Archive of Our Own

Work Text

JOHN – AGE 9            “Bad luck, that,” Gran tutted. The fingers against his hand were soft as old cotton—cool and thin and worn-smooth at the fingertips. “Name like that one... must be a toff, yeah?”            “Maybe,” his mother replied anxiously. “But it mightn’t mean that. Could just be a parent with... creative leanings.”            “Climber, more like,” Gran scoffed, shaking her white-gold head.            “Well, it’s hardly his soulmate’s fault, is it? If his parents aim too high?”            “Be a bit of a letdown, when he discovers our John.”            John curled his small fist, turning his hand palm-up in Gran’s loose grasp. Bit of a letdown. That was John all over.            “Johnny, run and check on Harry, will you?” His mum wasn’t looking him in the eye, but he knew a small mercy when he saw one. He beat a hasty retreat outside, into the overgrown back garden where his little sister had built a small fiefdom out of scavenged sticks and broken bits of masonry.            “You can’t come in,” she informed him, with all the natural authority of an eight-year-old terror. “I’m the Queen in here.”            “What’re you every other place then?” John wondered.            Harry scowled, her nearly-invisible brows meeting hard over a pert nose. “What are you doing out here?”            “Checking on you. Avoiding Gran.”            Harry nodded solemnly. “Best come in, then. There are dragons in the garden.”            John gave a perfunctory sort of bow, which warmed Harry’s expression considerably, and then stepped over the line of bottle caps meant to indicate a door. Harry had a few plastic milk crates as seating, and she was sipping at a cola that sweated in the sunshine. She passed it to John, who took a small swig.            “Gran don’t like my soulname,” John said. Harry took back the bottle and set it on the ground between them.            “Why not?”            “Says it’s posh. Too posh for me.”            “Too posh for you? How come?”            John shrugged. “He’ll be letdown.”            Harry’s eyes flew wide. “He will?”            “...Yeah.”            “You’ve got a boy’s name?”            “Think so, yeah.”            “Does Da know?”            “Not yet. Mum hasn’t told him. She said, maybe we could hide it for a while.”            Harry hummed a little, scrunching her face up in thought. “How you going to hide it, if Gran’s seen? Think she’ll keep it secret?”            “Might do,” John said, but he didn’t sound convincing.            “Gina’s mum says that sometimes a soulmate isn’t like a boyfriend or girlfriend. You don’t got to live with him or anything.”            “Yeah...”            “Could be a friend. A posh best friend!” Harry’s smile was missing two teeth these days.            John had nine and a half years to Harry’s eight, and that made him just a bit wiser. Just enough to know what people meant when they said those sorts of things. Well, her soulname is a woman’s, you understand, but she’s dating a fellow, right and proper. The soulmate’s just a friend. Best friend. You know the type. John knew the type. He had a teacher at school with another man’s name on his hand.            “Sure. Best friend. Maybe he’ll be rich enough to buy us a motorbike to share.”            “Yeah!” Harry agreed, warming to the subject. “Or even a car. One of those long, dark ones with the blacked out windows.”            “Limousine.”            “Right, limousine. With leather seats and a driver wearing a smart cap.”            “Sure.” John forced his smile. “We’ll come pick you up in it, you and your soulmate, and we’ll all go away for holiday. Someplace nice.”            “A castle!”            “A castle. With a real dragon guarding the gate.”            Harry grinned, and then took another pull of the flattened soda. She offered it to John, but he shook his head. His stomach was in the kind of knots you have to cut apart with a knife.            The smile fell off Harry’s face, and she twisted her curly ponytail around one hand. “Da’s gonna kill you, isn’t he?”            John swallowed. “Probably.”            “It isn’t like you can help it! You’d not have a boy’s name if you could!” John appreciated that his sister could get so indignant on his behalf. He couldn’t muster the energy, really—not for his own sake.            “I don’t know that I’d care, if Da didn’t,” John admitted quietly.            “You’d care,” Harry said. Her voice was firm and a bit tight. “Anybody’d care.”            “Would you?” John asked. Harry made her thinking face again.            “Yeah. I think, yeah. But, like, so what if I did? Can’t do nothing about it, right?”            “Would you just be friends, then? Best friends?”            “Of course,” Harry replied, looking appalled. “I’m not going to Hell!”            Going to Hell. Right. That’s where people who acted on their same-sex soulnames ended up. Right alongside the murderers and heretics and prostitutes.            “’Course not,” John soothed. “Neither of us are.”            “It’ll be all right, Johnny. Da will get over it. He’ll see you aren’t a fag.”            John found that smile for her again—the one that hurt like a pulled muscle. “Ta, Harry.”            Harry smiled back, and turned her round face up toward the sky. She’d been pink and peeling all summer long, but Mum could never talk Harry into covering up. Nobody could talk Harry into anything.            After a long moment, Harry asked, “What’s the name, then? On your hand?”            John held his left hand out flat. The word ran the whole length of his third finger, red and raw like a burn. It would take weeks to settle into a pinky-red scar, and even longer to fade to white like Mum’s. Like Da’s, slashed through with a raised line from where an accident at work nearly severed the finger.            John read the letters aloud, pointing to each for Harry as he went:            “S H E R L O C K.”            Harry repeated the letters quietly, the way she did any time she was memorizing the look of something instead of really reading. “What’s it spell?”            “Sherlock. That’s how Mum says it, anyway.”            “Sherlock,” Harry said, tasting the word on her tongue, cracking the final k. “Gran’s right. Sounds like a posh git.” John checked the back windows were clear before giving her a two-fingered salute. Harry just laughed and laughed.