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Robert Timothy Bryan is the name he had been given at birth. Robert Bryan is the name he had been told would one day be on someone else’s skin. Some time, in his early teens, he had started insisting on being called Tim.Tim isn’t sure exactly when it started, his resentment toward soulmates. He can remember a time when he was a child and he’d trace his father’s name on his mother’s wrist, finding comfort in the idea that they had been made for each other. But that idea, that he also had been made for someone, began to sour at some point. He had grown to question society’s blind following of a phenomenon that nobody truly understood. An entire branch of scientific research devoted to the study of soulmates and the best answer anyone has been able to come up with for why names appear on people’s wrists when they turn eighteen is a shrug.He knows it started long before he turned eighteen when he knew he didn’t want a soulmate, didn’t want to be tied down to a random person selected for him by the universe or God or whatever it is that controls these things. Tim had always looked for answers, for the why of something. Soulmates didn’t have an answer to them, plenty of people as curious as him had tried and failed to find it and that just never had been good enough for him. He can remember thinking that a boy in his class was cute, but there was no point in pursuing that interest until he knew who he was supposed to be with. Maybe that is what began his resentment towards the whole institution, realizing his lack of choice in the matter. Some people saw it as freeing, as one thing they’d never have to worry about. For Tim, it felt like a cage. Tim had nearly convinced himself that he wouldn’t get a name on his wrist, that his aversion to it was such that there was no way the universe would pair him up with another person, as it would be too cruel for his supposed soulmate. The existence of those who never got a name, the mark-less, was just more proof that this whole phenomenon was a cruel joke played on humanity, pairing two or sometimes three people together for no obvious reason, while some people lived their whole lives with nothing, and most people just collectively decided that they were fine with it. Tim was not fine with it.Despite his belief that someone as anti-soulmates as he had been would never receive a soulmate, he understood that the universe had no interest in what he wanted or thought, so the night before his eighteenth birthday he stayed up, watching his left wrist to see what would happen.He had not planned for what he would do if he did get a soul mark, so when he saw the beginnings of a J forming on his skin he had panicked, grabbing the closest thing to him that would cover it, a black bandana on his bedside table. He had wrapped the bandana around his wrist, heart thumping in his chest trying to figure out what he should do, knowing he was now stuck with this bond, this tie to another human being. It had taken him until morning, but by the time he had gone down for breakfast he’d made his choice. Still wearing the black bandana around his wrist, his parent's faces had gone from excited and hopeful to shock and dismayed when they had seen it. They’d tried to assure him that it must be some mistake, and asked to see his wrist themselves, that maybe he had covered it too early. But he had insisted - he had no soulmate.While the stigma of being a mark-less hit him in ways he hadn’t fully anticipated, there had been a freedom to it. People didn’t constantly nag about soulmates to him – the friends who continued to socialize with him always changed the topic to something else when he came around – nobody asked him if he’d found his other half yet, nobody talked to him about the universe’s grand plan for him. Tim had been free to be what he wanted and who he wanted and he didn’t have the pressure of another human life weighing him down. At least, that is for the times when he could convince himself that the name hidden underneath his wristband did not exist – because to him it didn’t, he had no more information than the letter J and if he could get away with it, it would stay that way forever. But it wasn’t always easy, while he could pretend with everyone else that he was just another mark-less he knew the truth, that his soul was bound to another person and not knowing who that person was didn't actually change that fact. Another problem came not long after high school when his imposter syndrome worries really began to kick in. He and a friend, another mark-less, had been walking down the street, when some guys had gone by, yanking the armband his friend wore around his wrist and had run away with it before either of them could react. Tim hadn’t known what to do as his friend stood shaking, shoving his hand as deep into his jacket pocket as it would go, but not before Tim had seen the blank skin where there should be a name. It’s not that he hadn’t known that he was choosing for himself something that plenty of people had no control over, something that most of his mark-less friends would do anything to trade him for, but seeing it so clearly, a mark-less wrist on a person, felt like a punch in the gut.He had gone home that