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Reagan’s afternoon was rudely interrupted when the feeling of something piercing through his stomach shot up his spine like a burst of lightning.
The feeling of being hurt wasn’t new to him, of course, but it still caught him off guard. It had been a good few decades since he had last fought anything that was capable of hurting him, so needless to say, feeling cold, hard steel lodge itself right below his diaphragm was not how he had expected his day to go.When he looked down, there was nothing there, but the pain remained. Bright and sharp, the chime of a bell cutting through silence, it was the first thing he had fully felt in a long time.
Moments later, the pain vanished as suddenly as it had came. A whisper of it still lingered, causing Reagan to press his fingers against the spot where the phantom blade had pierced him like he would find a wound there (he didn’t).
He stood there, mildly confused for a few moments and wondering if someone with a strange gift had just attempted to assassinate him, even though there hadn’t been the slightest tingle of est.
His mind provided him with another, more convenient explanation soon enough.
Ah. Of course.
A soulmate.
Reagan hadn’t felt the sting of another’s wounds for centuries now— not since he had first developed his gift, and he had never met that one anyway. He had supposed for a long time that the universe had simply given up on trying to pair him with anyone else, given his track record with relationships, but apparently some random soul out there had just been selected again.
The pain was worse than what little he remembered. Back then, it had simply been mild aches here and there, never the full extent of the actual wound, but this had felt like someone actually ran a sword through him. His pain tolerance had increased with time, but still. It was jarring to say the least.
He had never exactly been interested in this subject, but he had heard some from others in passing. Something about sensitivity towards est in general, but that was extremely bad news for him, considering he was one of the world’s most powerful gift users. If the person at the other end of this connection tended to get stabbed like that regularly…
Perhaps he would need to start looking into soulmates. He was quite sure he could fit in some time to research what exactly influenced that pain.
…
Engen honestly didn’t even realise he had a soulmate until one particularly bad night.
It was supposed to be easy. Another district to take over, starting from the southern side of the place. They had been ready, having staked out the area for around a week beforehand. There was a plan, easy and simple, and all they had to do was follow it.
Of course, everything had to go to shit.
The lord of the district had somehow known they were there and called their allies forth to help. Engen had insisted on taking on the main forces with Chain while the others snuck in and dismantled the place from within, meaning he was the one who bore the brunt of the attack.
The scent of his own blood filled his nose as Reconquista twisted time around them again, and he was back on that street again, where he had already died at least a dozen goddamn times. Chain’s gift was useful, and it had gotten him nearly out of this situation, but each time he thought he was nearly done something would always go wrong.
A headache pounded at the inside of his skull, alerting him that he was quickly coming up on his limit. Although his capacity for mental strain was supernaturally high, there was still a cap to how much he could do.
Gritting his teeth, Engen readied Chain in front of him again, and easily blocked the first attack sent his way. The following few weren’t so simple, though— he was heavily outnumbered, not to mention he had already expended most of his est and energy prior to being ambushed. It was his fault for not at least expecting the world to immediately turn against him when things were going smoothly for once.
Pain shot through his right arm as the blade of one of his enemies cut him; Engen snarled and flipped two fingers in their direction, easily impaling them on his darkness and throwing their body at their comrade. It slowed them down and gave him breathing room, as he had done many times before, but soon the exact same scenario as the last dozen times played out again. Swarmed, countered, outnumbered.
Engen wasn’t sure if there was a route out of here. A past few times he had tried to run instead of fighting them, but they had always caught up and slaughtered him. His only option was to stand his ground and fight, which, unfortunately, wasn’t working well either. He was running on pure instinct and memory, blocking and dodging and taking another down whenever he could, but they always seemed to fill the gaps back in. For a moment he hoped at least one of his friends would somehow sense the fact he had been stuck on this street for hours now, but Reconquista didn’t exactly come with that option. It was just him, Chain, and his rapidly dwindling strength.
