The Argents have never trusted soulmates. They couldn't allow just any person to join their family. When their children got their mark at age fourteen, they were forced to cover it with a cloth band on their arm (it wasn't something strange, many people did it, although with more romantic ideas in mind), some opted to get a cover up tattoo when they were older. It was the parents who decided who their children should marry – usually a member of another branch of the family or another family of hunters if they needed an alliance. And the children had nothing to say about it. Probably they'd never meet their soulmate, but it was something that was instilled in them from childhood: their lives were dedicated to hunting monsters, they couldn't get lost in love stories.
Christopher Argent had awakened the day of his fourteenth birthday with the soulmark on his arm, the same mark that his soulmate would share. He watched it for a minute, got up and put on his arm the band his mother had given him the day before. He was truly convinced of the work his family was doing and he accepted that thinking about his soulmate – trying to find them, falling in love – would only be an inconvenience for his work.
At eighteen, Chris married Victoria, the woman his parents had chosen for him. He wasn't in love with her, but he knew that they could maintain a civilized relationship. Victoria would be the next matriarch of the Argent family and his duty wasn't to love her, but to protect and support her during her tenure.
Chris never tried to discover who his soulmate was, but he couldn't help it, Peter always had the sleeves of whatever he was wearing rolled to his elbows, proudly showing the mark on his forearm. He had known Peter Hale for a long time, they had gone to the same elementary school and even to the same high school even if they'd been almost seven years apart (the youngest son of the Hales had managed to skip two grades and had only a couple of years left to graduate, although Chris was sure he'd do it even earlier).
That day Chris saw him when the boy left the movie theater with some friends (who obviously were older than him, but he didn't look at all out of place). His eyes had been immediately attracted to the soulmark on his arm. He couldn't believe that Peter (one of the Hales, a werewolf, a little bastard as Peter had already proved he was) was his soulmate. It didn't matter anyway, there would never be anything between them, the werewolf would never know that Chris was his soulmate. On the one hand, Chris felt some pity for him, Peter would never find his soulmate and Chris knew how important that was for a werewolf. On the other hand, it'd have been an impossible relationship anyway and, above all, dangerous.
Chris kept his soulmark hidden and didn't look at the wolf more than necessary.
They left Beacon Hills shortly after Allison was born.
One day, years later, he woke up in the middle of the night with the mark on his arm burning. When Victoria asked him what was going on, he replied that it had only been a nightmare. Chris left the room with the excuse of clearing his mind a bit and waited for hours until the soulmark stopped burning and his body stopped shaking. In the morning, the only thing left to remind him of what had happened was a tingling in his arm. That afternoon he discovered that the Hale House had burned with all its inhabitants inside. Chris knew Peter wasn't dead, he hadn't felt his death – as close as it had been –, but Chris didn't investigate further.
They returned years later to Beacon Hills. Hell broke loose. His daughter found her soulmate in a werewolf (maybe it was a family thing) and his sister was killed by the man whose family she had annihilated.
The pain Chris had felt that night years ago wasn't comparable to the pain he felt the night Peter burned again, at the hands of another Argent, and finally died under the claws of his own nephew. He really hoped to have been able to hide from others the horrible pain that spread out from his arm. Luckily, everyone was too stunned by the scene before their eyes to pay attention to Chris.
(He didn't want to think about the emptiness he felt in his chest since that night).
Victoria died (Chris killed her) and he regretted her loss because Chris loved her, impossible not to do so after so many years together.
Then, that same night, Peter resurrected. Of course, if someone could do something like that it was Peter Hale.
(He didn't want to think that the emptiness he felt had disappeared).
Life went on and the horrors didn't stop in Beacon Hills. Chris was about to die at the hands of the Darach and then Allison died at the hands of the Nogitsune. Her death hurt more than the death of his soulmate. It wasn't a burning pain in his arm, it was his heart shattering. Chris cried as he hadn't cried for anyone. For a long time he thought he couldn't recover.
