Author's Note: I stayed up way late in the night to finish this on Sunday. This is my first finished piece for the Sherlock fandom. I've also started venturing into the M-rated zone. So, let me calm my beating heart and get my shield to fend off any negative things that might be said. This is Soulmate AU, and this particular form of soulmate bonding was inspired by the song See Through by Pentatonix. It is Johnlock, soo... If you don't like that please don't read this and then flame me. It would be good for your blood pressure and for my own peace of mind... Well, I hope that you guys enjoy this! -S.R. Wells
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes in any variation. If I did... Some of the stuff that barely remains subtext, would no longer be subtext.
It was a strange phenomenon that doctors around the world couldn't quite explain, but they couldn't dispute that it didn't exist. The phenomenon had a large scientific name, but everyone just called it by its common name: the Soulmate Connection. The one person whose very soul you could see. The one person whom you would be destined for, romantically, for life.
However that wasn't quite right, John thought. It was more like the one person who you were most compatible with. It didn't qualify as the instant and permanent love that everyone imagined. John knew this because of his sister and his years in the military. His sister, Harry, had met her Soulmate, Clara. They were happy together and they were soon married. John had hoped that with Harry finding her Soulmate the drinking would stop. It wasn't the case. John had to watch as they fought. Or rather read. Clara sent him many letters, asking for his help on getting through to his sister. None of his advice had worked though; they had ended up getting a divorce. That was when he had learn that though you might find your so-called true love, you had to work on the relationship to keep it afloat.
His other, painful, lesson about Soulmates had been in the military. John didn't realize how hard his heart could break for another person until he had been in the war zone. Bombs exploding and enemy patrols attacking them. He had been in the thick of it for a month before it happened the first time. When people first met their Soulmate, they got this funny look on their face. He had seen it once when a nurse had gone to tend to a new patient and ended up meeting her Soulmate in him. But the next time he saw it, it wasn't in some safe area.
It was in the middle of a fight. He was tending to a fallen soldier and had looked at the rest of the battle zone for a moment. Long enough to see the connection happen between a member of his squad and one of the enemy fighters. He watched as sadness passed on the enemy soldier's face before he raised his weapon and killed his Soulmate. John had flinched and looked away when the enemy soldier had cried out in pure agony at the other half of his soul being killed. That cry had haunted John for many nights, and if John was being truthful, it still haunted him now, joined by the exact same cry spoken in different voices and tones. That was when he learned that even if you found your Soulmate, you could still be enemies and kill each other.
Every day he was in the war zone, he prayed that he wouldn't meet his Soulmate in an enemy soldier. He prayed that he never met the surely brilliant soul that only he could see and then have to extinguish it. Serving in the military had squashed any childish romantic fantasies John had had as a child. There was no meeting your Soulmate and falling in love with them and having your love defeat all of the odds that were stacked against you. Love was War. And in War, Love didn't often live to see the end of the day. So, John prayed. Every night, he prayed that he would never see his Soulmate amongst the enemy.
His prayer was answered when he was shot in the shoulder. It hurt like hell and got him sent from the war zone. He was pulled out of duty, permanently. It was the fact that he was being sent back to London that he had an issue with. London was nice, but it wasn't the military. It wasn't travelling and a constant thrill of danger and adventure. It was boring. It was even worse when he was assigned a counselor for his 'war traumas' and his bloody limp that shouldn't exist. He was shot in the shoulder, not in his leg. Yet, he had physical therapy for his shoulder and a cane for his leg that felt like it had been shot.
John still remembered waking up one morning and getting out of bed, only to collapse as pain shot through his right leg, bringing him to his knees. He had to get help to get back into his bed. It had been humiliating. He was bloody Captain John Watson, doctor of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers! Now, he was reduced to a broken man who needed help everywhere he went. It was sickening, and he worked hard to fix the situation. He exercised his shoulder so it could get good as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there was nothing technically wrong with his leg that they could fix. No. It was 'just a psychosomatic limp'.
So, John had to go to therapy to fix it. That made John want to shoot something. Every time he went, he was told to write a blog about his life. Nothing happened to him. So, every single bloody time he went back, he made a lie about how he was working on it. Then he would go back to his temporary flat and try not to think about how his pension fund wouldn't be able to support him living in London much longer. He couldn't bear to think of leaving London. The place reminded him of better times when he was young, not so disillusioned about life, and still in training.
