This pairing isn't exactly my OT4, and to be perfectly honest I don't really care to write fics with more than three people in a relationship. But I read a couple of fics with this same idea and this pairing, so I decided to try my hand at it because I thought it'd be fun. And so far, it has been! Hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it!

Warning: I've decided that Danny has a mild form of autism in this. However, he also hates this fact, so there will be some trash talk about people with autism, which in no way reflects my thoughts on the matter. Danny hates himself, and – you've seen him in canon. He's more likely to blame any and everyone else around him for something he hates. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but you have been fairly warned.

Additional warnings: polyamory, implied sex, language, mentions of suicide

(P.S. Go read "Finding a Puzzle" by Jillie_chan – it's about Merritt figuring out that Danny has autism, and it is sooo good! It's the fic that made me want to have Danny with autism in this one. ;p)

Also, quote isn't really a whole quote but a couple of meshed ones that I tweaked a bit.

...

"Love is the closest thing we have to magic. It waves its wand over this world, and behold; everything is softer and more beautiful."

...

Merritt McKinney didn't used to be such a pessimist. Which wasn't to say that he'd been a perfect ray of sunshine before, but when he was younger and he had no Names sprawling across any part of his body, he remembered being hopeful. By the time he got to high school, he had finally accepted that he just didn't have anyone special for him. These people were rare, the ones with no Names, but it did occasionally happen. Thus, Merritt had resigned himself to his fate and allowed himself to screw with anyone who was willing. After all, it wasn't going to cause trouble in some nonexistent future relationship, so what was the point staying a virgin for the rest of his life?

Having no soulmate also had the side effect of making him more observant as he watched people's reactions, wondering – did any of them lack a Name, too? What were they thinking? And thus, he had begun his interest in mental hypnosis.

He would be lying if he'd said that he didn't think about his no-Name status all the time. It had hurt, but he tried to move past it and find new ways to distract himself.

He remembered perfectly the day the first Name had bloomed under his skin. It had been the summer right after he graduated high school, and he was sitting on the back porch of his small apartment, drinking a beer and looking up to the stars. He'd made a little money with some street show mentalism acts, and it was enough to afford the dingy apartment in Florida. He and his brother were considering doing some sort of mentalism tour together, but that was still just talk at this point.

He'd been just lifting his arm to take another sip of his beer when he felt it – a warm, somewhat pleasant burning on his left forearm, right next to the crease of his elbow. He almost dropped his drink in surprise, but he caught it in time. But when he looked down at the source of the warmth, his attempt was for naught as he didn't even think to keep his hold on the glass bottle. Because just there, on his forearm right next to the crease of his elbow, where the warmth had come from, words had appeared, bending slightly towards his elbow in an almost tentative way, unassuming.

J. Daniel Atlas.

His breath hitched in surprise as well as joy when he saw the Name. He would never have expected… He didn't even care that his soulmate was apparently a man, and he'd never considered an attraction to men before. This was the one he'd been waiting for – the one he'd given up hope long ago in finding. Even though this man was almost twenty years his junior – apparently having just been born, as the scientists had figured out a couple hundred years ago – he was just grateful that there was finally, finally someone for him.

A little under two years later, at the end of April while Merritt and Chase are beginning their tour, is when the second Name appears. It appeared in the night, so when Merritt was taking a shower the next morning and found Henley Reeves in elegant script travelling on the right side of his ribs, he can't help the surprise he feels. He'd heard of having more than one soulmate, but that was rare – and he began to feel his first stirrings of doubt. He was so much older than these two – what would either of them find in him, let alone both of them? Why was there no one closer to his own age that would be his perfect match? His parents had been born on the same day, within mere hours of each other, and they'd always looked so perfect together. If Merritt ever went out with either of these two, would a passerby think that he was their father?

But he quickly pushed the thought from his mind, and reminded himself that to two people in love, other people's opinions should and would never matter to any of them. Of course, he wasn't particularly confident about the love aspect of this – he would settle for fondness from his other soulmates, even when he tried squashing down the hope that they would feel something more.

Besides, he thought – this Name. Was "Henley" a boy's name, or a girl's?

He'd assumed that the Names had been finished, that he had two soulmates – one a man, and one that could be a man or a woman. But six and a half years later, exactly three weeks after his twenty-seventh birthday in which his stinking brother had stolen everything from him, the last Name appeared.

It was Christmas Eve, just a few minutes before midnight, and he was slouched in one of the ratty chairs in a hotel room he had barely been able to afford. He was quickly running out of money, and he suspected the IRS would be there soon, but by this point he didn't care. He would tell them the truth, sparing no details where Chase was concerned, but he was just…defeated.

And then he felt that pleasant warmth he'd felt several years previous, but this time it was on the inside of his left knee. He stared down at the Name, somehow able to feel a small flicker of joy through his betrayal.

