Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Amy’s a month old, too young to remember anything, and he shows up on her skin for the very first time in the form of an explosion of color.

Her mother documents every square inch of it (within reason) in photographs. Long, blotchy stripes of color stretching across her skin in the erratic pattern unique to a doodling toddler who’s found the markers, up and down her arms and legs and across her chest and down her stomach. 

Camila Santiago is delighted. Victor Santiago is not.

(“Her soulmate clearly doesn’t have any adult supervision - how did they even get it behind their ears?”

“Relax, mi amor, they’re obviously an artistic child!”)

She’s three, in the hospital waiting room with her brothers and her grandmother waiting for the latest addition to the Santiago family to join the world, and he shows up on the inside of her forearm in scrawled and messy handwriting.

The letters are blotchy and impossible to read, and not just because she can’t quite read yet (though she’s just a few short months away from accomplishing that). So she has to shake Jason out of his nap beside her to ask him to read whatever her soulmate is trying to tell her.

“I think it says ‘dad left,’“ Jason says, his brows furrowed in confusion.

Neither one of them know what it means. It’s the first memory of him Amy has.

She’s four and she’s learning how to write, practicing almost constantly on the lined pages of practice paper Camila bought the last time she was at the grocery store, and he shows up every day on her arms.

She discovers that she’s left-handed, so she’ll write words like spot and run and arm on her right forearm, and he’ll write things like what does that mean? on her left. She never writes back. 

It hardly counts as communication - but it’s something.

She’s five and she’s in kindergarten and she’s the best reader in the class, and he shows up on her arms and legs in the form of crude drawings of explosions and the words Die Hard written in uneven box letters. She doesn’t know what any of it means and she stopped writing on her skin a long time ago. Sometimes she wakes up in the morning and sees the word hi written small on her left wrist. She hides it beneath the strap of the digital watch Victor gives her for Christmas one year.

She’s seven and she wears pants and long sleeves exclusively now, finding it easier to hide her soulmate’s incessant doodling rather than to try and explain it to those who ask. His drawing skills have improved but his fixation on Die Hard has yet to fade, and even though she’s never actually seen the movie she knows every single line because they’ve all been written on her somewhere at some point, at least twice each. He stopped writing hi after a few months.

She’s ten and she’s in trouble for the first time in her life, because he showed up for the first time in months with complicated-looking algebraic formulas written on her palm and no matter how much she tugs at her sleeve she just can’t keep it covered all day long. The trouble only lasts ten seconds before her teacher realizes that it’s not her handwriting, not her math, not her writing hand - but it’s enough to shake Amy all the way down to her core, enough for her to sink down in her seat to avoid attention for the rest of the day. And when she gets home she finds an old Bic pen rolling around in the bottom of her desk drawer, rolls her sleeve back, and writes as neatly as she can:

I got in trouble today because you cheated. Please don’t do that again.

She stares at her arm for a long moment, wondering for the first time about whether or not he wears long sleeves, too, about how often he checks himself for signs of her (she had to angle the writing around three explosions - there’s a chance it’ll just blend right in). And then she pulls her left sleeve back and finds two things: the first being the algebraic formulas on her palm now smudged and faded, as if he’d vigorously tried to scrub them away. And the second being a response scribbled along her forearm.

it was an accident i swear!!! i forgot i did that!!! i’m so sorry!!!

She’s definitely still irritated, but less so now. She rolls her sleeve back a little more.

It’s okay. But cheating is wrong and you shouldn’t do that.

He writes back at once.

math is hard

She frowns.

Study harder.

He never responds.

She’s thirteen and in middle school and there’s a boy named Teddy who asked her to the winter dance and she’s nervous, so nervous, but also calm because Teddy doesn’t have any particular interest in Die Hard either and his handwriting is neat and measured and he’s the second-best student in their math class (after her, of course). She’s wearing short sleeves for the first time in years and the open breeze on her arms is a strange and invigorating feeling and Teddy’s hands are clammy on her waist when the slow dance starts and when she looks up at him he’s smiling brightly, happily, but before she can return it a flash of black ink on her arm catches her gaze. It’s a phone number, she realizes (even though the last four digits are blurred). A phone number, and then a name.

Sophia

It’s not his handwriting.

Teddy kisses her later, ducked beside the staircase right outside the cafeteria full of their classmates, but the responding butterflies in her stomach aren’t quite enough to stamp out the heavy stone in her gut.

She’s sixteen and studying for her SATs and there’s a dark shapeless splotch on the heel of her left hand that seems to be spreading down her wrist and forearm. It’s distracting, and it’s been a while, and she needs a break even if it’s only for a second. So she pushes her sleeve back, taps the end of her pen against her lips two times, and begins to write.

Did a pen explode on you or something?

It seems to take him a few minutes to notice it - by then, the ink has reached a point halfway down her forearm, flattened into a sharp cut-off point like it’s soaking into a sleeve.

sorta, he writes. knocked an inkwell over sorry i’m working on cleaning it up

Inkwell? What on earth are you doing with an inkwell?

my mom likes caligrafy

Calligraphy?

yeah that

That’s cool! Is she an artist?

she teaches art at an elementary school

That’s really cool!

He doesn’t respond, but as she watches, the spilled ink on her arm begins to fade and disappear. She watches him work for a few minutes, finding the sight to be almost hypnotic. All in all, it takes about half an hour for her - and presumably his - arm to look as clean as it did when she first sat down to study.

all better, he writes in small letters. His handwriting is far more neat now that he seems to be writing with his right hand. sorry about that.

