Soul Mate AU
Soulmarks: tattoo like in appearance, soul marks form on all involved parties when the youngest member reaches their age of majority. Touching someone's soulmark without their consent is considered incredibly taboo and violating. Touching someone’s soulmark when baring the matching mark is supposed to be incredibly pleasurable for all parties involved, more so if it is the two marks that are touching.
ref link, tho I'm gonna put the same soulmark descriptions under each character anyway
Contents: DoL relationships; Avery's anger issues; public stuff; doctor/patiant, mildly; talk of cutting (Kylar's section); teacher/student, mildly; farm fuckery (aka, Remy's whole fucking section); cat Bailey AU; FUCT Robin AU; Yandere Avery AU; Eldritch PC AU
Words: 2608
Alex
(93)
Geometric shapes. Bold, dark lines. Elbow to shoulder on their right arm.
Loves touching your soulmark. Loves you touching their soulmark. Loves all of it.
Higher dominance Alex is likely to brush their hand down your soul mark whenever they have the chance. Even if it might be considered “rude” to do so in front of others.
Lower dominance waits for more private moments. A teasing stroke over your mark while shielded from prying eyes, shivering if you return the favor and ghost a hand over their mark.
Loves cuddling in the morning, pressed against each other, absentmindedly tracing the lines of your matching marks.
Avery
(153)
Thin, delicate, lace like lines across their collar bones. Ends in thick, jagged lines going down their sternum
God, there’s so much pressure on you to act absolutely perfect if you actually want Avery to let you walk around with a matching mark.
That said, they like touching your mark.
At low anger, they’re tender, tips of their fingers gliding over the marks.
They may even let you touch their marks, though not often. It’s very rare for Avery to allow it. Something about you touching their marks makes them feel out of sorts, out of control. So, it’s only when they’re drained from work that they indulge in the lazy pleasure of allowing you to take care of them in this way. A hand tucked between their legs and your tongue tracing their marks.
High rage Avery presses down on your marks hard enough to make your vision blur, pain mixed into the act that would normally bring pleasure. But, you won’t make them do that too often, will you?
Bailey
(215)
Thin lines that crisscrosses their lower stomach in an intricate pattern and circles around their upper thighs.
It’s a stupid situation, trying to wrangle one of their brats in their own fucking office, it that’s Bailey’s life: stupid situation after stupid fucking situation.
Except when you headbutt their stomach, shirt having ridden up from the physical activity, and your skin brushes over the marks that had only recently bloomed across their skin, it somehow gets worse.
What do you mean that the pain they brace themself for never comes? Or, it does, but mostly covered in strange euphoria.
But, Bailey knows what that means, new anger sparking within them and fueling their ability to pin you down, to tear at your clothes, to expose your mark.
Your mark that matches Bailey’s.
And they press down on it, thumbs digging into the soft of your thighs as you squirm under them. They hope you feel more pain than pleasure.
They have to keep you, they think. Who knows how you could be used against them if others find out?
And what are you to them, anyway? Important, one way or another, apparently.
So, fuck you.
Varey rarely touches your marks after that and forbids you from touching their’s.
Yet, sometimes, you’ll wake up with Bailey’s hands pressed against the mark, palm flat and fingers splayed, dark eyes fixed on that point of contact.
Briar
(108)
One thick line running over the knuckles on their right hand.
Oh, new lil star walking into Briar’s lovely establishment with marks that match the one that just recently bloomed across their knuckles. How interesting.
Enjoys taking your hand in theirs, ringed thumb rolling over the mark on your knuckles, watching you shiver at such a simple action.
Especially likes touching your marks in public and letting others see how it affects you.
That said, not keen on you doing the same to them. When especially tense, they don't mind the pad of your thumb following the line across the ridges of their knuckles while in their office. Lets their head tilt back, eyes shutting as their muscles relax.
Black Wolf
(83)
Jagged marks under their left eye
It's actually quite easy to overlook their mark, looking almost like a scar.
Brushing your thumb over the mark has Black Wolf relaxing, regardless of if they’re the alpha or not.
When they’re the alpha, they’ll climb on top of you, rutting against your thigh as you trace the mark.
When you’re the alpha, they roll over, wanting you to straddle them as your fingers linger.
