Chapter Text
You weren’t always this much of a pessimist.
Nobody really is at first. It’s just—sometimes, life doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, even though it seems to be going well for everyone else around you.
Take your soulmate, for example.
Your perfect other half. That wonderful individual who’s supposed to turn your life upside down and show you what it truly means to be hopelessly, pathetically in love.
You first learn about it in school.
You’re still a child and bursting with excitement and glee. Crushes are gross, but soulmates? The best thing you can hope for. Without a doubt, yours is someone really cool who shares your favorite color and loves the same movies that you do. They’re someone with whom you’ll spend your whole existence with; together, you’ll live out this fairytale in which the two of you are connected by a force more powerful than fate.
“Whatever you write on your skin will show up on your soulmate, too. That’s how you find each other.”
As soon as these words leave the teacher’s lips, the entire class frantically begins writing on themselves. You cut to the chase rather quickly and write ‘hi, soulmate what’s your name?’ on your arm, and you’ll never forget feeling your heart about to jump out of your chest as you eagerly waited for their reply.
You’ll also never forget crying your eyes out after receiving the words ‘fuck off’ in return.
You’re so upset that the teacher sends you home, and your parents do their best to comfort you, a red-faced mess of snot and tears, until you finally cry yourself to sleep.
When you wake up the next morning, you stare at the two words written on your left forearm until you see them even when you close your eyes.
At that moment, you promise yourself that you’ll never give up.
And you don’t; at least, not until college.
In the years between, you do your best to contact your soulmate and attempt to form a bond. Sometimes they ignore you. Other times they write more expletives that you have to cover with a bandage.
When you get a cellphone for the first time, you stupidly offer them your number and in return, you begin receiving spam calls from various companies and scammers alike. Your parents are furious, but they see the defeated look on your face and hold their tongues.
That’s when you begin to lose hope; when you stop writing friendly greetings on your arm. Gone are the ‘good morning’s and ‘how are you’s that you often bear on your skin, greetings that have never once received replies. Meanwhile, you’re forced to deal with your friends swooning about the ‘I love you’s on their arms in someone else’s handwriting, painfully reminding you of the fact that all you’ve ever gotten from your soulmate are variations of ‘leave me the fuck alone’.
You only retaliate one time, and it marks the end of your would-be relationship with your supposed true love.
Furious at years of rejection, you angrily draw multiple penises of different sizes on your arms, legs, even your neck in red, permanent marker. You make sure to do this in the middle of a weekday, hoping your soulmate is out in public where everyone can see them.
Sure enough, furious messages demanding you erase the crude doodles at once immediately begin to blossom on your left arm.
Obviously, you ignore them.
The ink lasts about a week, and the whole time you receive increasingly aggressive threats, all of which you laugh at with a heavy heart.
After that, you stop trying.
Even when your soulmate attempts to reach out a few years later while you’re in police academy, you dismiss them in the same way they’ve done to you for most your life.
In your mind, you don’t even have a soulmate, and that’s exactly what you tell anyone who bothers to ask.
When you’re transferred to Detroit Central Police Station because of a shortage of personnel, you fully expect to be, well, needed. You truly believe that you’ll be out investigating crime scenes and arresting criminals all day, because a shortage means there’s not enough people doing that, right?
Wrong.
For the past few days, all you’ve done is sort through paperwork and go on donut runs. Since the Android Revolution last November, the DPD has stopped using androids and so nobody is around to do the meaningless tasks anymore. Obviously that leaves you, the most recent transfer with little experience, to pick up the slack.
The last thing you expect to happen while you’re working there is to meet your fucking soulmate, the very person who’s been silently tormenting you throughout your life, but you really should have known better because the world has never once given you a break.
“Do you mind taking these files to Captain Allen?”
Had you known what you do now, you probably would have declined what at first appeared to be a simple, friendly request by Officer Tina Chen.
But at the present time, you have absolutely no idea, and you foolishly agree with a bright, “Sure!”
Tina sighs in relief and you immediately take note of the dark bags under her eyes. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
You grin at her and push yourself to your feet, accepting the thin, transparent tablet she hands you. “No problem. Where do I find him?”
“Fourth floor.”
“SWAT? Nice.”
Tina rolls her eyes. “You say that now, but wait till you actually meet him.”
“That bad?” you ask with a small laugh. You’ve heard of the SWAT captain a few times before but you haven’t personally met him yet. From what you’ve gathered, the man is ridiculously good at his job, but he isn’t the most approachable.