Jack Wilder. It wasn't the neatest handwriting, but it was his, and his eyes flickered constantly over the carefree letters. A third soulmate? For him? It seemed impossible. But in the weak light, it was undeniable; he had three soulmates.

And then the joy was gone, replaced by crushing despair and hopelessness. He was twenty-seven years older than this kid. What could he possibly have that this boy couldn't get from someone else? He had nothing – no money, no home…not even a job. He didn't expect to get off lightly with the tax boys, either – get on their bad side and the rest of your life was hell. He would probably never meet any of his soulmates; after all, who would give a felon the time of day, whether it was his own fault or not?

He thought about the three Names inked biologically into his body. J. Daniel Atlas would be eight, likely going to a baseball game with a doting father who would sit him on his shoulders to see better. Henley Reeves would be six, and depending on his or her gender, would likely be playing with dolls or learning how to play catch in the backyard with the perfect white picket fence. Jack Wilder was likely being cleaned of placental fluids and wrapped in a blanket at this very moment. God, he felt like such a letch. His soulmates were children, and he didn't imagine that any of them – let alone all three – would be too inclined to be involved with a man so much older than them. He'd be grey or bald or both by the time the oldest was even legal – or just approaching it, if he was lucky.

A knock came at his door, and Merritt didn't bother putting on some pants before getting up to answer it. He knew it would be the cops by now. He was surprised it had taken them this long – he hadn't even been hiding.

As he was led away in handcuffs, he thought to himself that he had a right to be pessimistic at this point. His life had just gone down the drain, and he didn't expect anyone – least of all his soulmates – to be able to fix it.

…

Henley Reeves was born with two Names on her body. She had grown up with her mother telling her excitedly of the joys of meeting your soulmate and falling so quickly in love it could give someone whiplash, so for as long as she could remember, she had always been excited for the day to finally come that she would meet them. Her mama had been nothing but encouraging and happy that Henley got the privilege of having two soulmates – those were rare, she said, so Henley was very special.

Sitting on the counter while her mama mixed cookie dough beside her and told her stories of what love was like, Henley liked to swing her feet, catching sight of J. Daniel Atlas stretched neatly across the top of her right foot, curling just slightly toward her ankle. She loved the letters, and had known how to write those ones before she could spell her own name. The letters were so perfectly even and spaced, and she wondered at the type of person this "J. Daniel Atlas" was that his Name would be so perfect, because everyone knew that Names reflected that person's personality.

The second Name she had a harder time seeing, and had to turn her head a bit to look at. Merritt McKinney was a Name that formed a crescent around her shoulder, and she thought it was just as pretty as "J. Daniel Atlas", even if she couldn't see it as easily. It wasn't better, but it was different. A small scar from a cooking accident made the letters "inne" raise slightly with the skin, but it was still able to be read, and she was glad for it. When she was four, she had been more distraught with the idea of the pretty Name being ruined than she had with the pain coming from the knife her mother had accidentally dropped when she ran into her while she was making dinner. She was glad though, that the words had been okay, and she checked it several times a day to make sure that it was still there, just as pretty as before.

When she was six, she was at a family party with her cousins, all of them sleepy but denying it. It was almost midnight, and it was almost time to go home, but they all insisted to their respective parents that they just had to stay longer, because they hadn't had enough time to play yet. It mattered not a whit to them that they had all been playing since lunch.

Henley was standing by the Christmas tree, gazing with large eyes at the presents stacked underneath, when she felt it. A slow, pleasant warmth had begun burning in the outer side of her thigh, and she somehow knew that it was another Name appearing. Instantly wide awake, she began pulling off the white tights that had admittedly begun coming off of her for a couple of hours now while she'd been playing, and then lifted her green Christmas dress to see the words there as the warm glow began to fade. Her face lit with a delighted smile as she read the words Jack Wilder so pretty on her leg. Kicking her tights and shoes to the side, she kept her skirt bunched up in her hands as she ran to find her mother.

"Mama! Mama!" she squealed excitedly, running up to her mother as she was saying her farewells to her sister and brother-in-law. She didn't notice the fondly exasperated look on her mama's face as she continued without waiting for acknowledgement. "I have another one! Look – on my leg!"

Her mother's face was shocked as she looked at the new Name on her daughter's leg, but she beamed at Henley when she saw that it was a real Name, and not just some kid writing the name on the leg for a joke or a prank. It had been known to happen that little children would become convinced that a name just written on them with Sharpie would make it a soul-bound Name. Sharpies were permanent, but not that permanent. But the Name on Henley's leg was real.

"Congratulations, sweetheart!" her mother gave her a big hug and kissed her cheek. "Why don't you go show your Grammy? I'm sure she'd be very excited for you."

With an excited bounce in her step, Henley followed her mother's directive, not noticing as her parents turned to each other with looks full of meaning.