night and seriously contemplated pulling the black brace from his arm, finding out the name that he had been depriving himself of and becoming a normal member of society again. But he couldn’t, the thought of the name on his wrist made him sick, the thought that he had no autonomy in who he should love or feel a bond with or want to be around had felt so unfair. He had no desire to listen to anyone tell him what he should be, including the universe. It was his choice to make, and that's what he'd wait for. Things got better when he joined the Navy. Other than an extra psych evaluation, he wasn’t treated that much different than anyone else. Though he had been exempt from some of the courses that taught soldiers how to ignore their soul bond while in battle, Tim didn’t mind being left out of that particular discussion. While soulmates were often paired together, if they both joined the same branch of the military, the need to be able to think past just a soulmate’s well-being over the rest of the men was drilled in hard, even sometimes to the mark-less. It’s when he joins the recon marines in the Iraq invasion that Tim’s carefully constructed world begins to tilt on its axis. Captain Schwetje looks straight to Tim’s wrist when he’s introduced as Bravo’s medic.“I had a classmate once who was a mark-less,” Schwetje says, apropos of nothing.Tim continues to stare at him. If he’s expecting a response, Tim has none for him. Lieutenant Fick’s eyes glance at the brace around his wrist, as anyone’s would, but he doesn’t remark on it or look at Tim with suspicion or pity, and that’s really all Tim can ask for from people. Brad Colbert’s eyes are cool and calculating as he studies Tim’s wrist but doesn’t say anything about it. It puts Tim on edge – though later, once he gets to know him, he’ll realize that this is just the Iceman’s way – and he’s spent enough of his life arguing against the unthinking faith of soulmates, he doesn’t really want that to be something he’s made to argue about once they get to Iraq too. But all of that is forgotten when Brad reaches over to Corporal Person, the small, obnoxious guy who has been running his mouth all afternoon. Tim has steered clear of him so far because he doesn’t want to make a bad impression his first day with the company, but he can already tell that this guy is the type he’s bound to lock horns with.“Ray, shut the fuck up for two seconds,” Brad says, easily dragging Person over, both due to his clear size advantage against him, and because it looks like Person isn’t struggling at all, just following along easily as though he hadn’t just been stopped in the middle of his sentence.“New medic,” Brad explains.Ray’s eyes flicker from Tim’s face to his wrist, back to his face, and then to the name on his uniform. “Bryan, huh?” Person says, cocking his head to the side.Tim doesn’t respond to the rhetorical question.“You got any family with the first name Rob or Robert?”“What?” Tim asks, before the question can fully form in his brain, and he doesn’t need Person to reply to realize why he’d asked.Person begins to lift his arm – the universal indicator that someone is talking about their soulmate – before quickly snapping it back to his side. He looks down at his arm confused, almost shocked, like he can’t believe he almost showed his mark, even though it is currently hidden beneath the long sleeves of his uniform.Tim barely registers any of this though, as his heart is in his throat and he can hear it beating in his ears, drowning out everything else around him like he’s being held under water. He doesn’t offer Person a response or an explanation as he quickly stomps away. Nobody approaches Tim about Ray Person – Josh Ray Person, he’d figured out – in the three days following his silent tantrum, and he’s not sure what that means. Surely, Ray had gone to someone to inform them of the name on his wrist matching that of the new medic. Tim has no idea what that is going to mean for him, if they’ll force him to reveal that he is not actually a mark-less. He doesn’t know of any laws about falsely claiming to be a mark-less, but he’s sure there are at least consequences to identifying himself as such to the military.But nobody comes to question him. Nobody, until Ray finds him, off on his own, and sits down next to him.“Hi, Robert.”“It’s Tim,” he says coolly, he hasn’t responded to Robert since he was a kid, and he’s not starting now. “Actually, it’s Bryan.”Ray grins. “Ok, Doc Bryan. Can I see?” he asks, reaching for Tim’s arm slowly, but Tim yanks his arm away, regardless of what name Ray has on his arm, it does not give him the privilege to just look at Tim’s wrist, mark or no.“Do you see this?” he asks, holding his arm up so that Ray can see the brace clearly. “This means I don’t have a soulmate. I’m sorry Corporal, but whatever you think I am to you, you’re wrong.”Ray’s eyes are much deeper and more understanding than Tim had expected, he doesn’t look disappointed or hurt by Tim’s rejection. His dark, brown eyes are softer and nicer than Tim had originally noticed. He scowls at the thought.“Can I show you?” Ray asks, holding out his arm.Tim shakes his head. “I’m not interested in whatever is on your wrist, Corporal. It’s got nothing to do with me.”