Frustration sped through him as a knife pierced his leg; it only escalated when his energy started running out again, what seemed like tens of attacks being sent at him at once slowly but surely beginning to wear him down. This was the furthest he had gotten so far, and it was going to be the farthest he was ever going to get if he didn’t find a way to break the pattern right now—
(From across a continent, Reagan’s patience ran out.)
He didn’t know if it was sheer emotion, or the fact that he was dancing on a knife’s edge away from death, but a gate shattered somewhere and something foreign suddenly rushed into his mind, making him gasp and nearly drop Chain as he wobbled.
Engen couldn’t describe that feeling for the life of him: he was sure he had never experienced this before, nor did he recognise the est, but it somehow felt familiar as well. Overwhelming, terrifying, all too much, crackling with power that made him shake even if he somehow knew whatever this was didn’t actively mean to hurt him.
For one moment, Engen was quite sure he knew how carrying the Torch would feel. His gift swarmed around him uncontrollably like it didn’t belong to him anymore as his est reserves shot back up to prime condition, then went up, up, up, until he was screaming from how the sheer power was arcing through him. It hurt, gods, it hurt so fucking much as giant amounts of est he wasn’t nearly strong enough to contain burst through his veins, glowing a eerie green under his skin.
He was quite sure he could hear himself cracking apart as the est slammed into him and supercharged his gift beyond sanity, ancient, horrifying energy causing the darkness around him to explode in a starburst in every single direction.
His enemies didn’t even have time to scream.
Engen blacked out for a few seconds after that, perhaps for the best as his gift raged with a mind of his own. When he came to, he was curled on the cold cobblestone of the street, blood staining his face and hair from both himself and his enemies. Chain was deeply unconscious beside him, but at least it looked like he wasn’t seriously injured.
The area around him, however, was a completely different story. The enemies who had nearly killed him just a few minutes ago were now mangled beyond recognition, some split into a million pieces from how many spikes had pierced them, some simply vanished into a bloody mist that covered everything. Entire buildings had been reduced to nothing but rubble, the remains of those inside hanging off the walls, painting splotches of red onto the massive area of destruction. That burst of power had been enough to completely destroy a major part of an entire district.
However, Engen himself wasn’t in much better condition either. Blood poured from his lips as he coughed heavily, feeling like every organ he had had just been torn apart by the power. His skin was cracked like spiderwebs, entire pieces burnt away and more simply split apart to deep muscle, his fingers looking like they had been flayed and charred. Everything hurt, and it hurt like nothing else he had ever felt before, every single nerve in his body lighting up like fire as they told him just how he had been ripped apart from the inside.
When the foreign est came back, Engen nearly whimpered with fear. However, it hadn’t come to destroy him again— it shot through him, oddly gentle this time, curling across his internal wounds before they seeped out of the cracks of his skin. Where it touched, the pain faded slightly. His wounds didn’t close, but the agony they brought ebbed some.
Engen watched the wisps of est curl around his hands and disappear dazedly, before his arms gave out from under him and he collapsed in pain and relief. Everything hurt so much, he barely even noticed when small, sharp spikes of even more pain began to come from his wrist.
When he glanced up, a word was present on his skin. It looked like it had been carved there with a knife, precise lettering and uniform spacing.
STOP , said the word, written in his own flesh and blood.
It only stayed for a few moments before vanishing suddenly, but the pain lingered for much longer than that.
Later, when he and Chain had been found, brought back, and properly treated, Engen finally learnt what exactly had saved his life, tore him apart, put him back together, and carved out that command onto his arm.
“A soulmate,” Roxanne had said. Bonded together until one of them died, forever sharing the other’s pain.
Engen looked down at his hands. His fingers were still blackened from the est surge, the skin hard to the touch. The medic had said it would most likely be permanent.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted whatever was on the other side.
…
After that fateful night, the pain waned.
The person on the other side seemed to have taken his lesson to heart and started being more careful with themselves. Not entirely, however: Reagan still felt the occasional stab of pain weekly, sometimes minor, sometimes lasting for minutes on end as he re-learned how being injured in many of his different muscles and organs felt.
