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Your name is Eridan Ampora.
Today is your sixteenth birthday. Normally on your birthdays, Feferi bakes you a cake and you make a dumbfuck wish and blow out candles. Today is different.
Today, you are going to make first contact with your soulmate. At least, you think. It depends on if your soulmate’s turned 16 yet also. It’s something that happens to everyone at some point; It all depends on genetics, and thankfully, yours are normal. Well, as normal as genetics can get.
The only reason scientists know for a fact it’s on everyone’s 16th birthday in particular is because of one instance about 50 years ago when two soulmates were able to contact each other at the exact same time, a phenomenon that hasn’t been documented at all before then and was previously thought impossible.
The Literary Soulmate Communication System(LSCS) was invented about one hundred years back by an unnamed private organization. It was brought to light along with various other solutions for The Great Drought— a large mass of time in which the entire world was in a state of crisis and bankruptcy. War had erupted in the Northern hemisphere, which caused a chain reaction among the multitude of countries and territories.
Chaos had ensued. Nuclear warfare was springing up from the west, and millions were left dead.
Nobody won the war. Days after the battles had died out and nuclear fallout was waning, the world leaders came together to, firstly, conduct a worldwide peace treaty, and secondly create a new form of government that, if executed correctly, would prevent warfare and conflict between nations entirely.
Afterwards, though the fighting was over, the planet was in ruins. The total population had halved, and in bigger cities, the air was still unsafe to breathe as well as the food and drink too irradiated to consume. Most in the cities died.
The population kept dropping until it hit a quarter of what it once was. This was the peak of The Great Drought, and to keep overall morale high, new companies and businesses sprouted up. The war gave people greater advances in technology than they had ever seen, which sparked the invention and official launch of the LSCS. Its main function is to provide a communication line to a person's soulmate.
The released information about the procedure to obtain the product was scarce until about a year after the concept's conception, when the private organization sent out an official statement explaining how the LSCS works in immense detail. The first part of the modification is a lengthy procedure performed by licensed medical professionals in which they insert a chip into a person’s brain that collects data about them up until their sixteenth birthday, in which it inputs their data into an algorithm that matches them perfectly with their “Soulmate.”
The second part of the operation is a skin graft. They take healthy skin from the arms and “interlace” it with a “technologically advanced pressure recognition”(their statement gave no further clarification and they refused to elaborate in the little interviews they had accepted afterwards), then artificially multiply the cells and replace as much skin on the body possible with the tech.
It functions as a way for soulmates to find each other and has a 98.7% accuracy rate. In modern society, it’s considered abnormal for children to not have the procedure done before they’re toddlers.
You know this, of course, because there’s a mandatory unit on it in your history class every year. You’ve had it drilled through your skull since the minute you were old enough to be dropped in a desk, ruthlessly talked at, and tested on the information.
Thankfully you find history interesting, or else that class would be miserable for you.
In all honesty, you find the concept of a government assigned Soulmate incredibly stupid and invasive. If a doctor were to sit you down and explain to you the surgery, the cost, and the inevitable side effects, all for something as insignificant as a life partner, you would walk right out of the building and never go to that doctor’s office again, insurance be damned.
But alas, your parents were enthralled by the idea, as well as basically everyone else’s. Sometimes you wonder if the brain chip has some sort of brainwashing quality to it that only activates after people meet their Soulmates.
That isn’t to say that you’re not at least curious to communicate with someone that has a very good chance of being your future lover. In fact, if you didn’t know any better, you’d say you’re sort of excited. Of course, you’d never admit that to anyone.
You stare at the ceiling of your room, eyes unintentionally wide. The alarm clock next to your bed gives the room a blue, computer-like ambience. It reads 02:33.
You haven’t slept all night.
It’s not like there’s a ritual you have to do to make it work. It just… happens. You wake up and you can talk to someone you may or may not have met before.
A part of you wishes it’s Feferi. She’s the only one at school that treats you like somewhat of a person. Besides Karkat, that is, but he’s more of a gossip buddy. And a guy.
You don’t like guys.
At least, you don’t think you do. Because of the LSCS, the homophobia that was prevalent before and during the war has died down a megaton. You see gay couples in the halls all the time. You remember one time when you were skipping math, you stumbled upon your ex and her best friend making out, pressed against the space between two lockers in the more run down wing of your school. They didn’t see you, thankfully, but that’s still one of your more humiliating moments. You try not to think about it too much.
You hope that, even if it’s not someone you’re close to, it’s at least someone you know. Most people that talk to you immediately think you’re an asshole. Which, okay. True. But they shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Something about a book and a cover, you don’t know, you’re tired.