Chris left because that city had already taken too much away from him and he didn't think he had any more left to sacrifice. He thought that he'd never have a reason to return. How wrong he was. The Benefactor and Kate, who was no longer human, but still alive. Peter was now at Eichen House and it was probably for the best (at least he was alive). Chris never went to visit him. Why should he? But it was hard not to think about what Peter was suffering there. He knew that that wasn't just any prison, although Peter wasn't an ordinary prisoner either.
Then came the Dread Doctors, the Beast of Gévaudan and Gerard (the only one who should be dead and was not).
More losses and more pain. Chris felt that emptiness inside him and stared at his forearm that he had worn all his life covered because, unlike most, he'd never received his mark at fourteen. He frowned. Chris had a strange feeling, as if he had forgotten something he should remember. The emptiness in his chest was suffocating. He had lost his wife, he had lost his daughter, he had... he had lost everything he had. And he was still fighting.
(Something was missing. In the few moments when he was distracted Chris found himself touching his forearm, where his soulmark should be, but it had never appeared. Something was missing, something he shouldn't have lost).
The Wild Hunt arrived at Beacon Hills (where else?) And this was an enemy that they didn't know how to defeat, against which bullets and claws were useless. The kids were sure that the Ghost Riders had taken someone important, one of their friends, someone who could solve this.
(Chris still felt that emptiness that he wasn't sure what it had been filled with before. He didn't want to think about it. He kept touching the band on his arm).
The Ghost Riders kept attacking and taking people and then-
His arm burned like it had burned years ago, but he didn't remember why until he remembered it and when he removed the band he saw the soulmark.
Peter. All the memories flowed inside him like a cataract trying to crush him. How could Chris have forgotten him? His soulmate, even if he'd never confess it to Peter. The man who had unleashed Hell in Beacon Hills. The man to whom Chris' family had destroyed his life. The man they had condemned not to find his soulmate ever by the rules of the Argents. The man who had been taken everything from. The man who still got up and kept fighting, rolling up his sleeves and proudly showing his soulmark.
When Chris saw him lying in the hospital bed, Peter's whole body burned from head to toe, he could only think "at least this time it wasn't at the hands of an Argent." Chris couldn't look away and didn't even notice that he had come close until he was standing next to Peter's bed.
Peter looked at him, his pale blue eyes standing out against his blackened skin. He knew that Peter recognized him and didn't seem annoyed, didn't seem to want him to leave or at least didn't make any gesture indicating it. Peter probably couldn't speak, but he didn't seem upset by Chris' presence either. Then, Peter raised a trembling hand and Chris jumped a little, but didn't move. Peter slid his fingers up his arm, barely able to move his muscles and probably suffering from it, until a finger slid under the band that hid his soulmark.
Peter knew it.
Since when? Why had he never said it? Why had he never done anything? (Although maybe the fact of not having killed him was already something).
Then, Melissa entered the room and Chris fled with a bad excuse.
He didn't see the werewolf again until everything was back to normal (or what was considered normal in Beacon Hills). The next time Chris saw him, Peter was at the door of his apartment. There was no sign of burns, his torso covered with a white and wide V-neck and the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The soulmark on his forearm standing out on his skin.
He didn't bother to ask how Peter had found him, Chris moved away and let him in. Peter got in the house, crossing the hallway to the living room as if he had been there hundreds of times. Peter walked around the sofa until he stood in front of the window, inspecting the room with his hands on his hips.
"This is terrible, you have no taste," he said shaking his head. "I can't believe we are soulmates, my taste is impeccable."
"Since when do you know?" Chris asked.
Peter looked at him, arching an eyebrow almost as if he was calling Chris an idiot.
"All along. Werewolves don't need a soulmark to tell us who our soulmate is," he answered as if it were something obvious, something Chris should know (and maybe he should given his job).
Chris put his hand on his own arm, running his fingers over the band. It didn't make sense to keep hiding it, Peter already knew what was underneath, the same mark that he always showed proudly. Chris took off the band and dropped it to the ground, showing his soulmark for the first time to someone else. He could feel a tingling in his soulmark and he wasn't sure if it was real or his imagination.
"Why didn't you say it before?" Chris asked.
"What was the point of doing it?" Peter answered, shrugging. "I know that the Argents don't marry their soulmates, they have always arranged marriages with other hunters. And, even if it hadn't been like that, what pair would we have made? A hunter and a werewolf, too cliche for me."