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 9            Sherlock wasn’t usually embarrassed by things he could not change. He didn’t give much thought to his family’s income, or the state of their cluttered manor home. He knew he was tall, and too thin, and his curly hair went puff at the first sign of rain. Mycroft was tall, too, but not thin, and he spent so much time trying to make himself smaller. Sherlock couldn’t understand it. There were no advantages to smallness, so far as Sherlock could see.            There were the awkward strings of unasked-for information—“deductions,” Mummy said, “we shall call them deductions”—which made the people around Sherlock frown and find other places to be. They were as natural as breathing, but not nearly so quiet. Mycroft had those, too, and Eurus took them far enough to be cruel. It’s those unusual Holmes children, neighbors whispered into each other’s ears. Maybe it all should’ve been embarrassing, but Sherlock rather liked being unusual. Usual was boring. Father said there was nothing embarrassing about that.            Of course, his elder brother Mycroft’s stupid soulname was suitably unusual: ANTHEA. One of the many names of the Greek Goddess, Hera. Mycroft liked to remind his little brother of that, in a self-satisfied tone, as if Sherlock were capable of merely forgetting. Mycroft hadn’t met Anthea yet, but Mummy and Father were already in negotiations with the girl’s parents—merchant gentry out of Wales, with some boring-sounding shipping company and a stable full of horses. Sherlock resolved to dislike her. After all, she was a perfect match for Mycroft.            Sherlock was nine and three-quarters when his soulname came in.            It hurt. The mark was a kind of biochemical burn, a wound inflicted by the soul upon the body, and Sherlock woke up around three in the morning with a shout. It was terrible. His left third finger wept sticky blood on his sheets and swelled up so much that Sherlock could not bend it. His nanny was the first to come running, her hair barely tucked away under the hijab before she ducked through his bedroom door.            “Sherlock!” she cried. “What is wrong?”            “My finger,” he sobbed. “I don’t want it. Make it stop!”            She took his bare hand between soft-gloved fingers. Her eyes went wide and wet, which seemed in opposition to the soft smile. She looked... very pleased. It wasn’t an expression often aimed at Sherlock, but he’d seen her look just that way at his little sister, Eurus. Right before Nanny Hadiya murmured something like, There’s a sweet babe, yes, you precious thing. Eight-year-old Eurus was decidedly not sweet.            “Sherlock, dearest, it is your soulname,” Nanny explained. Sherlock knew that. He wasn’t an idiot. He just wanted it to stop burning. “Come into the washroom, and we’ll run it under some cold water. I will go and wake your parents.”            Sherlock did as he was told, but only because he couldn’t think of a cleverer solution. Also, he rather wanted his mother to be with him just now. Not in some babyish way, but... Well. His finger hurt.            “Sherlock!” Mummy cried, pulling his swollen left hand from under the running faucet. “How lovely! I did think, perhaps, any day now—”            “Congratulations, Bumble,” his father interrupted in a sleep-rough voice. “Let the boy put it under the tap, Lydia. Hurts like the Devil, eh?”            Sherlock nodded, pulling a miserable face. He’d stopped crying, but the mirror over the sink reflected his red eyes and damp nose.            A small, sharp voice came from the open washroom door. “Well, what’s the name then?”            Eurus was in a long cotton nightdress, with her hair plaited frizzily on each side of her head. Sherlock scowled. He didn’t particularly want Eurus to see his soulname, or to hear it spoken aloud. Sherlock hadn’t even got a look at it himself yet.            “Eurus, dear,” Hadiya called from further down the hall, in that voice reserved only for Sherlock’s sister. “Back to bed, little bird.”            “Sherlock has a name!” Eurus whined back. “I want to see it!”            “In the morning, Eurus,” Mummy smiled. She pressed a hand firmly to Eurus’s slim back, pushing her down the hall toward the nanny. The look his younger sister sent over one shoulder was curious, and oddly hungry. It made Sherlock shiver in his pajamas.            “Would you like us to stay,” Father wondered, “or would you rather look for yourself first? I think the swelling’s gone down enough to read it.”            Sherlock pressed his lips together, hard, and watched the water run clear and cold along the back of his hand. “Go. No! Look. Tell me what it says.”            With steady hands, Mummy once again removed Sherlock’s left hand from the sink. She switched off the tap and pressed a washcloth to the back of his fingers. It stung.            “Let’s see who the lucky young lady shall be, then. Hmm?”            She peeled away the flannel carefully, and Mummy and Father both leaned in. Sherlock closed his eyes. He waited. He waited. He opened his eyes again with a puzzled frown.            Mummy and Father were wide-eyed. They weren’t looking at Sherlock’s bare hand, but at each other. Mummy’s mouth was making a small O-shaped hole.            “Mummy?” Sherlock asked.            “It’s—the name, darling. It’s—”            Sherlock looked down. The sharp lines of text were still angry, but the name was short and simple enough to read. In English, too, which was never guaranteed.            JOHN.            “But—but that’s a boy’s name. John. I’ve never heard of a girl named John.”            Father smiled, but it was pulled-tight and didn’t give Sherlock the warm feeling in his chest that Father’s smiles usually did. “Yes, Sherlock. It’s a boy’s name.”            “My soulmate is a boy?”            “Yes,” Mummy nodded. “It would seem so.”            “Why?”            Father and Mummy glanced at each other again. They weren’t smiling. When Mycroft’s soulname came in, there had been cake and bright laughter at the dinner table. Sherlock was only four at the time, but his memory was excellent. He remembered the fond looks Mummy gave to Father then, and the taste of chocolate icing on his tongue. Mycroft refused to wrap the finger, despite the scabs.            Why was Sherlock’s soulname so... different?            Mummy’s given name was Merritt, but she preferred to use her middle name: Lydia. Lydia was the name on Father’s finger, much to Grandmere’s consternation. “Such fuss,” she’d complained one Easter Sunday. “Trying to locate a Lydia, can you imagine? And there were no inter-country records in those days! These young people have no sense of propriety.” It worked out, in the end; and anyway, everyone outside the family just called her Professor Holmes.            