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When Jasper’s soulmark turned black, his mother cried. Jasper, who was already pretty desensitised to the whole soulmates thing, stared at the once-colourful shape with wide eyes for all of thirty seconds and then covered it with a long-sleeved shirt and resolved that not having a soulmate is just another thing to get used to. Like not having a dad, or, more accurately, not having hope.
Still, there are worse things than a soulmate who’s dead before you even get the chance to meet them. Or at least that’s what Jasper tells himself over the next few years, trying not to be jealous of every soulmate set he meets. He doesn’t tell anyone, of course; he doesn’t want the pity. Most people don’t have black soulmarks before they’re twenty and Jasper, whose twentieth birthday is still two weeks away, doesn’t want to admit that he’s part of that statistic. More than that, though, he doesn't want to have to think about what happened to his soulmate. Was it tragic? Was it expected? Did his soulmate, whoever they are—were—have a chance to say goodbye? When Jasper does allow himself to think about it, usually at night when the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling start to glow, he hopes that his soulmate went peacefully, surrounded by love.
Jasper wishes he could’ve been there. Or he wishes that his soulmate never died in the first place. Or he wishes that he could just stop thinking about it since nothing can come of it anyway. Maybe some impossible combination of the three.
The point is: Jasper’s single mark is black. His soulmate is dead. He will never feel the tell-tale burn that means his soulmate is in front of him.
And yeah, it sucks.
It really, really sucks.
It sucks especially because Jasper, unlike the majority of the population, only has one soulmark. Most people have at least two or three (a mix of platonic, romantic, and familial) but Jasper has just the one. One, black mark.
Maybe it would be different if Jasper had literally anyone to talk to about it. But he doesn’t want to burden his mom with it, not after seeing her cry so much the first time, and he doesn’t really have...friends. Which sounds really depressing. It is really depressing. Two weeks ago, Jasper had been looking forward to meeting his soulmate and maybe actually getting a best friend out of it. He just wanted to find his person , the one person he was meant to fit with best. But two weeks ago, his mark turned black. His soulmate died. And Jasper never got to meet them.
Jasper is never going to get to meet them.
“Hey, Jasper!”
Jasper lifts his head. It’s Oliver, of course—no one else shouts like that for Jasper—falling into step beside him and grinning. Oliver knocks their shoulders together. It’s a familiar gesture, something Jasper has come to associate with friendly affection. Not that he’ll ever outright admit it, but Oliver is kind of his first-ever friend. He’s the extrovert to Jasper’s extreme-introvert, the only one who drags Jasper out of the house and encourages him to talk to new people every now and again. Honestly, the last two years of college would’ve been unbearable if not for Oliver sitting down next to Jasper in their one and only shared class in their first semester of their first year and decided that they were going to be friends.
“Hey, Oliver,” Jasper finally responds, smiling just a little. “What’s up?”
Oliver’s eyes are shining and his smile looks a little wider than normal. “I, uh. I met...a friend.”
Jasper blinks a few times. “Your other soulmate?”
That’s all it takes for Oliver’s weak resolve to crumble.
He’s been pretty good about not rambling about soulmates around Jasper. They didn’t meet until after Jasper’s mark turned black and Oliver has done his best not to wax poetic about the idea of soulmates, apart from his occasional discussions about the familial mark he has for his brother. But now that he’s met his other soulmate, the one he was certain is romantic, all bets are off. Not that Jasper would want Oliver to hide this; he likes Oliver and he likes that Oliver is happy.
Oliver starts bouncing on the balls of his feet and rambling, “His name’s Benjamin. He’s a TA for that English professor, you know, the scary one with the glasses that I was super relieved not to end up with? He says she’s really nice though, so I dunno. Anyway, we met in the library because apparently me and Tiffany were being too loud so he came over to tell us to shut up and then boom , soulmates!”
Jasper can’t help but smile at Oliver’s enthusiasm, even if it is a little bit bitter. It’s hard to hold onto any upset when Oliver looks so happy and is still trying to hold himself back a little, for Jasper’s sake. So Jasper nods for Oliver to go on.
Oliver barely needs the encouragement before he’s launching into a ramble about how amazing Benjamin is and how he can’t wait to spend more time with him and get to know him more. Jasper tries to be subtle as he scratches at his arm where his black soulmark is hidden under his purple jacket.
This is what Jasper is missing out on. For the last two years, Jasper has been wishing for what Oliver has just found. His person, the one who would make him feel more... whole . Not that Jasper isn’t a whole person, he just wishes he felt like that more. That he had a soulmate who he could connect with the way Oliver has already connected with Benjamin. Instead, Jasper carries around the ghost of a soulmate that he never even met. Because they died .
