tell me you see me /jasp+liv soulmates au

Jasper Fenwick has always been insufferably clever. Which might have been a good thing, had he been born anybody else.

New York was a miserable city. Polluted by more than greenhouse gasses, the kind of tumor that was bound to metastasize if not cut away. Quick and clean. Jasper was born to the worst of them. Devils in three-piece suits who gambled with lives because they were less valuable than the stocks sitting pretty in their off-shore bank accounts.

Not that the Police Force was any less corrupt than the Fenwick enterprises, it meant something that he got to kill his own innocence. Better than waiting for someone to do it for him. It's comfortable here, buried in his own self loathing.

It wasn't hard to figure out the visions that started on his fifteenth birthday. From the glimpses of flora native to South Korea, to those pretty hands stained with graphite and plaster. He revels in the minutes he gets to spend in a dove's skull. The up and coming artist whose gallery he has spent far longer than he cares to admit scrolling through online.

As soon as he was certain who his Soulmate was, he promptly decided he must never find out Jasper's identity. There was so little good left in the world, it should not suffer because his soul was unlucky enough to be tethered to the Fenwick outcast. He had fashioned his life around careful apathy, never letting his gaze linger on names or places or faces for too long.

It wasn't too much of a change from his normal routine, honestly.

"You certain about this, Detective?" Officer Roland is sheepish and red-haired, with perpetually blushing cheeks and a nervous habit of biting their bottom lip.

"Taking over a week's patrol routes for you?" Jasper laughs, slamming his locker shut before his eyes can catch on the mirror sat inside. Just in case. "If anything you're doing me a favor. I've got paperwork up to my eyebrows."

Which is true, Jasper is very bad at writing reports.

"It just seems... beneath you." Officer Roland pushes. Questioning authority is a bad trait when it comes to the police force, especially paired with a good heart. They'll be chased off the force in a few months.

Jasper waves a hand, leaning against the locker and slicking back his hair "Everything is beneath a Fenwick, it makes no difference. What's tonight?"

"Oh, you'll love it! You're a fan of the arts aren't you?"

In a manner of speaking.

Jasper tries to shake away the chills creeping up his spine. He's gone to such painstaking levels to avoid meeting his soulmate that even destiny could not get the better of him.

It'll be fine.

His heart is not dead, that would make things too easy.

It's a persistent little thing with a yearning wound he's gone to great lengths to ignore. He loathes the way his artist consumes his thoughts on quiet evenings, that he finds himself loving the fragments of Oblivion he has collected over the years. He could keep on pretending the obfuscation of his identity was all altruism, but that'd be lying.

That he has a soulmate at all is just another choice he never got to make.

It's selfish and bitter and yet another reason Oblivion deserves better than a man like him.

He dons his old blue uniform, the high collar suffocating where it rests in the hollow of his throat. It sets him apart from the sea of silks and satins at the gala. Before Oblivion invaded his mind, he had thought the arts little more than an excuse for the judgmental elite to have another vapid party.

Then he saw how his artist toiled, creating calluses on his hands in search of perfection and it was so fucking beautiful he fell in love then and there.

Not that it matters. Not that it will ever matter.

The first hour passes with little excitement. A few guests are deep enough in their cups that their whispers carry, none of them directed at Jasper - thank the gods. This uniform made him little more than background decoration to the elite, something he had missed since moving up in the ranks.

(have you heard? that upstart from... china was it? he's here! actually here. poor little lamb looks lost.)

Cold fingers creep up the base of his spine.

It's a series of unfortunate events from there on out. He keeps his gaze on his feet, just in case. Trying to reach the back of the crowd, never letting his eyes linger in one place too long. In his hate, he brushes up against a woman in a cream cocktail dress and she spills red wine all down the front of it.

"Sorry ma'am! I'm so sorry. I-"

He's there, in his peripheries. He shouldn't be sure, but he is.

"I'll pay for the dry cleaning. I'm sorry. I am in a hurry could you please-"

It's a fool's errand to fight destiny.

Cowardice sits pretty in the center of Jasper Fenwick's chest. It's coiled around his racing heart, feeding it in place of all those tangled vessels. He's afraid, of course he's afraid. Try as he might to dress up his martyrdom as heroism, there is no denying the way that he runs. There's no waiting for an inevitable ending if nothing ever begins.

Jasper does not want to love. Hatred is so familiar... so comfortable.

He swings his gaze from side to side, no longer attempting to obscure his location. The woman runs her hand down the ruined dress, a thousand dollars worth of intricately woven threads ruined in an instant. Beauty did not belong in these caustic hands - he's scared that it will change him too. "I'll even cover the cost of another piece. Have it tailored."

If only he had inherited his cousin's silver tongue, he might have made it out of this unscathed. A small part of him aches when his thoughts brush against the memory of him - he had cut all ties with the Fenwicks long ago. Copernicus' sly smile must have grown some teeth in their time apart. His father molds him into a monster with such diligent hands.

She advances, Jasper stumbles a step back. He holds onto his composure like a lifeline but it is quickly fraying. "Could you leave me alone?!" The hero's mask slips.

Another step.

And the world ends.

Fingers tangled in the hem of his uniform, a swooping sensation in his gut as the floor falls out from beneath him. His first instinct is to twist around, toward the body behind him and pull it into his chest.

Dark hair tickles the underside of his nose and all Jasper can think, as they crash into thousands of dollars worth of champagne and french pastries, is that he smells like spring.

He takes the brunt of the fall with his forearm, his other hand cradling Oblivion's neck to keep his head from hitting the floor. The debris reigns down around them, dark chocolate ganache falling from the sky like a sudden storm.

"Are you okay?" His first instinct is to check for injuries, trailing his fingers along either side of his face, running his thumb through frosting to reveal the skin beneath. He pays no mind to the commotion unfolding around them, guests and organizers alike swarming the scene like flies to carrion. "Please, tell me if I hurt you."

He can't stand the thought.