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stubbornness-and-spite · 3 years

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the ink on our skin and the blood in our hearts(are intertwined): Chapter One

I finally wrote the EJ/Nini/Ricky soulmate fic I’ve been craving(the first 5 chapters at least). AO3 link in reblog

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Fandom: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series

Genre: slowburn soulmate au with sprinklings of fluff and angst

Notes: I didn’t want to rewrite scenes that were essentially the same as canon just with a little bit of soulmate au mixed in, so I only wrote in the scenes that were either different or we didn’t see them in canon to begin with. Any scenes I left out happened basically the same as canon.

In this universe, soulmates share any ink or marks on their skin after the youngest soulmate turns 16. Makeup companies design their products to not transmit through soulbonds.

Let me know if anything(timeline/universe/POV switches/etc) is unclear and if I should edit. I’m open to critisism, but be aware that this is unbetaed and I am writing it for fun.

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 1471

Summary: Ricky Bowen and Nini Salazar-Roberts have known they were going to be soulmates since they were in kindergarten. They had is all planned out. Ricky would turn sixteen to blank skin and two months later when Nini turned sixteen, their skin would share ink. Fate cares little for the plans of kindergarteners.

E.J. Caswell doesn't believe in soulmates. Oh, he believes that there are people who share ink, but he doesn't believe that marks on anyone's skin are enough to dictate how people live their lives. He's never seen a mark on his own skin and he never plans to make a mark his soulmate can see. Fate cares as much for the stubbornness of teenagers as she does the plans of kindergarteners.

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Ricky POV

When Ricky turned sixteen, his arms were blank, and he called Nini immediately.

“Nini, Nini, Nini!” he shouted into the phone as soon as she answered. “I don’t have any marks!”

“Ricky?” Nini asked groggily, yawning and blinking sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just after midnight on my sixteenth birthday!” Ricky exclaimed. “Why are you asleep?”

Nini yawned. “Because it’s also just after midnight during tech week, and I had rehearsal until 11 and again at 6 am tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” Ricky mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Nini replied. She yawned and sat up. “I’m awake now. Tell me what happened!”

“I have no marks!” Ricky exclaimed again.

“Oh?” Nini asked. “ Oh, ” she repeated. “Your soulmate’s younger than you.”

“Or I don’t have one, or they just never bothered to write anything, but what are the odds of that?” Ricky asked through a wide grin. “Now we just have to wait until your birthday!”

“Two months,” Nini said softly. “Two months and we’ll know.”

“Yeah,” Ricky sighed fondly. “Two months.”

“What if-” Nini cut herself off and started again. “What if we don’t match? What if my birthday comes and I don’t have any marks either or I have someone else’s marks?”

“It won’t happen, Nini,” Ricky reassured her. “And if it does, we’ll figure it out.”

(chapter continues under the cut)

Two months went by quickly. Ricky went to see Nini perform in some show he couldn’t remember the name of. He didn’t know enough about theater to compliment her properly, so he told her that she lit up the stage. He also gave her a few compliments that he’d picked from a list online. It was the thought that counted.

They spent most of their free time in Nini’s bedroom or Big Red’s basement, swapping stories that they both already knew.

Ricky begged his dad to let him stay the night at Nini’s on her sixteenth birthday, and they stayed up until midnight to see if anything appeared on her skin. Around 11:30, Nini changed into her shortest pair of shorts and a tube top to show as much of her skin as possible. At 11:45, Ricky considered writing on his hand for the first time but decided not to, wanting to wait until he could see the line appear on Nini’s hand too. At 12:01, a splotch of ink appeared on Nini’s right shoulder. At 12:02, Ricky stopped breathing.

“I didn’t do that,” he whispered. “I didn’t spill ink on my shoulder.” His hand drifted to cover the spot on his shirt that mirrored the mark on Nini’s shoulder.

Nini tugged a sweater on and slid her legs under the blanket. “This doesn’t have to change anything. I love you, Ricky.”

“I-” Ricky’s eyes were wide. “I don’t-” His breathing quickened. “Maybe we should take a pause. You’re going away for the summer and I just-” His breath caught. “I need some time, Nini.”

“Okay,” Nini murmured. “Okay.”

“I’m just going to-” Ricky pointed at Nini’s bedroom door and stumbled towards it, clumsily pulling it open. “I’ll see you?” Nini didn’t respond and Ricky pulled the door shut.

Carol had driven him home without asking any questions, which Ricky was grateful for because he didn’t think he could answer without crying. Soulmates were supposed to be the thing that kept people together. He thought he loved Nini, but Ricky knew that wasn’t enough. His parents were proof of that. They’d both gone against the system when they were younger and had thought they were in love with people who weren’t their soulmates, but they had ended up together anyway. Nothing was stronger than soulmates and Nini wasn’t his.