As for them, they like licking your mark, regardless of how close to your eye it is.
Darryl
(88)
A thick ring around their left pinky
So nervous when they realize they share a mark with you.
Covers up their own mark and it takes them a while to build up the courage to tell you that you have matching marks.
Very gentle the first time they touch your mark, asking if it’s okay in a voice barely above a whisper, fine tremor running through their hands.
Nervous when you first touch their mark, but doesn’t regret it a bit.
Likes hooking your pinkies together, a cross between holding hands and a pinky promise.
Doren
(103)
Looks like the letters of a dead language encircling their right wrist.
Will not let you touch it in public, and that goes double when at school.
Also won’t touch your mark in public.
Well, they might if it’s to calm you down if you’re having a particularly rough day, though behind the privacy of a closed door or secluded corner.
Very gentle when they touch your mark, brushing over your wrist like it’s something fragile, breakable.
Only really allows you to touch their mark when at their apartment, though if you’re holding hands then it’s easy to pretend that it’s an accident if you press your marks together and make Doren stumble a little.
Eden
(139)
Thick, almost painful looking lines over their left breast and going up their neck. Stops under their jaw.
Don’t touch their marks.
Don’t do it.
Even though you bare their match, their mirror, do not touch Eden’s marks.
At least, not until they trust you.
Even then, you’re risking your ass to touch Eden’s marks.
They like it, though it feels incredibly vulnerable, thus, don’t do it.
You can get away with it during sex, usually. Unless they’re punishing you. Then you’re gonna get slapped.
Also more likely to get away with touching their marks when they’re falling asleep, little shiver of pleasure running through them as they drift off.
All this said, they’re touching your marks whenever the fuck they want.
Especially loves grabbing you by the chin and rubbing their thumb along the marks under your jaw. Double so if you’ve been acting like a brat. A good reminder that you’re theirs, no matter what.
Great Hawk
(59)
Small intersecting circles under their right eye.
Please touch their marks.
So proud of their marks now that they’ve come in and they adore you paying any attention to them.
Chirps every time you touch them, all puffed up.
Often nuzzles your marks. Loves brushing against them with their feathers.
Favorite time to have their marks touched or to touch your marks is when flying together.
Gwylan
(75)
Very complex markings running down the length of their spine.
It’s rare for their marks to be visible and is at a loss for words when they find out you wear their match.
Doesn’t really like them touched, to be honest. It’s weirdly intense, with it being along their spine and all.
Only really likes it if you run a feather light finger down their spine. Not too much pressure, just enough for them to feel it.
Also not big on touching your marks, either.
Harper
(102)
Thin, barely noticeable spirals on their tongue.
God they're so fucking ecstatic to touch your mark at all fucking times.
Every time you see Harper, they wanna check your tongue, rubbing their thumb over the marks.
You're really lucky they haven't yet found a way to do away with the gloves yet when in the hospital.
If you're ever in the asylum, they're not wearing gloves.
Would adore you touching their marks if they weren't on their tongue. Makes it kinda hard to remain “professional.”
That said, when they get to kiss you or coach you into kissing them, they nearly cream their pants from your soul marks touching.
Kylar
(80)
Soft, faded looking lines that weave up their right arm like tendrils. Starts at their wrist, ends at their elbow.
Touch!
Kylar's!
Marks!
Please!
Touching each others marks calms them down so fast.
Aggravates their jealousy like nothing else if you refuse to let them touch your marks.
Always gets a soft look in their eyes when touching marks.
Babbles about it when hysterical, rubbing your marks almost painfully hard. Why are you acting like this when there's proof right here that you are meant for them?
Maybe they should make sure your marks are deeper, more prominent, with their knife…
Leighton
(109)
Bands around their right knee
They’ll know you’re soulmates long before you do.
And they’re not telling you, either.
Likes the spark of fear in your eyes when their hand first cups your knees, the confusion when pleasure runs up your spine when their thumb brushes the mark.
Lets you stew, thinking something wrong with you, like you’re a pervert for feeling pressure when Leighton, someone who isn’t your soulmate, touches your mark.
Would probably let you go on like that for a while, only revealing it as a power play.
Doesn’t want you just randomly grabbing at their mark, but likes when you place your hand on their mark when giving them head.
Mason
(77)
Looks like gills on either side of their neck.