Jasper shakes his head like that will actually get the thoughts out of his head and tries to focus on Oliver’s excitement. “You should bring him to frozen yoghurt,” Jasper suggests after a few minutes. “I’d love to meet him.”
“You’d be okay with someone crashing frozen yoghurt?”
“He’s your soulmate,” Jasper says fondly. “I’ll have to get used to having him around.”
Oliver makes an excitable, high-pitched noise, and pulls Jasper in for a quick, affectionate hug. “Okay! I’ll text him!”
Benjamin is great. It only takes a few minutes of conversation for Jasper to understand why he and Oliver are soulmates--they're similar in the right ways and dissimilar in ones that make sense. Benjamin, for example, doesn't talk as much as Oliver does but when he does talk it's with the same rapid-fire wit and intelligence that Jasper sees in Oliver. Benjamin gets strawberry frozen yoghurt, plain, and Oliver gets chocolate loaded with toppings and they steal bites from each other because, secretly, they both kind of wanted what the other got too.
(Jasper gets vanilla, with chocolate chips and raspberries. He, of course, doesn't have anyone to share with.)
The point is that Jasper can't hold on to any of his previous bitterness about their relationship because Benjamin fits so seamlessly with Oliver that it's almost like he's always been there. Jasper had never thought that Oliver's soulmate would be a dick or anything but it's still a little relieving to see that Benjamin doesn't fixate on Oliver or try to exclude Jasper from the conversation. Jasper is quiet around new people (and sometimes even around Oliver, who he's known for years) but Benjamin doesn't act like that's a bad thing and their conversation flows easily as they pick at their yoghurt and enjoy the nice weather.
When Jasper's jacket sleeves ride up over the course of the afternoon and reveal the edges of his black mark, Benjamin's eyes zero in on it. Oliver looks between his new soulmate and Jasper warily. He knows how Jasper feels about people asking about his mark and Jasper knows how Oliver feels about his soulmate. This could be the awkwardness that finally ruins the afternoon and leaves Jasper with a sour taste in his mouth despite the sweetness of their snack.
Instead, Benjamin shakes himself a little. "I'm sorry," he says and Jasper usually hates hearing those words but somehow Benjamin makes them sound genuine. "I shouldn't stare. It's just...I lost a soulmate, too, a couple of years ago."
It's Jasper's turn to gape. Benjamin is a year or two older than him and Oliver but is still young to have a black soulmark. "O-oh," is all Jasper can say for a moment before he recovers himself and adds, "I'm sorry too."
Benjamin shrugs stiffly, like he's used to the condolences. "He was one of my best friends. Who was yours?"
Jasper fiddles with his spoon. "I don't know. I never met them."
"Then I'm especially sorry," Benjamin says softly.
Jasper shrugs. "It's probably worse for you, since you knew him."
Oliver reaches over to Benjamin and squeezes his hand. Jasper's heart clenches a little. Benjamin and Oliver have known each other for less than a week and already have this easy familiarity between them, have become sources of comfort for each other. Jasper has often wondered what it would be like if he had another soulmark--everyone has at least one, but having only one is notable and maybe, just maybe, if Jasper had another one, the loss wouldn't feel quite so all-encompassing. Then again, Benjamin still looks pretty shattered, so maybe not.
"He was...kind of insane," Benjamin chuckles lightly, lacing his fingers with Oliver's. "Always doing crazy things. I told him once that if he got us killed I would haunt his ghost and he said that his ghost would be too good for mine and William pushed the shopping cart—we were in a shopping cart—down the hill and...well, we were fine in the end, just a few scrapes, and Robert still insisted on having a go. He was always roping us into stuff like that and we all went along with it because he was our soulmate, you know?"
"How many did he have?" Oliver asks. Jasper's pretty curious too. Multiple soulmates are the norm but for one person to have a whole group of them seems noteworthy.
"Uh, eight, I think?" Benjamin frowns like he's trying to remember something. "One was unrequited, then there was one for his mom...one each for me, William, Robert, and Peterson. One for an old mentor of his--he didn't talk about it much--and another one, too, but if he ever met them he hadn't gotten around to introducing us."
Eight soulmates. It's practically unheard of and Jasper, with his one black mark, can't even imagine it. Oliver looks surprised too, eyes wide and lips parted. Eight soulmates. Eight people with black marks. Jasper has indulged, on occasion, in self-pity about never meeting his soulmate but he thinks that this must be worse. For the first time ever, Jasper's actually a little relieved that he didn't know his soulmate.