It’s okay, I was mostly just curious. She hesitates for a moment, and then forces herself to continue. How are you?

i’m ok. There’s a long pause, enough time for her to wonder if that’s the end of the conversation, before he suddenly begins writing again. how are u?

I’m good. I’m studying for my SATs right now.

oh sorry i’ll wash up

No it’s okay!! She scribbles quickly, before switching her pen to her other hand to cross out his last line. I needed to take a break, anyways.

u sure? i’ve been told i’m a distraction

Her heart drops, confusion rippling through her gut. You’re not a distraction, I promise. And even if you were, I need a distraction right now, she writes carefully. You’re a good distraction.

There’s another long pause. i haven’t give u a name yet, he suddenly writes. i keep thinking of u as soulmate but that’s weird. u should have a name

We can’t tell each other our names unless we meet face to face.

i know but we can call each other nicknames weirdo. maybe i’ll call u weirdo.

She draws a frowny face next to his writing.

i’m kidding. i’m calling u…dora. is that ok?

Why Dora?

i don’t know why not??

I’m just curious jeez

that’s why, because ur curious and so is dora the explorer

She laughs out loud at that, tilting back against her pillows. Nice, she writes.

ur turn. what r u gonna call me?

She deliberates for a few minutes. Johnny, she writes.

interesting. why?

It’s like a nickname for John.

is that what u think my actual name is?

No. It’s what I think the main character from Die Hard’s name is.

It takes a few minutes for his response to appear. i love die hard!!!

I know you do, you drew the entire movie all over me for like three years!

yeah sorry about that, it was kinda all i could think about after my dad left.

A faint memory pulses in the back of her mind. Dad’s gone. That’s what Jason read to her the night Nick was born. Everything suddenly makes sense.

I’m so sorry, Johnny.

it’s ok. i see him on my birthday and most holidays.

She learns more about his life, and her momentary study break stretches on until two o’clock in the morning.

She’s eighteen and she’s graduating high school and the long flowing sleeves of her graduation gown cover the notes they’ve been writing each other since the night before. Her mother will kill her if any of it shows up in photos but Amy doesn’t care, not even a little bit, because she’s got a college acceptance letter neatly folded in the top drawer in her desk at home and the notecards for her salutatorian speech tucked away neatly beneath her gown and a dozen smiley faces drawn in his blue ink all over her arms and she’s happy.

(Well, as happy as she can be - stupid Valerie Masinko and her 4.2 GPA and her valedictorian garb. Whatever. Whatever.)

She’s twenty and she’s drunk for the first time, her inhibitions faded in the wind and her third drink in hand. The music from the speakers in the living room of this frat house is thumping loud and bass-heavy through the floorboards beneath her feet and her heart inside her chest and it’s with very, very little thought that she grabs a pen whose cap is missing from beneath a lopsided table bearing the half-finished remains of a beer pong game and yanks her sleeve back to write a message to her soulmate. Her hand is unsteady but she’s never cared less, a self-satisfied smirk on her face as she writes and then tosses the pen blindly over her shoulder without bothering to see where it lands.

She wakes the next morning with a raging headache and one shoe still on, bleary-eyed and confused. She’s in her own bed - thankfully - and judging by the sound snoring coming from the other side of her closed door, her roommate is also home. She winces and groans softly, reaching over her head for the painkillers on the windowsill, and that’s when she catches sight of the two lines of familiar handwriting right in the center of her forearm.

haha ur having a crazy night!! good 4 u i’m so proud of u

hey pls be careful ok? get home safe and write me when u wake up

Warmth buds in the center of her chest, and her fingers automatically close around the pen over her head rather than the pills.

I’m very hungover, but I’m alive. Thanks for thinking of me.

His response doesn’t come for several more hours, etching into her forearm as she slumps over a bowl of oatmeal down in the dining hall.

try something greasy i promise it’ll soak all that hangover right up. and i’m glad ur alive dora. can’t have u dying before we get a chance to meet irl

It’s lucky the vast majority of her classmates seem to be as out of it as she is; none of them notice her smiling into her oatmeal.

She’s twenty-three and struggling, hunched over her kitchen counter with her bills spread out and her laptop open to the Excel document where she keeps up with her monthly budgets, trying to figure out how to balance everything she owes with what little she makes at the museum. Stress ties her shoulders in knots so tightly she’s quite certain she’ll never come unknotted again. Outside her second story window the distant sounds of New York are raging but she’s deaf to them; tears are just starting to prick in her eyes when her laptop screen dims, and then goes black from inactivity.

She’s known - theoretically - that there were going to be months like this one, months where she owed more than she took in, where her savings just wouldn’t be enough to cover everything and she’d be left with a double-digit balance in her account and very little food in her kitchen. But knowing it and experiencing it are two very different phenomena, and right now she’s ready to bury her face between the old sagging cushions of the couch her grandmother donated to her and scream until her voice up and gives out.

Thoughts of her soulmate suddenly permeate her mind, marginally quieting the panic, so she forces herself up and away from her counter with nothing but a pen in hand and curls up on the far end of her sofa, her right forearm flattened against her thigh.

How’s the new job?

She expects a delayed response - he’s been harder and harder to get in touch with lately - so it comes as a pretty big surprise when his response comes almost immediately.

DORA THIS JOB IS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME TODAY WAS SO PERFECT AND I BOUGHT A CAR (LONG STORY) BUT BASICALLY I’M SUPER HAPPY AND I HOPE YOU ARE TOO!!