Father was usually called “the professor’s soulmatch,” but his name was Siger. Sherlock always rather liked Father’s name. It looked so solid and spare, along Mummy’s third finger.            The word JOHN was like that. Solid. A square block of text; no messing about with JONATHAN or JOHANNES or JÁNOS. Mycroft had a János in his form at school. He was a weasley sort of fellow, and Sherlock was relieved that his name had not shown up on Sherlock’s hand.            Then again, why would it? He was a boy. That sort of thing just wasn’t done.            “Perhaps we should discuss this after breakfast...” Mummy said. Father was nodding along, looking relieved, but Sherlock gave his best harrumph.            “I don’t want to wait. I want to know why my soulmate is a boy.”            “Sherlock—” Father sighed.            “It’s my finger. My soulname. I should be able to know.” In fact, it was Sherlock’s policy that he ought to be able to know anything he liked. Mummy and Father indulged his endless questions, even seemed to relish the challenge of answering them. Asked and answered—that was the usual way in the Holmes manor.            The look that passed between his parents then was unreadable. Many such looks were, of course. Sherlock was still studying the language of face and body, and the sheer variety of data gave him headaches sometimes.            “All right, Bumble,” Father nodded, taking Mummy’s hand. “Let’s go down to the sitting room. I’ll ask Miss Anna to brew up a pot of tea. I imagine we’ve woken her by now, all this racket.”            “Shall we get you a plaster for your hand, darling?” Mummy let Father go and began to dig through the drawers next to the sink. She wasn’t looking at Sherlock anymore.            “Yes, please,” he replied. Mummy brought out a tube of antiseptic cream, along with the tin of sticky strips. She smoothed the ointment over his soulname with care, and then wrapped a pair of bandages across the name. JOHN disappeared under drab little plasters, like a secret.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 15            “Girlfriend, is it?” Da chortled. John could feel his ears reddening, his pulse jumping in his neck. “Pretty thing? Curvy? Nice plump tits?”            “Jack!” Mum scolded. “She’s a nice girl. You bite your tongue.”            But Da never cared much what Mum had to say, these days.            “Why’d she even agree to go out with your type?” Da wondered aloud. John wasn’t meant to answer. “Must be some kind of desperate, to try it on with a poofter.”            “It’s just fun, Da,” John mumbled. “We have a good time together.”            “Do you?”            John lifted his chin and gritted his teeth. “Yeah. I’m not gay.”            “That name on your finger says otherwise, boyo.”            “It’s platonic, Jack,” Mum attempted again. “That just happens, sometimes. Father Reid says—”            “Father Reid is gay as a picnic basket his own self,” Da said.            “He’s married. His wife’s name is on his hand.”            “The name is Jesse,” Da spat back. “Could be bird or bloke, couldn’t it? Too common to mean much. And they got no kids.”             “That doesn’t mean anything. Some people can’t. And he dotes on her, you can tell.”            “You’re not a good judge of that sort of thing, are you?” Da’s voice took on a dangerous edge. Mum’s face pulled thin and tight, like a rubber band—dangerously taut, stretched near to breaking. John shifted his weight to both feet and pulled his left hand into a tight fist. “You can’t help pushing out fags, and then you act so damned surprised when the names come in.”            “It isn’t Mum’s fault,” John said. Da’s narrow eyes settled on him instead, which was better. “Not my name, nor Harry’s. Nobody can change a soulname. And anyway, mine’s not romantic. I like girls.”            “You like them, eh?”            “Yeah. I do.”            “You like chatting with them on the telephone? Going for a little stroll through the park? Painting each other’s nails, of an afternoon?”            “I like snogging girls,” John bit out. His neck burned hot with humiliation. “I’d like to do more.”            “Can’t though. Any decent woman’s going to ask to see the word on your finger. Won’t be sleeping with a man who isn’t her soulmate, no matter how nice the snogging.”            John tried to draw even, measured breaths. Da was well into a bottle of whiskey, and the man was unpredictable when stone cold sober. Letting his father rile him up didn’t do anyone any good. Least of all Mum, who always got caught in the crossfire. At least Harry was out of the house. Da and Harry were like two sides of one coin, and both sides were too quick to throw a punch.            The worst of it was that Da was right. People cheated on their soulmatches—of course they did—and there were those who’d do any manner of illicit thing to a bloke for the right price. John was in fifth form; he knew all about that now. It wasn’t what John wanted, of course, to pay for sex with some sly girl under cover of darkness, but his options were limited. Unless he wanted to die a virgin, he’d be compromising himself one way or another.            His soulmate was a man. Platonic, John’s inner monologue chimed in. A best friend.            Harry’s soulname came in when she was nearly twelve. CLARA, it read. No chance of passing it off for a unisex moniker, at least not on this end. With any luck, Clara’s soulname read HARRY, not Harriet, and she’d be spared from the fate her soulmate was enduring. Ridicule. Scorn. Abuse. The world wasn’t kind to people with same-sex soulnames, and John knew that better than most. He’d developed thick skin and thicker calluses on his knuckles.            “John,” Mum said with her eyes cast toward the ground. “Don’t you have schoolwork to do?”            He did. He always did. “Sure, Mum.”            “Go on then. I’ll call for supper.”            Da watched their interaction with those dangerous eyes. John swallowed. “Sure you don’t want help? I can peel potatoes.”            “It’s all fine, Johnny,” his mother murmured. “Go on to your room.”            It hurt inside John’s chest to walk away. He knew what would follow—the shouting, the swearing, the sound of things falling to the floor. He knew that, at the end of it, Mum and Da would lock themselves in their bedroom until morning. John would put his records on and try to ignore the noise. Sometimes it was awful, and sometimes... well, still awful but in a very different way. Da and Mum were soulmatched—JACK and RACHEL, their third fingers read, and arrived when then were both eleven. Of course, the names were common enough that it might not mean anything at all.            