There are lots of things Jasper likes about being a runner. He gets to meet all sorts of interesting people but there's also a set script so he never has to worry about what to say. He gets to wander around aimlessly and people will see his badge and not question it. He can listen to his own music most of the day. There's a lot of pros.
He'd been a delivery guy for a deli for a while, and that had been pretty good too, but this job is even better. People hire him to do all sorts of things; send packages, deliver messages, surprise their friends, and so on. It's a surprisingly well-paying job as well for what it is and Jasper picks up as many deliveries as he can through the app. And, since his job takes him all over their campus and the surrounding city area, sometimes he'll do some extra deliveries as favours for his friends.
Like today.
Benjamin had finished grading a stack of papers for the professor he TAs for and, already running late for a date with Oliver, had turned his pleading eyes on Jasper, who happened to be doing his last job of the day in the library where Benjamin had been working. Jasper, of course, had agreed to run the papers over to the professor, even though Oliver claimed she was scary. It couldn't possibly be that bad, right? Jasper runs through his set script in his head so that he can avoid any unnecessary small talk and turns a corner to the English Department.
It's that weird time of day between the day classes finishing and the night classes being still two hours away, which means that this wing of the school is quiet and the lights are out. Spring sunshine streams through the windows, half-covered by blinds, but there's not quite enough of it to fill the space and the rooms and halls are instead strangely shadowy. If it weren't for the sight of a few TAs and one frazzled student, Jasper would probably be more anxious than normal just because of the atmosphere. As it is, he's just at his usual level of anxiety. He's doing okay.
Or at least he is until he makes a few more turns and ends up in an uncomfortably silent area of the department. There's no one around and Jasper can no longer hear the echoing footsteps of the TAs that he passed earlier. It's still and quiet and shadowy dark and Jasper feels a shiver run up his spine.
And then his soulmark burns.
Jasper knows, intellectually, that soulmarks burn. It's one of the first things people ever say, when kids start to ask about the symbols on their skin. He'd always imagined a pleasant sort of tingle, or heat like holding hands. But this is really, truly burning, like fire or hot water against his skin. He cries out once and rubs at his arm. How can it be burning? It's black. His soulmate is dead.
But his soulmark is burning.
He looks around wildly and suddenly there's a boy in his sight.
"What the heck?" Jasper mutters, still rubbing at his arm. The burning seems to be subsiding, a little, thankfully. "Where did you come from?"
The boy, who looks just as baffled as Jasper feels, stops rubbing at his chest and turns his stare on Jasper. His jaw drops open and he says, "You can see me?"
Up until this point, Jasper thinks his life has gone pretty well honestly. Like, sure, his soulmate's dead and his dad has never been around but he has a couple of good friends in Oliver and Benjamin and a decent job and he's on top of his college work and he calls his mom twice a week. His life is, on the whole, good. Normal, despite his black mark. Good and normal. And now there's...
Is this his soulmate?
"I-I can see you?" Jasper says and it comes out like a question. He tugs on the straps of his backpack and shifts nervously from foot to foot. "Should I not be able to?"
"No one else can," the boy says, his eyes wide in what can only be described as amazement. "I'm dead."
Jasper glances down at his arm, where the black mark is covered by his jacket. Then he looks back at the boy. "Okay."
"Okay?" the boy repeats. "That's...that's your response to this?"
Jasper just shrugs. He's always been a go-with-the-flow kind of person and if he's about to discover that ghosts exist then, well, so be it.
The boy blinks. "I think you're my soulmate."
"You felt the burning too?"
He nods. "I really didn't think I ever would."
"My name is Jasper."
"Nice to meet you, Jasper. I'm Quinn."
Quinn, Jasper decides immediately, has a really nice smile.
So. It turns out that the whole soulmate thing really isn't overhyped at all. Yes, Jasper is the only one who can see Quinn and, yes, they can't physically touch at all (Jasper learned that the hard way, when Quinn had tugged at his shirt to show Jasper his purple-and-blue-soulmark and Jasper, awe-struck, had reached out to touch it with two fingers and went straight through him). But that doesn't matter. It just doesn't! Jasper's kind of in awe of the whole situation. He has a soulmate . He didn't think it was possible but here Quinn is, maybe not in the flesh but certainly near enough for Jasper. They end up spending a lot of time together. Quinn, thankfully, isn't bound to haunt the English Department and takes up following Jasper around while he works. Jasper wears headphones and pretends he's on the phone so no one gives him weird looks as he wanders around chatting to what appears to be thin air.