That’s great!! I’m so glad you love it!

i really do!! this is the first time i’ve ever felt like i really really belong u know? like this is what i was meant to be doing all along. it’s a gr8 feeling!!

She bites her lip, hard, her suddenly blurry gaze darting up at once to stare at a stained spot on the far wall.

I’m really, really happy for you, Johnny, she manages to write once her vision has cleared. And I’m really proud of you, too.

hey r u ok? u seem sad. or am i reading too much into ur response (lol)

She hesitates, but only for a moment - he’s her soulmate, after all. I am sad, but mostly because I’m stressed out. But it’s okay, it’ll get better soon. I’m seriously so proud of you!!

i wanna meet you irl right now

???

u sound like u rly need a hug and i give the best hugs. where u at

She shakes her head, her snarky response already poised to be written, before she bites down on the inside of her cheek. Her heart skips a beat as she traces three letters along her forearm: NYC.

She waits. And waits. And then -

me too

She’s twenty-five and fresh out of the police academy, leaving her dreams of museum curation on the threshold of her studio apartment in the Bronx. She’s no closer to meeting her soulmate than she was two years ago upon discovering they live in the city - the writing always smudges on her forearm when either of them try to figure out a place they can both meet. The cosmic forces that be truly love happenstance; it was with much frustration that they both agreed they would just have to let fate work her magic to bring them together naturally.

She’s not sure when it started, but she has a heart on each of her wrists now - one on her right wrist that she drew, and one on her left that he drew. It’s objectively pretty stupid and cheesy, but the sight of his shakily-drawn heart never fails to soothe her anxiety (which is quite the feat considering the academy had every last cubic inch of her body stressed to the absolute max).

On the day she graduates at the top of her class, she rolls the sleeves of her dress blues back and writes thank you! across her forearm.

Later, much later, after she’s returned home from the celebratory dinner her parents insisted on paying for, she sees his response.

idk what that’s for but ur welcome?? lol

Joy and wine simmer simultaneously in her veins, compelling her to write a response before she can even think twice about it.

I miss you. Is that weird to say?

no, he writes back at once, not at all. i miss u too alot

A lot is two words

ur a dork is 3

She’s twenty-six and freshly promoted and transferred to a brand new precinct in Brooklyn - or, she’s about to be. In truth she’s sitting in her car fiddling with the hem of her jacket, smoothing her bangs each time she glances in the mirror and sees a stray hair out of place, basically doing everything she can to delay the inevitable.

She’s over an hour early thanks in large part to her nerves, and even though she knows full well her soulmate probably won’t even be awake for another three hours, she still writes him a note the way she always does when she’s overly nervous. I’m an hour early, she writes, and I’m really really nervous. Wish me luck. Hope you’re having a good morning.

Before long she finds herself standing alone just outside the bullpen gate of an unfamiliar precinct, watching the well-practiced hustle and bustle of officers and detectives alike moving across the floor. She hates herself preemptively for how much she’s guaranteed to disrupt the flow just for being new, wishing for only a split second that she was back at her old precinct where she knows the rhythm and can dance the dance.

The split-second ends when a taller man in street clothes and lazy, wavy curls starts toward her, a casefile in his hand and focus in his eyes. He seems to stutter in his stride for only a moment when he notices her standing there; he pushes through the gate and smiles politely, likely mistaking her for a lost civilian.

“Excuse me?” she says as confidently as she can, and he stops in his tracks. “Hi, it’s my first day. I’m Detective Santiago.”

She reaches to shake his hand, and he quickly shuffles his file from his left hand to his right. “Detective Peralta,” he says, a more genuine smile blossoming from the professional one he’d graced her with earlier. “Welcome aboard.” A flash of something on the inside of his right wrist - barely visible beneath the cuff of his sleeve - catches her gaze; before she can even think, she’s tightening her grip on his hand and pulling his arm forward, straightening it, reaching with her free hand to push his sleeve back.

It’s a hand-drawn heart, as shaky and uneven as the one on the inside of her own right wrist.

“Uh,” Peralta coughs and pulls his hand from her grasp, looking alarmed - and she’s suddenly aware of the fact that she’s full-on gaping at him. “Is there a problem?”

Her heart is in her throat and her hand is shaking, but that doesn’t stop her from pointing at him. And it doesn’t stop her from inhaling once, twice, three times, and gasping, “J-Johnny?”

The bewilderment on his face vanishes at once. The casefile slips from his grip and lands at their feet, but neither of them bother to look; she’s fairly certain she can’t look anywhere but at him in this moment. Slowly, without ever looking away, he reaches with his right hand to touch his left wrist, and she mirrors the movement. “Dora?” he finally breathes

A breathless laugh escapes her chest, and then they’re colliding in a bone-crushing hug. Some of the general din coming from the bullpen has quieted down, but it doesn’t go silent until a disembodied male voice screeches, “SOULMATES?”

“Shut up, Boyle,” she hears Peralta grumble into her shoulder.

“I HEAR WEDDING BELLS!” Boyle answers almost mockingly.

Some sort of celebratory noise is starting to spread through their audience, but he doesn’t seem to pay them much mind; he has eyes only for her when they pull away, drinking her in like a man trapped in the desert. “C’mon, let’s - c’mon.”

He takes her by the hand and leads her into the bullpen, away from the elevator and past their coworkers down a hallway and into the precinct’s evidence lockup. She only has a moment to appreciate the calming dim lighting before the door closes and she’s alone for the very first time with her soulmate.

He approaches her slowly, cautiously, suddenly timid. “What’s your name? Your real name?” he finally asks.

