What Is Going On? [Paperhat Soulmate AU]

prologue

You've known it for as long as you can remember. Your soulmate was going to be weak.

They weren't going to be of your race. You could tell because of the flesh colored scars all over your body. Not just any flesh- human flesh. Self inflicted too. Humans were always squishy, inside and out.

Every now and again you would get a scrape. Not yours, but theirs. You would hear snippets of lullaby's their mother would sing them as they rocked off to sleep. And that scared you. You didn't want anyone else to know how you were feeling as strongly as you could theirs, see your wounds, feel your weaknesses.

So you hid your skin. Hid it under menacing, covering clothes and always made sure to keep yourself safe from harm. No matter how much you told yourself you were too good to get hurt, you knew that the truth was you didn't want your soulmate to find out their soulmate was a monster and ruin their fragile world.

After all, better no soulmate than a monster.

Soon, you started caring about no one but yourself. Once you spend enough time in the villain world, it's bound to happen at one point or another. Who cares about stupid soulmates when there's money to be made?

But then, something horrible happened. Not to you, but your soulmate. You had been trying to ignore the fact that the self inflicted scars had stopped, but then, he got a new scar. One that was definitely not self inflicted.

At an unholy time in the night, your idiot of a human soulmate got the entire right side of his face burned off, and the left side of his face had two gouge marks going down it.

That did not look good, you thought. You hoped he died. (Liar.)

Though the burns and cuts were big, they weren't anything you couldn't cover up with a little magic. You couldn't let anyone know you have a weak soulmate, lest someone try and track them down.

After that, you made a home and a business. You met Demencia and you made 5.0.5..

And then you met him.

Dr. Flug was... Brilliant, to say the least. A little slow in his inventions, but they do always sell. He's the reason you're still in business, be honest. No other mad scientist before him had employed had ever managed to create the things he has. Though you through him around so often you've lost count, you're honestly in awe of him. You admired him, and though you weren't really happy with that, at least it wasn't something more... That is, it wasn't until recently.

----------

"Flug, where are you?! It's two in the afternoon! You sh- " Black Hat cut himself off, in an awed terror that he hasn't felt for longer than he could remember.

Black Hat had been in the process of looking for the resident scientist, who was suspiciously absent from his seemingly neverending vigil in his lab. He had checked everywhere in tube manor, before remembering that the Doctor actually had a room, no matter how much everyone in the house managed to forget about it. He stormed into the room, before freezing in the door frame.

Dr. Flug was splayed across his lumpy, sheetless mattress in a flushed and restless state of fever. The problem within, being, Black Hat could tell he was flushed. His bag wasn't on.

Those scars splayed across Dr. Flug's face were awfully familiar.

Reaching up to rub athis own face, Black Hat scowled, turning away from the scientist with a silent growl. How could he be so dull? Of COURSE it was HIM, the source of everything frustrating in his life. Taking a deep breath, Black Hat turned back to the, apparently, sick doctor.

Concerned and still in shock, Black Hat knelled next to the bed and took Flug's temperature.

'102.3...," Black Hat thought, contemplating the numbers and throwing them around in his head a bit until they made more sense, 'Is that a bad temperature for humans?'

Just as Black Hat thought that, the other man let out a long groan, shifting away from Black Hat. 'I guess so.' Black Hat thought, humorlessly, running off to fetch something to help his scientist- no, his soulmate.

A very confused Flug woke up the next morning with five extra blankets draped over him, a glass of water in a chipped mug that was decidedly not his, and a cold bowl of clam chowder with the crackers already put in it.