Chapter Text
It was dark when Julian’s grandmother found him. He had escaped the little farmhouse after dinner, mumbling a weak excuse about going for a walk that he had known wouldn’t keep her long. But he hadn’t felt up to talking and the little walls of the house had felt as though they were closing in about him, trammelling him in with his thoughts.
It really wasn’t the way one was meant to feel on Christmas. The snow had crunched under his feet as he made his way into the penned in little yard, quietly passing the chicken coop and the little garden patch and out the gate. The dirt road down to the beach was rocky, slippery from ice and snow, but familiar, and he followed it easily.
He didn’t go down to the water. It was far too cold for that. Instead, he settled in a seat on the sand, where a crumbling stone wall had sheltered it from the worst of the snow, staring out at the water beyond. He breathed in slowly as the waves crashed against the shore, trying to take that rhythm, that inevitability into himself. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on nothing but the sound of the water rumbling in his ears, and the sting of the cold wind on his cheeks.
Because of that, he didn’t notice his Grandmother’s arrival until she folded herself into a seat on the sand beside him with a little sigh. “Would you tell me what’s disturbing you, my heart?” She asked, her soft voice entirely patient. She looped a scarf around his neck without waiting for him to answer, dropping his gloves into his lap.
Julian looked down, fingering the edge of the woolen cuff. “It doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t look up, but he could hear the soft smile in her voice. “It does if you intend to earn frostbite over it, my dear.”
Julian’s lips quirked up in a little reluctant smile, and he tugged on the gloves, wiggling his fingers to make her laugh. “I just… Was thinking about this morning.”
That morning, they had cooked up three trays of Christmas sticky buns and brought them into the village, as they did every Christmas. Two trays for the church to hand out when they opened to those in the village with no where else to go on Christmas night. The other they had taken around the village to divy up among his Grandmother’s friends.
It had never bothered him before now. He had always liked the tradition, the bit of anticipation before they even considered opening presents. He liked taking them to the church, and singing carols together as they walked down the icy country lanes.
But today, stepping into Mr. Corinth’s little flat in the center of the village, a sense of cold dread had swelled in the center of his stomach, tight and painfully difficult to ignore.
He was already fifteen. There weren’t many children his age in the village, but those that were had already felt at least the stirrings of the bonds. Bruises they didn’t recognize, that flared to life, and faded within moments. Cuts and scrapes and normal childish accidents that they hadn’t caused.
But Julian hadn’t. He hadn’t felt a thing. He was fifteen, and he hadn’t felt even a whisper of transference across the bond that supposedly linked him to the other half of his soul. The transference could begin as young as ten in some, yet even at fifteen, he hadn’t felt a whisper of pain that wasn’t his. It was like there was no one there. Like it was empty. As if the world had taken his measure, and decided there was nothing that could be done. It happened sometimes, that the bond simply never formed.
It had happened to Mr. Corinth.
“What about this morning?” His grandmother asked gently. “Did you not like what you got?”
He shook his head, plucking at the fingers of his gloves. “No, nothing like that. Just… Mr. Corinth.”
“Ah,” She sounded unsurprised.
Julian swallowed and looked back out at the crashing waves, “I’ve still never felt them.”
Her fingers carded his hair back from his face, and he looked up at her at last. She smiled reassuringly, the creases around her eyes deepening a little. “You’re only fifteen, love,” she murmured. “It’s slow at your age, you know that.”
“But I’ve never felt anything,” Julian insisted, rubbing his hands over his arms roughly, “not even for an instant. Surely I should have felt something by now.”
“Perhaps she may be younger than you,” his grandmother said reassuringly. “The transference doesn’t start until both parties are entering adulthood. Your grandfather was ten years younger than me, and I didn’t feel a thing till I was twenty-five.”
Julian still wasn’t soothed. He frowned, staring out at the grey-green ocean. It wasn’t that he minded the idea that his soulmate was younger than him, but he needed to be sure. He needed to know that there was a reason that he hadn’t felt anything when everyone else did. Besides, even at fifteen, he was fairly certain that whoever his soulmate was, they wouldn’t be a she. He couldn’t bring himself to mention that to her now. “But,” his voice was very soft, and he couldn’t bring himself to look up into her too-kind face. “What if I don’t have one? What if I don’t feel anything, because there is no one for me?”
“Oh my Julian, sweet, come here,” she pulled him gently into the circle of her arms, tucking his head against her chest and resting her chin on the top of it. “God’s gifts don’t come in the times or shapes we expect of them,” she murmured, rubbing her hand gently over his back. “We can’t expect or demand them, or be impatient. He’ll guide us to them, when we need them. It’s rare, for people to be completely alone in the world.”
But it did happen. Julian thought again about Mr. Corinth, alone on Christmas except for them in that bare little flat. “But what if--”
“If that’s true, you’ll find your own happiness in the world,” She said firmly, tilting his head back to make him look at her. “You don’t need a soulmate to be happy, my dear. I haven’t had your grandfather for thirty years, but they’ve been a good thirty nonetheless. I had my daughter, and my church and my work, and I had you. There are plenty of things to fill your life with, even without that.”
Julian tried to accept her words. There was nothing he could do about it either way, after all. And like she said, it was rare to not have a soulmate, somewhere among the billions of people in the world. And he was only fifteen.
He’d still been fifteen when she’d died, leaving him alone, and he had been thrust into the darkness of Dublin’s underworld on his own. No friends, no home, no family, and no choice but to do whatever he had to to survive. With no whisper of a flicker from the bond.
By eighteen, he knew she had been wrong. He had no soulmate. Surely, if he had he would have felt something in all this time? He wouldn’t have been alone with it all. No, he was through with hoping. He had no soulmate, and the realization sent him hurtling into a reckless spiral that he was glad she wasn’t around to see. A spiral that had led him to Agnes. And the Rangers.
By thirty he was glad of it. Time had given him the distance he needed to see God’s wisdom, where before he had only seen heartbreak. He was far too stained to be the other half of anyone’s soul. He had done too much, and been too much to subject on anyone else. He was glad.
He told himself he was glad.