Disclaimer: I don't own CBS's "Zoo." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Inspired by a combination of two prompts: "Soulmate au where when you write something on your skin with pen/marker/whatever the hell you want, it will show up on your soul mates skin as well" & "what if tattoos just randomly appeared on our skin at key points in our lives and we had to figure out what they meant for ourselves."– Spans all of season one until 2x01/2x02 where it go au and Jamie is found safe with the leopard instead of her tramping off to the frozen north like a beautiful idiot.

Warnings: soulmate au, soulmates, adult language, canon appropriate violence, mild sexual content, follows pre-season one – canon season one until the scene where the group had to leave without Jamie at the wood's house.

Chrysalism

Chapter One

He was in the middle of packing up his office for the semester when a lancing pain seared across his back. The stack of file folders in his hand fluttered to the ground in an off-white sheath of paper rain. The sensation caught him off guard. Giving him the opportunity to wrench himself sideways, trying to grab at it like that would help as the pain localized to his shoulder blade and throbbed like needle pin-pricks. Repetitive and spreading.

What the-

He pealed out of the room and down the hall, sneakers squeaking. Ignoring the janitor buffing the floors at the other end of the corridor as he barricaded himself in the staff bathroom. Unbuttoning his shirt and whipping it off. Shrugging out of the plain blue shirt underneath as he turned his back on the mirror. Twisting this way and that. Trying to catch a glimpse of whatever-

He spotted a flash of stark black and blue on the flat of his left shoulder blade. A half dozen unsavory comments rose up in the back of his mind as he shoved his glasses further up his nose. Frowning. Any thoughts of a runaway safety pin, an animal hair or even a random cactus spine - something easy to explain - disappeared like water on brand new blacktop when he focused on it.

What the hell was that?!

He lifted his right arm over his head, trying to pretend he could contort himself into the proper shape so he could see it clearly. Eventually he figured it out, angling himself just right as he watched a tattoo, a genie of all things, slowly take shape. Like somewhere out there it was happening in real time on someone else.

His breathing was loud as he leaned over the sink. Over-exaggerated and echoing in the small, sterile space. Staring at his reflection with eyes that weren't quite focused as the dull throb continued. Fever warm in the spots where the skin was already irritated and the artist had gone back to correct something.

It wasn't until his teeth started chattering that he realized the muscles in his arms were trembling. Adrenaline spiked and overall unsteady as he slowly forced himself to straighten. Using the handicapped railing as a brace as he eased himself down on the toilet lid like he'd aged forty years in the last thirteen seconds.

Because despite all the counter explanations and non-sequiturs his brain was already stockpiling, he knew what this was. He knew what it had to be. And honestly, considering he'd given up ever finding anything close to his actual soulmate a long, long time ago, all he could really process was the fact that it felt a whole lot like they were about half a decade too late.

Story of his life, really.

He forced himself to wait until he got home before he opened his laptop and keyed in a search. Feeling all sorts of stupid despite the humming drive to know more. It was like energy in his bones. Unable to help himself from scrolling through the results the search engine spit out. Wondering what his soulmate might have been thinking. Where they were. Why-

Because that was the thing, wasn't it?

Soulmates were like a pull. Once you knew they were out there you couldn't fucking help yourself. It was like one of you was the compass and the other the needle and after you clicked, the rest was clockwork. Even for him. Apparently.

According to everything he could bring up that looked halfway researched, genie tattoos stood for a variety of different meanings. Some of which actually contradicted each other. Indicating things like a giving nature, wishes, magic, hope, loss, spirituality, incarceration, second chances.

His eyebrows rose at the last one. Feeling a niggle about it. Or at least a stronger feeling than the rest. Whether that idea was right or wrong he couldn't tell, but it was something. Which at this point felt better than the fat load of nothing he was officially scraping off the ground labeled: 'rock bottom.'

Second chances.

Huh.