Speaking of being tired, you need to sleep. Tomorrow(today, considering the time) is a huge day for you, whether you want to believe it or not, and you don’t want to be pissy the entire time.
You resist the urge to scrawl a quick message on your palm and roll over away from the light of your alarm clock.
You wake up the next morning with your heart beating out of your chest.
You go through the motions, brushing your teeth, eating breakfast, and getting dressed. Your parents don’t ever tell you goodbye when they leave for work, so it’s not a shock to you when you exit your room and find the house strikingly empty. You grab your bag from where it’s sprawled unopened across the coffee table and snag your keyring on the way out the door.
On the drive to school, you resolve that you won’t try to talk until your Soulmate does first, that way you won’t embarrass yourself if they haven’t turned sixteen yet.
The double doors to the front of the school are heavy when you push through them. You hide your hands and keep your eyes to the floor, avoiding the gazes of other students. For some reason, you feel like it’s your first day of high school all over again. You quickly dip into the lesser occupied halls.
Karkat and Feferi turn the corner side by side, then approach you when they notice you sitting against the lockers
“Hey Eridan,” chirps Fef. “Happy birthday.”
Karkat nods. “Yeah, happy birthday, assface. You talk to your Soulmate yet?”
At the mention of a soulmate, you jitter and dart your vision around to see if anyone’s heard, even though the halls are empty. The security cameras in each corner look like bug eyes, watching you.
“Shut up,” you hiss back at him. “And no.”
He looks at you, perplexed. Even Fef looks curious. “What? Why? I thought you’d be all over the chance to try and romance someone. Especially if they’re practically forced to be with you.” Kar snorts.
“Of course you would.” You roll your eyes and cross your arms over your chest. “Well, if you must know, I’m waiting for them to write first.”
Karkat and Feferi look at each other, then back to you, still confused. “Why?”
“So I can see if they’re sixteen yet.”
“But what if they are and they don’t say anything because they’re waiting for you?” Fef pipes up.
You blink.
“Then… then I guess after a few days if they don’t say anything, I’ll reach out.”
She nods, smiling. “Makes sense! Keep me updated.”
“Yeah, same here,” Karkat starts to walk away. “I gotta go, I’ll see you later!”
You wave. Fef sits down next to you, setting her bag in her lap.
“I’m sorry to ask this so suddenly,” she starts after a moment, looking over at you guiltily, “but could I come over to your house after school? My mom has been…” she rubs the back of her neck, sighing.
You nod. “Yeah, sure.” You know how stressful Feferi’s home life is. You’ve known since you both were in daycare together. Her mother, though you’ve only talked to her once or twice, is terrifying. You can’t imagine how much worse it is when she’s angry. “My folks won’t be home until late, but it should be fine. It usually is, anyway.”
She ambushes you with a hug, and you feel your face warm. “Thank you!! I can bake you a cake, too, if you want. It is your birthday, after all.” She pulls away from you and gives you the world’s shiniest grin. You smile back at her.
“That’d be lovely.”
The bell rings, a gratingly electronic sound, and you both head off in separate directions.
Your first class is history.
It’s all the usual stuff. Reviewing the Western side of the war, how their advancements led to the invention of common household items such as the washing machine, the holographic projection grid(HPG), and the handheld cellular worldwide communication device(handcell for short).
It’s only during the latter half of class, when you’re fishing through your bag for a pen, when you see something on your hand from the corner of your eye. You assume it’s dirt or dust at first and absentmindedly try to swat it off.
And then you actually look at your hand, and you come to the realization that it is not, in fact, dust. It’s a crude looking doodle on the back of your left hand done in absurdly vibrant red pen of some asshole looking way too happy. You see it add lines to itself, forming the spiky lines of really shitty looking hair.
What the fuck kind of conversation starter is this.
You scowl, clicking your pen on and scrawling(without much consideration, on your part), wwtf, with an arrow next to it referring to the drawing.
The lines stop for a hot minute, and you feel your face start to heat up as you realize how rude you’d be coming off if this was a legitimate drawing. Before you can start berating yourself, though, more lines appear on your hand.
oh hi
The handwriting is weirdly sharp and pointed in places you’re sure it shouldn’t be. You can see a slight waver in the lines when they slow, as if their hand is shaking. Definitely not Fef: this strays too far from her swirly bubble writing. For some reason, a part of you is relieved.
happy birthday i think
You scoff quietly, then quickly look around the room to see if anyone noticed. Your teacher’s droning hasn’t been interrupted, and you don’t feel any eyes on you(besides the tiny, bug-like drones in the upper corners of the room, of course), so you decide it’s fine. It should be, at least.