And they talk a lot. It turns out that both of them are chatty people--Jasper had always known he has a tendency to infodump when he's comfortable and Quinn makes him feel more comfortable than even Oliver. He supposes that's why they're soulmates. Quinn, as it turns out, is very much the same. They talk about everything; the unimportant (all the movies that have come out since Quinn's death that he hasn't been able to watch) and the important (Quinn's mom and Jasper's mom and the ways Jasper coped with a black mark and the ways Quinn coped with being, well, a ghost).
"And then you find out that it was all a hologram, and Lumbersweats is safe in the Temple of Slip-Slap. Boom! End of episode one." Jasper is telling Quinn all about Oliver's screenwriting project, because he figures that Oliver won't mind him spoiling it for a ghost who literally cannot tell anyone else. Plus, Jasper's been aching to tell someone about his friend's genius show and he's really not sure he can hold off any longer. He's just finished reading the episode one script last night, although he's known the plot a lot longer than that (Oliver's writing process involves a lot of talking out loud and, before Benjamin came along, Jasper was the only one willing to listen to him ramble for hours).
"That," Quinn says, and Jasper's surprised to hear that he's a little choked up, "sounds incredible. If Netflix doesn't snap that up, I'll haunt them. I need to see that on screen immediately."
"Right?!" Jasper enthuses, glancing to the side to see Quinn 'walking' alongside him. Quinn doesn't, strictly speaking, actually interact with the world around him at all. It looks like his feet are touching the ground as he moves but when Jasper looks closely it's clear there's a hairbreadth of space between Quinn and the grass, like he's hovering almost imperceptibly. "I can't wait for him to be, like, mega-famous and I can make everyone watch his stuff. Also, are you crying?"
"Shut up," Quinn says affectionately. “As if it didn’t make you cry when you read it.”
“Well, yeah,” Jasper says, shrugging, “but I was reading Oliver’s amazing writing, not listening to my, uh, pretty nonsensical rambling.”
“I love listening to you ramble,” Quinn says like it’s the easiest thing in the world and Jasper thanks the universe, once again, for allowing him to meet Quinn.
There’s a lot for them to get to know about each other and Jasper’s endlessly grateful for a job that lets him do pretty much whatever he wants while he travels from place to place. He gets to stretch his legs and enjoy the sunshine and talk to Quinn basically non-stop. It’s helpful, because this way he doesn’t have to blow off his friends to spend time with a soulmate that he can’t explain.
That’s the one downside of this whole situation: Jasper hasn’t quite figured out how to tell anyone about Quinn. Who would believe him if he told them? Oliver might, he supposes, but he’s not sure he wants to risk his first and best friend thinking he’s crazy. Maybe people would think that he’d finally snapped, breaking down from his lack of soulmate. This is the one thing that he doesn’t talk to Quinn about—he doesn’t want Quinn to think that he’s blaming him, or anything. And Quinn seems mostly unbothered by the fact that no one else can see him, although he does get a faraway look in his eyes sometimes, but Jasper would really, really like to introduce Quinn to his friends and invite him to frozen yoghurt and get Oliver to explain the rest of the plot of Lumbersweats and the Sweet Meat Chronicles to him.
Still, if given the choice between no soulmate and a soulmate that only he can see, Jasper will take the latter. It’s been three weeks and Jasper already can’t imagine his life without Quinn in it.
“You know, I always wanted to start a cult,” Quinn is hovering a few feet above the ground, his hands shoved into his denim jacket as he stares at Jasper intently. He likes to float; Jasper thinks it’s because he likes to pretend to be the taller one.
Jasper is not as concerned by the statement as he probably should be. “You’ve got the charisma for it.”
“Aw, thanks!” Quinn sounds genuinely flattered which makes Jasper grin a little dopily. “I feel like I’ve got the leadership qualities for it, you know, my friends used to—”
Quinn cuts himself off. This is something that Quinn doesn’t talk about. His friends. Jasper doesn’t push, even though he has about a million questions about Quinn’s past and his friends and his family and just everything . He figures that Quinn will tell him when he’s ready and he doesn’t want to drive any sort of wedge into their newfound soulmate relationship. For now, he’s content with the dynamic that they’ve carved out for themselves. Quinn is dead. He can decide when and how he talks about his time alive.
So instead of asking about it, Jasper says, “What would your cult be about?”
“A cult of personality,” Quinn decides, shooting a grateful smile in Jasper’s direction. “Not my personality, though. Maybe I’d make it all about you.”