He stretched out across his small, neat bed and closed both eyes. Jesus fucking Christ, he hated this. All of it. He hated soulnames and soulmates and the fairy stories of romance that kept everyone swooning over such a ridiculous lie. His own soulname—SHERLOCK—glared back at him, as if in reproach, and he buried his left hand behind his head, underneath his pillow. Stupid goddamned poncy name, he told himself. John couldn’t help the little flare of guilt when he thought it, though.            The wealthy put quite a bit of stock into the soulname mythology. They named their children strange, unique sorts of names, in hopes of narrowing the field when it came time to search out their partners. Names like “Sherlock” were passed down through generations, usually only once the previous owner had passed on, and an international registry existed for looking up potential matches. It was expensive—the registry—so names like “John” would never be on it. He wondered if his soulmate looked anyway.            People from John’s world were more practical. They deliberately chose names that were common, even ubiquitous. Finding one’s soulmate was never a guarantee, and the stigma against partnering with anyone else was strong. John supposed that in the old days, soulmates were usually from the same small village, or at least the same county. Match Days were a yearly celebration, when all the locals gathered to seek out their matching scars. His history professor said that ending up alone was unusual, then, but these days, the soulnames could be flung further afield; as the world became more interconnected, the soulnames adapted, too. There was a sharp decline in soulmatches during the 20th century, and the people coped the only way they could: by bettering the odds. John’s parents may not have been meant for one another, but they didn’t end up alone.            Maybe, when John was old enough, he’d find himself a widow. They wouldn’t be soulmates, but they’d keep each other company. John could be happy with something like that.            The shouting echoed down the hall. Then a smack sound, loud enough to make John wince. It didn’t sound like flesh, though. He sat up and reached over to flick on the radio. John’s hands were trembling.            “John?” The words came with a soft rap against the door.            He cleared his throat. “‘S all right, Harry, come in.”            His sister slid inside very quietly, closing John’s bedroom door. She took note of the new pin-up John had taped to the inside—black hair, big breasts, very short skirt—and shot him a sly grin. He scowled back.            “How’d you sneak by?”            “Came in through the laundry window,” Harry shrugged, slinging her school bag to the floor. It was a common entry and exit point for the younger Watsons. John busted the latch himself years ago. “Da’s a lovely bastard today.”            “Just his usual shit,” John confirmed, making space for her by folding up his feet.            “Mum okay?”            John stiffened. “Don’t know, do I?”            “Well, were you out there when he started up?”            “She told me to go. You know what he does if we don’t listen.”            Harry growled. “Stupid cunt.”            “Oi!” John cried, stabbing Harry in the ribs with his toes. “Leave off Mum, or go to your own damn bedroom. I can’t listen to it tonight.”            “Yeah, you turn the music up then, Johnny. All the way up.”            John flinched, and kicked Harry hard enough to send her off the bed and onto the floor. She scowled at him, and then reached up to pinch his thigh.            “Fuck you,” John whined, rubbing his thigh.            “Incest, love,” Harry shot back, fluttering invisible lashes.            John laughed, in spite of himself. “You’re a sick little weirdo.”            “Hmm,” Harry mused, climbing back onto the bed.            “What were you doing after school, anyway?”            “Just out near the carpark, with Lottie and them. Lottie’s brother gave her some good hash for her birthday.”            John sniffed a few times. “You don’t smell of it.”            “Went to her place and showered,” Harry replied, looking smug.            “Huh. Charlotte’s mum still working double shifts?”            “Guess so. Her dad’s got some new business scheme; greeting card something-or-other. Looks daft as shit. The cards are in boxes all over the house.”            John shook his head. “Greeting cards?”            “Yeah,” Harry snorted.  “Like, ‘get well soon’ and ‘happy birthday’ and everything else. Glittery. Some of those pop-up kinds. Lottie thinks he’ll be over it before Christmas, but who the hell knows?”            “Jesus,” John groaned. “He’s a complete waste.”            It was Harry’s turn to slap John. “He’s not!”            “This is... what? The second scheme this year? The third?”            “Third,” Harry winced. “There were the handknitted things from Scotland, and that company selling the computer games.”            “Why doesn’t he just sell Avon and have done with it?” John asked.            “You’ve seen him,” Harry chuckled. “You going to buy makeup and perfume from that?”            John wobbled his head in acknowledgment of the point.            “He’s daft, but he’s good to them all,” Harry murmured.            “He may not hit her mum,” John argued, “but he doesn’t support her either.”            “She’s got a career! She doesn’t need his support. He’s a good dad!”            “He’s a lazy sod.”            Harry was turning a bit red. “There’s nothing wrong with the man staying home with the kids, you colossal pig.”            John cracked his teeth together, bullish. “He’s meant to be a provider, Harry.”            “Provider, protector, procreator,” Harry sneered, sing-song.            “Shut up.”            “No, you shut up. That’s bollocks!”            “It’s not,” John insisted, sitting up a bit more. “I mean, the procreator part, that’s... you know, optional.” Harry cracked a laugh, but it didn’t relieve any of the tension. “He should be protecting them. Her mum shouldn’t be working so damn hard.”            Harry had her disapproving scowl on—and wouldn’t she hate to know she got that look from Da?—but John didn’t know what he’d said that made her so angry this time. Insulted Charlotte’s dad, he supposed. Affectionate but aimless, the plump, smiling man had always made John uncomfortable. The silence was unexpected, and it drug on too long. The radio filled the void with weirdly upbeat electronic whining.                        Take me into insanity
                        Yeah, dream tripping, yeah...
