A soul mate AU in which one soul mate has the location they will meet tattooed on their wrist, and the other has the date.
The soul mates are Primrose Everdeen and Rue.
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3 : Only with Eyes Closed in Tandem Can My Heart Find Yours
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They used to debate, sitting on the floor of the living room after dinner, which was better to know. Rue and her brothers face West, toward the bay just two miles away, backs against couches. Her other sisters sprawl across the floor in front of them, Amary, the youngest, lying across both of them, hands outstretched.
"Day!" she screeches, which, at age two, is her only contribution to the argument.
"Because," Mellia continues, lifting a giggling Amary from the ground, "you know exactly when!"
"But that's the worst part," Rue argues. "You'll have to wait decades until you meet yours, Mel. I could meet mine tomorrow."
Her brother laughs, poking her in the side. "And how are you going to get there?"
"You're supposed to be on my side, Ren!"
"Well, I mean, I could meet my soul mate tomorrow," he says, waving his wrist and its inked Pescadero, their hometown, in front of her. "So you aren't too terribly wrong."
"Or!" Mellia says. "Or, or, or you could meet them when you're shriveled and old!"
"Day!" Amary shrieks again.
Sometimes, late at night, Rue will touch her forehead to her window, the moments of that one night replaying in her mind, standing out from all the other nights. It never struck her so harsh before, the realization stinging and red. Not until Jessa woke up at four in the morning a few years ago, the current date etched on her wrist for the past twelve years.
Tonight, looking at the stars, she doesn't wave or promise or wish like all the years before, cocooned softly in the night. Tonight, Rue begs.
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The Golden Gate Bridge is, perhaps, Prim's favorite place to be. Behind her, her sister wrestles with the hood of her jacket in the wind, facing the street to avoid the brunt of the gusts, scowling.
"It's freezing, Prim, hurry up," she says, burrowing under her collar while Peeta, her boyfriend, laughs and leaves Prim's side to wrestle her into a hug.
Hands clasped under her chin, Prim smiles distantly but doesn't turn away from the water, gently ebbing below. When Peeta bribed them into visiting the de Young with him, stopping on the bridge was her only request. Her family had only come into San Francisco a few times over the years since they moved to Sacramento, and she'd been twice more on school trips, but something about this spot allured her, eased her mind no matter what the world was planning around her.
Today, the ever-present mark on her wrist was fighting for her attention, trying to poke past the blue of the waves. Only one more month, it reminded her, before a speedboat tumbled the waves once more and she lost herself in their trails.
"Okay," she resents after a few more moments, lifting her eyes to the horizon. "We can go."
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Her feet are bouncing on the dashboard, creating softs bumps when she kicks a little too hard, when her brother Jarred reaches over from the steering wheel with one hand, stills her knee. Blinking, Rue focuses on his fingers, tries to remember to breathe deeply, tries to remember to stop her nerves from taking over her.
"Will you calm down?" he asks lightly, grinning at her before taking back his hand.
"You offered to drive." Her knee twitches once without her consent, her foot slipping the tiniest bit forward before she tucks them into her chest. She attempts to sing along to the radio to further distract herself.
"Because you'd crash within two blocks of home trying to drive like this."
Counting this trip to attend her childhood friend's wedding, Rue has been to Sacramento thirteen times. The first was at her urging, at only five years old, desperate to see the location tattooed on her wrist with her own eyes. The previous seven were trips she made alone on Friday afternoons, the first of those the day after she got her license.
"It's just..." She pauses, trying to sum up her flurry of emotions into words.
"You're excited," Jarred suggests. "Desperate and hopeless and excited."
She leans over to hit his shoulder, and he laughs, and she goes back to singing.
When Jarred drops her off at her hotel two blocks down from the reception, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, she falters. The city is familiar, like another home, yet she can't help but feel like she doesn't belong. The sun is still high in the sky, but she wishes on the stars despite.
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At eleven at night, secluded at a table in the back of the bar, Prim begins to cry. She'd spent the day up and about, starting with a run through the local park as the sun was still rising, spending a few hours window shopping and snacking in town, even stopped at Peeta's bakery to steal Katniss from him for company in the evening.
As she reaches for more napkins, the black ink on her wrist stops her, and she pulls back, folding her fingers over to try and hide the mark. She's studied it for years, memorized the curve of each number, doodled it again and again through her notebooks back in school. She daydreamed what kind of day it would be; the sun soft in the sky surrounded by wisps of clouds, the weather chilly enough for a jacket, yesterday's rain still in sidewalk cracks.
It wasn't pitch black, sticky beer on the table, the sound of glasses clinking in the background.
A sob chokes her, her spine curving as she leans to hide her face in the table, blindly reaching for napkins. As she wipes away the slowing tears, traces of mascara intermingled with them, her phone pings, Katniss' name on the screen.
How was it? Prim reads. Tell me everything.
The time is 11:35. Her tears start to spill over again.
"Are you okay?" Someone taps on her shoulder. "Do you, uh, need anything?"
"No, thank you," she mumbles, glancing up. A girl her age stands at the edge of her table, her smile warm and friendly, and Prim finds herself captivated by this stranger, the warmth in the hand still on her shoulder, and somehow, ends up spilling to her what a mess of a day she's had. By the end, she's slid over in her booth, the girl, Rue, sitting next to her, rubbing her shoulder.
By the time she's done, Prim has run out of tears, yet her lungs still shake every now and then. In front of her, her phone displays the time as 12:01, and her breath hitches. Reality crashes down on her for a moment, her hands shaking.
"I'm sorry," she says, turning to Rue. "I don't know what I was thinking. You probably have better places to be."
To her surprise, Rue laughs, leans back, and takes her hand from Prim's shoulder, rolling up the sleeve to reveal her wrist. "Actually, you might've just made my night."
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And sometimes it's nights like these, curled on the couch, Prim's blond hair draped across Rue's lap, and she snores under the music of the rolling credits. Leaning forward for the remote, Rue accidentally elbows her girlfriend in the head, pausing wide eyed as Prim scrunches her nose before resuming her soft snores.
She smiles and wiggles, slowly, until she's lying down beside Prim, her arms locked around her.
"Is the movie over?" Prim mutters, only half awoken from Rue's shuffling.
Rue leans forward, kisses her forehead. "Yes, darling. Goodnight."
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fin
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a/n [This was going to be so muCH GAYER but I ran out of time and patience. Perhaps I will come back to it someday. And yes, Rue's siblings are all named after flowers are you going to judge me for it?]