“Something like that.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’ve dealt with my share of assholes,” you sigh, immediately thinking about your soulmate. Of course, you don't plan on actually sharing that with her; not everybody needs to know your love-life is so fucked beyond repair.
Tina shakes her head at you and with a final grin, you head to the elevators to find Captain Allen.
When you arrive on the fourth floor, the first thing you notice is how cold and lifeless the SWAT department seems to be. It’s eerily silent and you shiver at the feeling of the walls closing in on you. Rounding the corner, you blink in surprise at what looks like an exact copy of the homicide department. The layout is almost exactly the same as downstairs, from the pairs of desks pressed together to the break room in the corner. Unlike Fowler’s office, which is smack in the middle of the floor surrounded by clear, glass windows, the interior of the SWAT captain’s office is hidden from view by thick blinds.
Even more unusual is the fact that no-one's around. The desks are empty, computers shut down, as if the team has vanished entirely.
Nervously, you make your way to the captain’s office, doing your best to ignore the abandoned desks. You really don’t like the atmosphere up here and you have no desire to linger. However, when you get to the captain’s door, you see that the lights are off inside.
You groan.
Just as you turn around to head back downstairs and inform Tina that the SWAT captain is nowhere to be found, you hear a short burst of noise and your head snaps up. You scan the vicinity, your eyes landing on a door left slightly ajar next to the break room.
The conference room.
At least they’re here, you think to yourself as you make your way over. You peek through the small gap and sure enough, you find the missing SWAT unit.
They seem to be in the middle of a meeting. From what you can hear, some sort of safety training, or at least a refresher of one. The guys don’t appear to be listening either way, as you can see a few of them on their phones, and others quietly whispering in the back. Hell, one of them is napping in the corner, but you suppose for trained professionals like themselves, this meeting is hardly necessary.
You can’t really tell which of them is Captain Allen, and there’s no way in hell you’re going to barge in just to deliver some files that may not even be that important, so you decide to come back some other time.
Then your eyes catch sight of one particular face.
For a second, you stop breathing.
Strong jawline. Sharp cheekbones. Pursed, full lips that shouldn't belong to any man. Your breath hitches a little when he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. He’s wearing a black hoodie, but you bet your life that he’s ripped to the bone underneath.
Your face is no doubt bright red at this point, and you’re a little embarrassed that simply looking at a man can reduce you to such a mess. Not to mention, there’s a chance he’ll turn around and catch you gawking at him but you cannot stop staring for the life of you.
Who knew that the man of your dreams was working only a few floors above you this whole time?
He suddenly scratches his nose and you almost sigh at the cuteness. You want him despite not knowing anything about him. It’s foolish but you’re just…inexplicably drawn to him, as if…
The SWAT member uncrosses his arms and your heart leaps in surprise at the sudden movement, but luckily he doesn’t glance in your direction. Instead, he does the most peculiar thing.
He pulls out a pen and starts writing on his left palm.
The look of confusion that crosses your face quickly morphs into one of understanding when he holds his hand out to the men next to him. They snicker at whatever he’s written and shake their heads at him.
You’ve stopped paying attention to them, however, because you’re too busy blankly staring at your own palm, which is tingling as though you’ve been burned.
is it almost fucking over?
Your stomach drops and you almost lose your grip on the tablet.
It’s been years since either you or your soulmate has written to the other. What are the chances that in the exact moment this random SWAT member scribbles on his left palm, you immediately find a message on the same exact location?
Impulsively, you walk over to the closest desk and tug open the top drawer in search of something to write with. Certainly a breach of privacy on your end, but you’re not really thinking right now, not with your heartbeat thumping in your ears as if you're about to disarm a bomb. You find a marker underneath some loose papers and draw a line down the side of your neck. After returning the writing tool to its rightful place, you head back to the conference room and gently nudge the door open a little wider so you can really see—
The tablet slips from your hands and the loud thud it makes on the glossy floor has the entire room looking at the door.
Captain Allen quickly gets to his feet to inspect the disturbance, but both you and the tablet are long gone by then. He scratches the back of his head in confusion before firmly shutting the door. When he sinks back into his seat, he’s once again bombarded with questions about the thick, black line that has suddenly appeared on the side of his neck, but he only shrugs at the inquiries.
He has no fucking idea.