Chapter Text
Sherlock was five the first time he saw his mother’s bare wrist. She wore an intricate, white, leather band around her right wrist at all times. One morning, however, Sherlock went into her room in the early morning.
She was sitting in her boudoir, rubbing rose scented lotion along her arms. Her right wrist had a swirl of markings looping around it in orange and peach, it would have been beautiful if not for the redness around the edges like a mosquito bite.
“Mummy,” he called, “Does that hurt.” He reached out to touch, curious if the edges of the mark were raised, but stopped himself.
“It’s my soul mark, love. It means I’ve met my soul mate,” she answered.
“Father?” Sherlock asked.
“Yes, I had my Soul Vision my first year of college and met your father a few weeks later, but you are much to young to be asking such things. Why don’t you wake your brother for breakfast.” She ruffled his curls.
Sherlock pouted, he hated being told he was too young for something, but his Mummy’s eyes looked sad, best to ask more questions later.
Sherlock was almost ten when he had his first lesson on the Soul Vision and bond. It was also the year he learned that redness around a bond mark implied infidelity.
Of course, by then his father had suffered a heart attack of such strength he was dead before he reached the hospital. His Mummy’s mark changed to black, and the edges reached out in black veins.
It was then, that Sherlock decided he had no wish to have his ‘Vision’ or find his soul mate.
Research showed that 98% of the population had a soul mate, even if 10% died before ever meeting them. To find their given soul mate, a person must first have their ‘Vision’. The ‘Vision’ aids in finding the person and once first touch is established, the soul mark forms.
In his first study of the bonds, Sherlock thought the idea of having one perfect person for him in the world was a grand thing, but further study showed cases like his Mummy, who suffered from a weak bond.
In fact, most of the population only had 1 to 2 level bonds. Weak bonds that only allowed the smallest bleed through of emotion in times of extreme stress. Level 3 bonds were common enough and allowed a better emotional connection. Level 4 bonds were rare and were said to actually allow telepathic conversations in close quarters. Level 5 was so rare, no one was quite certain of its appearance.
Sherlock would not be satisfied with anything less than a level 3 bond and he knew the higher bonds required a perfect meld of traits. He was not the sort to believe such a person existed for him.
For a time, it seemed his disinterest in bonding was in his favor. Throughout secondary school he watched his classmates receive their Visions. Some found their mates in the next classroom over and other in another school. One boy spent break finding his mate in Germany.
In college, more and more went in search of their bonds. Marks soon appeared on more wrists than not.
But it was fine.
It was all fine.
At 23 Sherlock started referring to himself as a high-functioning sociopath. Sociopaths were known to have trouble bonding or lack a mate completely. This suited his purpose just fine.
That was the same year Mycroft appeared at his door.
He had been steadily avoiding his brother since Mycroft left home for school, but the man had a habit of showing up when he was least wanted.
Sherlock opened the door, sweeping his gaze from top to bottom. “Gaining weight I see, the desk job must suite you,” he snarled.
“Honestly, Sherlock,” Mycroft sighed, placing his hands on his ridiculous, black brolly.
It was then that Sherlock saw it. A level 4 bond mark in dark blue with the interlocking symbols for justice and knowledge.
“How dare you!” Sherlock felt his whole body draw up in unfettered rage. “You swore, you swore that caring isn’t an advantage.”
“I did not lie. Caring is not an advantage, but Gregory is… Avoiding the bond after the Vision was not possible,” Mycroft attempted to look contrite, but Sherlock could see the ease of the lines around his face, he was happy.
“Get out,” Sherlock snarled, forcing his brother from the entrance and slamming the door shut.
He waited an hour, shaking with rage that his brother, the man that treated everyone like pawns on a world-sized chessboard, had formed a level 4 bond.
That night, Sherlock found the dealer he had once dealt with for an experiment. He bought a bag of cocaine and spent the night making a six percent solution. He injected it into his veins still hot, enjoying the burn throughout his body.