“Amy,” she breathes. “It’s Amy.”

“Amy Santiago,” he says her name reverently, and it’s never sounded better than it does in this moment. “I’m Jake.”

“I’ve missed you so much, Jake Peralta,” she says with every ounce of feeling she possesses, and his eyes briefly close - like hearing her say his name is too much for him to handle.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he says, voice seeming to tremor beneath the weight of his own conviction. “I’ve been waiting a really long time to say this to you. It’s really, really nice to meet you.”

She smiles and bites down on her lower lip to hold back a giddy laugh. “It’s nice to finally meet you, too.”

Later, much later, when she stops at home to change before she’s supposed to head out to meet Jake at the little Italian place by his restaurant, she spots a new message on the inside of her left forearm.

i’ve been waiting to say this until i could say it honestly - ur the most beautiful human being on the entire planet, inside and out, and i’m so freakin lucky. see u in 30 mins!!

He ends it with a smiley face, one she reflects in her own face, and for a moment she’s overcome with her own excitement. She could spend the next three hours writing and it still wouldn’t be enough time to properly convey the depth of her feelings for him, but she doesn’t - she’s got the rest of her life to do that, after all. So instead she grabs a pen and writes in letters so large they cover the entire length of her right forearm:

ME TOO!!!

Chapter Text

Jake’s four years old, too young to truly differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate, when he draws on himself for the very first time.

It’s hard to resist the temptation of a box full to the brim with markers left out on the coffee table, and with Roger sleeping in the bedroom and his mother off at work, Jake is more than happy to partake. In a scant ten minutes he’s completely undressed and covered from head to toe in long blotchy streaks of color; the markers he’d used and discarded lie on the floor around him like spent shell casings, their caps long-missing after rolling under the couch, their tips stained shades of black and brown from absorbing other colors.

His mother arrives home hours later - it’s the first fight he clearly remembers between her and his father, their words garbled together in a cacophony of sound, and even though Jake can’t understand most of what they’re saying he does gather that they’re angry and it’s because of the mess he made.

“It’s not your fault, honey,” Karen soothes later that evening as she helps him into the bath. The water quickly becomes murky. “It’s not your fault. Daddy was supposed to be watching you, but he fell asleep. It’s okay.”

He’s seven and the world is falling apart, the ground splitting open and disintegrating beneath his feet, but no matter how hard he cries or how loudly he begs and pleads, one by one his father’s suitcases disappear from beside the front door, until there’s nothing left but Roger half-heartedly ruffling his hair and telling him he’ll see him soon and calling him champ. The front door closes an the lock slides into place and over his mother’s cries muffled through the wall, he hears an engine roar to life and gravel crunching beneath car tires.

The sound of Karen crying isn’t an entirely foreign one to him - but there’s something new about it tonight, something raw and broken, something terrifying in his second grade ears. She’s shattered on her bedroom floor because her soulmate just walked out the front door because it wasn’t enough, it just wasn’t enough, Karen wasn’t enough and Jake wasn’t enough and their family wasn’t enough and none of it was enough.

Karen’s sobbing in her bedroom and Jake’s alone in his, gathered up in a kind of ball at the head of his bed, heart thumping in his hollow chest. Karen’s sobbing and there’s a pen on the floor beneath his desk; it must have rolled off while he was doing homework. Karen’s sobbing and Jake’s kneeling, reaching, grabbing. Karen’s sobbing, and Jake’s writing.

Dad’s gone .

It’s messy and sloppy and pitched down at an angle, and for the first time in his life he wonders about his soulmate - can they read yet? Would they ask someone for help if they can’t read? Would they write him back if they know how to write?

Through the wall, Karen releases the loudest sob yet - and Jake’s sleeve falls back down to his wrist as he leaps up off the floor, the need to comfort his mother suddenly outweighing all else on his mind.

(She never writes him back, but he doesn't notice until a few days later.)

He’s eight when she suddenly appears for the very first time on the inside of his right forearm - and even though he’s been writing dumb notes to her every day he nearly falls off his bed in shock. To hear about the concept of soulmates is one thing, but to see it in action, to know that somewhere out there in the universe his soulmate is real and exists , that’s beyond his wildest daydreams.

(She may only write nonsense like spot and run and arm, but still - it’s something.)

He’s nine and he’s obsessed, obsessed with his dad’s favorite movie. He found the old VHS tape at the bottom of a storage container Karen brought down from the attic, and from the moment the opening credits appeared on the screen he was hooked. He’s filled every scrap paper he’s come across with drawings of explosions and Nakatomi Tower and guns and cop cars. His soulmate never appears anymore (aside from the occasional accidental smudge of ink on his fingers and, once, his face) but that doesn’t stop him from covering every available square inch of skin he has with the same drawings litter the margins of his textbooks. His mother told him to share the things he loves with his soulmate, after all.

(She’d ask him to stop if it really bothered her, he reasons - still, he always writes hi on his left wrist, just so she knows he knows she’s there.)

He’s eleven and his obsession with Die Hard has only intensified - his father missing two birthdays has driven him to a near single-mindedness about the movie. He’s got every line memorized after writing them on his arms and legs repeatedly, he sleeps with the tape tucked beneath his pillow for safekeeping, and he reenacts scenes on the playground with Stevie at school. He loves Die Hard more than anything on the planet, except for his mom, and his dad, of course.

(He stopped writing hi after a few months - what’s the point if she never writes back?)

