Metanoia |BxB|

Chapter One

(Chloe Pictured)

Quinn had waited to have The Talk with Jasper until they were on the train, away from Jasper's mother who would scold him about telling their son about the black lines that would eventually appear on his skin before he was able to understand. He began as they left one station and sped to another, with Jasper tracing the familiar lines that began on the very tip of Quinn's ring finger and twisted around and up past his wrist, and his elbow, and on and on. Quinn watches as his son traced the lines that he knew broke off into other shapes and designs down and across his back and chest, all to adorn the name that was scrawled just above his collarbone.

"One day, Jasper, you'll have your own." Quinn had stated and waited until his son's eyes flitted up to look at him before he attempted to explain that his own body would be filled with markings that no one could predict or decipher until one day, he would find a name. His Bind's name. And when he found her and met her and fell in love with her, he would be able to understand the Prints.

"When?" Jasper had demanded with a frown and a pout.

After that, Jasper had been adamant about refusing to have a soulmate or Prints or anything that resembled a fate he wouldn't get a say in.

"Buddy, you'll understand when you're older. Prints are a beautiful thing. I promise." Chloe would spend countless nights comforting their son when Jasper worked himself up because he 'didn't want daddy's marks if he had to be stuck with a girl' and because he 'didn't care that they were beautiful, he wouldn't even get to pick them out; she would!'.

And so it went with Jasper growing more and more deterrent towards their Prints, and the names they wore on their skin, and the idea of ever submitting to the marks that would one day adorn his own skin.

At the age of eight, while his classmates began to giggle and eagerly await their first mark, Jasper would scratch his skin if he saw a stain or blemish that was not meant to be there. He would scream and scrub his skin raw when black paint or ink would fall onto his hands, and he worried those around him enough to be sent to a counselor.

Quinn wouldn't be able to erase those awful moments from his head. Instead, Quinn would go out of his way to wear shorter sleeves because that's what the parenting books said would be helpful to get Jasper to a place where he could maybe learn to accept his own Prints one day. Chloe would wear dresses without cardigans because Jasper's counselor advised them to normalize their own prints at home.

At work, Quinn began the JASPER Project. His lab was soon filled with pages of research about cases where people rejected Prints and Binds, and he created a team whose main focus was to find a cure. A pill, a shot, anything that would help Jasper feel better about the idea of having black lines on his arms.

At the age of thirty, Quinn held back tears as an eight year old Jasper cried into his shoulder and scratched at the soft skin just above his elbow where a thin band had formed as they slept.

LYDIA:

When she had woken up for school on her ninth birthday to find a hair thin black band between the first and second knuckle of her first finger, Lydia had been so excited she had barely contained the sounds that erupted from her mouth.

In school, she had learned that rings and bands were the most common to appear during the beginning stages of Print Appearance. She remembered being happy, proud, and so excited to know that somewhere in the world, there was someone who had woken up with a mark similar to hers that would lead them to her someday.

That day, she had pleaded with her mother to paint her nails because she just couldn't show off her new mark if her hand didn't look as pretty as the band. She'd shown everyone. The cross walk lady, the man that had sat in front of her and her mother on the train, her homeroom teacher, her music teacher, all her friends, and even the fifth graders on the playground who showed her their own three or four or sometimes five marks.