“Just…” Ray starts but then sighs and pushes the sleeve of his arm up enough that Tim can see a thick black mark wrapping around his wrist. A tattoo, he realizes after a moment, just a dark, black band.Ray turns his wrist up so that Tim can see - or not see - what is there. The tattoo covers where a name should be, and without thinking, Tim takes a step forward to look closer. He’s reaching out to grab Ray’s wrist when he realizes what he’s doing. Instead of backing up and walking away, like he knows he should, he glances up into Ray’s eyes, silently asking permission to look. Ray nods.Tim takes Ray’s wrist in his hands gently, as though he’s afraid if he moves too fast Ray will get spooked and bolt, or maybe expecting the same from himself. He has to look closely, but within the dark tattoo, he can see the name Robert Bryan blended in, looking nearly embossed in the tattoo, instead of under it. He can’t help but stare at his name, right on the skin of another person’s body. He fights the growing urge to brush his thumb across the letters, that look raised under the tattoo, but he knows won’t actually have a texture to them.Realizing what he’s doing, what he wants to be doing, Tim takes a step back and clears his throat. “Maybe it’s another Robert Bryan,” he offers, wishing for Ray’s sake it were true.Ray looks down at his wrist for a moment before pulling his sleeve back down around it, obscuring his tattoo, and shrugs. “Maybe.” The rest of their time waiting to be sent off is spent avoiding Ray, and any conversations having to do with Ray. He’s a little surprised that Ray hasn’t told anyone, or that his name showing up on another Marine’s wrist hasn’t raised questions among the higher-ups. He keeps waiting, and nothing happens. Ray doesn’t approach him again and he reminds himself that that’s a good thing. One positive about being in a war zone is the lack of time spent thinking too much.Tim doesn’t think too much about Ray as they move into Iraq, at least not unreasonably more than any of the other men anyway. With all the bullshit going on around them, Tim doesn’t have time to think about his name being on someone else’s skin or the tattoo that had been put there to cover it up – at least not too much time.Despite keeping Ray out of his thoughts, it’s not as easy to stop himself from listening to him when he talks - nobody can really help that though. Ray likes to talk, and for a while, Tim suspected he just liked the sound of his own voice, but as he listens he can’t help but realize how interesting Ray actually is.And Ray is interesting. He talks more than any one person should and it grates on Tim’s nerves, but underneath a lot of the bullshit he spouts he makes interesting observations. Tim hadn’t noticed at first, too intent on trying to ignore the voice, that the things being said escaped him, and half the time the things Ray said sounded like nonsense or jarhead babble. But when Tim started to pay attention he began to understand what Ray was doing, it was his own version of posturing, in a field where he is never going to be physically superior, Ray had found an in where he may not have originally belonged. More than that though, there’s a pattern to Ray’s rants that Time is starting to understand, one that he himself has ranted about before.Ray likes to share wild theories about why they’re all really at war, and each one sounds more ridiculous than the last. His current theory has something to do with NAMBLA – those disgusting guys who get a name on their wrists long before their possible soulmate gets theirs, and attempt to use that as an argument for why they should have a claim on the young boys that they prey on – it’s just another one of the many problems with allowing soulmate culture to rule, turning clear-cut cases of pedophilia into what some consider gray areas. Ray’s tendency to theorize about what the war is really about always seems, at its core, to be due to the absurdities of soulmates. Tim considers Ray’s tattoo again. It’s at the bridge that Tim finally feels the sensation that he’s only read about in books, seen in movies, and listened to others attempt to describe. The tug, that takes him from one moment having his sight set, his gun trained on a man in the tall grass below, to him looking up and over to Team One’s Humvee. He’s just in time to see who he can only assume in the darkness is Ray, yelling and gesturing in a back and forth motion. From the yelling, before on the comms, Tim can extrapolate that he’s trying to get everyone to move back. Tim’s stomach drops as he watches Ray, out in the open, exposed for any errant bullet to hit him, both enemy and friendly. He understands the need to unfuck themselves and get out of this place where they’re just sitting, asking to get shot at, but why Ray felt like the best course of action would be to get out and yell, Tim has no idea. All he knows is the desperate urge he feels inside of him to jump out of his own Humvee and rush to Ray, it’s only through sheer force of will and a call over the comms he can hear from Pappy about a man down that keeps him in his seat.Just as quickly as the tug came up on him, it fades as Ray hops back into his seat without a scratch. Tim takes a deep breath and rejoins the fight. Getting Pappy sent off and getting Stafford patched up takes enough of his time and energy that he doesn’t dwell too much on what had happened. That is until Brad walks by and Tim feels a rush of anger.