With all of the shite that was going on with Harry and Clara's separation, John's mind turned to the thought of Soulmates. Sometimes he would turn Harry's old phone in his hands, rubbing his thumb over Clara's inscription, and stare off into the distance, his mind filled with agonized screams. Eventually, John decided to do some research on Soulmates. Which meant that he had to go through a lot of lovey-dovey dribble. It hurt him to read about so many success stories after he had seen firsthand how Soulmate pairs could harm each other. He kept reading them, though, because of the descriptions that rarely appeared, describing how beautiful it could be to look into your Soulmate's very being. Occasionally, there would be an artistic person that did their best to paint it. To say the least, the results were varying and mesmerizing.
It didn't make him feel very good when he was having one of his darker moments. He was rising in his thirties and hadn't met his Soulmate yet. Most people ended up meeting their Soulmate in their twenties. Once you went beyond that… Well, there was a reason people who never met their Soulmate dated and married. The chance that you would meet your Soulmate significantly decrease. It was due to the fact that your Soulmate could live in a remote country or even be dead. From what he had gathered from his studies, the pain that could occur from losing a Soulmate could often cause appendix ruptures and sometimes even heart attacks. John tried to have hope that because his appendix had never ruptured and he had never had a heart attack, his Soulmate was still out there. He did occasionally read stories of people being married in their fifties and divorcing because they had found their Soulmate. He read quite a few of those stories to give himself hope. It never worked.
His money was dwindling. He would have to move out soon. He stared at his computer and thought that if he read one more bloody Soulmate story he would take his gun that had been misappropriated to him, and shoot himself in the head. John tapped his hand against his knee. There was no escaping it. He had to get out and have some fresh air before he did something crazy. He sometimes wondered about how much better it would be to live in prison. He only occasionally regretted his Hippocratic Oath. He sighed and grabbed his cane, heading out.
He shuffled along in Regents Park, keeping his head down. He couldn't perform surgery because of his now shaky hands which rather limited his options for making money. Maybe he could make it as a General Doctor?
"John! John Watson!"
It took John a second to recognize his name. He turned around, and then started a conversation with Mike Stamford that led to them sitting on a park bench with coffee. He was starting to warm up to Mike a little bit after the whole issue about John being shot had been covered. He laughed ruefully as Mike made a comment about teaching "bright young things, like we used to be". He wished that he was that young again. Eventually, the talk turned to flats.
"Yeah, like that's going to happen!" John bit out sarcastically. Harry wouldn't help him at all. In fact, he was lending her money for her bad drinking habits.
Mike shrugged, "I don't know. Get a flat-share or something?"
He was an old army doctor. Was Mike being serious? "Come on! Who'd want me for a flat-mate?" he asked rhetorically.
Mike just chuckled like he knew something John didn't.
"What?" John asked half-curious and half-irritated.
Mike smiled, "Well, you're the second person to say that to me today."
John wasn't going to ask. There was no way he was going to get his hopes up. No. Never. Oh, who was he kidding? John couldn't help but ask, "Who was the first?"
Which led him to traversing the halls of St. Bart's hospital. Mike was being his chatty self, talking about his wife and children and then switching it to what John thought of the hospital. Honestly, John had replied, "Bit different from my day."
Mike had chuckled, "You've no idea!"
John was about to reply when he turned his gaze to the other person in the room. He froze. It was like the universe had been captured in the silhouette of a person. Black was the main background, but it was a comforting sort of black. It was covered with little specks of white and yellow. There was also a paint splatter of ghostly blue that had light blue mist surrounding and going through it. There was also a spider web of green mixed with a copper-colored red. There were hints of purple and other various colors, such as pink. It showed to John how complex and intelligent the person in front of him was. John's eyes were drawn to the spot where the other person's heart would be. In that spot there was something that looked like a cracked miniature red dwarf star that was constricted by a sickly shade of green. This person's heart had been hurt and rather badly it seemed; John could practically the sorrow and hurt echo in his own heart, mimicking the stranger's pain.
Not a stranger. John's Soulmate. John's eyes widened, and it was like another lense had been moved over the image John had seen. Now, John could see that his Soulmate was a rather attractive man with dark curly hair. He was wearing a very nice suit and appeared to be the exact opposite of John. Composed and above it all. John wished he could see what color his Soulmate's eyes were, but they were still locked onto whatever was in the petri dish. John almost wanted to shout for him to look up at him, but he was having some issues breathing. Strange. Had he stopped breathing?
"Mike, can I borrow your phone?" the tall man said with a deep baritone voice that had John's legs shaking. "There's no signal on –" his voice cut off as the man's delicious grey-blue eyes looked John's way. The man's eyes widen and his mouth opened slightly as if he had just seen something interesting.