He’s fourteen and feeling pretty great about the test he took in Algebra 2 earlier - writing the formulas on his hand really helped. He still probably only made a C, but hey - a C is better than an F, and that’s all he really cares about. He’s feeling great, on top of the world, on his way to Nana’s apartment with a vision of himself in his PJ’s on the couch with Die Hard playing on the TV. He’s strolling, a bounce in his step, his arms swinging at his sides - and as his right arm swings up, he catches sight of unfamiliar writing weaving through his explosions.

I got in trouble today because you cheated. Please don’t do that again.

His heart drops out of his body, and he stumbles to a stop right there on the sidewalk. How could he be so stupid - his soulmate probably hates him now. He seizes the half-empty water bottle from his backpack and pours a little bit over his palm, scrubbing his fingers over the writing as hard as he can. The ink begins to smear and fade; within thirty seconds it’s completely illegible.

Still guilt surges through his system - he seizes the pen in his pocket and uncaps it with his teeth, yanking his sleeve back as quickly as he can, desperate to rebuild whatever semblance of a bridge he had with his soulmate.

it was an accident i swear!!! i forgot i did that!!! i’m so sorry!!!

He waits, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the passersby who come too close and jostle him on their way past.

It’s okay. But cheating is wrong and you shouldn’t do that.

His heart sinks, shame burning in his cheeks. math is hard , he writes.

Study harder .

Her words sound in his head like his Algebra 2 teacher’s voice and his mother’s voice and his Nana’s voice and it all stinks of disapproval and he’s pretty sure his heart has fallen right out of his body because he’s not good enough. Not at studying, not at math, not for his father, not even for his soulmate.

He drops the pen right there on the sidewalk.

He’s seventeen and on the verge of starting the second semester of his senior year, and there’s a pretty girl with long flowing hair who hasn’t stopped staring at him from across the diner since he and Stevie and Gina first walked in here an hour ago. He’s caught her staring a few times but she’s definitely not bashful - she just smiles this secret sultry smile every time their eyes meet and his heart flips inside his chest in response.

(The likelihood of her being his soulmate is probably in the negatives but he hasn’t thought much about that girl since his freshman year, so .)

The diner is loud and full of their classmates and through the front window Jake can see Gina lounging on the hood of an old car with a cigarette caught between her lips and Stevie across the parking lot throwing a football back and forth with one of his teammates and inside it’s warm, warm from the heater and the hot chocolate and the nearing promise of adulthood and freedom and the soft feminine body pressed up against his side. Her name is Sophia and she smells like cinnamon and tastes like coffee and when she kisses him she kisses hard, so hard he can feel the edges of her teeth up against his lips. She talks about law school and her future and he listens with a glazed smile, too caught up in the thrill of this moment to listen to the warning light going off in the back of his mind.

Later, as her father waits in his car out in the parking lot, Sophia writes her name and number on Jake’s arm - with her right hand, he can’t help but notice. He pulls his arm back and stares for a moment, stares at the unfamiliar curve of her S and the little heart that dots her I , and for the first time in a long time he wonders what his soulmate is doing right that second.

He calls Sophia two days later.

He’s twenty and he’s sitting in an elementary school art room, watching his mother fret over papier-mache models of horses her fifth graders completed earlier that afternoon. He’s in her desk with his feet propped up on the worn, chipped wood, and as he tilts her chair back he nearly loses his balance.

He doesn’t, though, thanks in large part to the chalkboard ledge onto which he grabbed - managing to knock over a half-full ink well inexplicably sitting on that ledge.

The ink goes everywhere - namely, down his left arm - but he’s blind to it, too busy trying to shove the text books sitting on a pile beneath the ledge out of the splash zone. Karen is oblivious, having disappeared into a supply closet just a moment earlier, so as quickly and quietly as he can he lunges for the roll of paper towels beneath her desk and begins scrubbing.

It takes a few minutes, but he manages to get it mostly cleaned up. He’s down to the last paper towel in the roll when he notices it - a line of writing along the inside of his right arm, clean and neat, familiar in a distant, aching kind of way.

Did a pen explode on you or something?

He bites back a groan, glancing again at his left arm, where the ink has begun to soak into the rolled sleeve of his sweater. Well, shit. That’s quite the reappearance.

Reluctantly, he reaches for the pen sitting on the edge of the desk above his head and carefully begins to write with his left hand.

sorta. knocked over an inkwell sorry i’m working on cleaning it up

He swallows hard, wondering what berating advice she’ll have for him this time if she even bothers to respond - but to his surprise, it’s not admonishment, but curiosity that greets him next. Inkwell? she writes. What on earth are you doing with an inkwell?

It’s a fair question. None of his other friends’ moms make a habit of leaving open inkwells...well, anywhere. Still, he’s wary getting into it - it’s not like they make a habit of writing novels about their lives to each other. No, their communication seems tainted only with irritation and disappointment.

At least, up until now, it has been.

So as neatly as he can, with his mother’s voice cursing glue sticks muffled through the storage closet door, he writes: my mom likes caligrafy

Calligraphy?

A familiar kind of shame burns in his cheeks. A dozen responses whirl around in his mind - ranging from screw you to you’re not better than me , but in the end he just sighs and lets his head fall back with a solid thunk against his mother’s desk. yeah that , he scribbles, ready for the humiliation to be over.

He’s not even really sure why he looks - the chance of her responding is pretty low, realistically and historically speaking - but he looks. And his heart skips a beat.

That’s cool! Is she an artist?

A muffled thump from inside the closet momentarily draws his gaze away from his arm - but only momentarily. Karen’s still cursing in there but it sounds like she’s moved on from glue sticks to googly eyes - and when Jake turns his attention back to his arm, it’s with a soft and affectionate smile. she teaches art at an elementary school , he writes.