“You just let him jump out in the middle of it like that?” he asks as Brad passes, partially hoping he won’t even notice him.But Brad stops and looks at him, confused.“Who? The LT?”Tim scoffs. “No, LT took a page from Ray’s book to direct traffic.”Brad doesn’t look any less confused and Tim is realizing that he hadn’t even noticed Ray’s stunt.“Ya know, just because it wasn’t Walt doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be keeping an eye out. You’re their team leader, it’s your job to stop them from doing stupid shit like that.”He doesn’t wait for Brad to respond before he makes his way back to his Humvee, they’re Oscar Mike soon and he needs to calm down.He’s glad he’d stopped himself where he had, because he had wanted to tear into him more about how Brad would have never allowed Walt to do something like that, but that’s not fair and he knows it, Walt is up on the gun, exposed, all the time. He isn’t sure how Brad can stand it.Tim has been able to ignore the niggling sense of worry that has settled in his stomach since the start of all this, whenever Ray’s Humvee is at the tip of the spear. But now that it’s been brought to the surface he can’t seem to rein it back in.It’s after the second assault, when half the platoon is passed out, while the rest are too wired to sleep, that he finds Gunny Wynn.“When the LT did that, jumped out and ran into it like that, how did you…how did you handle it? Don’t you have some kind of reaction to something like that?” he asks.Mike studies him for a moment, quirking an eyebrow, but eventually, he shrugs.“Sure, it felt like I was having a heart attack, but the training helps with that. Ya know how hard they drill it into us, to keep going through all the panic,” he says, but then eyes Tim’s wrist. “Or maybe you don’t know. It’s hard, but Nate is his own person, and he’s not the only one I can spend all my time worrying about, we have jobs to do.”That reminds him of where his inability to manage his excess panic is coming from, why he can’t regulate it the way everyone else here can regarding their soulmate. He had been exempt from most of the training for soulmates, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he’d need it, and up until now he’d been able to push past it. Right now, he feels weak. He tries to remind himself that he has a strong enough will to get through this, he knows he does. The next day, he goes to find Brad, to apologize for the night before. He finds him pressed up against Walt’s side, the only form of affection they can probably show out here, talking with Poke. Tim talks about the people he’d shot last night, people he’d barely thought about after it was all over, his mind so preoccupied with Ray, yet he hadn’t lost any sleep over it either and he can’t feel anything about it now. “I feel like I wasn’t myself at all last night,” he says, hoping Brad will understand.He seems to as he sends Tim a nod, but doesn’t leave it there when he asks, “have you checked on Ray?” Tim’s first reaction to a question like that is panic – he hadn’t heard anything about Ray needing medical attention. His next inclination is to get defensive, if anyone were to know the name on Ray’s wrist Tim would guess it to be Brad.He doesn’t respond as he stands back up, leaving them without a word.Tim would swear if someone asked him that he hadn’t been looking for Ray, nevertheless, he finds him and figures he may as well check.He pulls him aside, behind one of the Humvees, trying to keep a clinical eye as he looks him over.Ray pushes his hands away after a few seconds of Tim attempting to examine him.“I’m fine. What’s going on?”“You’re sure? Brad told me to check on you.” So, that’s not exactly true, but he doesn’t really care at this point. Ray rolls his eyes. “He’s just overprotective and thinks we’re both idiots.”Tim takes a step back. “What?”When all Ray does is shrug Tim starts, “he knows about-“ then cuts himself, ending the thought with a look down to Ray’s wrist.“Of course he does, he was with me when I got this,” Ray tells him, holding his arm up just an inch, the tattoo barely visible under his sleeve.“Ok,” Tim starts, attempting to wrap his head around this. “So, why does he think we’re idiots?”Ray huffs. “Brad was in 100% agreement with me that soulmates are fucking stupid. That is, until a certain puppy dog with the same name as the one on his wrist came bounding into his life and he just forgot about everything he’d been preaching about since before we’d even met. I can’t blame him though, Walt’s a catch,” he says with a smirk, looking up to meet Tim’s eyes.Things start to click together for Tim as he uses his newly developed skill of listening to all the things Ray says and all the things he isn’t saying.“You two were together?”Ray rolls his eyes again. “Relax, it’s not nearly as tragic as that sounds.”Tim frowns. “But he left you for Walt.”“Correction, I left him so that he could be with Walt.”