An: Another Story you know the drill reviews are always lovely
Summary: Soul Bonded Soulmates share their pain when one of them is injured. For Santana Lopez that meant unexplained bruises, broken limbs. Her soulmate was in distress, and calling out for her but instead of trying to find her, she makes a decision that she ends up regretting, once she actually meets her soulmate.
Song: Without You by Avicii
Disclaimer: I own nothing
It was sometime after her third birthday that the bruises started. It was no big deal at first, she was three, a clumsy three-year-old at that. Between the dance classes and the fact that she seemed to get into everything the moment her parents took their eyes off her, her parents didn't treat the unexplained bruises like they were the end of the world. It wasn't as if they were frequent, at least—at that moment in time.
It wasn't until she came home at five, with a dark bruise around her eye and a swollen lip that questions were asked. Questions, that even at five years old Santana Lopez didn't quite have an answer for. She hadn't gotten into a fight with anyone, the marks on her body had just appeared like magic.
Her memory of those times was filled with strangers asking her questions and numerous visits to the hospital. But her parents didn't even spank her, and while her Abuela didn't mind giving her a firm swat on the bum, she rarely saw her Abuela.
It took nearly three months of hospital visits, and meetings with Child protective services, before another bruise appeared, just like magic in front of a group of parents and teachers. A recital, and she had gotten to sing the main part. She had been so excited, when her nose had begun to bleed and a dark bruise had appeared across the bridge of her nose. It was seconds later when both eyes were swollen shut, like she'd been in some five-year old fight club and had gotten her ass beat.
Soul Bonded.
It wasn't until she was older that she would learn what those words meant, and what it meant in relation to her, but what she did know was that her parents did not take it well. They were scared, there was nothing that they could do except hope for the best, and hope that whoever was abusing her soulmate would stop. Their anxiety rubbed off on her, and even though she didn't quite understand what was going on, her opinions on soulmates had already begun to form, and to say they were negative was putting it mildly. All she knew was that whatever was happening to her needed to stop.
And it did.
That had been the last incident, by the time she was seven it had been nearly two years since she'd gotten a mysterious bruise. Perhaps her soulmate had been rescued, not that she put much thought about it. No more random bruises meant that she could finally just be a normal child. Her parents weren't even anxious anymore, they no longer argued about what to do about her soulmate.
And just as importantly everyone had forgotten that she used to be the weirdo who had strange bruises appear because of their soulmate. Which made it easier to make friends, there weren't any parents that were telling their kids to stay away from her. Even if they did, she still had Brittany, her best friend in the entire world, and they were both performing dance solos at their dance recital.
Everything was going great, until she had felt a pain in her arm. It started as a dull ache, before it got sharper and sharper till she was crying and screaming in pain. It felt like someone was attempting to tear her arm into two. She had been rushed to the hospital, where she learned that her arm was fractured. She needed to be sedated, while the doctors worked on her.
She had gotten used to the idea of bruises, and unexplained nosebleeds from time to time, but she had never felt pain before. She had never shared her soulmate's injuries before, and clearly her soulmate was in a terrible situation because for her to get a fracture, must mean that she had all but destroyed her arm.
And once again her parents began to argue about what to do. The bruises had been bad enough, but they had never thought that she would be sharing in her soulmate's injuries. They were soul bonded, every time her soulmate was in some form of distress, her soul would cry out for hers. From what the doctors explained, her soulmate wasn't doing it on purpose, it was involuntary on her part. And short of finding her, and placing her in bubble wrap, there was nothing that they could do.
All her parents could do was argue with one another, neither one of them knew how to handle the situation and taking it out on each other, seemed to be the best move to make. They didn't even know how to find her, soulmate marks appeared after both mates were after eighteen. Even if they found some poor abused kid there was no guarantee that they would be her soulmate.
Her Abuela was the only one who seemed to have a strong opinion on her soulmate. Given what they knew already the chances of her soulmate being a normal functional adult was unlikely, and that meeting her soulmate might be a mistake.
At seven, she didn't exactly put much thought into what her Abuela was saying, but she was listening. She had already begun to believe that her soulmate wouldn't amount to much. But it wasn't until she was sixteen that it became real.
By then it had been years since there was a major incident, but that didn't mean that she could let her guard down. She brought long sleeve shirts with her everywhere, just in case that her soulmate had another accident. Every year with a new teacher, her parents and her would need to explain to the new teacher that due to her prognosis, that strange things might happen to her. As if puberty wasn't enough of a shit show.
It started out like any other day, she got out of bed, showered, put on her cheerleading outfit, and headed downstairs for breakfast. Normal everyday things that she had taken for granted, but it was just supposed to be a normal boring day.
It starts at the end of second period, when she gets up and grabs her things from her desk. It's when she takes her first step that she hears it, a loud pop, like when you plug or unplug a guitar cable. It sounded distorted, and immediately she looked down to see if she stepped in anything. But she doesn't see anything tangled in her shoes so she takes another step and once again she hears it. That pop sound, with every step she took. Once again, she glances down at her feet but there's nothing tangled up with her feet.