…

J. Daniel Atlas was not a big believer in soul bonds. He knew that they existed, of course – after all, he had three Names on himself – but he didn't think that it was the one person – or three, in his case – that would be able to make him the happiest. Sure, they might be compatible with the other or others, but surely someone else would be able to fit the bill just as well. Surely out of the seven billion people in the world, someone else would be similar enough that they shouldn't have to isolate themselves to only the person whose Name was printed somewhere on their body.

He had always been a logical person. He didn't like to fantasize, because when his imagination let him feel hope, it only made it that much more painful when that hope was ruthlessly crushed. So he had to believe that soul bonds couldn't be the only option for romantic happiness – or any happiness, really – because he knew that if he hoped for the three people whose Name emblazoned themselves across different parts of his body, that it would never happen. It was like the reversed Midas touch – anything he touched or even hoped for would just go to shit.

So he kept it from his thoughts; tried not to hope. The Name Henley Reeves wrapped beautifully around his left side, and the Name Jack Wilder was visible any time he wore shorts, printed on the side of his calf as it was. So he wore long pants to deal with that problem, even when it was hot outside, because he didn't want to be reminded and he didn't want to feel hope.

It was the Name Merritt McKinney that helped him the most – though to be fair, it was the raised scar that cut through the 'inne' of his last name that did it (though it could be argued that it wouldn't be nearly so special without the other man's Name there). The burn scar in a perfect circle, the exact size of a cigarette butt, was raised and not the best looking, but the Name underneath was still perfect. Daniel used the roughened skin to hide his need for stimming from anyone else; he hadn't been with his real parents for a whole week after they discovered he fell in the autism spectrum scale.

(He had been so young at the time, when they'd apologized that they weren't capable of raising an autistic child, and he couldn't understand why his need for control and his complete focus on some task that had been set out by himself or someone else would cause them to think they could do nothing but abandon him, sending him into the foster care system. He had learned later, in a place people called 'special education', that his parents had expected him to turn into some drooling, hand-flapping idiot who could barely talk, and he'd hated them. He'd been only seven when he came to this realization, but he hated them. And he hated himself, because if he didn't have autism then he could be living happily with his parents, and it was all his fault and it was something he couldn't control and that's when he had his first panic attack.)

So he couldn't let anyone find out he had autism. He wasn't treated the best as it was, but he was smart. He didn't want to go back to the class with the kids on the scale much farther ahead than he was. And he didn't want people to look at him like they expected him to be one of them, either.

So when people saw him absentmindedly running the pads of his fingers along the scar, they only saw the Name underneath and smiled knowingly, supposing that the boy must be looking forward to meeting his soulmate, rather than keeping his mind aware and in the present by the touch.

He was so good at fooling people, that he almost fooled himself that this was nothing more than an idea of convenience to hide his secret. Because feeling any sort of hope at seeing the Name on the inside of his forearm would only lead to disaster.

…

He's lying in bed, half asleep but still thoughtful as he gazes down at his partly-clad body. For the first time in a long time, he's peaceful, rather than lost and sad. Simply…curious. Longing.

His fingers slowly trace over the marks he was born with, going in a repetitive pattern over the curling letters.

Henley Reeves – the one stretched across his right hipbone. He likes the way the letters curl and swoop like fancy calligraphy – beautiful, and with a self-assurance that makes them just slightly bigger than the other two Names.

Merritt McKinney – the one in careless but still somehow beautiful penmanship and a sharp halt at the 'y'. This one is on his breastbone, right over his heart. This one is in the smallest print, but confident, almost, with it stretched so brazenly over his heart. The letters on the skin are raised slightly in the middle of the 'inne', where a scar is noticeable but not detracting from the magnificence of the Name. He'd got the scar when he'd been stabbed a couple years back, and had been more worried about the Name being marred than the fact that he was bleeding out in an alley, but when he could finally see it after the bandages had been taken off after coming home from the hospital, he could see how the black letters had simply grown over the scar. It was like whatever power-that-be that made sure they knew who their soulmates were was making sure that he wouldn't forget the Name.

J. Daniel Atlas – the last one was the most unassuming, though no less magnificent than the other two. It was in neat, perfect handwriting, perfectly spaced and even, curling slightly inward towards his navel. Jack had always got the feeling from it that this one was the most hesitant. Confident in himself, as illustrated by the perfect handwriting, but uncertain about letting anyone else in; it seemed like the slight curl toward his navel was like someone with arms half-raised, as though unsure whether a hug would be received well or not.

Jack traced this last Name repeatedly with a light finger, promising to himself for the millionth time that when he finally met this "J. Daniel Atlas", he is always going to accept and encourage any signs of affection from him.

With this last thought, he slowly and peacefully drifts off to sleep, dreaming of the day when he can finally meet the ones he knows he will love and be loved in return for the rest of his life.

…

And there we are, two people excited to meet their soulmates, and the other two stewing in self-hatred. I hope you liked it – I'll have the next chapter up soon!