Chapter Text
“I’m tired of being single.”
His voice was bordering on a whine, softer than usual and steeped in an honesty that seemed uncharacteristic. Not that Bartolomeo wasn’t honest. Quite the opposite, actually. He was loud and brash and he would say whatever was on his mind without thinking about whether that was a wise choice to make, but there was a vulnerability in his tone that caught Cavendish a little off-guard.
When Cavendish didn’t immediately respond, he continued.
“I mean, ya know, I ain’t been in an actual relationship for what, two years now? I’m tired of all the goin’ on dates and hookin’ up with people I don’t even remember the names of a week later. It’s exhausting.”
“Getting laid regularly? I can only imagine. I bet your back and your knees hurt too.”
Bartolomeo pulled his face into an exaggerated mask of annoyance and then kicked Cavendish under the table.
“Shut the fuck up. You get laid more than I do. But, you get some sorta genuine thrill out of casual hook-ups. Is it just cause ya like strangers to tell ya how pretty you are?”
Cavendish nodded and then sighed heavily. “It’s been almost two weeks though.” He batted his eyelashes. “Humor me, Barto?”
Bartolomeo leaned across the table, feigning a far more serious demeanor as he lifted one of Cavendish’s hands from the table and took it in both of his.
“Cavendish Prince, you’re fuckin’ gorgeous. Prettiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Cavendish pulled his hand away to toss his hair back over his shoulder in an only half-joking preen. “Thank you.” He waved a hand and then gestured toward their waiter for a refill. “Anyway, back to your problem?”
Shrugging as he slouched against the back of the booth, Bartolomeo and the worn cushion gave a soft sigh in unison. “Just, what I said. I’m tired of being single. I wanna settle down. That’s not crazy, right? We’re twenty-five now and ain’t gettin’ any younger.”
Cavendish hummed idly and took a long drink from his second glass of wine to avoid responding right away. Despite any “thrill” he got out of keeping his relationships casual, he was also tired of being single, but his primary reason for not settling down was sitting across the table from him.
He had first met Bartolomeo when they were only ten years old, and had immediately taken a strong disliking to him. Barto was every teacher’s problem child, constantly getting into trouble, scraping up some already scabbed over elbow or knee, somehow always just vaguely…sticky? By comparison, Cavendish was the dictionary definition of an elementary school teacher’s pet: polite, well-behaved, always picking up after his rowdier peers (Bartolomeo very much included) and never without an insightful answer to their questions.
Things changed when they were twelve. Middle school was a decidedly different experience for each of them. Cavendish thrived, making friends with new classmates and already spoken of fondly in the staff lounge within the first few weeks. Barto, however, with his worn and mismatched clothing, as-of-yet undiagnosed ADHD, and generally aggressive attitude, was an easy target.
Cavendish found him crying under the bleachers one day during their shared lunch period, shirt torn and stained with the blood still flowing freely from his nose, lovingly hand-packed lunch trampled to ruins in the dirt. Cavendish had wordlessly helped him to his feet despite Bartolomeo’s weak attempts to shoo him away, had paid for a replacement lunch from the cafeteria, and had, with those two simple gestures, secured himself a veritable parasite.
After that, Barto only left his side if he was forced to, and since few people were willing to try and force Bartolomeo to do anything, that didn’t happen often.
Bartolomeo’s parents were pleased, if not a bit puzzled, by the sudden addition of “Cabbage” to their son’s life—the nickname a byproduct of Bartolomeo’s lingering lisp—but Cavendish’s parents were something closer to disappointed by his choice of company. Still, they stuck together, despite the odds.
And then things changed again when they were sixteen. Bartolomeo showed up on the first day of their sophomore year six inches taller, all but straining out of his ragged t-shirt, hair swept up and slicked back into a questionable pompadour and dyed a strange pale green that didn’t fully mask its natural dark shade. Cavendish was ready to tease him for the change, but when Bartolomeo opened his mouth and delivered a casual “hey, Cavendish,” in a deep rasp with no lasting hint of his childhood speech impediment, Cavendish had stepped the last little bit over the line of falling absolutely head over heels in love with his best friend.
Their parents had feigned surprise when they both came out a year later, but there had been genuine shock on their faces when the announcement had been coupled with the fact that they were both taking other boys with them to prom, and not each other.
As it happened, in the fifteen years that they had known each other, Bartolomeo and Cavendish had never strayed past their existing, albeit deep, level of friendship. The attraction was there, and mutual to both of their open knowledge, but having a best friend was something of a rare thing, and they had agreed not to risk it by trying for anything more. Did Cavendish regret that choice? No, not really. Not often. But, did his feelings for Bartolomeo keep him from pursuing something serious with anyone else? Absolutely.
“Oi, Cabbage, are ya even listenin’ to me anymore?” Bartolomeo snapped his fingers a few times and Cavendish was jolted out of his reminiscing.