thanks
so wwhats wwith the guy
actually just givve me your number my hand isnt big enough to hold pleasantries
The back of your hand is already almost filled, even with the small print you’ve been writing in.
sure
They jot down their seven digit identification number. Your teacher stops talking and you look at what the students in front of you are doing, copying them.
ill look you up wwhen im outta class
hey what a coincidence im in class too
You’ve taken to writing on the outside of your wrist, hiding it behind the textbook you’re supposed to be reading out of.
interestin
maybe wwe go to the same school
doubt it
but in the slightest chance that we do let me just scrawl all my personal info right smack dab on both our forearms
so that if someone sees they can tell who your soulmate is exactly
its like those werewolf movies
how do you feel about me imprinting on you
okay shut up i got to focus
and also youre taking up half a my arm and id rather keep that blank
Rather than responding to you with words, they give you a dumb looking backwards check mark right next to the end of your sentence.
For the rest of your class, you try not to flip your shit and barely succeed. When the bell rings, you practically fly out of your seat. You can’t skip(last time you tried, you were caught immediately due to the 24/7 supervision of the cameras in halls and classrooms) but you can spend an unreasonably long amount of time in the bathrooms.
You close a stall door behind you and sit down on the grimy toilet, your feet up on the seat so no teachers will be able to see you. You pull out your (government mandated)handcell and refer to the seven digit scribble on your hand. With slightly shaking fingers, you enter the number, trying not to think about the math class you’re missing.
A result pops up almost immediately, displaying the person’s picture and personal information, as well as family tree. You ignore it(as best as you can, though your eyes drag across the name and catch a D as the first letter) and press the “message” button in the lower lefthand corner.
CA: hey youre probably in class still but i figured id message anywway
TG: oh sup
TG: hey our texts are the same colors as our pens how narratively convenient is that
TG: im dave
Okay. Boy name. Cool. Awesome. Definitely not freaking out.
TG: you prolly already saw that though if you looked up my id
You are freaking out.
TG: so no point in uh
TG: repeating myself
You guess you like boys?
TG: hey can you say something before i get caught up in an endless sea of red text
And you’re a boy.
TG: and then start rapping about it
Are you gay?
TG: its like the red sea all up in here
TG: you gotta be moses man
You’ve never thought about this before. You’ve never liked a guy before either, though, so. Fuck.
TG: part that shit like a hookers legs
TG: okay sorry that was a weird thing to say when i dont even know your name
You remember distinctly only getting crushes on girls. Fef, Vriska, Nepeta… Why would your soulmate be a guy? This soulmate shit is not all that it’s cut out to be.
TG:
TG: this is the part where you introduce yourself
CA: eridan
TG: dope
CA: yeah
CA: eridan ampora
TG: who are you james bond
TG: so are you a boy or girl or what
TG: lets lay out a sick game of 20 questions right now
TG: you ask me whether im a virgin or not and i say wow how forward of you eridan and then we suck each others dicks into the sunset
TG: if you even have a dick
TG: which brings me back to my original question
CA: you type at the speed a light jesus
CA: im a guy
CA: which makes us
CA: gay?
CA: wwhich*
CA: so disoriented i glitched my keyboard into makin me sound normal fuck
TG: yeah i guess we are gay
TG: damn
TG: i can say a slur now
CA: oh please people havvent seriously said slurs since
CA: wwhat before the wwar
TG: haha youre right
TG: anyways where do you live
CA: wwest
CA: i go to jacob harley highschool
TG: no fuckin way
CA: wwhat
TG: i go there too
TG: im dave strider
CA: WWHAT
CA: holy shit i wwas only jokin about us goin to the same school
CA: uh
TG: me too man wow
CA: i guess that means wwell be able to
CA: meet each other
CA: fuckin today
CA: fuck
TG: shit youre right
TG: whos class are you even in right now
TG: someones had to have noticed your handcell by now
CA: im hidin out in the bathroom
TG: all that trouble for the sake of contacting me
TG: im flattered eridan
TG: …
TG: wait
TG: which bathroom
CA: 2F400 hall
CA: wwhy
You hear the shuffle of fabric from across the echoey bathroom.
“Eridan?”
The voice is a half-whisper, but it still makes you jump. Unfortunately for you, that causes your feet to slip slightly on the seat, and loud grating noise sounds from your stall.
“Fuck, yeah, hi.” You put on your most confident voice, though it wavers anyway. “Way to scare me half to death. I’m assumin’ that’s Dave?”
