AN: While Crowley meets Sam at a young age nothing happens! At least until later chapters.
Fergus MacLeod has never like Soulmarks. Annoying, tacky things, he'll sniff at anyone who mentions them. How on earth are you supposed to know who thought at you for goodness sake, he'll sass rolling his eyes. His opinion on Marks is, of course, in no way, shape or form because of his own. He has no problem- none at all - with the messy handwriting on his tailbone- of all places!- that proclaims he talks funny. Clearly, his Soulmate is a Yank.
They say that you get your Soulmark the moment your Soulmate thinks it. Crowley- as he prefers to be called- is twenty-six and looking for his son, Gavin- the product of a friends-with-benefits relationship- when a tingling sensation tickles across his tailbone. Thinking it's one of the parents stuck in the same greasy hell as him is getting frisky, he straightens to his full height- not that it's too much taller than some of the mothers- and turns around. A polite and cutting response is on the tip of his tongue to fend them off, only there isn't anyone there. So he pushes it to the back of his mind and stares at the monstrosity in front of him. Of course, his demon of a sprog is in the bloody ball pit. And because Gavin is the pure evil that comes from switching houses every week he refuses to leave the thing when called. It's almost embarrassing, almost , thank god Gavin isn't yelling at the top of his lungs like some of their lungs like some of the other children. One of the children in the pit gets called and unlike Gavin and the others, the kid starts moving.
God, why can't Gavin be as well behaved as you, Crowley thinks watching the boy run to his father. It takes ten minutes to get his sprog out of the infernal pit of plastic balls covered in germs, and five minutes to wade through the ocean of screaming kids and damned parents to get to the exit and therefore freedom. Cool air hits his face and he swears that he will never step foot into Chuck's Cheesy Chalice ever again. His resolve lasts until Gavin comes home from his mother's and is full of restless energy but that is neither here nor there. What matters is that the tingling sensation and the well-behaved child is pushed out of his mind. In fact, he remains clueless that he has a Mark for a month in a half.
It's during one of his scheduled meet ups with Gavin's mother, Naomi Angelo with whom he has a type of frenemies-with-benefits thing going on, that the Mark is noticed. The high pitched noises that she makes as she tosses things at him once she catches sight of it ring in his ears far more than the dreaded phrase. He talks funny. What kind of first thought is that!? Bloody Yanks!
Years pass, rather lonely years as most of the American population seems to think that you can't have sex with anyone who is not your Soulmate once you've gotten your Mark, and while Crowley doesn't hate his Mark in particular he does in fact hate them. He hates the nebulousness of them. And then he meets a young man, who is ironically twenty-six, at a coffee shop. There on his right arm, right above his hand is the phrase he thought at a young child so long ago. Bloody hell.