That’s really cool!

“Jake!” He nearly jumps out of his skin - Karen has emerged from her closet, looking frazzled. Her wide eyes are bright with alarm, jumping from his face to his stained arm. “Did the ink spill?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I cleaned it up off the wall and stuff, but -”

“You know where the bathroom is,” she sighs.

The water runs cold through the pipes in the boy’s room across the hall and Jake groans when it hits his skin. Still, he grits his teeth and pushes through it, choosing to focus on his soulmate probably watching this all go down rather than on his mother’s clear exhaustion and disappointment in him.

This is the chattiest his soulmate has ever been, something new and foreign and a little disarming. Their past interactions - however brief - always left a bad taste in his mouth. But they were both younger then, both caught up in their own worlds - he may only be twenty, but he’s learned a lot since he graduated high school. Perhaps she’s experienced something similar.

Eventually, finally, the ink is gone and his arm is as clean as it was when he first arrived an hour earlier. He swallows hard, glancing at himself in the mirror before examining his right forearm again - namely, the contrast between his handwriting and hers. Where his is messy and chaotic, hers is neat and controlled. He supposes that shouldn’t be all that surprising.

all better , he writes across his left forearm. sorry about that.

He’s not exactly expecting a response, but he gets one anyways. It’s okay, I was mostly just curious . A moment passes, and then - how are you?

He almost laughs. It’s such a simple little question, so conversational, so familiar - like they’ve talked before, like she has a base knowledge of how he once was and is in need of an update. How is he, how is he - who is she to ask that question?

i’m ok , he writes, and he very nearly leaves it at that - content with his own iciness, glad to be the one shutting her out for once. He thinks of the ten minute phone call from Roger on his birthday and the way Sophia’s gaze morphed over their two-year relationship from affection to disgust. Over and over again, life reminded him with poignant accuracy just how little the people around him cared.

But then from across the hall he hears his mother’s voice - singing now, the way she does when she’s completely in her element - and the icy edges of his heart begin to melt, just a little.

how are u?

His brows shoot toward his hairline when her writing appears on his arm at once - he wonders briefly if she would have written something else if he’d made her wait even longer. I’m good. I’m studying for my SATs right now.

Guilt pulses through him, a sudden and vivid memory of Sophia with her textbooks spread across her desk forcing him out of her dorm room, shouting about distractions and failures. She’d slammed the door in his face, and two days later she dumped him on the library’s front steps.

oh sorry , he scribbles, turning back toward the sink. i’ll wash up

He’s only just started reaching for the faucet when quick movement along his right forearm stops him dead. No it’s okay!! Her writing is messier now, like she’s alarmed at him washing his arms. He backs away half a pace from the sink, mesmerized, watching her scratch over his own writing on her arm. And then - I needed to take a break, anyways.

u sure? He writes, biting down on the inside of his cheek. The memory of Sophia’s enraged snarling and her dorm room door slamming echo through his head. i’ve been told i’m a distraction

There’s another pause - more brief this time. You’re not a distraction, I promise. she writes a bit more slowly, like she’s choosing each word deliberately. And even if you were, I need a distraction right now. You’re a good distraction.

Warmth floods his belly, dimming the echoes of that years-old heartache. For a moment all he can do is stare - almost like he’s waiting for a qualifier, or for her to write just kidding! , but a minute passes and neither of those things happen and he starts to believe her.

It’s a little strange, the sudden realization that she’s a whole person with a full life somewhere out there in the universe. She’s clearly a few years younger than him, what with the SATs looming on her horizon, but still - she’s real . And she seems ready and willing to engage in a conversation with him for the first time in...well, ever .

First thing’s first.

i haven’t give u a name yet, he writes as neatly as he can. i keep thinking of u as soulmate but that’s weird. u should have a name

Her response comes almost at once. We can’t tell each other our names unless we meet face to face.

The sound of his scoff echoes off the tile walls surrounding him. With a smirk, he writes i know but we can call each other nicknames weirdo. maybe i’ll call u weirdo.

The frowny face she draws next to weirdo is unfairly cute.

i’m kidding , he scribbles with a laugh. i’m calling u…dora. is that ok?

Why Dora?

i don’t know why not??

I’m just curious jeez

that’s why, he writes, suddenly aware that he’s still grinning broadly down at his arm. because ur curious and so is dora the explorer

There’s a momentary pause. Nice is her response, a little shakier than before, and he likes to imagine it’s because she’s laughing.

ur turn. what r u gonna call me?

By the time her response appears, he’s already back in his mother’s room, gathering his jacket and wallet where they sit on her desk chair. It’s a single name, almost tucked into the crease of his elbow: Johnny.

interesting , he writes. why?

It’s like a nickname for John.

He feels his brow furrow. is that what you think my actual name is?

No. It’s what I think the main character from Die Hard’s name is.

He throws his head back and laughs, loud enough that Karen shouts what? from inside her storage closet. “Nothing!” Jake yells back as he scribbles i love die hard!!! across the scant amount of empty space on his arm. “Just - remembered a joke I heard at work today!”

I know you do, Dora writes, you drew the entire movie all over me for like three years!

A disconnected wave of guilt washes through his gut. yeah sorry about that , he writes as he meanders down the hallway. it was kinda all i could think about after my dad left .

Her response comes after a rather pregnant pause. I’m so sorry, Johnny . The words seem smaller - and infinitely more sincere, somehow.