“Yeah,” you hear him mutter along with his feet hitting the tile. The door at the other end of the restroom opens. “Get out here, man, I’m not gonna talk to you through a bathroom stall. That shit’s just weird. Gonna be declared the kid that talks to public toilets. No mister teacher I swear Eridan is real, you gotta believe me.” Dave’s voice is mostly monotone with a slight lilt during the end of the sentences where he’s joking, and you can say now with confidence that his texting habits do not exaggerate how much he actually talks. He’s a fucking motormouth.
“You’re a fuckin’ motormouth.” You plant your feet on the floor and walk to the door, unlocking it and slipping your handcell into your pocket.
“Um, rude. I’m gonna tell the drones you’re domestic abusing me.”
You snicker and open the door.
Dave’s hair is pale and parted on the side as he stands in front of the open stall door, posture absurdly relaxed and hands in the pockets of his jeans. It looks shaggy, like he hasn’t had a haircut in awhile. You look down to his left hand and, sure enough, your conversation in pen from earlier today is splattered on it like a billboard advertisement for the LSCS, along with his shitty drawing. He’s wearing obnoxious reflective aviators and you have no idea how he hasn’t been dress coded because of them yet. His expression looks blank at first glance, but if you look just a bit closer, you can see a reddish tinge to his ears and the corners of his mouth curved slightly upward. He rocks from side to side on his feet, as if he can’t stay still.
“Hi,” you say, and you can’t deny that the guy’s attractive. He looks like a model. If a model wore the clothes of a teenager and douchey sunglasses, that is.
Dave’s smile widens as he talks, as if he can’t help it. You’re not sure if it’s the nerves or something else, but you feel your stomach flip. “Hey man, how’s it going? Hope I didn’t interrupt your dump or anything, that’d be catastrophic. Don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself.”
“Gross, no. Who actually uses these bathrooms? The gaps in the doors are fuckin’ massive, anybody’d be able to see it.”
“Yeah, not to mention the main door to this bathroom doesn’t lock. You couldn’t even hide it if you tried. And trust me, I’ve tried.”
“Eugh.” This guy needs to learn how to stop talking.
You stand in silence for a while.
“So,” you eventually pipe up, and his attention is snapped back to you. “We’re… soulmates. Apparently.”
Dave nods. “Yeah. And I don’t know about you but this makes mad sense to me cause you’re like, attractive as fuck. I look at you and all that goes through my head is how fuckin’ pretty you are. You’re like if a porcelain doll and a Victoria’s Secret underwear model had a secret love child. Your hair looks really soft, too, like damn I wanna run my hands through that.”
Your face warms. What the fuck.
“Yeah, says you and your douchey fuckin’ sunglasses. You look like you’re trying to be a model or something. Don’t you know nobody’ll hire you if they can’t see your eyes?” You reach up to try and take them off of his stupid pretty face, but he flinches away and grabs your wrist.
“No can do, Eri, I’m saving that for marriage.” He says awkwardly, still holding your wrist gently. You’re hyper aware of the point of contact, and the nickname sends your thoughts reeling.
“Eri?” You ask, flabbergasted.
“Yeah, Eri. You.”
You are so fucked.
“This is so gay.” You say in response, but you don’t retract your hand from his grip. Instead, you take a step back into the stall, using his connection to you as leverage to pull him with you. You spin him around so you can shut and lock the door behind you. From the corner of your eye, you can see his face flush.
“Going a little fast, aren’t we?” He says with a stupidly nervous smile, and you try not to point and laugh at him.
“I’m doin’ this so we don’t get caught skippin’.”
His face relaxes with belated realization and you can’t hold in your laughter anymore. He flushes again, this time from embarrassment.
“Shut up, man! You never know when a guy’s gonna wanna get his smooching on.”
You scoff. “Please. You wouldn’t know ‘smooching’ if it slapped you in the face and fucked your mother.”
He crosses his arms, smiling. His teeth are almost blindingly white. “You wanna test that theory?”
You furrow your eyebrows. “You… want me to… slap you in the face and-”
“No, what the fuck? I meant kiss me.”
“Oh, yeah that makes more sense.”
You both fall silent. Through the tension in the air, Dave reaches a hand out and cups your cheek. It’s cold and shaking minisculely against your skin. Your stomach does somersaults.
He leans forward(when did you two get so close together?) and presses his lips against yours. Your heart is practically exploding out of your chest with how fast it’s beating, and you can feel the warmth radiating from his face onto yours. His lips are soft, impossibly gentle. You almost melt into him as his hand that was previously holding your wrist slides down to intertwine its fingers with yours.
It’s almost perfect. That is, until you hear the jingling of keys and obnoxious click of high heels outside of the main door of the bathroom.
You both look at each other, panicked, before maneuvering so that you both have your feet up on the toilet when the door creaks open.