Sick of losing soulmates (Cheryl Blossom & Toni Topaz)

1

(IMPORTANT: this is NOT my story!!! this is from a user on archiveofourown.org that i don't think exists anymore)

They're in fourth grade when they start explaining the whole soulmate business as if it's not what they all started talking about the moment they learned to speak, as if their parents didn't tell them stories about lost tattoos and lost soulmates and tragic love stories before bed.
Well– not in Cheryl's case.

Although her mother hasn't outright told them not to talk about soulmate tattoos, she makes it seem like a taboo topic when it really, really isn't. The only time Cheryl gets to speak freely about it is at school, with the other kids or with Jason in hushed whispers after bed check.

He sneaks into her room at eleven o'clock the same day they had the soulmate class, or whatever it was called, and he rolls up the sleeve of his pajama shirt to show her his pale, veiny wrist. Cheryl's name is written across it in small, neat letters. She gapes at him, eyes wide and eyebrows almost touching her hairline. Jason smiles at her as if he knows something Cheryl doesn't. That seems to always be the case.

"There's all sorts of soulmates," Jason quietly explains to her, eyes bright, "there's friendship soulmates and sibling soulmates and romantic soulmates. The trick is just knowing which is which. As long as there's love and it's strong..."

"You're my soulmate?" Cheryl asks, reaching out to delicately touch her name on his wrist, as if it might disappear if she presses it too hard.

"Well," he rolls his sleeve back down, "sort of. You might be my soulmate but I may not be yours."

Cheryl hasn't heard of that one yet. All soulmates are supposed to be matched, aren't they? That's what they'd been taught in class, anyway.

"How is that even possible?" Cheryl feels her stomach sink. She wants Jason to be her soulmate, too. It makes sense. It's how it should be. And, to be honest, it sounds perfect. Her brother, her soulmate — the one person who's always going to love her and never, ever hurt her.

"The point is," Jason rises up from her bed and gives her a sad smile that she doesn't like or want to see ever again, "you're my soulmate and that means I'm always going to protect you and take care of you and love you, got it?"

"Got it."

The room drowns in darkness when the door closes behind him. Cheryl turns on the flashlight she keeps on her nightstand for emergencies and searches every inch of her body for that tattoo. There are places she can't see, though, like her whole back, and also she's sort of sleepy so she stops her search and falls asleep thinking about black ink and porcelain skin and soulmates.