He made dinner on autopilot. Thinking it through as the low throb of the tattoo settled more into a warm thrum of discomfort high on his shoulder blade. He knew he should have felt violated, angry, or at least confused. But instead he felt strangely- okay? It made absolutely no sense, but it was quiet and that was something the low grade headache he'd been nursing for what felt like forever seemed thankful for. Either way, he was too wrung out to question it.

But it wasn't until after he'd dragged himself out of the shower - padding naked into the depressing off-white of his bedroom - that he started entertaining an idea of his own.

He hesitated- pausing over the span of his inner arm before he snagged a pen from the side table. He tapped at the skin, making ink-tacky blots spread like freckles before he shrugged his shoulders and threw doubt out the window. Figuring the worst that could happen was he was wrong and he'd have to wash it off before wearing short sleeves as he gave in and scribbled across the pale of his arm.

"Please tell me getting that tattoo was a sound decision and not a drunken mistake you're now regretting. By the way, in case you were wondering- ow," he wrote, cursing a bit as the nib of the pen forced him to go back and redo parts of the letters. Something about the oils of the skin not being conducive to-

The reply was almost immediate.

"Oh shit..."

He slipped right off the side of the bed. Landing square on his ass on the bedroom carpet as he looked down at his arm uncomprehendingly. The words he'd written were already fading. Replaced by two words that were most definitely not his. Even the style of the penmanship and the hurried way they'd been written was different. Shock-shattered but oddly giddy, before being joined by two more.

"It's you," whoever it was wrote.

So simple and honest that the words even sounded breathy in his head.

The 'my soul mate' part was silent.

Obviously.

And maybe slightly disbelieving.

"Yep," he answered. Feeling like an absolutely moron as his inability to say anything more flushed heat across his cheeks. Making him duck his chin into his chest a bit like somehow whoever it was would know. And maybe they could. He'd never heard of discovering your soulmate quite like this so he supposed the bar was open when it came the possibilities. Either way, he figured it was pretty fucking sad if he'd waited his entire life to find this person and all he could muster up was 'yep.'

"I'm so so sorry, I had no idea."

"About what?" he returned, spine uneven against the side of the couch as he shuffled backwards, trying to get into a good position to-

"Both actually. That I even had a soulmate and that this could be- uh- shared?"

"That makes two of us," he replied, clambering to his feet and falling back against his unmade bed instead as the swath of skin on his arm remained bare.

He watched it for a long time.

Not really expecting a reply, but mostly just thinking about it.

Struggling with the realization that the absence of words - both physically and mentally – only smeared a highlighter down the proverbial page of how silent his life had gotten lately. How empty. He looked around at the blank walls. At the odd cardboard box still hanging around from his move and the sterile, second-hand nicks in the paint that'd been there when he'd moved in. The same ones the building manager had laughed at him for asking them to be fixed before he committed. Standing there with her hands on her hips in the ratty, outdated lobby, smelling like stale nicotine and cheap detergent. Going on about the line she had out the door for a 'place like this' and that if he thought he was too good for her 'establishment' he should do them both a favor and stop wasting her time.

It was the fourteenth place he'd been to in the last two months that'd even called him back.

So sue him, but he'd caved.

And honestly? He hated every inch of it.

Strange that he'd only really noticed it now.

His mouth twisted, thumb and forefinger brushing idly over the inner of his wrist. Tracing the words that had already faded as something new and almost anticipatory burbled under the surface. Something that made him kick himself upright and snag a pair of boxers from the towering heap of clothes that forever lived in his laundry basket. Deciding there was no time like the present if he wanted to hit up the hardware store before it closed. Get some spackle and some sort of paint that wasn't beige or white on these walls.

You know, adult stuff.

The semester was officially over and while that didn't exactly mean he had a premium on spare time, it did mean that he had less in the way of excuses than he had yesterday.

But he still checked the inside of his arm every once and a while as the night wore on.

Just in case.

After all, now that he knew they were out there, it seemed wrong to miss anything.

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be more to come.

Reference:

Chrysalism: the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.