Logan was Patton's best friend; the only catch, was that they'd never met. They were friends through the internet. They talked on Skype, through texts and tweets, but they never talked in person. That didn't matter to him, he was still his best friend. Hell, maybe even a little more than that...

No, no Patton, he always thought to himself. You have a soulmate.

That was true, he did have a soulmate out there somewhere. The black stains on his arms and chest were proof of that.

Everyone had a black mark wherever their soulmate touches them for the first time. They turned into colorful marks after they touched. Some people had black lips because they kissed when they first touched for whatever reason, while others' hands were black because they shook hands. For Patton? His chest and his arms were all black, and if he had to guess, he was probably going to hug his soulmate.

He was ridiculously excited to meet his soulmate, but if he was honest, he was more excited to meet Logan in person.

Apparently he was moving to his city in a week, and that meant they were going to be seeing each other everyday in school. Patton was a bouncing, happy mess over the idea of seeing him all the time.

"Hey Pat, when's that friend of yours gonna be joining us?" Remy asked, looking over at him at lunch. He seemed distracted by something over his shoulder.

He smiled brightly, answering the question anyway. "I think he's coming next week!"

"Well, I was asking cause, that guy looks a lot like him," he said, pointing towards someone behind him.

Patton turned around in his seat, his eyes widening as they landed on the boy he was talking about. There he was; Logan Sharp was standing at the doors of the cafeteria, wearing a black sweater over a deep blue button down shirt, with a pair of black jeans. He looked flawless. He was searching for someone.

"Oh my gosh, Logan!" he gasped, rushing to his feet and running toward him.

His eyes widened as he saw the boy running toward him. Patton threw his arms around him, hugging him tightly. The sharply dressed boy gasped and stood still from the shock of the hug.

"What the heck! You weren't supposed to come until next week!" he gasped out as he pulled away and looking up at Logan's face. "I'm so happy, oh my gosh, you're here! You're really here! I'm so excited! I can't believe you're here!"

The boy smiled at him, but his expression quickly changed to one of shock. "Patton, your arms-"

"What about the marks? You know they're my soulmate marks- oh my god!!"

He looked down at his arms that were now slightly aglow with rainbow colors. He never covered his arms on purpose like many others with large marks, and right now he was happy he didn't. The rainbow faded to a soft collection of blues that filled the marks, making him beam. They were beautiful, and it was then that he fully realized what it meant.

"Wait..." he breathed, looking up at Logan with wide eyes. "You're my..."

"We're soulmates," he said quietly.

They stared at each other, not knowing how to react to the fact that they were meant to be together. "Are you disappointed?" Patton asked, voice soft and small as he looked down.

"What? No, Patton, I'm not disappointed in the slightest," he said, pulling him into a tight embrace.

He was frozen in the boy's arms, having not expected him to be the one to initiate the physical contact between them. A smile soon spread across his face as he leaned into him and sighed happily.

~

"Gross, Dad," Virgil mumbled as he finished telling the story. His parents were lucky to have such a lovely first encounter, and that they knew each other before they found out. Based on the vaguely hand-shaped black mark on his cheek, his would not be as pleasant. "You've already told me the sappy story a million times. It doesn't make me feel better about my soulmate, who, may I remind you, is going to slap me when we touch for the first time."

His father gave him a look that included a raised eyebrow. "You don't know that," he pointed out. "It could be the touch of a hero prince bringing you in for a passionate kiss after he rescues you! You don't know they'll slap you."

"Yeah, I kinda do," he said, pointing to the mark. "This looks blatantly like a hand made contact with my cheek, aggressively."

Patton didn't comment. "Well why don't we talk about something else? Your first day at the new school is tomorrow!"

"Ugh, don't remind me..." he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You know how anxious I get."

"Virge, you've got nothing to fear! Everyone's worried about how they look and act, so you've no need to be so worried," he explained, putting a hand on his shoulder gently. "Now it's getting late, you should head to bed so you're not exhausted tomorrow morning."