            “Jesus, I hate this song.”            “They were on Top of the Pops last month!”            John shot Harry an unimpressed look, but didn’t turn the station. They sat together, on the edge of a real fight, long enough for John’s anger to fade. For her part, Harry’s anger never really went away.                        Imagination, emotions running wild,
                        Give me innocence

But don't treat me like a child.
            “John!” The shout from the end of the hall sent them both to their feet. “Where’s your damn sister? You’re meant to walk her home!”            “Get under the bed,” John hissed. Harry scrambled to comply. John went to the door and leaned his back against it, bracing his feet on the floor. “She had tutoring, Da!” John called back. His voice barely trembled. “I’m meant to fetch her at 5 o’clock!”            “Tutoring?” His dad yelled.            “Yeah!” John answered, closing his eyes. “Maths. Mum knows.”            John didn’t breathe for a long, pained moment. The radio kept on thumping, nearly as quick as his heart.            “Well, go get her, then!” Da finally replied.            “I am,” John breathed, then answered louder. “I am! Just getting my shoes on!”            Harry’s curly blonde head appeared near the footboard. “I’ll go out your window,” she whispered.            John murmured back, “Meet you at the corner. Don’t forget your bag.”             Harry slunk over to open the sash and climb clumsily onto the sill, tossing her bag out first. John kept an ear close to the door, but no footsteps were pounding down the creaking hall outside. With one more quick nod, Harry slipped away into the autumn evening.            John turned off the radio and put on his trainers. He scrubbed a hard hand through his hair, squared his shoulders. Da didn’t usually notice their comings-and-goings, but it was a bad day when either Watson child wasn’t where Da thought they ought to be. John definitely hadn’t come in the door with Harry that day. If his sister would just tell John where she was going, and when, he could cover her without all this creeping about. John huffed in frustration—Harry Watson was a law unto herself. With his house key in his pocket, John took a breath before opening the door to the hall.            He tried to hurry past the kitchen unnoticed, but Da’s voice stopped him short.            “Your mum needs another pint of cream,” Da said, in a slurred command.            John looked up from his feet to take in the scene. The cream pot was smashed against the far wall, little blue and white shards dripping across the lino. Mum was hunched a bit over the sink, rinsing a sponge, and she didn’t look up. Something on the stove smelled a bit burnt. Her hair was mussed, her apron twisted too far to the right. Da lounged in his usual chair at the table, sipping and sneering. John nodded, once, and took off for the door. Before he reached it though, there was another sharp smack.            Fuck. He could hear Mum crying.           Maybe John could talk Alice into coming with them to church on Sunday. Da was at his best first thing in the morning, and meeting John's girlfriend might ease everyone's mind for a bit. Give Da something to brag about at work. Alice was tough, and the Watsons would be on best behavior.           It was better, really, that he’d probably never meet Sherlock. He couldn’t imagine how, if the bloke ran in such lofty circles—the kind of circles where John Watson couldn’t ever be anything but a sore thumb. Polite society. Fancy cars and fine food and big manor homes full of rooms no one ever went into. It must be quiet in those sorts of homes. John caught himself rubbing the pad of his thumb against his soulmark, hand curled into a loose fist. He shoved both hands in his pockets and marched down the sidewalk without a backwards glance.            It was for the best. John didn’t need anyone else to disappoint.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 14            Sherlock never let himself cry. The bruised cheekbone, the split lip, the bloodied knee—he wore these like badges of honor. Like a shield. That freak never, ever runs. He never cries. He’s some kind of machine. The less he reacted like a human being, the more they left him alone. It had been a tough lesson, but one of the most important.            There wasn’t much else to learn at Charterhouse. It’d been a sorry excuse for an education, really. Sherlock would be glad to leave it at the end of the Cricket Quarter.            Sherlock’s small room in Saunderites House was his home for the better part of four years. He’d spent the first two as a woefully under-aged Lower School menace. Starting his fourth form at age 10 may have made sense academically, but it turned Sherlock into a complete pariah. He reacted like a cornered alley cat—lashing out with sharp rhetorical claws, ready to rip and tear and maul. His deductions hadn’t made him many friends among his much-older classmates. The professors weren’t terribly fond of Sherlock, either, come to that.            At 12 years old, he advanced through to the Upper School. His piercing words weren’t much use against boys four years his senior. Sherlock couldn’t keep his mouth shut (truly could not, and he had tried to learn the trick of it), so the “Specialists” shut it for him. Hard.            It did not help, of course, that Sherlock’s soulname was so obviously male. So blatantly lower class. Sherlock wasn’t just a faggot—bad enough, really, but not exactly unusual—he was a fag destined to match well below his station. Of course he was, they sneered. Just look at him.            Sherlock’s razor-sharp tongue saved him from the worst public school boys had to offer, but only barely. And only because now, at age 21, Mycroft Holmes’s name already had an aura of worrisome power behind it. He’d been head boy during his time at Charterhouse, and that wasn’t something people forgot. Like Sherlock, he’d come to school early. Unlike Sherlock, Mycroft had done so with quiet mastery—a skill that ensured his peers both respected and feared him. His name protected his younger brother from the kind of harm you couldn’t heal. Sherlock hated him for it.            And he hated JOHN, too. Whomever he was.            