Cocaine was amazing; it focused the grinding whir of his thoughts, made everything sharper and brighter. Morphine helped slow everything down, brought the dangerous force of his thoughts into a manageable drone. Heroin allowed him to forget.
The first time Sherlock met ‘Gregory’ was during a spectacular OD. He had injected a speedball; a liquid concoction of heroin and cocaine. It made his heart slow and the lights in his apartment were suddenly very bright indeed.
He was barely breathing, when a man he didn’t recognize burst through the door.
Even dying, Sherlock noted the familiar level four patterns on the man’s arm.
He woke to the sharp disinfectant scent of a hospital. The constant beeping of the machinery around him seemed to burrow into his aching skull.
“You are very lucky I keep an eye on you,” Mycroft’s smug tone sounded from the bedside.
Sherlock turned away from him, even as the movement made his chest hurt and sent lighting strikes of pain to his brain. “Go away, Mycroft!” He would have loved to yell, but his throat was dry; leaving his voice hoarse and scratchy.
“You can not force a Vision by risking your life, Sherlock,” Mycroft stated.
Sherlock must have been worn out because there was little he could do to stop the stiffing of his shoulders. “I don’t have a mate, of course I wouldn’t have a Vision.”
Mycroft sighed, and blessedly left.
The second time Sherlock met Gregory, it was all he could do not to claw the man’s eyes out.
He sat at the side of the bed while Sherlock sweated and shivered. The man had been 35 when he had his Vision of Mycroft. He explained how he had spent the later part of his twenties convinced his mate was dead. Which was why he had entered law-enforcement, a job that was always looking for unbonded men and women.
‘Gregory’ was actually Greg Lestrade, a detective at New Scotland Yard in the homicide division. He also promised to allow Sherlock access to his cases if Sherlock got off the drugs. He handed over a double homicide cold case for incentive.
Sherlock would have thrown the file in his face and never spoken to the man again, but the homicide was interesting.
It would take well into his 26th birthday before Sherlock completely cleaned his system of drugs. He would never admit it, but the cases helped.
Being a consulting detective, having ‘The Work’, was the culmination of everything he had worked toward. He wasn’t happy, per se, but in the heat of a chase or the heart of a brilliant murder, it was a close thing.
Which was probably why, weeks after his 30th birthday, everything changed.
It started with the serial suicides.
Two people, completely unconnected, committed suicide in places they had no right to be, with the same poison. It was clearly murder, but it still took Lestrade to the third suicide to come to him with the case. Even then, Mycroft’s influence was obvious. Honestly, he had no idea how Mycroft managed a level 4 bond with an idiot like Lestrade.
Unfortunately, there was not much to go on. The serial killer had yet to make a mistake, but Sherlock knew he would. The brilliant ones always wanted to get caught.
Allowing his mind to work on a separate problem, Sherlock spent his time in the morgue with his riding crop for an old cold case he was working on.
He sent Lestrade a text concerning the brother and a green ladder.
Of course, the man wanted him to come to the station and ‘explain’ his deductions. As if it wasn’t obvious. Though, Mrs. Hudson had stolen his skull, perhaps he could use Lestrade to bounce ideas off for a while.
He grabbed a cab outside of St. Bart’s for New Scotland Yard. It only took two turns for him to note the man was not heading for the Yard. Deductions flew fast after that. He noticed the old clothes, the bit of shaving cream behind his ear, the torn photo of his children, and the distinctive bulge of a gun in his front pocket. Most of all, he noticed the single bond mark on his arm, red and raised from a broken bond with tendrils of black leaking in.
It was broad daylight, making a place for the poisoning harder to find, but judging by the cab’s turns, they were heading for the warehouse district.
With his phone tucked in his pocket, Sherlock composed a text by touch to Lestrade.
When the cab stopped, Sherlock stalled. “Where are we?”
“Now, now Mr. Holmes, you know every street in London, you know exactly where we are,” the Cabbie turned in his seat, looking pleased with himself.
“You know me, then,” Sherlock commented. He was surprised by that, while some parts of London’s underbelly knew his name, he was hardly famous, or infamous as it where.