He says what he always says. it’s ok. i see him on my birthday and most holidays. It’s almost true, except for the part that isn’t: he hasn’t seen Roger in nearly five years.

That doesn’t make it any easier, though.

It’s a simple phrase, but it’s like balm to his tattered heart - and suddenly this girl he’s been inexplicably connected to for his entire life is like a beacon in the night.

He’s twenty-two and enrolled at the local community college, and the future doesn’t seem so big and daunting as it did two years ago. He's only got another semester or two here before he's qualified to enroll at the police academy, and somewhere out there Dora is graduating from high school today and beneath the tattered sleeves of his hoodie his skin is positively covered in sharp smiley faces and more faded writing from the night before, scrubbed away in the morning light. He has to stifle a yawn every few minutes throughout the lecture, and in the back of his mind he hopes she’s doing better than he is on the whole looking awake and staying awake thing.

(He already knows there’s an edge of bitterness to today - stupid valedictorian Valerie and her crazy impossible 4.2 GPA. That title belongs to Dora , dammit.)

He’s twenty-four and he’s just moved into Nana’s apartment, and despite the multiple air fresheners and the open windows he just can’t seem to get the stench of mothballs cleansed from the place. There’s a text on his phone from Gina promising to come by to visit soon and the mail has somehow ended up in his tub but it’s fine, it’s fine, because for the first time in his life he’s independent and it’s awesome.

He’s just settled on the couch for his microwave pizza when he notices it - writing, her writing, far messier than he’s ever seen it along the inside of his right forearm. drinks for dayyssssss, it says, and a laugh escapes the cavity of his chest.

haha ur having a crazy night!! good 4 u i’m so proud of u , he writes with a wide smile.

When two o’clock in the morning arrives and she still hasn’t written back, he lets some of the worry simmering in the space around his heart to take momentary control. She’s by far the smartest person he knows and it wouldn’t surprise him if she could totally take him in a fight, but people can really be unspeakably evil and alcohol has a way of disarming even the most capable of people. hey pls be careful ok? He writes, hoping against hope that she’s already back in her dorm, safely asleep in her bed. get home safe and write me when u wake up

He checks his arm first thing when he wakes up - and sure enough, her writing calms the anxiety still clenching in his gut. I’m very hungover, but I’m alive. Thanks for thinking of me.

The pen still sits on his bedside table to he rolls to his side and grabs it, wondering how long she’s been awake, sending a quick plea to the universe to keep her suffering minimal. try something greasy i promise it’ll soak all that hangover right up. He hesitates, and then - and i’m glad ur alive dora. can’t have u dying before we get a chance to meet irl

Her response comes as he’s sitting down for breakfast: it’s gonna take a lot more than beer pong to keep me from meeting you IRL, Johnny.

He’s twenty-seven and he’s on top of the world, on his third victory lap through Brooklyn in his brand new Mustang, his gaze continuously drawn down to the dent in the hood where he’d thrown his very first arrest just a few hours earlier. None of the other stupid beat cops even cared that he’d caught the guy - congrats on doing your job, rookie - but he just doesn’t care, far too caught up in his own celebration to let their callous, jaded attitudes ruin it for him. Gina’s waiting for him at the bar but he just can’t get out of the car, not yet, not yet, not when the world feels so right and everything's so perfect -

He glances down at his forearm at a red light and sees her, Dora , like the universe knew the one thing that would make this even better and sent her some signal.

How’s the new job?

He swerves into the right lane and pulls the car over, a distant stab of guilt penetrating his giddiness - he’s been pretty crappy at writing her back quickly lately, what with all the training and shadowing he’s been doing. But there’s a pen sitting in the cupholder and even though he has to dig into his skin a little more harshly than he normally likes to in order to get the ink to flow, he writes her back as quickly as he can.

DORA THIS JOB IS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME TODAY WAS SO PERFECT AND I BOUGHT A CAR (LONG STORY) BUT BASICALLY I’M SUPER HAPPY AND I HOPE YOU ARE TOO!!

A beat passes. That’s great!! I’m so glad you love it!

i really do!! this is the first time i’ve ever felt like i really really belong u know? like this is what i was meant to be doing all along. it’s a gr8 feeling!!

Another beat passes. And then, another. I’m really, really happy for you, Johnny. And I’m really proud of you, too.

Call it intuition, call it sleuthing - but suddenly, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the universe didn’t tell her to reach out to him to make his day - it told her to reach out to him so that he could make hers. Carefully, carefully - hey r u ok? u seem sad. or am i reading too much into ur response (lol)

He wonders if she’ll give the standard-issue I’m fine, how are you response that seems to come instinctively - but of course she doesn’t. I am sad, but mostly because I’m stressed out. But it’s okay, it’ll get better soon. I’m seriously so proud of you!!

Like falling off a sudden, sheer cliff, he finds himself wading through a melancholic empathy, wishing more than anything he could be there with her, wherever she is, just so that she could have something solid and real to hold onto. It’s not like it’s possible - as far as he knows, that personal information gets mucked up somewhere along the way if one tries to write the other. That doesn’t stop him from writing i wanna meet you irl right now , though.

???

He laughs a little at that, wondering what she looks like when she’s confused. u sound like u rly need a hug , he explains, and i give the best hugs. where u at

A beat passes. And another. And another. And then -

NYC .

And his heart falls right out of his body.

