into his personal life with his coworker.
“Him?” Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. He’d said it off the cuff.
“Is that a problem?” Gordon asked warily.
“No. Not at all.” The tension in his body eased a bit.
“Good.”
They continued making their way to the room, giving a hi to Harriet as they entered. When they sat down, it occurred to them that they were the only two in the room except for the woman. This didn’t seem right. Tony glanced around as she began to brief them.
“Sorry, are we waiting for anyone else?”
“No, it was just you two I invited. Why, were you expecting someone else?”
Well what a loaded question. He turned his gaze to Gordon whose eyes were already there, as similarly wide as his own. He dared to glance down at the back of the man’s left hand. And right there against pale skin was the exact same reminder that lay on his own. Oh my god. How had he been so stupid? All of the talks about politics, them both getting good news on election night, the handwriting that covered multiple stray pieces of paper in their office whose handwriting perfectly matched that of the notes littering his skin at the end of the night.
“No-” They both seemed to breathe at the same moment. He noticed Gordon quickly pushing up his left suit jacket arm, exposing skin that had a myriad of words covering them. Tony held his breath as he rolled up his own sleeve. And there was the final puzzle piece slipping into place. The exact same marks against his own.
“I was not acting weird! And possessed is a very rude term to go for!”
“Yes you were acting weird, you’ve been fidgety all morning and not saying a word about any of it!” Gordon countered.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t know who Mick Jagger was!”
“I’m the only reason you passed GCSE Maths!”
“You read Economics books for fun!”
“Your band was called Ugly Rumours! I mean come on!” Their voices had risen steadily, their tones perfectly overlapping each other, slipping into their place in the Jenga tower they’d been constructing. Except, as they let out a breath, the tower came crumbling down.
“It’s you.” Tony breathed.
“Apparently.” Gordon replied, not taking his eyes away from Tony.
“I’m going to give you guys a moment.” Harriet told them, eyes sparkling away as she vacated the room.
“Really, it’s pretty perfectly matched that it was you, since I thought you were grumpy when I first was put in your office and when you first drew on me.”
“You’ve had the grin since day one too.”
“I suppose I have.” They shared one now. And it felt new, it felt intimate. It felt like pieces of him had finally started to unlock and some sort of balance had been restored. Everything felt a lot clearer and a lot brighter. Glancing down at Gordon (At Pythagoras’, he reminded himself) arm, he asked quietly, “May I?” After a nod, he let his pointer finger trace over the small rose he’d drawn earlier situated at his wrist. He thought he could feel Gordon shudder beneath him. “I think I’m glad it was you.”
“You think?” Gordon questioned with a raise of an eyebrow and a teasing tone.
“Yeah. You’re pretty clever and pretty good with the whole speeches and policy thing. You’ll probably end up going far. We’ll be a power couple.”
“Oh, will we now?”
“Yep. It’ll be like Maths but we’re both adults and hopefully running the government someday.” Tony smiled up at him.
“Bit optimistic.”
“Maybe. Feels like the time to be though.” He relished in the quirk of the lips Gordon displayed.
“Yeah,” The man told him softly, “It does.”
ALTERNATE ENDING:
“Wait, was that officemate thing about my maiden speech!?”