Ricky slipped in his front door without waking his dad and fell asleep in his clothes, on top of his blankets, never noticing the spot of ink on his shoulder that was washed away by morning.

The summer went by in a blur. Ricky swore up and down it was the longest summer he’d ever lived, but at the same time, it was over in the blink of an eye and he was seeing Nini again.

He wanted to try again with her. Maybe soulmates weren’t everything because he was miserable without Nini. Maybe even if they did end up with their soulmates eventually, they could share the rest of high school with each other.

“I met someone.”

Ricky’s heart stopped. “You’re kidding, right? It was a break, not a breakup.”

“Well, it’s a breakup now.”

And what the hell was he supposed to do with that?

EJ POV

EJ was glad when his sixteenth birthday rolled around and his skin was blank. Maybe he was one of the lucky few without a soulmate. He hated the idea of soulmates. He wanted to control his own life, to decide for himself who he was going to spend it with, not have his life dictated by whose skin shared ink with his.

He went out of his way to make sure he never wrote on himself or let anyone else draw or write on his skin. He carried bandaids and wipes with him everywhere so if he ever got a cut, he could keep the blood from staining his soulmate’s skin. Ashlynn insisted that he was being ridiculous, but EJ was adamant. He was not going to have a soulmate. He was going to love whoever he wanted.

And he did. He dated a lot of different girls and didn’t care at all when they left him for their soulmates, whether they had met them yet or not. He didn’t care at all. He just moved onto the next girl.

He made it until the summer before his eighteenth birthday without incident. The few times he got ink on himself, a few times on his hands, and once on his left shoulder when a pen burst, he washed it off completely before the next day and he never saw a message back.

The summer before he turned eighteen he met Nini. She was the first girl he’d met who had turned sixteen, seen her soulmate marks, and wasn’t searching for her soulmate. He fell a little bit in love with her right then and there. Then he heard her sing and saw her act and he fell for her even more. By the time they actually started talking, EJ was head over heels for the girl and ready to run away from the soulmate system and off into the sunset with her.

“Where are you headed once camp’s over?” EJ asked, as close to Nini as he could be without actually having his arm around her.

“Back to Salt Lake City,” she replied. “We go to the same school, EJ.”

“I’m stupid!” EJ hit his forehead with his palm and grinned. “How have we not talked before now? You’re amazing.”

Nini snorted and rolled her eyes with a smile. “You’re sweet. I’ve been kind of under a rock for the past few years. I’ve been in the ensemble of the last few musicals but I really only talk to Kourtney, Big Red, and…” she trailed off.

“Who else?” EJ prompted.

“Ricky,” Nini said, her voice turning slightly sharp. Her bright smile dimmed. “We’ve been friends since kindergarten and kinda-dating since middle school. We started actually dating at the start of sophomore year. We kind of broke up when summer started.”

“How do you kind of break up with someone?” EJ asked. “How does anyone break up with you?”

Nini laughed. “He’s a few months older than me and we always thought we’d be soulmates, so he was really excited when his skin was blank on his sixteenth birthday, but when my sixteenth birthday rolled around and I had ink on me that he hadn’t drawn, he freaked out. He was supposed to be my soulmate, whatever the ink on our skin said, but when he saw someone else’s ink, he said we should “take a break.” Whatever that means.”

“It means he’s not good enough for you,” EJ said, smiling earnestly.

“And you are?” Nini asked.

EJ sputtered. “I wasn’t saying that, but…” he hesitated. “I’d like to try to be? If that’s something you want too?”

“EJ Caswell, are you asking me out?”

EJ coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Was that not clear?”

Nini pushed her hair out of her face and grinned. “No, it was clear, but I want you to ask me properly anyway.”

EJ pulled away from her and lifted himself up onto one knee. “Nini… I-don’t-know-your-last-name,”

“Salazar-Roberts,” Nini said, her smile practically splitting her face.

“Nini Salazar-Roberts,” EJ continued. “Will you do me the honor of being my girlfriend?”

Nini pretended to think it over. “On one condition.”

“Which is?”

Nini leaned forward and kissed him quickly. “If you be my boyfriend.”

Taglist - let me know if you want to be added or removed!

@after-nine-at-the-oasis

#hsmtmts #hsm the series #hsmtmts fic #nini hsmtmts #ricky hsmtmts #ej hsmtmts #nini salazar roberts #ricky bowen #ej caswell #poly ship #soulmarks #soulmate au #ot3

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