When she looks up again, Brittany has a unicorn horn on her head and every student currently has an animal feature attached somewhere on their body. Finn Hudson had oversized dog ears, Brittany had her unicorn, and she was certain if she looked in the mirror, she'd have some animal feature attached as well.
She immediately grabs Brittany's arm, "Britt—is there some event going on?"
"Event?" Brittany echoes a look of concern crossing her features. "I mean there's the bake sale—"
"No, I mean, why the fuck are you wearing a unicorn horn?"
Brittany immediately touches her forehead and flashes Santana a look of concern, "I'm not."
"Don't fuck with me Britt—"
"I'm not Santana, are you okay? You're shivering."
She didn't know why it was so fucking cold either, but it felt like it was -50, and she was out there stuck in her stupid cheerleading outfit. She's about to brush it off when her brain starts screaming, and she closes her eyes and ducks down trying to get it to stop. But it's just noise, loud unbearable noise.
There's a gap in her memory and she's not quite sure what happens next, because the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital her father works at to him yelling something about how she didn't do drugs. He was right, she didn't do anything more than the usual underage drinking that everyone else did. She got drug tested for recreational drugs for Cheerleading, and if her coach found out she could kiss a cheerleading scholarship goodbye.
It takes her a second to piece it together, after her drug panel tests come out negative for all recreational drugs. Whenever something weird happened to her it was generally because something was causing her soulmate some distress. The doctors weren't sure if it was LSD or shrooms, but they all agreed that whatever had happened to her soulmate and by extension her, was that her soulmate had taken a hallucinogenic drug and had experienced a bad trip.
Her Abuela was correct. It was shrooms this time, but what if her soulmate did something idiotic like drove drunk and got into an accident? She could already think of the pain she'd be in, if it didn't cripple her. Or what if next time it was some other drug? Like heroin? Or meth?
It was at that moment, while she was coming down from whatever her soulmate had ingested, that she decided that she didn't want or need a soulmate. "Break the bond."
She could never imagine that those three simple little words would cause her so much pain in the future, but at that moment she just needed to be free.
It's Miguel who speaks up first, he knew his daughter well enough to know that once she made up her mind that was it. "Mija—that procedure is only for the most extreme circumstances, and it's generally done for regular soulmates. You and whoever your soulmate is, are soul bonded, it's rare and we're not certain what will happen if you go through the procedure."
"Don't care. Break the bond," Santana repeats plainly. Breaking a soulmate bond was generally reserved for cases of abuse, and as far as she was concerned for most of her life her soulmate had already been abusing her. She didn't care if it was intentional or not. She was over having a soulmate, she'd never been particularly interested in even meeting her soulmate to begin with, as far as she was concerned this changed nothing.
Miguel made a face, breaking the bond would solve most of their problems and Santana could finally be normal at least for now. The soulmate issue could be figured out later. "This isn't an easy decision Santana, so please think it over and I'll ask you again in a week. If you still want to have it done, we'll get it done," He promised. Hopefully his daughter would make the right choice for her.
~ O ~
Charlotte Fabray, known to everyone as Charlie, pulls out her pack of cigarettes and holds the box up for her twin, who shoots her a grateful look as she bums a cigarette. "Shitty day?" she questions as she reaches for her bag and pulls out a silver flask that was filled with the scotch she had totally borrowed from her grandparents. They would notice eventually, but until they did, she was going to enjoy their expensive scotch without worry of the consequences.
Quinn shrugged her shoulders and held out her cigarette for Charlie to light, "You need to stop hanging out with Mac and her loser friends."
"We both know that I'm only friends with Mac, so I can get a discount for all the drugs I buy. You should be thanking me, your "study drugs" aren't cheap and I think gramps and grams are wondering where all our money is going," Charlie mused as she takes a sip of the scotch and offers it to Quinn who shakes her head.
"We need to be a bit more careful; gramps was muttering something about military school," Quinn grumbled. "I think he was joking."
"You think?"
Quinn snorted and turned to look at Charlie ready to remind her twin that their grandfather was putty in their hands, and the real threat to their freedom was their grandmother. If she decided that they were out of control then military school would be the least of their worries, but the words die in her throat when she notices that there are tears streaming down Charlie's face. She immediately reaches forward and brushes away a tear. "Are you okay?"
Charlie touches her cheek for a moment, and a look of confusion crosses her face as she stares at her wet fingers. "What the fuck?" She flicks her cigarette butt away and immediately wipes at her cheeks. But the tears don't stop falling. She wipes her face again, hoping that it's the end of it when it hits her as her chest tightens and feels heavy. It was like someone had taken a crowbar and was trying to yank her heart out.
It hurts in a way that she wasn't familiar with and she clutches at her chest, trying to make it stop. She's aware that Quinn's touching her and saying something to her but she can't hear or feel anything. She's not sure how much time passes but by the end of it, she just knows that her soulmate is gone. She can no longer feel that familiar warmth deep down in her chest.
The wail that comes from Charlie doesn't sound human and Quinn falls back on her ass as her twin just breaks down, sobbing violently. For once in her life Quinn has no idea what to do, and can only watch as Charlie just sobs. She tries to touch her twin but when that doesn't do anything, she does the only thing that she can think of which is to call their grandparents.