“Why would you do that? I thought you didn’t believe in soulmates.”Ray narrows his eyes at him. “I don’t believe in ghosts, I’ve never seen one and I think people who talk to dead people are con artists or fucked in the head. I believe in soulmates, I’ve seen them every day of my life, we’re surrounded by them. Soulmates are real whether we like it or not, and while I’d prefer they didn’t exist, that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna ignore it and hope it goes away. And I’m not gonna stay in a relationship with a guy who was clearly meant for someone else.”He knows he asked, but he’s not sure why Ray is being so open like this, he almost wishes he’d just told him to mind his own fucking business and walked away.“Brad wouldn’t have done it,” Ray continues, and now Tim is really confused. “He was fucked over the same way, left for a soulmate. He would never have done it to me, no matter how miserable he got. So, I did it myself.”“Are you still in love with him?” Tim can’t help but ask, he doesn’t even know where the question is coming from, doesn’t want to think about why he’s asking.But Ray just grins. “Nah, Doc, I’m good, really. We were always better as friends anyway. And it turns out there are some advantages to having a soulmate.”Tim narrows his eyes when Ray doesn’t elaborate, just continues to grin.“What does that mean?”Instead of answering Ray just reaches out to pat him on the arm before turning and walking toward his Humvee, yell-singing one of his many pop songs. He tries to shake Ray’s words off, tries to get them out of his head, but they remain like an itch in the back of his brain. On the one hand, it’s just another thing to add to the list of why soulmate culture is so fucked up. Two people can’t even find each other and choose to be together without fate jumping in and deciding that they’re not meant to be together. It ruins what could maybe have been a good, stable relationship. Ray and Brad had chosen each other, shouldn’t that be enough?But on the other side, Ray’s words about soulmates making it easier keeps him wondering, keep him thinking about the possibility that any residual heartache Ray possibly had been feeling left him when he’d met Tim. He doesn’t know if that’s arrogant or not. It’s not like he had anything to do with it. He didn’t choose Ray, and Ray didn’t choose him.The thing that he can’t help but keep coming back to, the real thought that has been stuck in his brain for longer than he will admit to himself, is that he doesn’t know if, given a choice, he wouldn’t choose Ray, regardless.He no longer feels the same sense of self-righteousness as he once had.He’s watched the Fedayeen, with their red scarfs over their left arm, signifying their allegiance to their leader over all else, even their soulmates, and Tim can’t help but look at his own brace – matching them more than he'd like. He wonders what his allegiance is to. For the first time since he’d wrapped that first bandana around his wrist, he feels the weight and the itch of the fabric of the brace against his skin. Tim continues to try not spending too much time wondering and worrying about Ray and soulmates and the universe’s ultimate plan for him, he’s too busy dealing with the rest of the fucked up parts of his life.And, as it seems, having to watch as others begin to crumble under the weight of it all. He’s not sure who looks more lost, Walt or Brad. Walt, who looks pale and exhausted and haunted by his mistake, while Brad just looks on helplessly, worry thrumming through every inch of him that even while sitting still he looks to be in motion. But, as always, he also watches Ray. He watches Ray try and he watches him help and he watches as Ray brings Walt – and by extension Brad – back from the zombie state he’d found himself in. He can’t help but see it all, see the truth in Ray’s words about there being no hard feelings between him and them. It makes him want to talk to Brad, want to ask him what it felt like to one-minute care for one person and for the next have his entire world taken over by another, without any choice in the matter. But he knows he’s assuming an ease where one may not have been. The careful way in which Brad and Walt move around each other, what Tim had originally taken as being due to their current locations and circumstances, Tim can now see in a different light, where Ray is always on their mind. He understands the feeling. As their time in Iraq begins to wind down, Ray seems to as well. Several of the guys are dealing with the withdraw from their Ripped Fuel, but none so obvious as Ray. Tim could see the lethargy, the mood swings, the change in appetite, but he hadn’t known just how bad it had gotten until Ray tackles Rudy.Tim is sprinting out onto the field as soon as Rudy gets his hold on Ray, and it’s only due to the number of guys already working on breaking them up that Tim doesn’t do anything drastic against Rudy.Ray screams and struggles against the hold on him, eventually extracting himself enough to walk away, visibly shaking and upset.Brad starts to follow first and Tim holds himself back, watching as Brad walks behind Ray for a moment. But then he stops, letting Ray continue on by himself and Tim can only stand watching Ray walk off by himself for a couple of seconds before he’s following, brushing past Brad on his way. Tim finds Ray on the other side of another blown out building, scrubbing at his face to keep himself from crying.