“Me?” Jasper asks, but before the conversation can continue he’s arrived at his destination and has to tug his headphones out of his ears so he can talk to the person he’s delivering to.
Quinn tilts his head and peers at Jasper for the whole of this interaction and then, when they’re walking away and Jasper puts his headphones back in, he says, “Why not you?”
“Huh? Oh,” Jasper shrugs. “I just can’t imagine a whole cult finding me all that interesting.”
“My friends would have loved you,” Quinn says, suddenly vehement. Jasper’s surprised at just how quickly his friends have come up again. “They would think you’re amazing. Because you are.”
“Thanks, Quinn,” he says with a wonderful, soft smile that only seems to appear when Quinn does. “But your friends aren’t a cult.”
“They could be,” Quinn says, sniffing dramatically and putting his nose in the air. “You don’t know my friends.”
“We’re going to a party and you’re coming.”
Jasper barely looks up from his work as Oliver waltzes into his dorm without knocking. Jasper’s roommate, Ray, never closes the door all the way and Oliver has been taking that as a silent invitation since the beginning of the year. He’s used to it.
Jasper just says, “Am I?”
“Yes,” Oliver says, dropping dramatically onto Jasper’s bed. “Literally all you’ve done lately is work . I see you all the time, walking around with your headphones in, but other than last weeks frozen yoghurt, when was the last time we just hung out?”
“I like this one,” Quinn says, ‘sitting’ next to Oliver on the bed and looking at him far too intently to be at all okay. At least Oliver can’t see him. “You said he’s your best friend?”
“You’re my best friend,” Jasper says to Oliver by way of answering Quinn. “I’m sorry if I’ve been...neglecting that?”
“Thank you,” Oliver says, “you’re my best friend too. And you haven’t been, not really. We still text and stuff, right? I get that you’ve been busy and that’s cool! But I’m here to force you to take a break and come to a party.”
“You know I don’t really like parties.”
Oliver waves a hand vaguely through the air. “It’s hardly an actual party. It’s just one of Benny’s soulmates and then his soulmates and maybe one of Benny’s high school friends, if she decides to make the trip. Seven people, including me and you. It’ll be fun!”
“It does sound fun,” Quinn says, raising a hand like that emphasises his point. Jasper has to fight to keep his eyes on Oliver and his expression neutral.
“Four of them are people I don’t know,” Jasper points out. “That’s more than half.”
“You can meet new people,” Oliver says, and then he’s doing that thing where his eyes go wide and he grins really big and he kind of looks like a golden retriever.
Jasper sighs, but it doesn’t carry any weight. “Okay.”
Oliver, ever dramatic, pumps his fist in the air and hisses out a drawn out, “Yes! I’ll come with Benny to pick you up, be ready in two hours!”
Jasper waves Oliver off and then turns to Quinn with his eyebrows raised. “You can’t keep talking to me when people are around! It throws me off.”
“That’s kind of my intention,” Quinn grins and Jasper really can’t be annoyed at him when he’s smiling. “It’s funny.”
Jasper pushes away from his desk and goes to sit next to Quinn on the bed. Their shoulders don’t brush but only because they can’t. Jasper lays his hand palm up in the space between them and a moment later Quinn hovers his directly above it. They don’t touch. It’s still enough.
“I’m surprised that Oliver isn’t a soulmate of yours,” Quinn says after a few moments in silence, “given how close you are, I mean. You could be platonic soulmates, I think anyone would believe it if you said you were.”
He shrugs, looking at Quinn from the corner of his eye. “Oliver is my best friend and I love him but...I don’t know. I’ve only ever needed one soulmate. I just needed you.”
Quinn turns pink--Jasper wonders about that, given that he doesn’t have any blood--and then swallows thickly. “I have...other soulmates. Quite a few. Does that...bother you?”
“No,” Jasper says instantly. “Most people have more than one. I always kind of thought that my soulmate would have multiple. Do you...do you want to tell me about them?”
Quinn looks at Jasper and then swiftly away. He barely even wants to talk about his friends so maybe this question is a bit presumptuous. But Quinn surprises him by nodding and saying, “One of them is for my mom.”
Jasper doesn’t know much about Quinn’s mom but the little that he does means that this sentence carries a lot of weight. Quinn and his mom hadn’t been on good terms when Quinn died. They’d been fighting about something--Quinn has never specified--and then they’d never reconciled and then Quinn died.
