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Matt was..ambivalent about his Mark at the best of times. Other times he wished the thing didn't exist. People did just fine without Fated Marks and Matt had heard plenty of stories of people who met their Fated and absolutely hated them. And Matt honestly wouldn't have cared if his Mark was normal, if it was simply one or two bands of color wrapped around his bicep.
But it wasn't that easy, oh no. Six bands of vibrant color, knotted and twisting and twined together made up his Mark. Sunny yellow, deep green and full-shaded orange welded merrily with steely gray, storm blue and royal amethyst. A mish-mash of odd colors that, instead of giving Matt hope for a happy future, marked him as an "abnormality" as his parents were so happy to remind him.
So he hid his Mark, either with shirts and jackets or bandage sleeves made for the very purpose of hiding Marks. He never searched for his matches, didn't let it bother him as person after person he knew found their Fated. He avoided contact with anyone who wasn't a family member, as it was physical contact that set off the connections, and for some twenty years he never felt the tell-tale burn of his Mark.
And then he came to Machinama and Inside Gaming. Of course the job he loved the most would be where it all changed for him. He liked his co-workers and he felt more at ease at his desk at the Inside Gaming office than he had at any of his previous jobs.
They never commented on the fact the Matt avoided physical contact with them, going as far as to dodge out of the way of play fights and other such things. They didn't mind his quietness, his economy of words and they praised his hard work. Hey liked them, and he didn't want to spoil it.
Until the day he hadn't been paying attention and had tripped over a spare set of cords that someone had left out for a previous recording, sending Matt sprawling headlong into what would have been the floor if Bruce had shot forward and caught him.
He was momentarily disoriented, blinking as he registered the burning in his arm. Oh. Oh no. He quickly righted himself and stared at Bruce, his own wide eyes meeting the other man's. His hand reached up to wrap around his bicep and a reaching sense of panic filled him and he back up.
"Matt..." Bruce trailed off as Matt twisted on his heel and marched out of the office, down the hall and into one of the bathrooms, locking the door behind. This wasn't supposed to happen! He'd done everything to avoid this, avoid finding his matches because what good could come from having six of them?
Sighing deeply to himself he pushed off his hoodie on the left side and rolled the sleeve up, groaning as he ran his fingers over the sensitive skin of his mark. Where once the deep green color lay intertwined among the others was now a bright white, indicating he'd found his match that the color had represented.
Stuffing down his anger and frustration he rested his head on the mirror and tried to brace himself to return to the office where one of his Fated was waiting for him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Of course after that his luck seemed to take a downward spiral. A raucous fight ended up with Spoole in his lap and the sunny yellow on his arm fading to white. He gently deposited the younger man on his feet, and turned back to his editing, trying to ignore the looks the others were giving him. The air in the office after that was charged with something that Matt wanted nothing to do with.
Sadly, despite his best efforts, a late night call from a bar downtown ended with a drunken Lawrence and Joel leaning on him obnoxiously and the steely gray and royal amethyst bands on his Mark turning to snowy white. The fight having left him at this point he took the boys to Lawrence's house and walked them up. Joel he dropped off in the guest room and then he gently shepherded Lawrence to his room.
Before he could untangle himself from the larger man, Lawrence wrapped his arms around him and lay his head in the curls that sat atop Matt's head. "Why are you so sad about this, Matt?" Matt felt something in him break. Lawrence sounded so sad that Matt wasn't excited about the discovery of his Fated.
Grunting he gently lay Lawrence out on his bed to sleep and headed back down to his car, mulling over Lawrence's words. Why wasn't he happy about this. Oh sure his early years had been filled with the fear that his Fated, should he ever actually meet them, would be wrong for him or they wouldn't fall out of love before they ever fell into it.
He'd heard the horror stories but he'd also seen more than enough success stories of Fated couples meeting and living happily ever after. And he liked the guys! They were sweet and dorky and everything younger Matt decided he was going to look for in a lover, Fated or not. Granted there were six of them, making seven in total and very large relationship on their own but was that really so bad in the end, regardless of what Matt's parents had said of him.
Shaking his head in distress he drove home and threw himself into his bed, unwilling to think further on it in that moment.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next day wasn't an accident. James, all big white grin and shining blue eyes, stalked over to Matt's desk and hovered until the other man looked up from his work and took off his headphones. "Yes James?" He asked placidly, even as something almost like fear lanced through him.
James didn't' give him a verbal answer, instead leaning down into Matt's space to place a gentle, chaste kiss on the tip of the smaller man's nose, grinning at the little punch out noise he made as the burn started again. James grinned brightly and gently rolled up Matt's sleeve to reveal his Mark and watched with fascination as the full orange faded into white.
"James! We said we were gonna take it slow!" Joel's enraged voice rang from the other side of the room and Matt looked around him, taking in the fact that others were watching them with various levels of intensity.
Something roiled in his gut, it was too much in too short a time. Almost thirty years of avoiding this very situation and now it was all coming to a head. And in that moment Matt did something he hadn't done since he was five.
He ran away.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Adam found him a few hours later, the bigger man craning his neck to look into the tree where Matt had tucked himself away behind the thick green cover of oak leaves. "Matt, James is sorry. Please come down?" Matt bit his lip and tucked himself further back, glad that the thick branch easily held his lithe form.
When he didn't reveal himself beyond the briefest glimpse of his sneaker Adam sighed and continued talking, voice gentle. "We were supposed to sit down with you and talk it out, but James was too excited. We all were. We've been waiting a long time to find our last Fated." Matt shifted and looked down. Adam gave him a gentle smile before he went on.
"I get that it's scary. I was in the same situation as you. Joel too. My mother thought I was a freak and taught me that I was broken, didn't deserve to find my Fated. When I met Bruce and the others, I sent her a picture. It wasn't a very nice one, but she deserved it. All those years of telling myself I didn't needed to meet my Fated lovers, that I would be fine on my own if I never met even one of them all unraveled pretty quickly. Joel and I were...we were bad for a while."
He scuffed his foot before he continued on, not calling attention to the fact that Matt wasn't bothering to hide himself anymore and was in fact leaning a fair way out of the tree to look at the other man.
"It took time and Bruce and James and Spoole and Lawrence were so good with us. We get that it's scary Matt, but we want to try and make this work." Adam was a little teary eyed when Matt crept down the tree and came to stand meekly in front of him.
Adam spread his arms, an open invitation and Matt hesitated a long moment before he walked forward and let himself lean into Adam, sighing as warm arms encircled him in an affectionate embrace. There was no burn this time, only a strong tingling as Matt felt that last colored band, that twisted turning knotted line of storm blue that had been one of many to haunt him for so long, fade away into the white of a made connection.
Matt didn't bother to protest a few minutes later when Adam scooped him up into strong arms and started for the car, so tired and emotionally drained was he. Adam simply favored him a warm, brilliant smile as Matt snuggled into the embrace, making himself comfortable.
After all, a life time was a long time and he had some catching up to do.