tratie one shots, vol. i

[ skin au pt. 1]

prompt: soulmate au where whatever you write/draw on your body also appears on your soulmate's body.

words: 1170

. . .

Travis was getting sick of this skin stuff. 

The day he turned twenty, his soulmate got into art. They drew on themselves all the time - arms, hands, legs, wherever. And he wouldn't necessarily mind the space doodles or flower sketches or animalistic figures - if his soulmate didn't suck at drawing.

He'd been plagued with it for two years now: lines and curves scrawled onto his flesh without his volition. Mostly, stupid plants he couldn't be bothered to identify. He figured that his soulmate loved botany, because they were seemingly obsessed. 

One day, Travis was broadcasting a rose - or was it a tulip? - on his forearm that appeared like it had been drawn by a four year old. He couldn't do anything but be tormented by the dumb things for the rest of his life. Unless...

Unless he was one of the twenty percent of the world that actually found his soulmate.

Lots of people just gave up looking by the time they hit their mid forties. They'd never find the person who was meant to be with them because they just stopped caring. Travis had always figured he'd end up like them, living his life either by himself or with someone who wasn't his soulmate. He honestly didn't give a crap about soulmates. There were plenty of people on the earth that he could be with if he wanted, and he didn't want the universe telling him who was meant for him.

But he was sick and tired of these stupid plant doodles. 

So, in attempt to contact her, he wrote on his arm next to the rose-tulip-thing in small letters: Hi.

Not too bold, not too lousy. Just a plain, simple hi. When people tried to meet up with their soulmates, the universe didn't really appreciate how you could just write on your skin to find them. So, for some reason unexplained by the books and scientists, people couldn't write locations or dates on their skin. Pens would go dry suddenly, ink would spill out and cover the whole word - things just didn't work out when you tried to write down a place and time to meet. 

So Travis guessed he could live with just a conversation.

Almost instantaneously, he felt the familiar itching on his skin signaling her reply. He looked at the letters as they appeared in neat handwriting. Hey.

Careful not to take up too much space on his arm, he wrote, I'm Travis. A stupid back-and-forth was better than any more insufferable drawings. 

I'm Katie.

Okay, a girl. Travis penned, I'm 22 under her name and crossed his fingers in hopes that she was over eighteen. He'd heard horror stories of people getting into serious relationships with their soulmate only to find out they were in high school. People went to jail over that kind of stuff, and he wasn't about to get into something over his head. 

After not getting a response for a couple of seconds, Travis went on with my day. It was a Saturday, and he'd just moved into a new apartment in Manhattan a week or so before. He spent the morning unpacking boxes in a haphazard order and digging through his things to make sure what he needed most (toothbrush, wallet, etc.) was easily accessible. When he took a break to take a shower, he noticed a new word on his arm.

Same.

Praise the gods, they were the same age. Holding his arm under the hot water, he watched the conversation vanish to make room for new ones. He made sure to scrub the existing doodles around him, too. He got out and threw on his clothes. Once he was done, he returned to unpacking. When he felt a tickle on my arm, he knew Katie wasn't done talking. 

Do you want to find each other?

Huh. Straight to the point. Travis grabbed the nearest pen and thought about what he was going to say. Did he want to? The only reason he reached out to her was because he didn't want any more drawings on himself. But it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot. Who knew? Maybe this was the perfect girl for him. The universe certainly thought so. He didn't think the soulmate stuff was worth anything, but talking to her made it a little more real. He held the pen over his arm.

Why not

The next question was how it was going to happen. They couldn't just write down their addresses, and how was he supposed to even know what continent she was on? She spoke English, and that was a good sign. But that could also mean she was from the Eastern hemisphere somewhere or, even if she was in America, nowhere near New York. It would be his luck that she lived in China and was a prisoner of war or something. 

Where are you from? 

Travis almost laughed aloud when he read the message. Can't say, idiot. Duh. Maybe his soulmate was stupid. That would explain the crappy drawings. 

Landmarks, idiot. Her witty remark made Travis smirk, even if it wasn't much. It proved that she had some brains, and that she was sarcastic. He liked that. 

Liberty figure. Not wanting to risk it, he worded the Statue of Liberty differently and hoped she'd understand it. His heart was pounding as he awaited her next words. It was dumb, but he was actually feeling optimistic about this. He scoffed at himself, getting all worked up when she might live across the world.

The thing he read on his hand showed he was wrong. 

Okay. Chocolate factory. 

That helped. There had to be millions of chocolate factories worldwide, how was he supposed to...

Unless... Famous H?

She scribbled an arrow from his "famous" to her "chocolate factory". 

Hershey? Hershey, Pennsylvania? 

That was only a few hours' drive from where he lived. Now he was breathing heavily, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. Was he getting excited about this, for real? Three hours ago he thought soulmates were the epitome of desperate, now he was three hours from her.

This was making him tired.

Huh was the next thing on his arm in the now-familiar handwriting. 

The exact same thing he was thinking. Yeah, he wrote back. So what now? 

A minute or so later, his answer appeared on his arm. Meet?

Yes, he supposed that was it. All they had to do was meet up and be soulmates together, he figured. This was a huge step in his life. If he really did want his soulmate in his life - and that was a huge if - he'd plunge headfirst into a committed relationship without really knowing the girl. They'd just have to accept that they were apparently made for each other. What if they didn't get along, or what if he ended up rejecting her and things got ugly? He didn't know if he was ready. 

Screw it, he got this far.

Your place or mine?