“I’m sorry,” Jasper says. “I can’t imagine…”
“I think you can,” Quinn says seriously. “We always put so much emphasis on soulmarks as being so much more than any other relationship but...I don’t know. I love my soulmates, all of them, but I see the way you talk about your mom or Oliver and I think that maybe...maybe the only reason we have soulmarks is so that we’re forced to remember that we love people. It’s nice that they guide us to each other, of course, but I don’t think they’re the only relationships that matter.”
“For a long time,” Jasper cuts in, “I was holding out for you. For my soulmate. I struggled to connect with anyone else and I thought...you would come and fix me and make me whole. And then you died. And instead I found Oliver and Benjamin and...Maybe,” he says, chewing on his lip, “if we’d met when you were alive I would’ve put way too much pressure on you. Maybe this was always how it was supposed to go. I had to learn how to be happy on my own, even when it’s so, so hard, before I could be happy with you. And I am really happy.”
Quinn’s eyes are a little shiny when he answers, “Me too. Still wish I could take you out properly, though.”
Benjamin and Oliver arrive two hours later on the dot. Quinn has disappeared back to the English department and Jasper is as ready as he’ll ever be. The party is happening in a house that, if he didn’t know better, Jasper would assume is a frat house. It’s certainly big enough but it’s a bit too far from campus for that to be its purpose. And, as they walk up the steps, Benjamin explains that there’s only four of them living there anyway.
“How do you afford this place, anyway? I’ve been meaning to ask.” Oliver says, peering over Benjamin’s shoulder.
Benjamin smiles with half his mouth. “Mrs Hills pays me very generously. Also, we all pitch in. The mortgage payment really isn’t that bad with four of us paying, so.”
“Oh, you guys own it?” Jasper says.
“Well, technically only me and William—one of my other soulmates—are on the mortgage but Peterson and Robert pay just as much as we do and when we sell it we’ll split the money between us all, but…” Benjamin shrugs. “We always planned to live together for college and when we realised we could afford to get an actual house we figured why not? Hey, guys, we’re here!”
“Benjamin!” one of them calls, grinning hugely as he comes around the corner. “You’ve been gone all day. ”
“I have a job, Will,” Benjamin says, rolling his eyes fondly. “Get the others, come meet Jasper.”
“Jasper!” William turns towards Jasper and doesn’t stop smiling for a second. “It’s so good to meet you, Benjamin’s told us a lot about you.”
“You too,” Jasper says, waving slightly. “You're his soulmate, right?”
William nods and then disappears around the corner to shout for Robert and Peterson. They come in together and greet Jasper excitedly. Jasper glances at Oliver but, of course, his best friend is too busy chatting with Benjamin and William to save him from social interaction. Not that Oliver necessarily would save him but at least Jasper wouldn’t be alone.
It only takes a few moments to feel at ease with them, though. Robert is the more vocal of the two, talking quickly and flapping his hand excitedly as he rambles about his courses after Jasper asks. Peterson watches indulgently, smiling, and then tells Jasper about the books they’ve been reading. And then they both listen while Jasper stutters through an explanation about his physics work and the theoretical math he’s been doing and neither of them make fun of him for being painfully nerdy. Peterson even says, somewhat awed, “You’re so smart.”
The evening goes particularly well from there. Benjamin’s high school friend shows up a few hours in, resulting in the group chorusing “Belle!” and Jasper smiling a little awkwardly a beat later. She says, “Hello boys and Peterson. Did ya miss me?”
“You’re the famous Belle?” Oliver says, grinning at her. “Benny’s told me a lot about you.”
“Oh,” Belle says, eyes dancing wickedly, “you let him call you Benny ?”
Benjamin turns tomato-red. “Shut up, Isabelle .”
She holds her hands up. “I’m just saying. You never let me call you that. Even William could only get away with it on very rare occasions.”
“Yeah,” William says, scowling playfully. “You never let any of us get away with it, not even...our fearless leader, remember? Every time he tried you’d send him death glares.”
“He deserved it,” Benjamin says, sticking his tongue out. “He might’ve been our soulmate but that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve to be put in his place. And I don’t like being called Benny.”
“Unless it’s Oliver,” Belle says pointedly.
Benjamin nods like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Unless it’s Oliver.”
Oliver beams.
“Speaking of our fearless leader,” Peterson says after a heartbeat, “how’re the Hills?”
“Mrs Hills seems okay,” Benjamin says, nodding a few times. “Less tired. Mr Hills comes and eats with her sometimes. I think they’re doing better.”
Robert nods. “Good. It’s what Quinn would’ve wanted.”
Jasper feels like he’s swallowed an ice cube as he freezes in place. “Who?”