He nodded with a heavy sigh, standing up to head to his room. His father stood to go to his bedroom as well. "Goodnight, my little storm cloud," he said, kissing him on the forehead. "Love you!"

"Dad, I've asked you not to call that," he grumbled, blushing with embarrassment. "Love you too..."

Patton smiled and headed into his bedroom, finding his husband reading in their bed. "Retiring to bed, love?" Logan asked, closing his book as he slipped under the covers beside him. He nodded sleepily, yawning as he laid his head down on the pillow. The other man smiled and leaned down with a gentle hand. "Don't forget your glasses."

He hummed appreciatively as Logan slipped them off his face and set them on the nightstand. "Thanks Lo, I love you," he said. "You're amazing."

"I love you too, Patton, get some rest," he said, smiling as he placed his book and his own glasses aside and turned off the light.

Virgil didn't have as pleasant of a night as his parents. It took him over an hour to fall asleep, and once unconscious, he was assaulted with nightmares and uncomfortable dreams of being beaten by his future lover, induced by thoughts of being slapped as their first physical interaction. He woke with a jolt and moved to get ready for school with a heavy feeling in his chest. There wasn't a chance that there wouldn't be any kids at this new school that would make fun of his mark. He was't looking forward to the ridiculing and the rumors it would start on only his first day, but he had no choice, so dragging his feet, he got dressed and headed for the bus stop.

Thankfully, there were only five other kids at his bus stop, and the darkness of the morning kept any of them from noticing the mark. Another fortunate thing he noticed about these kids was that they weren't particularly interested in his presence. He sighed in relief as the bus pulled up to the corner.

The darkly dressed boy sat by himself fairly far back on the bus, silently thankful that the bus wasn't very full; they had moved into a fairly quiet neighborhood. However, the second he stepped on the school's campus, he realized just how many kids were going to be looking at him. Virgil's hands trembled inside his hoodie pockets as he headed toward the main building of the school. In the corners of his vision, he could see people looking at him and murmuring to their friends. He winced, chewing on his lip as he kept his gaze low.

The hallway wasn't any different as he made his way to his locker. He tried to ignore their gazes as he looked for locker number 708, wanting to go home already. This was his worst nightmare.

"Hey! New kid!" a loud, obnoxious voice called behind him, making him jump and quickly turn around. A group of three large boys his age were standing there with smug looks on their faces. The leader's eyes landed on his cheek, and his grin turned even more malicious. "Well, well, looks like someone's going to enjoy their meeting with their soulmate."

Virgil shrunk in on himself and tried to push by them, but they knocked his books from his hands and sent them sprawling to the ground. "Go on, new kid," the leader said aggressively into his ear. A rough hand shoved his shoulder and he knelt down, attempting to pick them up quickly.

"Oh my god, he's not even trying to fight back, what a fucking loser," one of the other boys cackled.

Hot tears pricked his eyes as he lowered his head submissively, still gathering his things. The leader of the boys knelt down, putting a hand on the back of his head and pushing it even further down. "Let this be your introduction, kid, I rule this school. You get in my way, you piss me off, you so much as look me in the eye, I'll make sure you get a lovely red mark to twin that black one," he said venomously. "Am I understood?"

"What is going on here?" another voice asked.

Virgil would've looked up to see who it was, but he couldn't, feeling the larger boy's hand still firmly holding his head down as tears started to slip down his cheeks. The leader looked up, recognition flashing in his eyes as he clenched his jaw. "None of your business, Prince."

"It looks like my business," the other boy replied. The hand on the back of the darkly dressed boy's head disappeared as the leader stood up. He risked a glance up, seeing a breathtakingly beautiful boy in a red, gold, and white letter men's style jacket. He didn't look pleased by what was going on, his beautiful caramel brown eyes gleaming with warning. "You wanna tell me why he's on the ground, Richard? I thought I told you what would happen the next time I caught you doing this shit."

The leader, Richard, squared his shoulders, but looked subdued. "Look here, Prince, your little prince charming act is only going to be charming for so long," he hissed, spitting toward Virgil on the ground. "Some day someone's going to knock your ass of your high horse."