"Why now, then?" Peter's attitude was dazing him a bit, it wasn't what he expected. He always thought that the wolf would be pissed that Chris never told him that he was his soulmate, but apparently Peter knew it, maybe even before him.
"Because you are no longer a hunter," Peter answered with one of his grins.
"I'm a hunter."
"Not in the traditional way. The hunters don't go to the call of the werewolves to help them. Even though you seem more and more... tanned," and he evidently said it in a way that meant old, "you've become soft."
"I'll take that as a compliment coming from you."
"Take it any way you want." Peter rolled his eyes as if he was already tired of that conversation.
"What do you want, Peter?" Chris asked. He hated having so many questions and no answers.
"I want you, isn't that obvious?" How could he say it so easily, so lightly?
"Why would I want to have anything to do with a murderer like you?"
"Oh, please, Christopher." Peter sounded exasperated, but it could very well be an act. "We both know you've killed more people than me, even if the hunters don't count werewolves as people. And if those men I killed had been werewolves, you'd have killed them too without a second thought. We're just the two of us, Christopher, let's put hypocrisy aside, will you?"
"I still don't understand why you're here, why you want to start with this precisely now."
Peter's face suddenly became serious. His eyes looked at Chris human, but with a brightness that made him feel somewhat nervous. His eyes had always been very intense, they seemed to be able to see through you. Chris could get lost in them if he wasn't careful.
"I've been burned alive three times. After the first, at the hands of your beloved sister, the last remaining members of my family fled and left me without even looking back. The second time, at the hands of your daughter and her friends, my own nephew buried me under the charred remains of my old house and didn't return to visit me until a certain banshee brought him to resurrect me. The third time and for the first time, someone visited me. Without second intentions, just to make sure I was still alive, that I existed. Did you remember me, Christopher?"
"The soulmark disappeared when they took you. My memories about you too. But I knew there was something missing, I felt a void, like..." He couldn't say this to Peter, he couldn't undress his soul before this man who'd use every one of his words to finish him off. "I didn't understand how I could be one of those people without a soulmate."
"So you missed me," he pretended to sound arrogant, almost mocking, but Chris could hear some relief in his voice.
"Maybe. But that doesn't mean I want to start a relationship with you."
"Of course. Who'd want to be with their soulmate? It's so ridiculous," Peter taunted sarcastically.
"We can't-"
"Save it!" For the first time his tone sounded altered. Peter was annoyed, angry, and he didn't try to hide it anymore. "You are no longer married, you have no responsibility to anyone, you aren't a hunter. You'd better find a good excuse to keep rejecting this," he challenged Chris, showing him his soulmark.
Chris opened and closed his mouth a couple of times without knowing what to say. Actually, he wasn't able to think of any excuse, but it was hard to overcome the mantra that he had been repeating throughout his life: his life was dedicated to hunting monsters, he couldn't get lost in love stories. But he realized that this wasn't true, hadn't been for some time. He'd lost himself in the love he felt for his daughter and that had made him change so much. And the monsters weren't really monsters, not all of them (he knew that Peter wasn't, at least not more than himself).
The werewolf approached, arms outstretched on both sides and hands open, trying to look harmless (and failing miserably because Peter was anything but harmless). The tips of their shoes touched and Chris didn't step back. He'd never felt in real danger with this man. He knew how dangerous Peter was, but somehow he also knew that he wouldn't die at Peter's hands.
"Well?" The werewolf asked with almost a whisper.
Chris reached out and touched the soulmark on Peter's arm, his fingers barely grazing it.
"I can't find any excuse," Chris answered. "I don't want one either."
"At last," Peter sighed, his eyes shining for a moment.
Peter grabbed him by the hair with a rude and rough hand and put their lips together with nothing that resembled sweetness (passion, desire and lust, but not at all tenderness), and that was fine with Chris, he didn't expect or wanted Peter's sweetness. Chris was so absorbed in the kiss that he barely noticed the way his soulmark tingled as if an electric current passed through him, the bond with his soulmate waking at last.