William, Robert, and Peterson trade looks and then turn to Benjamin who says, “Quinn. Our soulmate. The one who...died a few years ago. We all had platonic marks for him and he, um, he brought us together. Kinda made him the unofficial leader.”
“Of our unofficial cult!” Robert adds, like it’s a call-and-response, an inside joke that they all must have shared. “Course, we never quite decided what the subject of our cult would be.”
A few things slot into place very quickly: Benjamin works for a professor called Mrs Hills who pays him well. She’s an English professor. Quinn haunts the English department. Quinn has multiple soulmates who he loves more than anything and they’re the very people who have come into Jasper’s life and have, over the course of a single evening, already made it so much better.
Jasper’s soulmate is Quinn Hills.
He has so many questions.
He has to wait, to make polite conversation and ignore his hammering heart. He can’t just leave so early into the party, so he forces himself to put the thought aside until an acceptable time to leave and then orders himself a Lyft and heads back to campus. It’s late and the English department is definitely closed, but he goes anyway, shimming a window and nearly falling through it in his haste.
“Quinn?” he calls.
“Jasper?” Quinn’s eyes are almost comically wide when he appears through a wall. “Why are you breaking into the English department?”
“I figured you’d be here and I need to talk to you.”
Quinn’s eyes go wide with concern. “Why? Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s about you. I-I met your soulmates.”
Quinn goes very, very still. “What?”
“Oliver’s soulmate doesn’t like being called Benny unless it’s Oliver saying it. His name’s actually Benjamin. And Benjamin has two other soulmates, both platonic. William is one of them and the other one is dead. And William has two romantic soulmates called Robert and Peterson and all of them are friends with this girl called Belle and they called you a fearless leader and said that you called them a cult and they have to be your soulmates, right? Right?”
Quinn can’t stumble, not really, since he doesn’t actually walk or touch the ground and instead just floats but he shifts backwards, eyes wide, startled and nervous and Jasper doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable but this is huge . After a moment, Quinn says, so quietly that Jasper can barely hear it, “They’re all still here?”
Jasper nods. “They have a house a little way from campus. Benjamin works for Mrs Hills.”
Quinn sinks down to the floor. Jasper sits next to him.
They sit together in silence for a long time. Quinn finally breaks it to say, “Did you like them?”
“So much,” he answers immediately. “They’re fantastic. And I was thinking...if I can see you because we’re soulmates, maybe…”
“Don’t give me hope, Jasper,” Quinn cuts him off, but the shake in his voice doesn’t sound entirely sad. “You know I’ve never worked up the courage to actually look at my mom? I just sort of...hovered. I’d listen to her voice while she was teaching or...sometimes my dad visits for lunch and I listen to them just exist. But I haven’t looked at them since I died. And when I met you, I thought...this is it! Maybe soulmates can see me, maybe I’ll be able to speak to my mom again. But I still can’t do it. And we don’t even know maybe--maybe that’s not how it works.”
“I’ll hope for you, then. We could try,” Jasper says. “Together. We could try with Benjamin first, maybe, if you wanted?”
Quinn looks at Jasper with red-ringed eyes and says, “I really wish I could hug you.”
“Me too,” Jasper admits. “But I’m hugging you in spirit.”
“Oh, very clever.”
Jasper smiles. “So...do you want to?”
And Quinn nods.
“Benjamin?” Jasper says, waving his hand slowly in front of Benjamin’s face.
“What’s wrong, Benji?” Quinn asks shakily, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“ Quinn ?” Benjamin gasps out, eyes wide and jaw slack. “ Quinn ?”
Oliver looks between Jasper and Benjamin concernedly. “Can someone explain what’s going on?”
Taking pity on him, Jasper crosses the room to tug Oliver to the side and explain, in a whisper, everything that’s happened since he met Quinn. Oliver’s expression morphs from confused to worried to awed. “You have a ghost soulmate ? And you didn’t tell me ?!”
“I didn’t think you’d believe me!”
“Well, I might not have but still!” Oliver pouts playfully. “And he’s also Benjamin’s soulmate?”
Jasper nods. “Yeah. Turns out we have black soulmarks for the same guy. And Benjamin’s friends, too, they’re all Quinn’s soulmates. We had a theory that I could see him because I’m his soulmate so when I met the others we thought we’d test it.”
Quinn and Benjamin are still talking in low voices. Jasper watches them for a moment.
Oliver says, “What’s it like? Having a dead soulmate?”
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “I think it’s just like having a soulmate. We’re just...connected, you know? And he makes me really happy. I never thought I’d get to have this and I do , now, and all of his soulmates are becoming my friends and...I feel more whole? If you know what I mean? Like I’m a more well-rounded person, or something.”