Don’t touch their marks.
Don’t touch them at school.
Don’t look at them.
Don’t acknowledge they’re your soulmate.
Their authority as a teacher is already undermined by their age and now this? One of their students is their soulmate?
Please say this is a bad joke.
But, at the pond, when they’ve gotten to know you, maybe.
Lets their eyes close as your fingers brush over them.
Hesitant on touching your marks but will if you insist.
Remy
(161)
Small, dark spots behind their left ear. Some might say it's a cow print pattern.
Fuck you.
They’ll never notice it if you drop into the riding school. Nor if you’re just Alex’s silly little partner.
No, the only way Remy finds you’re soulmate is during new cattle intake.
And they’re pissed.
They’re always wearing their gloves, so at least you don’t react when they find it.
They’ll keep you in the dark about your matching marks.
And then they keep you isolated until they figure out what the fuck to do with you.
Obedient cattle will find out eventually when they tug their gloves off, cupping your face and letting their thumb brush over your marks while you eat an apple out of their other hand.
Disobedient cattle find out when Remy has finally had it with you, ripping off their gloves and pressing their thumb against your marks so hard that it's more pain than pleasure, making your knees buckle and your will to fight flicker.
Regardless, they won’t let you touch their marks.
Robin
(85)
Thin, soft, intricate swirls in the middle of their chest.
IT’S THEIR FAVORITE THING.
It’s so comforting, their best friend sharing their soulmark.
Huge boost of confidence anytime one of you touches the others marks.
Very flustered the first time due to the placement but gets more comfortable with it as time goes on.
Not big on touching soulmarks in public but only because of the placement.
Low confidence Robin might be persuaded to touch soulmarks in semi public areas.
High confidence Robin might try to persuade you to touch soulmarks in semi public areas.
Sydney
(98)
Two thin lines starting at their shoulder blades and ending at their hips.
Even though soulmarks are considered a divine symbol of love between partners, Sydney is hesitant to touch yours or let you touch theirs.
The higher their purity, the more likely they are to wait until you two are bound by the temple before touching soulmarks.
The more corrupt they become, the more likely it is that you can coax Sydney into taking off their shirt and letting you trace the marks on their back.
At their most corrupt, Sydney will slip their hand up the back of your shirt in somewhat public places to stroke over your marks.
Whitney
(126)
Fluid, swirling lines on the inside of their right thigh.
I hope you like wearing skirts ‘cause Whitney wants you in one at all times so they can hike it up and grab at your marks.
And they will do that wherever they feel like.
At low dominance, they’ll stop if you tell them to at least?
Also, if you don’t wear a skirt, they’ll try to get their hands down your pants whenever they feel like messing with you and your marks.
And hey, Whitney is your soulmate. Shouldn’t you want to do shit that’ll make ‘em happy?
That’s what they’ll say, anyway.
As for touching their marks, they’ll only let you when alone.
Even at low dominance, they’ll try to smack your hands away if you try to touch their marks when out public.
Wren
(89)
Small swirls on their left ankle. Easily mistaken for an actual tattoo instead of a soul mark.
Likely to kick off their shoes and press their foot against your mark under the table while playing blackjack as a way to distract you.
Gets flustered if you do it back to them, but tries to hide it behind wide smiles and low laughs.
Does sometimes daydream about having you laying under them, holding your foot, thumb brushing over your marks before dragging your leg over their shoulder and ducking down to give you head.
But, as your relationship is, it’s limited to playing footsie during card games.
BONUS
Cat Bailey
(83)
A bit better about touching marks but still isn't big on it.
Purrs every time you brush against their marks but don't ever mention that you noticed.
It's really when they go into heat/rut that things change. They're more likely to grab at your marks, to press you against their's.
Don't ever mention how sometimes you'll wake up to find Bailey resting with their cheek against the marks on your stomach, eyes closed, purr rumbling in their chest and tail flicking lazily.
Fuct Robin
(68)
Less into soul mark touching, really.
Sure, they still like it, but it makes them feel out of sorts, like they’re still the fresh 18 year old in a cramped orphanage room fumbling around with their partner they were when you first got your matching marks.
Though, they’re much more touchy with your marks. Likes sleeping with a hand pressed to the marks on your chest. Stops nightmares.