“Huh?”
Barto rolled his eyes and finished off his beer. “I said, I was thinkin’ about tryin’ a dating app. The uh…” He blushed darkly and avoided Cavendish’s eyes. “That…soulmate one, maybe?”
“Oh. Really? I…I haven’t heard much about it.”
That was a lie, and Cavendish had a feeling that they both knew it.
Maybe having casual sex with strangers while being hopelessly in love with your best friend wasn’t the best way to live, but, this way, Cavendish could at least pretend that maybe someday they would reach a point where they realized that what they could have was worth a shot. When the news of a new dating service had popped up, and then begun to gain credibility, it had scared him a little. Finding his soulmate, his honest to god soulmate might put a damper on the pining.
“I think I might’ve downloaded it after I first saw it on the news, but, I never actually used it.”
Bartolomeo waited as Cavendish scrolled through his phone to confirm his suspicion, just watching him in silence. After two drinks, Cavendish's pale complexion took on a very pretty tint, and he let his eyes trace the flush over his high cheekbones.
As luck would have it, Bartolomeo was just as much—if not more—in love with Cavendish as the other man was with him. It had hit him sooner though. The exact moment that a painfully handsome twelve-year-old Cavendish had extended a hand to him beneath the bleachers, he’d been done for, and in the thirteen years since, it had only gotten worse. He, however, was sure that Cavendish would never settle for him, mutual attraction or not. With his looks and his money, he could have anyone in the world that he could possibly want. So, finding a soulmate sounded like a good way to get over the man Bartolomeo had always wanted but could never have.
“Here.” Cavendish set his phone on the table and spun it around so Bartolomeo could see what was on the screen. “It’s this one right?”
Bartolomeo looked down to confirm.
“Yeah, that’s right. It’s been gettin’ a lot of press again lately now that it’s been out for a bit. Something like a…99.8% success rate. People are ravin’ about it.”
“Do you know how it’s supposed to work?”
Barto shrugged. “I don’t remember. Some…ya know, dating app kind of bullshit. ‘Compatibility’, ‘algorithms’, ‘patterns’…and then…bam! Soulmate.”
They both stared down at the screen, quiet for a few long moments. In the end, it was Barto that broke the silence.
“Alright, gimme a sec. I’ll get it too.”
Bartolomeo ordered another beer as it downloaded.
“You already have a profile?”
“No. Like I said, I forgot I even had it.”
“Right.” Bartolomeo stood, answering Cavendish’s quizzical glance with an impatient gesture. “Scooch.” He shoved Cavendish toward the wall, sidling up beside him on his side of the booth. “Let’s do this.”
The app loaded, a soft and inviting light blue interface that urged them into creating a profile and promised a match with their soulmate.
“Shit, I dunno if I have any good pictures on my phone.”
Cavendish made a gesture for it. “I’ll pick one.”
They swapped phones and spent a moment scrolling through each other’s pictures before Cavendish wrinkled his nose.
“Can you not just make a separate folder for all of your sweaty, shirtless gym pictures?”
“No?” Barto replied, sounding a little genuinely offended. “‘Sides, shouldn’t I use one of those? Everybody likes abs, right?”
“I doubt it,” Cavendish answered distractedly. But did he? Very much so. And Bartolomeo had some nice ones.
“Here,” he piped up after a moment. “Use this one.”
Cavendish had been the one to take it, and it featured a brightly grinning Bartolomeo, sharp teeth on full display as he excitedly held up their tickets to the Straw Hats New World Tour that Cavendish had gotten him for his last birthday. Looking at it sent a pleasant rush of warmth through his gut, and if that wasn’t the type of reaction that Bartolomeo deserved from his potential soulmate, then he didn’t know what was.
“Alright. Here’s a good one for you.”
The picture he’d chosen for Cavendish was one of the two of them together, captured candidly by one of their parents as they laughed at something neither of them could remember anymore. Cavendish’s expression was soft and fond, and sometimes, in his weaker moments, Bartolomeo liked to believe that it was directed at him by design and not coincidental eye contact.
“Just crop me out of it first.”
That settled, they moved on to the first of several detailed questionnaires. The first started out easy enough: name, age, gender identity, sexual orientation. And then the second delved a little deeper: hobbies, favorites, relevant background details.
“Fuck. What’s my favorite movie, Cabbage? I can’t pick one.”
“The first Die Hard,” Cavendish responded idly, struggling with a few questions of his own.
“Oh. Shit. Duh.”
“What in the world is my ‘weirdest talent or quirk’? And what did you put for yours?”
“I put bein’ able to pick my nose with my tongue. Yours is bein’ able to correctly fold a fitted sheet.”
Cavendish snorted. “That’s hardly a talent, Bartolomeo. Also, you’re disgusting.”