He’s twenty-nine and just starting on his second year as a detective, and right now he’s knee-deep in what is most certainly his most complex and confusing case to date. He’s closing in on twelve hours here at the precinct and the end of his shift is nowhere in sight; he’s holed up in the briefing room, only glancing up every now and then to watch the night shift move and work around the desks he and the rest of the squad occupy during the day, or else to stare at the little heart Dora drew on their right wrist that morning when she woke up.

(He drew the one on his left wrist, but that one isn’t nearly as important to him.)

He’s tired, and hungry, and cranky, and if he never talks to another human being for the rest of his life it still won’t be long enough to recover from the hell that was the witness interviews completed earlier - and yet he finds himself longing for Dora and her infinite patience and wisdom. So he rolls his sleeves back for the first time all day and finds a message already waiting for him: thank you!

He furrows his brow and grabs the nearest pen. idk what that’s for but ur welcome?? lol

Half an hour passes before he sees movement against his right forearm. I miss you. Is that weird to say?

He thinks briefly of the way the cold seems to permeate his bedroom in the winter, of the leftovers rotting in his fridge, of the ache in his very soul. no, he writes back at once, not at all. i miss u too alot

More than words can say, really. He’s just about to add that when she writes her response: a lot is two words

His laugh is long and loud, the most joyful noise he’s made all day. Already he feels three times lighter; he bites down on his lip to hold in another laugh as he writes, ur a dork is 3

He’s thirty and it’s almost eight o’clock in the morning and he’s already been at work for three hours, too buzzed on the excitement of almost finishing a case to wait until his normal start time to come in and finish. He’s excited because he’s been working on this case for weeks now, but also because Dora’s starting her new job today. He already knows she’s an hour early - she’d told him so - but it’s been twenty minutes since he responded to her and he still hasn’t gotten a message back yet.

ur gonna be freakin awesome dora!!! ur gonna blow them all away and they’re not even gonna know what hit them!!! i can’t wait to hear all about it!!!

He’s pretty much consumed with thoughts of her as he hustles toward the elevator with his case file, intending to head down to the second floor to get Anders to sign off as first responder - but there’s a woman by the elevator (possibly a civilian by the almost lost look in her eyes) who’s trying to catch his eye and inwardly he groans, wondering how quickly he can pass her off to Diaz so he can get on with finishing this case.

“Excuse me?” the woman says a bit loudly, and he stops, wondering if she can see his annoyance at having to stop. “Hi, it’s my first day. I’m Detective Santiago.”

Through the vague embarrassment, a memory comes back to life - that’s right, McGinley did tell them they were bringing on a new detective today. She’s already reaching to shake his hand so he scrambles to switch the casefile from his right hand to his left. “Detective Peralta,” he says as politely as possible, noting her handshake is quite firm. “Welcome aboard.”

She glances down at their clasped hands and something sparks to life in her eyes; before he can really process what’s happening, she’s yanking his arm toward her, shoving his sleeve back, staring at the inside of his wrist like she’s never seen one before.

She’s staring at the heart, he realizes. The heart Dora drew for him.

“Uh,” he coughs, pulling his hand free as gently as possible - and Santiago’s full-on gaping at him, like he’s just started speaking in tongues or sprouted a second head or something. “Is there a problem?” he asks, face flushed with heat.

Slowly, her left hand rises, and she points right at him. And like that isn’t enough - she takes these ragged inhales, and he’s really starting to wonder why no one else in the entire bullpen has noticed this woman whose soul appears to be in full demonic possession. He’s just about to call for help when she speaks.

“J-Johnny?”

And just like that the earth seems to fall away beneath his feet - there isn’t a single soul on the planet who knows what that means, who would say that name in that way, who would look at him like that while they said it. She says that name and the whole world makes sense; she says that name and nothing else in his life matters. He touches his wrist bearing her heart - and she touches her wrist bearing his. Which means -

“ Dora? ”

Her face splits into a wide grin and she’s laughing when he very nearly tackles her in a hug, laughing into the material of his jacket. And it’s like coming home, hugging her; it’s like the most comfortable clothes on the softest couch with the warmest blanket and the best movie, with all the love and tenderness in the world curled up against his side. She smells so good and she feels so good and she’s perfect, perfect, perfect .

“ SOULMATES ?” Charles screeches from the other side of the bullpen.

In any other situation, it would be more than enough to tear Jake out of whatever he’s doing - but he’s just found his soulmate and he’s pretty certain the world ending wouldn’t be enough to make him let go of her now. He’s got thirty years of hugs to make up for, after all. So instead, he mutters, “shut up, Boyle,” into Dora - Santiago’s shoulder.

“I HEAR WEDDING BELLS! ”

Her name is Amy Santiago and she’s the most beautiful and wonderful and perfect human being he’s ever known in his entire life.

She’s whip-smart and tough as nails but also unfailingly kind and disarmingly funny, and when she laughs he can feel it all the way down in his gut. She smells like honeysuckles, he decides; sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. Simple and pure and just wholly herself.

She tells him that he was the lighthouse she sailed toward in the darkest part of her life; he tells her that she was the sunshine on his rainiest days. What they have is sweet and good, everything he longed for and everything she needed, and when Rosa overhears them whispering in the back corner of the break room she drowns their words out with loud and exaggerated gagging noises. It never deters them.

The notes they write to each other on their skin become a little more irregular once they actually know each other, ranging from something as mundane as an addition to the grocery list to a little note of encouragement when one is having a rough day, but one thing always, always remains the same:

When he wakes up in the morning, he rolls to his left to kiss her forehead, and then to his right to grab the Sharpie on his bedside table. And in the scant morning light, as carefully as he can, he traces a heart on the inside of his left wrist.