Yandere Avery
(89)
Hope you don't get cold easily because Avery isn't allowing you to wear anything that covers your marks when you're home.
Out and about, they make you cover up more, but any passerby can tell your marks match. What, you didn't think you were leaving the house without them, did you?
Touchs your marks all the time: right when they wake up, when they first get home after work, before falling asleep. All. The. Time.
Also more likely to touch your marks out in public, but only very rarely.
Eldritch PC
(71)
The soul marks have added tentacle motifs now, lol.
More intense for when your partner touches you.
Doesn’t mind the intensity:
Alex
Darryl
Doren
Eden
Great Hawk
Leighton
Robin
Pure Sydney
Cat Bailey
Yandere Avery
Less likely to touch because of the intensity:
Avery
Bailey
Briar
Black Wolf
Gwylan
Mason
Remy
Whitney
Fuct Robin
Likes the intensity:
Harper
Kylar
Corrupt Sydney
Whitney
Wren
Black Wolf
Great Hawk
Fuct Robin
Yandere Avery
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Danny 'I don't do weird' Pink frustrates me as a character, because I'm honestly not sure whether he was supposed to have an arc or not.
His primary role is as a foil for Clara's arc and, in aid of that, as a mirror to the Doctor. A solider with survivor's guilt and a man of action who can't stand by when people need help etc., in some ways he and the Doctor have a lot in common, but he's also a very grounded and circumspect personality versus the Doctor's being fantastical and adventurous. Danny isn't curious and doesn't want to pursue new things or experiences, instead he wants to be fully present with and grateful for what he already has. The Doctor is incorrigibly curious and always interested in new things.
Danny is someone who desires nothing more than an ordinary life, and looks for beauty and satisfaction in the normal things and people around him. He wants his world to be small and quiet, he values the mundane things others might take for granted. He's normal, patient, dependable, simple, honest, etc. His reaction to trauma hasn't been to disavow the things which lead him to that event, or to seek out stimulation to avoid thinking about it, it's to be thoughtful and cautious and somewhat rigid so he can always apply the mindset and skills he retained from before he was traumatised.
He's very firm and unbending in his worldview and in his self-image. He doesn't seem to ever reassess people once he's decided what he thinks of them. He's not unreasonable or unwilling to compromise, he is in fact maybe too reasonable, but he is implastic. He's extremely even-tempered except for around his identity as a soldier, which he's prickly about, but still pretty quick to let it go as long as he's not being deliberately antagonised.
So anyway Danny represents this other path, and this opposite response to the horror of war and making a catastrophic mistake, but he never learns, he never grows and he and Clara are never much on the same wavelength about anything. He's supposed to be stability, the things she 'should' want, the 'person she's supposed to like', the safe choice, the presentable life which Clara feels like she has to have. He's orderly and ordinary and that's what she wants from him. She has to control her image, her future, and her options.
And their simple relationship, once it exists, functions well as the contrast to her complicated and tumultuous relationship with the Doctor while the companion power dynamic is being dismantled and rebuilt so they can be emotional equals. But like, the set up is confusingly executed.
Listen- they have zero chemistry, they have nothing to talk about and have to resort to talking about work, every conversation goes instantly off the rails, they rub each other the wrong way, there is never any reason for them to keep reconciling and trying again to connect. Like. You are not hitting it off! and keep offending each other bc you're not compatible! Quit!!
Clara is forcing it, that makes complete sense with what she's going through, she's trying to take control of her life and her emotions, trying to prove to herself she's not pining for the Doctor and at the mercy of his whims for her life to be full and complete. She doesn't want to need him or to be dependant on him. She doesn't want to be the heartbroken sadsack whom he abandoned at Christmas or who will take whatever scraps he'll throw her. She wants to control his position in her life and control how she feels about him. Hence her assigning him a specific day and confining their adventures on her own terms. She's trying to keep the Doctor compartmentalised. Having an Appropriate Human Relationship means she's successfully put the Doctor in his box (lol) and neutralised the chaotic power of her feelings for him. I mean, obviously not, but that's what she tells herself.
But what is Danny doing? Why does he keep pursuing this when it's so clearly not a good match?