“Oh you’re too modest Mr. Holmes, you’ve got yourself a fan,” the man teased.
He raised a curious brow, “Will you be introducing me?”
“I’m afraid not, no. Now, you’re going to die, Mr. Holmes,” the Cabbie opened the door, revealing his gun.
Sherlock noticed the fake immediately. “A gun shot seems a sad substitute for a man that makes his victims kill themselves.”
The man lowered the gun, “Yes, well we haven’t gotten to the fun part yet. First we have to set the stage.”
The Cabbie was leading him into a nearby warehouse when the police rounded the corner.
Sherlock rounded on the man, knocking the fake gun from his hand and bringing him to his knees with a well-placed kick.
A constable cuffed the Cabbie, while Lestrade looked Sherlock over. “You alright?”
“I’m fine, not even a scratch,” Sherlock huffed; he was rather disappointed, really. This case had contained none of the rapid -fire deductions or chases through London that he preferred. He had basically stumbled onto the killer, how anticlimactic.
“Lucky you recognized him for what he was,” Lestrade remarked, leading him over to the huddle of police cars.
“Of course he did, the Freak knows his own,” Sally commented, coming over with Anderson.
With Sherlock’s usual luck, Mycroft was there as well, leaning on his brolly by Lestrade’s cruiser.
Mycroft sent Sally a sharp look, but did not comment, he had learned long ago that it was best to let Sherlock handle his own verbal battles - most of them anyways. “Another case solved.” Mycroft looked smug, as always, like he expected Sherlock would eventually cave to taking government work, foolishness.
Sherlock opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort of deductions at the mass of imbeciles surrounding him, when pain shot through his chest. He cried out, falling to his knees at the burn tearing up his shoulder. His left leg was on fire, everything was wrong. His heart was pounded, adrenaline pumping his system even as he struggled to breathe.
Then, everything went black.
When the pain subsided, Sherlock was still surrounded by blackness, but he could see Lestrade, Mycroft, Sally, and Anderson around him.
Lestrade offered him a hand up, and for once Sherlock took it. While the pain in his body was now a dull roar, he was shaking all over.
The darkness around them seemed to shudder as a static voice buzzed around them. “Evac! Evac! Medic down, requesting immediate extraction from hot zone!”
Suddenly, the darkness burst with light, too bright sunlight filling the area, accompanied by the scent of dust, blood, and gunpowder. Oppressive heat rushed in, searing London-bred skin.
Sherlock’s mind must not have been functioning properly, because it took an embarrassing amount of time to realize what was happening. He was the only unbonded in the group, this was his Vision; a Vision shared with four of the worst possible people, fantastic.
When the Vision settled, Sherlock found himself standing behind three British soldiers in full battle gear. Judging by the gear and the location, they were either in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The men were huddled behind a broken concrete wall and a pile of rubble. They weren’t shooting, but the surrounding area occasionally exploded with distant IED blasts. Whoever they were fighting, was closing in fast.
Less then fifty yards away, a soldier cried out for help. He was dressed in the same British gear, unable to move do to the complete loss of his left leg. He was reaching out, crying for help. His sleeve slipped to reveal a Level four bond mark in dark green.
Behind the wall, the smallest of the men was being held back. “You can’t go out there Captain, you won’t be able to bring him back in time.”
“I have to help him, what about Julie,” the man tugged against the hold. When it still did not budge, he spun on the officer restraining him and knocked the arm away. “I will not leave him,” he snarled, before scrabbling up the wall.
He reached the wounded soldier just as insurgents came up the hill.
The men wore no uniforms, just a mess of shirts, jeans, and cloths protecting their mouth and nose against the dust.
The soldiers behind the wall laid down suppressive fire, but their aim was way off in an attempt to not hit their comrades.
The Captain pulled a Browning from his side holster and took aim. It was like watching a lion on the prowl. His hands were steady, his gaze fierce. The Captain shot five times and five men dropped with bullets in their brains.
Sherlock watched, fascinated.