“You’re right,” Barto amended, ignoring but indirectly addressing the latter half of Cavendish’s reply. “It’s fuckin’ witchcraft. But marketable for potential partners.”
“Is that something you would look for in a partner?”
“Me?” Barto asked. “Hell no, couldn’t give a single shit. I learned an easy fix a long time ago. Just own one set of sheets, take ‘em off like once a month to wash ‘em, and put ‘em right back on. No folding necessary.”
Cavendish wrinkled his nose. “This is why we’ve never slept together.”
“Oh, really?” Barto playfully knocked his shoulder into Cavendish’s and looked down at him with a smirk. “I thought it was ‘cause you’d fall hopelessly in love with me if ya ever got your hands on my absolutely massive hog.”
Cavendish rolled his eyes. “I’ve seen your dick, Barto.” They flicked back upwards, bright and teasing beneath the line of his lashes. “And I’ve seen bigger.”
Bartolomeo scoffed and hid his deepening blush behind a new bottle of beer.
The next set of questions was completely sexual, and read a bit more like the extensive kink compatibility quiz that a very drunk Bartolomeo and Cavendish had once filled out together. Barto had accidentally closed out of the browser before they could see the full results, that was true, but not until after he had seen the shockingly high percentage that had fueled his very active imagination during the next few months’ worth of jerking off.
“I’m a little scared to say yes to some of this shit,” he remarked absently as he scrolled through the list. “Like, I think I’m probably into it, but I dunno if I want my goddamn soulmate to know that, ya know? Or experiment with a stranger from a dating app.”
“So you’re fine with them knowing that you’re interested in…” Cavendish peered over his shoulder. “Being in the middle of a bukkake, but not that you might be into felching?”
Bartolomeo hastily covered up his screen and scowled down at his friend, cheeks burning. “Fuck off. You said ya like…”
Cavendish helpfully turned his screen for Bartolomeo to look at and Barto’s frown only deepened when he realized there was nothing displayed on it that he could reasonably tease Cavendish about.
“Whatever. Stop tryin’ to cheat off my profile.”
“That’s…” Barto stuck his tongue through the gap between his fangs before Cavendish could get more than a word out and he finished in a half-hearted mumble. “Literally impossible.”
They answered questions about wanting kids (a firm “no” from Cavendish, and a “maybe if my soulmate wants them” from Bartolomeo), about their religious beliefs (Cavendish atheist, Bartolomeo agnostic), and about whether they tended to follow their head or their heart (heart, for both, although Cavendish liked to believe that he was more rational than emotional).
And then finally, after an hour of putting what felt like their entire lives into the app, and another drink each, one final question popped up on screen.
What does the word “soulmate” mean to you?
Cavendish absently swirled around the last of his wine and Bartolomeo sat in silence beside him, picking at the soggy remains of their nachos. When Cavendish lifted a hand toward the waiter, Barto got a little worried, and he breathed out a sigh of relief when he just asked for their check and a glass of water. He was still safe for the moment, but, by four drinks, Cavendish was usually trying to convince Bartolomeo that they should be friends with benefits that extended beyond being each other’s wingmen and alternately paying for dinner, and every time it happened, Barto knew that he was one more coy suggestion closer to saying fuck it and agreeing.
“I don’t know how to answer this,” Cavendish admitted, nails tapping an idle rhythm on the side of his glass.
“Yeah, I…” Barto sighed and hefted his shoulders in a shrug. “Just…gut reaction I guess?”
Cavendish nodded and they both picked up their phones again to answer.
‘Spending the rest of my life with my best friend,’ Bartolomeo wrote. And then rewrote: ‘one of my best friends.’
‘Finding someone who I can’t live without, and wouldn’t want to,’ Cavendish answered.
With one last brief, exchanged glance and a pair of nervous smiles, they clicked the softly blinking button to submit their profiles, and were rewarded with a message in return.
Calculating. A match will be available shortly.
“How shortly is ‘shortly’?” Barto asked, frowning down at the cryptic text. “And is this s'posed to be like...the one?”
“I don’t know,” Cavendish replied.
When the next few minutes yielded no change on their screens, they started getting ready to go. The check was paid, their coats were put back on, a cab was called as they waited in the rain, and still, nothing.
It was as Cavendish was getting out and waving his goodbye from his porch that they each heard a soft chime. Hastily telling the driver not to pull away, Bartolomeo scrambled out of the cab, stopping Cavendish with his hand on his doorknob.
“I got a match already. Did you?” When Cavendish nodded, he blew out a shaky breath. “Check ‘em together?”
Cavendish felt the nervous waver of Bartolomeo’s voice in the twisting of his own stomach and he nodded.
“On three?”
“Alright. One.”
“Two…”
“Three.”
…
“Oh.”