It was admittedly better than before, but with how they were before he had warned them, Reagan was quite sure they would get themselves killed sooner or later. That would be a much larger issue.
Considering the fact that the world was incredibly big and fights were going on in every corner of it, though, he was quite sure he would die before he found the nameless, weak, young gift user who was picking battles with other people every other week, as that described half of them. The only difference was that this one had survived longer than most. It wasn’t very feasible, so for now he had taken to observing detachedly and letting the days pass by. The pain wasn’t exactly ideal, of course, but it wasn’t enough to have him running around trying to find whoever it was.
At least, until nearly a decade later.
Standing in his throne room, Reagan’s hand suddenly froze in midair as he reached out for one of his experimental subjects. He wasn’t sure why exactly, but as he regarded this instinctive response, he realised that his hand was shaking.
It took him a bit longer to realise that it was shaking out of a fear that wasn’t his.
His eyes snapped open when he connected the dots to exactly what was happening, frustration welling up inside his chest at the same time as a sense of dread. The last time he had felt something like this was the night when he had warned his soulmate to stop what they were doing, but this was much, much stronger. Whoever was on his other side had managed to get themselves into an extremely horrifying situation, and now he was also about to suffer the consequences of stupidity that wasn’t even his fault.
How they kept doing it, Reagan didn’t know. Perhaps it was god’s idea of karma, pairing him with a person whose favourite pastime was repeatedly getting injured in new and interesting ways.
Reagan backed away from the subject, flinging his hand at the door and slamming them shut with vines, wooden growths blossoming from the door handles and locking it shut. If this would be anything like last time, he would not be caught dead being seen by his servants, or worse, his children.
The sense of dread only heightened with time as the thrum of fear at some far-off corner of his mind intensified, drumming through the bond under the beat of his heart, letting him know exactly what degree of shitty situation his soulmate was now stuck in. In a way, this was even worse than the pain; the tension of knowing something would hurt, but being completely unable to see it coming, nor to know anything about what was currently happening.
The fear of another person as if it were his own. He despised it.
(“What’s with the sad face?”)
It was getting worse, terror and helplessness chilling him to the bone even though there wasn’t pain, god damnit . Reagan cursed his soulmate in that moment for being a weakling as the thought of rooting them out and locking them away occurred to him again.
If he was just there , if they were here by his side, under his control, watching their every move and every step, he wouldn’t have to deal with this constant annoyance, the wounds they sustained, the fear and pain they felt—
(“Let me…”)
—it was mounting, again, he hadn’t been like this since he was giftless, but adrenaline was pumping through him now as if he was in a battle to the death. Pain, pain, more pain. What good did his soulmate even do? Only getting in the way, causing him to lose focus, hurting him, and nothing else. He was an Elder, he could protect himself, he had never gotten hurt over the course of the two decades this person had been inexplicably locked to him. They had never had to sustain any sort of pain from him sans that one night where he had had to rescue them from a deadly situation, but the only thing he had ever gotten back was more hurt to the point where he willingly carved into himself demanding them to stop—
(“…put a smile on it.”)
Reagan swore he could hear the sound of sizzling flesh as blinding pain flashed across his mouth, and then—
Nothing.
The fear peaked, and his pulse pushed itself to unhealthy levels all of a sudden, but there was nothing else.
For a moment, he wondered if it had just all been a ruse, before realising the pain was still very much present on the outer edges of where the burn had just been, and some other parts of his body were aching dully for no reason as well.
…oh. Of course.
The nerves on his soulmate’s face had most likely just been burned away.
Reagan raised a hand to his mouth slowly, touching the skin where that initial burn had been registered.
He wasn’t sure what had managed to do it, but it had felt like a hand. In that case, it was likely they had gotten into a scuffle with a gift user leagues above them, which would explain the fear. He still braced himself for more pain or even to have to push his est into his soulmate again, but a second blow never came.
The fear hadn’t ebbed yet, but his soulmate was currently not being hurt, or thrown around, or made to do anything else that would cause them injury.