Again in Listen, and much more so The Caretaker, Danny illustrates that he does not know who Clara is, he's wildly wrong about her and what she's like, and he's very high handed about it as well. He's convinced that the Doctor is taking advantage of her, that the Doctor is domineering in their relationship, that she is not a person who wants to be put into challenging or dangerous positions, that the Doctor is pushing her to takes risks and become a leader where that's not her nature. None of this is true. Clara was always a decisive, assertive, strongly driven person who seeks out new experiences and naturally assumes a leadership role any time that's necessary; she relishes being challenged and facing the unknown. Her blow up with the Doctor wasn't about him 'pushing her too far', it was about him failing to support her when she needed him and condescending to her as a human rather than treating her with the intimacy and equity their bond and history together demands. It's personal and it's about their emotional relationship. It's not about making hard choices, it's about having to make hard choices without her partner being honest with and emotionally available to her.
Clara was always an adventurous person, willing to be spontaneous as long as it's on her terms, and excited by the prospect of authority and responsibility. The danger and challenge isn't an unfortunate side effect or a risk she has to take to see amazing sights, it's part of the appeal. She lied to Danny by omission when she said she went off in the box to 'see wonders', not just because the real reason is that she's in love with Doctor, but also because she doesn't just want to be a tourist. She wants to get involved and save people, she wants things to sometimes go pear shaped. She enjoys and craves that part of it too.
Danny is also wildly wrong about the Doctor, but this is understandable and would be fine except that he's never corrected? He never learns better? What's the point?
In Death in Heaven Danny goes out still wrong about the Doctor, still condemning him cruelly and unfairly while knowing nothing about him. He had a point with some of his original rant, there was actual insight there, but it's buried in assumptions and bitterness and then Danny keeps tripling down on the assumption. The one which doesn't understand that the very thing he's shitting on the Doctor for (being willing to lead and make hard choices that must be made in order to save people) is something the Doctor has in common with Clara. And always has. The Doctor didn't change her or push her into that, that's who she's always been.
What is the point of Danny calling him a blood-soaked general and mocking him, calling him an officer as a pejorative again, and again because the Doctor is trying to save the planet. Like, memory check, that's what Danny is mad about. The Doctor doing everything in his power to save literal billions of lives. Doing it for no reason, out of altruism. Doing it while always trying very hard not to fight or kill anyone. Doing it even at enormous spiritual cost to himself.
I don't understand how we're meant to find Danny sympathetic in that moment, because he comes off like a complete dickhead. And it's all the more frustrating because in the intervening episodes Danny has been eminently reasonable. As I've discussed before, we're exhaustively shown that Danny is 100% okay with what Clara claims is going on, that he doesn't want to get in the way of her friendship with the Doctor, that if it really were only the relationship she's pretending it is, there would be no conflict. He's the one who encourages her to make up with him after Kill the Moon! He tells her to go on travelling and it's fine!
Even when he discovers she's been lying to him and cavorting with the Doctor behind his back (again despite him telling her it was fine with him!), he's calm about it and repeats for the millionth time that all he wants from her is honesty. The truth. Which is the one thing she can't give him because Clara knows their entire relationship is built on the lie, they're only together because of the lie. The truth is, as Moffatt said, that Danny never stood a chance. There is a conflict between the two relationships and she's always going to choose the Doctor.
And that does come out, she gives the whole speech to Danny, not knowing it's him, finally being honest. And he seems unsurprised by it, which makes sense because on some level he definitely always knew ('do you love him?' 'no' 'really had enough of the lies'), but then nothing comes of that. Clara just soldiers on, going right back to pretending this relationship wasn't a façade doomed from the start, and Danny allows her to pretend. He goes off on the Doctor, but not in a way the Doctor actually deserves at all, and just sweeps her confession under the carpet. Letting her get away with it again. True to form, I guess! he always did. But shouldn't we make progress?
And it's like... I hate that he dies on that note. It feels like he dies in denial. I guess you could argue it contributes to his decision to not come back, but that feels like a disservice to the character. Saving the kid is important to Danny, it allows him to atone for his greatest mistake, but he didn't need to change or grow to accomplish that and it doesn't provide any closure to his actual role in the narrative, which was as Clara's foil. Clara is off the hook, free to go on lying to herself about their relationship. It's not addressed in Last Christmas, either, it's only barely hinted at.
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