"Maybe, but it won't be you," the princely boy said, smirking as his eyes ignited and he made a move to lunge at him. His henchmen pulled him back, telling him it wasn't worth it as they guided him out of the hallway. The darkly dressed boy just continued to pick up his things as the remaining tears on his face dripped off. "Hey..."

He looked up, flinching. His savior was looking at him sympathetically as he knelt down to help him. "I'm Roman, sorry about Richard, he- uh-" he chuckled bitterly. "Well, his nickname's Dick for a reason."

Virgil wanted to laugh, but his throat was closed up and more tears were still threatening to spill from his eyes. He lowered his gaze, letting his bangs cover his face as much as he could. "Hey, it's okay, you've nothing to be scared of," Roman said, voice soft and gentle. He was trembling with the effort to keep his emotions in check, but a couple more tears slipped down his face. "Hey, it's gonna be okay..."

A hand slid across his skin, cupping his cheek and making him look up with a gasp. The princely boy was giving him an encouraging smile. "I know that wasn't a great first impression of our school, but not all of us are like him, I promise," he said with a dazzling smile. "Wanna tell me your name?"

"It's... It's V-Virgil," he whispered, not being able to look away from his eyes.

Roman smiled and pulled his hand away. The smile dropped from his face as his eyes then widened and his expression changed to one of shock. His mouth had fallen open and he pulled his hand toward his chest as though he'd been burned or something. The darkly dressed boy panicked, thinking he'd finally noticed the black soulmate mark and got freaked out.

"I g-gotta go," he said roughly as he tried to take the few books the princely boy had picked up for him.

"No, wait!" he gasped, grabbing his wrist.

"I don't want to talk about the damn m-mark, I know it's freaking weird and I don't need another lucky person telling me about it-"

"Virgil, we're soulmates."

He froze up completely. His spine was rigid and his shoulders were bunched up defensively as he looked at Roman sharply. The princely boy's eyes were wide, and while he wasn't exactly smiling, he didn't look uncomfortable. "W-What?"

He revealed his hand, aglow with rainbow colors where he'd touched Virgil's cheek. Oxygen seemed to leave his body far too quickly, making him lightheaded as he reached for his phone and opened the front-facing camera. A gasp escaped his lips as his eyes landed on the no longer black mark on his cheek. It was rainbow, like Roman's. When the display of rainbow faded, it turned gold; the princely boy showed him his hand, which had also turned gold.

"So we're..." he tried to say as he put his phone away. The other boy nodded, smiling a little in disbelief. Virgil bit down on his lip as he looked away. "You must be disappointed... the first time we meet and you find out I'm too weak to stand up for myself and have to save me from a bunch of dumb bullies..."

Roman chuckled a little and took his hand, making him look up in surprise. "Virgil, I'd gladly save you, no matter the circumstances," he said, cupping his cheek with his gold hand to make the marks match up. "I mean, my last name's Prince after all."

The darkly dressed boy smiled a little as his soulmate helped him to his feet. "Now come on, I'll walk you to class," he said, not releasing his hand.

Virgil gave him his schedule and the two of them headed for his English class hand in hand. Once they got to the door, they paused. There was a few minutes before the first bell, but he wanted to go in and get the awkward first teacher interaction out of the way before too many other students were there, but he didn't really want to leave Roman so soon after discovering their connection.

"I'll um... I'll see you at lunch?" he asked, chewing his lip.

The princely boy nodded in agreement as they released one another's hands. Gathering his courage, Virgil stepped into his personal space, leaned up and kissed him quickly on the lips. Roman gasped and stayed frozen in place as he pulled away.

"J-Just think of it as a thank you, for saving me," he said, blushing as he smiled down at his feet. "I guess you're really meant to be my prince charming."

His soulmate looked so happy that he wasn't sure if he was about to start crying. He reached for his hand, bringing it up to his lips to kiss his knuckles gentle. "Farewell for now, my beautiful dark maiden," he said, smiling up at him and flashing him a wink.

Virgil grinned to himself as Roman walked away toward his own class. Maybe his father had been right after all.