“Ray?” he starts, trying to make his presence known, but he still seems to startle Ray enough for him to freeze for a moment then cross his arms tucking into himself as though maybe Tim won’t see him.Tim walks over, ignoring the clear signs that Ray wants to be left alone, because he’s been leaving Ray alone for the past six weeks and he doesn’t really think he has it in him to do that much longer. He takes Ray’s head in his hands, gently maneuvering it so that he can get a good look at his face.“Let me just check you out,” he says, pretending that his worry comes strictly from a medic’s perspective, it's just more bullshit from him.Ray doesn’t seem to buy it either, but he doesn’t push him off, just allows himself to be moved and prodded as Tim looks for any significant damage done. Other than a rough mark around his neck and a bruise above his eyebrow Ray doesn’t look too bad, mostly just shaken by the whole ordeal.“What the hell were you thinking?” Tim asks, his hands still holding Ray’s head, no longer searching for anything though.Ray’s tired and glassy eyes answer that question for him and Ray doesn’t even try to put into words what war his head has been waging for the past few days, if not longer.Tim realizes he’s stroking Ray’s cheek with his thumb when Ray’s eyes begin to close, resting his head a little more in Tim’s grip. He doesn’t pull back this time though, doesn’t even consider it.They stay like this for a minute, until Ray brings his hand up to grip Tim’s wrist, not to pull him away, if anything to keep him there. Ray’s fingers rest against the fabric of the brace and Tim feels a little sick at the sight of it.“I don’t know if I have your name,” he blurts out, honestly.Ray’s eyes open to look at Tim, he doesn’t ask, but Tim explains.“I’ve never looked, I don’t know what name I have on my wrist.”“You’ve never looked?”Tim shakes his head.“Wait, you’ve never taken this thing off?” Ray asks, fingers rubbing up and down on the brace.“Of course I’ve taken it off to wash it.”Ray’s eyes narrow. “And you never even glanced at it? Weren’t tempted to even peek?”“No.”“What the fuck? That’s like…Gandhi levels of self-control.”Tim just tightens his grip on Ray, because he wants to make his point clear.“I don’t know if your name is on my wrist. And I don’t know if I want it to be there. Because I still think that a lot of things about soulmates is fucked. And maybe everything I’ve been feeling is just more soulmate bullshit, but I’m starting to think that maybe the universe knows what it’s doing sometimes. And whatever name I have here, and whatever kind of hypocrite this may end up making me, all I know is that I want you to be in my life, in whatever way works for you.”Ray’s grin widens as Tim talks and by the time he’s done Ray is fulling smiling up at him, his eyes crinkling through the strain of it.He takes Tim’s left hand from his face to hold between both of his.“Do you really not want to know?” he asks.Tim feels a knot in his stomach. “I know that you’ve been burned before, so if you want to look then that’s up to you. But it doesn’t change anything for me either way.”Ray doesn’t move to mess with the brace at all, just keeps his hands against it as he looks into Tim’s eyes.“Fuck getting burned before, I don’t care about that shit. I know what I want right now and whether my name is under here or not isn’t going to make me feel it any less. I just don’t understand how you went so long without knowing, I’ve only not known for two minutes and I’m about ready to tear my hair out.”Tim can’t help but smile at that and he turns his wrist up in offering.“Wait, really?” Ray asks.“Go for it.”“Tim, I was just –“ “I’m serious. I want you to know.”Ray studies him for a moment, but can clearly see the truth in Tim’s eyes, so he takes a deep breath, looking down at the wrist in his hands. His fingers slide up underneath the fabric of the brace and Tim nearly shivers from the sensation on the sensitive skin there. Ray looks up one more time, giving Tim the opportunity to pull back, Tim just nods.Ray has to dig in a little to get the brace to budge but eventually is able to move it up Tim’s arm enough for his wrist to be exposed.Tim keeps his eyes on Ray’s face, waiting for a reaction, but Ray keeps his face completely neutral, no disappointment or excitement and Tim narrows his eyes, looking for even the smallest tell but there is none.Ray’s fingers brush over the skin for a moment and Tim feels an electric shock run through him. He’s heard of this happening, when soulmates touch their own name, and he can’t deny that despite his conflicting feelings about it all, in this moment, all he can feel is relief.Only a minute has passed when Ray tugs the brace back down, covering Tim’s wrist again.“Maybe you can get a tattoo like mine, then you won’t have to wear this thing all the time,” Ray suggests, running his hand over the brace, then up Tim’s arm, to rest against Tim’s back before he pulls himself into Tim to wrap both his arms around him.Tim is hugging Ray back before the thought even comes to his mind to do so.He looks down at his wrist before locking his arms more fully around Ray, pressing his nose to the side of Ray’s head.“I like that idea.”