There was not a romantic molecule in Sherlock’s thin body. He’d never felt the smallest stirring of intrigue or, God forbid, lust. “You’re still young,” Mycroft reminded him, the last time they’d discussed it. “Your mind may well change. Do not theorize without accumulating all the relevant data.”            Sherlock didn’t need data about his own desires. He wanted to learn. Anything, everything, as fast as he could. He fed his ravenous intellect like a zookeeper, struggling to keep the loudest and strongest thought, in that moment, from consuming its own kin. Trying to keep it contained, and entertained, and marginally less destructive than it might be otherwise. It was exhausting. Mummy and Father, with their orderly, well-disciplined minds, were no help whatsoever.            Mycroft had the superior brain (a fact Sherlock was never allowed to forget), but his mind worked more like a supercomputer than a cage full of wild animals. It wasn’t organic, the way Mycroft thought. The connections he made were quick and clever, but never creative. Mycroft saw every possibility, and he narrowed down the options to the most likely candidate. Efficient. Detached. Sherlock didn’t care what was likely—he cared what was true. If Mycroft was a chess player, Sherlock was more interested in sleight-of-hand. “Dangerous intellects.” That’s what the headmaster said.            Eurus... well, Eurus was something else entirely. “Dangerous” didn’t begin to cover it.            “Oi, Freak!”            Sherlock turned back with a scowl. His book bag banged against the outside of his hip.            “You finish the chemistry lab?” The imbecile wanted to know. Ulysses Forrester. Second-year Specialist, adequate footballer, and all-around moron.            “Obviously,” Sherlock scoffed.            “I need the answers for the last few questions. My solution didn’t look right, toward the end.” Ulysses was advancing on Sherlock quickly. He had a martial glint in his eye.            “So sorry,” Sherlock replied with a hard, false smile. “My work is not available for copying at the mo’.”            “Well, where is it?”            “Unavailable.”            “I need the results before breakfast tomorrow,” Ulysses commanded. Was he being deliberately obtuse, or was he really that dense? Sherlock sighed.            “Let me be clear: I’m not letting you copy my work. It’s expulsion if I’m caught at it one more time, and there’s no way I’m missing Leavers’ Day this year. I’ll graduate if it kills me.”            “It won’t,” Ulysses snarled. “But I might.” He loomed over Sherlock’s slight frame like a human tidal wave. Sherlock forced himself not to react. “Give me the work, Freak, or I’ll make things very painful for you.”            “Well, wouldn’t that be a change of pace,” Sherlock parried.            “Don’t be an idiot, Holmes. Do you like to make me hurt you?”            Sherlock flinched. He couldn’t help it. Ulysses grinned with too many teeth.            “I’ll be in my room before supper,” he said. “Bring it by. Don’t be late.”            Ulysses slouched off without a backward glance. Sherlock’s heart gradually slowed, and he could feel the ill feeling in his stomach begin to fade. He spun on his heel, away from the dining hall, and hurried back toward the dormitory, and the relative safety of his private room.***            The phone on the desk rang almost as soon as he shut the door.            “What do you want?” Sherlock barked in answer. His head was pounding.            “Nice to hear your voice, Sherlock,” Mycroft sneered. “I hope you’re well.”            “I’m not. And neither are you. What’s going on?”            The other end of the line fell silent for a long, telling moment. Then Mycroft clicked his tongue against his teeth, drawing a breath.            “Our sister is in hospital.”            Sherlock dropped, hard, onto the single bed. “What? Why?”            “According to Eurus, her soulname developed during the night.”            “Soulname?” Sherlock repeated, like an idiot. “That’s impossible. She’s too old.”            “It was impossible when she had none at all. It’s not unusual for a name to come in the teen years. Joan of Arc, famously, did not receive hers until she was eighteen. Of course, they used that as evidence of witchcraft—”            “Eurus is no saint.”            “No,” Mycroft agreed flatly.            “What is the name?” Sherlock asked. His stomach felt sick and his head ached.            “We... can’t be sure.”            “Why on Earth not? She’s hiding it?”            “She removed it,” Mycroft said. His voice broke in a way that was, to Sherlock’s knowledge, unprecedented. “She burned her finger on the fireplace grate. Third-degree damage.”            Sherlock tried to formulate a response, but there simply wasn’t one. Burned off her own soulname. It was beyond sick. It was...            “Horrifying,” Mycroft supplied, in that knowing way of his. “Mummy hasn’t gotten out of bed since they found her. I’m on my way to Surrey now. Father had to sign paperwork, to place Eurus under in-patient suicide watch.”            “She’s not suicidal.” Sherlock couldn’t begin to understand Eurus’s motivations, but he knew she did not wish to die. She would never let the world off so easily.            “I agree. The psychiatrists, however, are less convinced.”            Sherlock knew he had to ask. He had to, but it turned his already fragile stomach. Mycroft waited, silently, for the question he surely must be expecting.            “Do you know the name?” Sherlock finally asked. “Have you deduced it?”            Mycroft sighed. It wasn’t his usual sigh—the one which said, little brothers are so tediously slow-witted—but the sort of sound that came from the bottom of one’s chest. Exhausted. Bleak. Painful.            “What good does it do?” Mycroft said, almost to himself. “What good could possibly come from knowing the answer, Sherlock?”            “None at all,” he replied, and it was true. But it was also true that he needed to know.            “All right,” Mycroft acquiesced. “The timing seems to confirm your suspicion. I believe the name on Eurus’s hand was ‘Hadiya.’”            Sherlock sat back on his bed, pulling his knobby knees to his chest.            “She’ll blame me,” Sherlock said through tight lips. “She already does.”            “Nanny Hadiya left our employ of her own free will. Against Mummy and Father’s wishes. Against your wishes. Her prejudices are certainly not your fault, and quite hypocritical, given the name on her own third finger.”            “We’ve never confirmed that she bore Eurus’s name,” Sherlock pointed out.            “The probability of an unmatched soulname is—”            “So low as to be rendered unfeasible. I know.”            “But the age gap alone is...” Mycroft clicked his tongue again. “Hadiya is not an uncommon name in the Middle East. And it is hard to say whether Eurus would have reacted more violently to Hadiya’s name, or the name of a stranger. So. The question remains.”            “Do you think Eurus knew for certain?” Sherlock wondered. “Did Hadiya reveal her soulname, in private?”            “Doubtful.” Mycroft was tapping his fingernail against a glass. Probably port. “It would be a terrible violation of the Muslim faith, not to mention extremely unwise if she wished to maintain her position. A gap of 13 years is rather... unsavory. Even if one does go in for the spiritual implications of a soulmatch.”            “I hate this.” Sherlock ripped at his curls with his free hand. “I hate not knowing.”            “Which may be precisely why Eurus mutilated her own soul to prevent you.”            It was a severe turn of phrase, and a rather spiritual one for Mycroft to utter. But then, Eurus had always been the most interested in religion, of all the genius Holmeses. Whatever quiet faith Nanny Hadiya managed to convey to young Eurus, it lit a manic spark inside her. Eurus’s prodigious intellect was always focused on picking things to pieces, unraveling the universe and the living creatures within. Eurus flayed things open, poked at soft, spongy places. Religion was just another scalpel with which to cut humanity apart.            If Mycroft’s mind was a supercomputer, and Sherlock’s a ravenous beast, than Eurus had a brain like a magnifying glass. She could use it to see clearly, observe closely, and then she could burn everything that came into her view to ash.            “What do Mummy and Father say?” Sherlock wanted to know.            “I haven’t told them my suspicion, of course.”            “Of course.”            “But Father is beside himself with worry. An act of this extremity could mean a lifetime of violent psychosis.”            “The hospital wants to commit her.”            “Don’t you?” Mycroft said. Sherlock gritted his teeth. “Sherlock—”            “Don’t. Don’t assume you know what I want.”            “Eurus will not stop. If the nature of her vendetta against you is confirmed, she’ll only become more vengeful. More dangerous.”            “She wasn’t dangerous. Before.”            “Of course she was,” Mycroft scoffed. “Just not to you.”            Sherlock let his head thunk hard against the wall behind him. “What will you do?”            “Mummy isn’t capable of making a reasoned decision right now. Father will look to me for sound judgment, and it is my opinion that Eurus needs full-time psychiatric care.”            Sherlock tried to jeer, but it came out like a moan. Everything hurt.            “Sherlock,” Mycroft said in a voice so horribly pitying, “you are not to blame. Hadiya’s departure was not your fault. Eurus’s reaction was not your fault.”            “I know that, Mycroft!” Sherlock snapped.            “... I only wish to protect you.”            And there it was. The truth of the matter. Mycroft couldn’t protect Sherlock, years ago. He’d been working his own way through Oxford while Sherlock was stuck at home, trying to survive Eurus’s silent wrath. Mummy and Father were consumed with worry over Sherlock’s future, and navigating Mycroft’s soulmatch agreements, and they simply didn’t see. Mycroft didn’t see. No amount of retroactive atonement would be enough to balance the books.            “My decision on this matter is final,” Mycroft announced, in something more like his usual tone. “Your guilt serves no function.”            Sherlock blinked hard and cleared his throat. “Of course.”            “Anthea and I will be there for Leavers’ Day. She’s looking forward to it. Do make an effort with your hair.”            Sherlock snorted. “Unlikely.”            “Someday, you will come to understand the power of excellent grooming,” Mycroft mused. “But I suppose you are still a child.”            “Piss off, Mycroft.”            There was an amused little hum. “I will keep you informed as to Eurus’s treatment. As ever, glad to be of service, brother mine.”***            Sherlock sat a long time on his bed, feeding his snarling brain. His stomach grumbled, too, but much more quietly. He ignored it. Supper was nearly over, and Sherlock had missed the deadline to deliver his chemistry lab to Ulysses for copying. Even if he went now, he'd get a smack for the impertinence of showing up late. Best to let Ulysses go without. Pain now or pain later—it was all the same to Sherlock.            Instead, Sherlock checked the lock on his door and traded his uniform for worn pajamas. Couldn't risk a run to the loo until after lights-out, so he told his body sternly to stop its useless complaining. The history assignment took very little time, and even less of his brain, and soon Sherlock's thoughts were left to their own devices again. It was dark outside his window, and colder than he liked, when Sherlock began the arduous process of packing Eurus away into the back of his mind. Pulling her creeping tendrils from the cage bars and locking her up tight. It was hard. It was painful. But it wasn't boring.            What good does it do? Mycroft wanted to know, his voice rising out of the clamor inside Sherlock's head.            None at all, Sherlock answered, before pushing Mycroft away. None at all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 20            “Yes yes yes. Oh Jesus, don’t stop, John...”            John Watson had developed a reputation for generosity. He was good with his mouth, and with his small, deft hands. He listened. He paid attention. Even at St. Bart’s Medical School, where people were more open-minded than John ever expected, young women weren’t that interested in exploring sex outside a soulmatch. It was risky—what happened if they got pregnant? Or fell in love with a man with the wrong name? Parents would be devastated, friends and colleagues horrified. Social suicide.            