“I get it,” Oliver says. “That’s what it’s like with Benjamin.”
After the success with Benjamin, it’s easier for Quinn to go see the rest of his friends. Benjamin arranges a time that all of them will be home and Oliver, who still can’t see Quinn (though not for lack of trying), opts to stay away to make it easier. Jasper can’t hold Quinn’s hand, but they position their hands close together and it’s enough.
Peterson cries. So does Robert. William doesn’t, but it’s a very near thing.
Jasper watches Quinn’s expression the whole time, how it flicks from mournful to longing to joyful to triumphant through the evening as he talks more and more with his soulmates. They’re his friends, people who he loves more than anything, and he looks like he couldn’t be more thrilled to have them back. They look very much the same.
He thinks that he couldn’t possibly be happier for Quinn. He thinks he couldn’t possibly be happier full-stop. The last few months have been nothing short of ridiculous, impossible, insane, and Jasper has loved every single moment of it. His chest bubbles with something warm and fond as he watches Quinn interact with his soulmates. Jasper hadn’t ever hoped to have something like this and now that he does he can’t stop himself from smiling.
They settle into a routine of sorts. They have games nights and movie nights and karaoke nights. During the day, Quinn follows Jasper around at work and in the evenings Oliver tries everything he can think of to be able to see Quinn and Quinn doesn’t stop laughing at his antics until one day, seemingly randomly, Oliver walks into the dorm to pester Jasper and Quinn and squeals like a second-grader.
“Quinn?”
“You can see me?”
Quinn pretends to be baffled by this turn of events but, later, when they’re alone, he says to Jasper, “Remember when we talked about soulmates not being the only type of important relationship? I think Oliver can see me now cause I--care about him now. Like, he’s part of the family, you know?”
“Yeah,” Jasper smiles, “I know.”
They go to the English department at least once a day. They stand side-by-side outside of Mrs Hills’s office and Quinn tries to catch his unnecessary breath.
“Whenever you're ready,” Jasper says softly, smiling sideways at him. “I’ll be right here.”
“What if she doesn’t want to see me?” Quinn’s voice cracks as he asks the question. “What--what if she’s…”
“She loves you,” Jasper soothes. “How could she not?”
“I love you,” Quinn says, staring straight ahead. It’s the first time he’s said it in so many words and Jasper’s heart jumps at the admission. They’re soulmates, so of course he knew, but there’s still something powerful about hearing it.
He doesn’t have to think. He just says, “I love you, too.”
Quinn smiles in a way that looks almost involuntary. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Jasper knocks on the door. They’ll face it together.
Oliver frowns as Jasper opens the door, still in his pyjamas. “Did you forget about frozen yoghurt?”
“Of course not!” Jasper protests. “Have I ever forgotten about frozen yoghurt even once in all the time we’ve been friends?”
“You’re not dressed and we’re supposed to be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Sorry,” Jasper says, “long night. Give me two minutes.”
Quinn, the bastard, doesn’t need to do things like get dressed or brush his hair because he’s dead and that means he’s in his ghost clothes all the time. He hover-sits on Jasper’s desk and watches as he frantically gets dressed, laughing silently. “Sorry I kept you up.”
“You needed to talk, I get it,” Jasper says, waving a hand through the air nonchalantly. In all honesty, Jasper had needed to talk too. Their visit with Mrs Hills had been lovely but also overwhelming. She called Quinn sweetheart and tried to hug him multiple times and then there were tears all around. Just before they left, she’d taken Jasper’s hand and thanked him for looking after her son. He’d had to reply that Quinn was looking after him just as much if not more and that had just set off more waterworks. By the time Jasper had come back to his dorm, he’d been relieved to see that Ray was away for the weekend. He and Quinn had stayed up ridiculously late.
But it’s the first official group frozen yoghurt day today and neither of them want to be late. Jasper pushes a comb through his hair and then turns back to Quinn. “How do I look?”
“Like you haven’t slept,” Quinn admits, but he’s smiling. “You look perfect.”
They go to frozen yoghurt.
Peterson, Robert, and William get some of the strangest combinations Jasper has ever seen and seem to make a game out of getting each other to eat gross mashups. Benjamin and Oliver share plain strawberry and chocolate loaded with toppings.
Jasper gets vanilla with raspberries and chocolate chips. He still doesn’t have anyone to share with, but he has his soulmate, his soulmate’s soulmates, and his best friend, and he’s realising that this is everything he could ever need.
end.