In the end, it was the sixth man that got them. Pulling up late behind his comrades, a sixth man rose over the hill as the Captain was distracted pulling the wounded into a fireman’s carry. He aimed his AK-47 and shot.
Three shots from the soldiers behind the wall brought the sixth man down, but not before the other bullet had burned its way through the Captain’s shoulder.
Sherlock yelled, rushing forward to help what he knew was an illusion.
Lestrade’s firm hand kept him back. “Shh, Sherlock there’s nothing you can do, just watch okay, just watch.
“John, I need to… John needs me,” Sherlock was shaking and he had no idea where the name came from, but it was the right one. His brave, little soldier was named John.
Another man rose from behind the wall, his tag claiming him as Murray. He pulled John and the other back behind the wall, while another man radioed for help.
Murray spent time on the man missing his leg, first. He pressed a compress bandage against the stub and wrapped it up tight before securing a strange, black tourniquet further from the wound.
When he turned to John, he shoved more of the packaged bandages in his wound, and wrapped the whole thing in a green cloth that looked like something straight out of WWII.
John was panting, struggling for breath.
Sherlock knew his lung was collapsing, knew his mate was bleeding out in the desert while these imbeciles did nothing.
Thankfully, Murray leaned his ear close against the wound, and above the endless noise of the battlefield, he heard the telltale hiss of a punctured lung. “Shit,” the man cussed and dug into the pack at his side.
He pulled out a large needle, 14 gauge, Sherlock thought. He pushed down John’s top and shoved against his vest as he felt for the second and third rib. With a jab, he shoved the needle through flesh and muscle. There was a whistle of air as pressure was released. Murray sighed in relief while he pressed a valve over the needle to keep it in and the hole open.
Sherlock tried to memorize everything he could about both of their dirt covered faces. He knew he now owed Murray for the life of his mate.
The helicopter landed a few yards away, far enough, that the men struggled to bring their wounded aboard.
Sherlock watched, heart pounding, as John was loaded on board.
His soldier was close to passing out, but he looked out at the field that almost killed him, reaching out for something that wasn’t there. Just before he was out of sight, Sherlock would swear he saw the man whisper is name.
****
John’s family lived in a small flat in the middle of a bad neighborhood, but they were happy.
John’s Dad was a cab driver and his Mum worked as a secretary during the day and a waitress at night. The two shared a triple bond in loyal yellow.
John was just leaving primary school when his Dad died. It was a horrible car accident. The police said he died on impact.
The horror of the death was not enough to fell his mum, but the mark on her arm shaded with black and tendrils like veins came out of it, obscuring the once beautiful shapes.
Mum ‘faded’ after that. Her skin grew translucent pale, her eyes smudged with lack of sleep. Worst of all, was the now endless collection of alcohol filling the flat.
John had to watch his Mum fade. He was old enough to remember when she was warmth and love and home, but he was also young enough that he could not leave the flat as she grew to be sadness, pain, and heartache. Unlike his sister, who, at 16, fled the house after her Vision and never came back.
John fought to be better than his broken family. In secondary school he earned top grades and attended every class, even when his mother’s drinking habits left him with little supervision.
Some days, his mum was lucid enough to tell him he was being foolish. That he was never going to get into college, let alone become a doctor; he didn’t have the money or the intelligence to accomplish such a thing.
John set about proving her wrong.
He earned the grades to get into Saint Bart’s, but money did become an issue. Even with financial aid, he found himself working two separate jobs and sharing a postage stamp flat with four other people.
He studied in between jobs and late at night, sleep became something that happened to other people.
Joining the Army was a complete accident. By his mid-twenties, John still had not had his Vision, and was pretty sure his soul mate must have died.
He was walking out of the hospital from an exhausting twelve hour ER shift, when the recruiter stopped him.
“How’d you like to have someone pay off your school loans?”
John turned to face a man in military dress. He had another soldier with him and a handful of pamphlets.
John took one because it seemed rude not too.
The soldier grinned at him, “No bond, the service would love you. Had your Vision yet?”
John shook his head, “No, sir.”