John felt like he was stuck in place. Vaguely, from the corner of his eye, he saw Mike's understanding and his quiet retreat. John just stood there for what seemed like hours with the beautiful man staring at him. He had to say something. "Uh, h-hi?" was what creaked out of his throat. Dammit.
The man's eyes refocused, and John could see the protective gray blanket that covered his Soulmate's soul. The man looked him up and down with a flick of his eyes and then met his eyes, "Afghanistan or Iraq?"
John was confused. What was he talking about? John cleared his throat, "Sorry?"
The man rolled his eyes, "Which was it – Afghanistan or Iraq?"
Somewhere in his brain, a connection was made and John realized that the man was talking about where John had served, "Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you know?" Had Mike told the man?
His Soulmate ignored the question, "How do you feel about the violin?"
Was meeting your Soulmate usually this much of a shock that he was forgetting parts of a conversation or was this man leaping ahead of him in changing thought processes? John felt like he should probably apologize for his slowness, "I'm sorry, what?"
The man started to quickly type on the laptop computer, "Can I have your mobile phone for a second?" He held a hand out.
Wordlessly, John handed it to the man.
The man quickly accepted it and sent off a quick message before giving it back to John.
"Thanks?" John mumbled, confused, putting his phone in his pocket.
The man went back to typing, "I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes, I don't talk for days on end." He finished typing and turned to look at John, "Would that bother you? Potential flat-mates should know the worst about each other," he gave John a very tight and fake smile.
John frowned at that, "Who said anything about flat-mates?"
The tall man stood up and fluidly went to put his long black coat on, "I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flat-mate for. Now, here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't that difficult a leap," the man finished, sounding modest.
When the man put it like that, it did sound rather obvious. But still… "How did you know about Afghanistan?"
Once more John's question was ignored, as the man wrapped a blue scarf around his neck and checked his phone, "Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it." He walked towards John, his face momentarily curious, "We'll meet there tomorrow evening; seven o'clock." Brown flashed against his Soulmate's soul, "Sorry. Got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary," he headed for the door.
John was a little confuse and a bit annoyed. He had just met his Soulmate. Usually, there was some sort of introduction, when you weren't enemies in the middle of battle anyways. In a bit of an unexpected twist, he was now apparently going to move in with his Soulmate. Not that he had any objections to it. John was just irritated that none of his questions were being answered, "Is that it?"
The man pause and turned around to walk back to John, "Is that what?"
John could barely keep the note of incredulity from his voice, "We've only just met and we're going to go and look at a flat?"
The man raised one eyebrow at him in a way that should not make John want to push him up against the nearest flat surface and thoroughly snog him, "Problem?"
John just smiled at him in disbelief, "We don't know a thing about each other: I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name!"
His Soulmate gave him a piercing look and started to speak in a shockingly fast manner, "I know you're an Army doctor home from Afghanistan and you're currently invalid. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him: possibly because he's an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic – quite correctly, I'm afraid."
John looked at his leg as it twinged painfully. He frowned and shuffled awkwardly, trying to relieve the sudden pain.
Sounding smug, he said a little bit breathlessly, "That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" He tilted his head a little bit, "The address is Two-Two-One-Bee Baker Street. And the name," he leaned into John's personal space, "is Sherlock Holmes." Looking deeply into John's eyes, he leaned forward to give John probably one of the hottest and most exciting kiss he'd ever experienced.
John felt a deep pull in his lower gut and his heart felt like it was soaring into the sky with joy. John deepened the kiss, and their tongues started a delicious dance.
Thoroughly out of breath, Sherlock pulled back with a dark and hungry look in his eyes. With a voice deepened with desire, he carefully drawled out, "If I didn't have to get my riding crop and quickly go apprehend someone, I would love to continue that kiss." His tongue wetted his lip and John realized that he was starting to develop a large problem in his pants. Sherlock gently bit his bottom lip and John became aware of a twitch from his nether regions. Sherlock gave John a smile that made John realize that Sherlock knew exactly what he was doing. Sherlock smirked unapologetically and quickly said, "Afternoon," before fleeing out of the room.
John stood still for a few seconds, before he had to lean against something and catch his breath. He stood there with his hand resting above where his heart was pounding as his brain did its best at understanding what had just happened. After a while he came to this muttered conclusion, "Bloody hell. Am I going to have to deal with that for the rest of my life?" He didn't know if he should be pleased beyond belief or downright fearful. He felt like he was leaning more towards being pleased beyond belief. Whatever might happen, John felt like living with Sherlock was going to be one of the most adventurous things he had ever done.