When he realised that nothing was most likely going to happen, he frowned and relaxed slightly. What sort of gift user would simply burn off someone’s mouth and call it a day without even trying to kill them first? Well, maybe if they had known each other in the past and had a vendetta to repay, but in that case Reagan was quite sure he wouldn’t be as calm as he was right now…
He only spared it a few more seconds of thought before he supposed it was for the better, as long as it wasn’t more pointless pain. Although, whoever it was would probably have to walk around with a giant scar for the rest of their life.
Well, that was fine. It wasn’t like he cared.
…
The first time the thought of his soulmate even popped into Engen’s mind in nearly two centuries was when he realised Reagan Sinclair had gone completely insane, for some reason. Perhaps it was something to do with the seed in his hands— the est it radiated reminded him of a memory he’d pushed aside from his younger years, and of the blackened skin on his fingertips that had never disappeared.
Engen pointedly did not think about that, however, as he faced down the deranged maniac in front of him and charged. Their first real blow sent the both of them flying backwards, but neither of them faltered and soon the battlefield was filled with the roaring of his constructs, the screeching of Reagan’s gift, and one loud explosion after the other as they clashed, again and again.
Est ripped through the air, thick and nearly tangible as it whirled around them both. It was thrilling, on some level, but neither of them had yet to actually go all out. As of now they were testing the waters, circling around each other like a pair of beasts.
But Engen had never been patient. The hand of his construct enveloped him as he moved to intercept Reagan’s summoned knights, feeling the wind rush through his hair as his construct slammed through the air and threw him up to Reagan’s level.
Engen narrowed his eyes as he twisted his sword in his hand, est trailing behind his blade as it cleaved through the air, the screams of the damned following as it drew a giant purple arc through the air, quick and as brutal as a flash of lightning. He poured his power into the sword when it slammed against Reagan’s lance, slicing through the rough bark like a knife through butter.
Blood flew through the air as the tip of the lance caught him in the waist, but Engen didn’t let that stop him, barely a wince registering on his face. Reagan’s shoulder was open, his sword cleaved through the air—
The next moment, a hit of pain so incredibly sharp slammed into his left shoulder he nearly dropped his sword.
Neither of them continued their melee clash, shooting past each other. The pain was intense, illogically paralysing, more so than the actual wound in Engen’s waist. Engen raised his hand to his shoulder as a reflex as he skidded to a stop, but he didn’t find any blood.
Just like the wound wasn’t actually his.
When he looked up, Reagan was clutching his waist as well, seemingly in pain like Engen. He still looked composed, but his eyes betrayed his demeanour. He looked… shocked.
Engen’s eyes naturally went to Reagan’s shoulder, where he had dealt his blow. There was a somewhat deep cut there, though it didn’t take long as the wound closed up and his clothing smoothed itself over.
But the pain lingered.
Reagan seemed to come to the conclusion slightly faster than Engen, as the shock fell away and was replaced with horror. Pure, unfiltered horror, like Engen had suddenly turned into an eldritch horror he was absolutely not prepared for. It made Engen feel slightly offended in a part of his mind that wasn’t really thinking logically, until he also connected the dots and his frustration and confusion also immediately turned into horror.
Him.
“You’re fucking with me,” Engen snapped, at the same time Reagan said, “are you fucking kidding me.”
Of course.
Just his luck.
Of course his soulmate was the Mad Elder.
To be completely clear, Engen could not give less of a shit about whether or not this… man… was his one and only. He had a goal, and he was perfectly happy to betray everyone he knew in order to achieve it. If he had to kill his own soulmate with his bare hands, he damn well would.
However, judging by the fact that his shoulder had burned when he had sliced Reagan, enough to nearly knock him off his feet even with his pain tolerance, he really wasn’t sure if he would be able to even manage to kill Reagan without also dying. He’d never looked into soulmates past surface level. He knew the severity of the connection would vary with est, but that was it.
Engen had expected Reagan’s head on a pike by the end of today. What he hadn’t considered while making his plans, however, was that his head might end up there too, or at least feel like it was.