“The Army will only take level 1 and 2 bonds or no bond at all. Those with higher bonds have to enlist with their bond mates. A young doctor like you could do well in the service,” the man remarked, showing his blank wrist.
John looked at the soldier; he had to be at least forty, one of the sad percent of the population without a bond. He knew the Army had a high percentage of people either without a bond or a black one.
He ended up sharing a pint with the man. His name was Sergeant Langdon, and he had spent fifteen years in the service of Queen and Country. He talked about the easy camaraderie between soldiers and how different everything could be.
John signed up that day. He was never certain if it was the promise of danger, money, or belonging that got him to sign his name on the line.
One way or the other, John loved the Army. He had found his niche in the bloody desert of a foreign land. So, of course, that was when he had his Vision.
They had been pulling a simple patrol of a village outside of the Kandahar province in Afghanistan when all hell broke loose. A daisy-chain of IED blasts got set off on the side of the road from a damn coke can that blended in with the rest of the trash on the street. Two of their soldiers were dead instantly, killed from shrapnel.
Their CO was leading them to cover, when another IED took Corporal Wiggins leg. John was already behind the wall when he realized what happened.
Wiggins was screaming for help, unable to move or crawl as his leg squirted blood.
John couldn’t leave him there to die. Wiggins had joined the Army with his bond Julie. He was a regular scout while Julie was one of the rare female mechanics on base. It was amazing to watch them together, a quad bond so strong that they were borderline telepathic.
John knew that the moment Wiggins died, Julie would either die instantly or, depending on how unlucky she was, linger until her heart stopped pumping.
Watching Wiggins die in the field would be like condemning two.
He had to struggle with his CO to get out of cover and grab Wiggins.
Getting back to the wall, took him shooting five men in the head, and taking a shot to the shoulder, but he made it. He gave Wiggins a chance.
Murray, their unit’s medic, saved John’s life and pulled him onto the helicopter. That was when things got strange.
As he was pulled on the helicopter, he could have sworn he saw a man in the distance, a civilian with black hair and a long coat. “Sherlock,” he muttered, not sure where the name came from.
“What was that Captain?” Murray yelled in his ear, over the roar of the rotors. Murray strapped him into a stretcher, careful not to touch the 14-gauge needle sticking out of his chest.
Then everything went black, but not the black of unconsciousness, John could still see Murray clearly.
“Captain, Christ,” he cursed, rubbing his wrist where his double bond was.
John pushed himself up, suddenly feeling fine and no longer strapped to a stretcher. “It can’t be. Now, of all times?”
Murray shrugged.
“I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.”
“I have been reliably informed I don’t have one.”
“We both know that’s not true, don’t we. Its just not here, yet.”
John blinked at the words, confused as the darkness shifted into Vision.
He was standing in a darkened swimming pool, the water reflecting off the walls. It was…eerie.
Two men stood off to the right. One was a familiar looking man in a long coat. The other was a smaller man in an expensive suite and a smirk like a spider.
Behind the spider were two hostages. Men tied back to back with semtex wrapped around them. Their arms were also tied together, showing matching quad bonds.
John felt his heart skip a beat at the red sniper dots on their chests.
“Of all the hostages you could think of, my brother and Lestrade was the best you could do?” Sherlock, his name had to be Sherlock, sneered.
“Well I’m afraid I’ve had trouble finding Johnny boy, your mate seems to have run away. Weeeee,” the man seemed gleeful running his fingers through the air like a child. “You should be pleased he is being sensible, you hardly want to spend your life tied to some dumb soldier. What do you think that bond would have been level one, two maybe? Or were you hoping to match your brother with a four, or a legendary five, perhaps?”
Sherlock looked as calm as ever, “Well, it hardly matters now.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. I just can’t let you go on, I just can’t. So sorry,” the spider snapped his fingers and John heard the report of a sniper rifle.
He came back to the helicopter screaming. “Sherlock!”
Murray was holding him down, pressing him into the stretcher. “Its alright mate, we’ll find him, its alright.”