But he still didn’t lower his sword, nor did Reagan lower his lance.
That was right. Neither of them were emotional or enough of a coward to let this stop them. He’d thrown down the gauntlet, and by the love of whatever god was watching, Engen was going to carry through.
Taking a deep breath, Engen prepared himself for the hell that would ensue and raised his sword, pointing at Reagan’s throat from where he was standing. It didn’t matter. It was simply pain. He was familiar with pain.
”Don’t think I’ll go easy on you,” Engen threatened as he glared at Reagan, his eyes narrowing and starting to glow again.
For some reason, Reagan’s eye twitched as if he were looking at a fussy toddler, but he replied in kind. The sound of the ground breaking open started up again as Reagan raised his left hand.
“Neither will I.”
…
Engen ended up winning, of course.
He didn’t have Reagan’s skill, but what he did have was dogged determination and enough anger to power through the torture that reflected onto him every single time he landed a single hit on Reagan. And seeing as Reagan seemed to lack the fundamental will to exist, there was no making up for it in that department.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Engen raised his eyes. Reagan had managed to sit up, although he still wasn’t going anywhere. He hadn’t been too damaged, at least not to the extent where he was truly spent, but the pain had apparently been more than enough.
Engen stood up straight, rubbing his neck where Reagan had just punched it. There was already a bruise forming. “Do you want to die that badly?”
“I assumed you were going to.” At least before I figured out we were linked was left unsaid, but it was clear from the context alone.
With the inclusion of their bond, however, things just got a lot more complicated. Engen’s eyebrows furrowed as he thought, trying to piece together what exactly would happen to him if Reagan died in front of him.
He didn’t have a frame of reference of what that pain would “normally” be like, because Reagan had apparently never been hurt before, but he had felt the feedback from the injuries he had inflicted. It had hurt several times more than it would normally, meaning there was some kind of issue with trying to fight his soulmate, which would most likely be included in death.
He wasn’t sure if that rule was also valid if it was an outsider who killed your soulmate, though. Perhaps it would only hurt as much as the cut. “I wasn’t going to kill you myself.”
“Even then, the feedback hurts. Exceedingly.” Reagan’s voice made no room for argument.
“How do you know that?”
A side-eye with immeasurable amounts of irritation was thrown his way. “How many times have you gotten injured?”
Engen went silent as he tried to count for a brief moment, then gave up when he realised that he had spent at least a hundred years of his life getting injured in various ways every single day. His eyes went down to his fingers, black from that fateful night, where he had died at least a dozen times in various interesting ways. Suddenly, Reagan’s incredibly depressed demeanour made a bit more sense.
“You’re saying the feedback from your death might kill me.”
Reagan looked just as unenthused as Engen did about possibly having to remain alive. “Most likely.”
Engen sighed from the bottom of his heart, lamenting the fact all his plans seemed to go awry in the stupidest ways. Afterwards, he looked back down at the man that was apparently the other half of his soul.
The only real connection Engen could see between them was that both of them were insane.
However, it wasn’t like he could change his soulmate. He was stuck with this… depressed, asshole, deadbeat tree who looked twice his age and was actually about five times older.
It seemed like Rachel was going to be severely disappointed today.
Engen very grudgingly concluded that it was probably god laughing at him. “I suppose I’ll have to keep you, then.”
Reagan shrugged.
As Engen turned in order to tell Rachel the bad news and possibly also have to fight her (although he seriously wasn’t sure if he could actually beat her in this state, he was barely standing as it was), Reagan called out again. “Wait.”
When he turned, a small, glinting object was already flying at him. Engen caught it easily, opening his palm to find a ring.
Reagan’s Elder ring.
“It’s yours.”
…
Four months.
That was how long it had been since their battle, and how long it had been for Engen to accept Reagan Sinclair as a new part of his life that was, unfortunately, here to stay.
Sitting on the sofa in their quarters, Engen worried heavily for his own mental state for the eighth time this week as he let his right hand hang lazily in midair, watching as Reagan examined his fingers. The char had faded some throughout the centuries, but they were still like coal near the end of his fingers, nails included.
”They’re your fault, you know.”
Engen couldn’t really feel anything through his fingertips even now. Everything had been scorched clean off, enough so that there weren’t even phantom aches like his scar. The Witch had just wanted to scar him. Reagan had shoved the equivalent of an entire nuclear reactor into him with reckless abandon.
Reagan didn’t look sorry at all, instead just giving Engen a look. “Whose fault was that, forcing my hand in the first place?”
Engen frowned, but he didn’t try to rebut it for once. Their bond had been awfully one-sided in terms of pain, after all. He doubted Reagan had ever caused him anything other than maybe a cut or two.
Silence filled the air between them for a while as Reagan continued his little observation session, and Engen gathered his own thoughts on everything.
Reagan had changed since their fight, with a new scar on his face and a right arm that didn’t quite work properly anymore. There was a new casualness to him that seemed incredibly out of place, like he had well and truly given up on struggling against his new life. He didn’t even try to inconvenience Engen most days, spending his hours doing what was by all accounts normal human things, like napping or reading.
The first time Engen had opened the door after a long day and saw Reagan standing in the middle of the kitchen chopping vegetables, a sense of unreality had hit him so hard that he had spent the rest of the night staring at Reagan, wondering if a doppelgänger had somehow replaced him. But no, apparently Reagan had just decided that this would be his retirement, and Engen was just a roommate he had to put up with instead of his captor.
Engen let Reagan fiddle with his hand for a while longer. He didn’t think about why he was even letting the other man touch him in the first place. “I thought I was dead.”
”And I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t do something.”
Right. Reagan had felt every minute of that struggle. And every minute of the struggles he had ever had since he was born.
“Do you want my gratitude?”
“You should be praising me like a god for putting up with your ridiculous, reckless bullshit.” The bitterness leaked through his tone for a moment. He had given everything he had to make it all the way to the top of the hierarchy, just to be immediately tormented by a teenager with anger issues and a death wish, and now that same teenager had grown up and kicked him off his throne. If his life wasn’t already the bad joke it was, Reagan probably would have been angrier at the absurdity.
Engen pressed his lips together. He didn’t know how guilt felt, but this was most likely close.
“Then thank you.”
Reagan’s train of thought screeched to a halt as the sudden agreement from Engen registered in his ears. His expression was incredulous as he raised his head, eyebrows drawn together as he regarded Engen.
The scar, the posture, the faint arrogance in his eyes, it as all there. This was the real Engen, nobody else could look that smug just sitting there.
“…why did you say that?”
It was Engen’s turn to frown. “What, thank you? You said you wanted it.”
Doubt turned to outright suspicion in Reagan’s eyes. “You. Doing what I say.”
“Am I not allowed to?”
“You don’t care.”
Reagan was correct. That was supposed to be true.
However, when Engen turned his attention inwards to what he thought, he was mildly shocked and mildly horrified to find that he somehow had a tiny amount of a damn to give about Reagan now. Was it the soulmate bond or was his mental state so pitiful that he had somehow gotten his wires crossed enough to care about Reagan of all people? He didn’t know, but the seed had grown roots when he wasn’t looking.
He probably should have left and not returned until he had burned everything about Reagan out of his mind right then. It would have been the logical thing to do so. But the only thing he did was say, “you’re wrong about that.”
The silence was deafening.
Reagan opened his mouth, closed it, stared at Engen for a good long while, before looking down at their hands and slowly starting to digest what he had just been told.
When Engen found the bravery to check Reagan’s reaction, there was the smallest of smiles on his face. It was barely present, but it was there, and the little genuine warmth in it made Reagan look just slightly softer. He was still staring at Engen’s hand in his.
“…I see,” he finally spoke after a long while. There was something new in his tone this time, something that could almost be called hope.
Reagan’s grip tightened around Engen’s hand, his thumb brushing against his fingertips gently.
Engen squeezed back.