No one could explain the exact nature of a soulname—there was a field of study devoted to it at Bart’s, though John privately thought the philosophers had a better chance at reaching a useful conclusion. One thing was universally assumed: when people matched properly, they were happier than they could have been otherwise.            To settle down with someone outside that match meant subjecting your own soulmate to a less fulfilling future. Perhaps your partner’s soulmate, too, if they were both alive. The height of selfishness. Of course, people did make mistakes—sometimes the “Alan” you chose wasn’t your ALAN at all—but it was enough of a rarity that society gave you the benefit of the doubt. To ignore the soulname on your finger simply wasn’t done, and that still mattered amidst the hallowed halls of scientific academia.            But John’s reputation preceded him, and his soulname did, too.            The girl stretched out across John’s disheveled bed was lovely—warm, and lean, and vocal. John loved when his partners talked. His tongue alternated between slow, soft licking and the flicking motion that made her dig manicured fingernails into his scalp. She even smelled lovely. John had never been with a man—John Watson was not gay—but he couldn’t imagine they smelled as good as this.            “John!” she gasped again. He hummed his approval, which set off a string of delicious cursing. “Fuck, John, please! Oooh. Stop, come here. I want to come with you inside me!”            John smiled, flicking once more before he crawled his way up her quivering body. Dark hair, light eyes. Legs for days. John loved many kinds of women, but he had to admit that this was his favorite.            “Helen, love, you were nearly there,” he purred into her ear. He pressed a finger inside her body as he spoke, which made her moan. Lovely.            “Please, John. Please. I want you to fuck me.”            “I already am,” John chuckled, but she silenced him with a hard, biting kiss.            John pulled his finger free and reached toward the bedside table for a condom. He continued kissing Helen as he ripped open the packet, rolling the condom on carefully without looking. The motions were smooth and familiar, and they made John’s already hard prick jump in his hand. Helen pulled her knees up, panting, and John met her hazy eyes again before speaking.            “You want me inside you?” John confirmed. Helen made a strangled noise of consent, and then hooked a leg around his hips. John grinned, lined himself up with one hand, and then pressed himself inside her body in a long, smooth glide.            “Fuck,” John choked out. “Oh, the way you feel—”            Helen started to wriggle beneath him, desperately, and John moved. The pace was hard and steady and delicious, and Helen’s raspy voice kept spinning through the air around him. It was like a drug. John wanted, and wanted, and his pace increased. “John, yes, fuck, please—”            Helen stiffened. Her eyes squeezed shut and her neck strained. She was shaking. John reached between their bodies, still pumping inside her, and sought out the clitoris. The little button of tissue was firm and full beneath his fingertip, and a few solid strokes was enough to tip his partner over the edge.            She came hard, with a shout. The wet grasp around John’s prick was incredible. He continued moving, harder, faster, as he carried her through the shudders of her climax. Then his own body finally relented to the wonderful clench in John’s belly, and he came hard enough to stop breathing. Lovely, he thought, so he repeated it aloud: “Lovely. You’re so lovely.”            A long minute later, John rolled off of Helen onto the sweaty sheets. He pulled off the condom and tossed it into the small waste basket near the bed. Helen laughed a little, still raspy with sex and sleep. “Fuck, John. Thank you.”            “Thank you,” John replied, closing his eyes.            “No, really,” she said, turning to look at him. John opened his eyes to look back. “That was incredible. No wonder everyone says you’re such a catch.”            John flushed, blinking away his discomfort. His smile felt a little forced, but Helen didn’t seem to notice. She reached out to poke at his left hand, avoiding the scarred third finger.            “He’s a lucky man,” she told John in a quiet, wistful voice. “Wherever he is.”            “It’s platonic,” John replied. The phrase sounded as rote as it felt. “Has to be. I’m not gay.”            “Your soulmate’s asexual?” Helen asked with a raised brow. “That’s extremely rare.”            “Has to happen to someone, though, doesn’t it?”            Helen smiled, but her eyes were puzzled. “Do you think he’ll mind? That you’re so... Erm. That you aren’t waiting?”            “Will yours?” John shot back, and then winced. “Sorry. Shit.”            Helen didn’t look offended. Merely thoughtful. “I don’t know. He might.” She held her hand up in front of her face. The third finger read DOUGLAS. “I like to think that my perfect match will be understanding.”            “Will you be? If he isn’t waiting for you?”            “Most men don’t,” she shrugged.            “That’s not true,” John argued. And it wasn’t. John didn’t know many men who had sex lives like his own. “Sure, he might not be a virgin. But he might be waiting, all the same.”            “Or dating every Helen he can find, hoping it’s me.” There was laughter in her tone.            “Could be,” John admitted. “But, for the record, you’re quite the catch yourself.”            She smirked, sitting up. “I know.”            John admired the graceful arch of her back as she stretched. She caught him at, still smirking, and swung her bare legs off the edge of the bed.            “You know, I have a girlfriend who’s bisexual,” Helen offered with a shrug. “She’s a nurse in the RAMC. Totally butch. The name on her finger is ‘Alex,’ of all things. No idea whether it’s a man or a woman.”            John winced. “Rough luck.”            “She’s very philosophical about the whole business. Do you mind if I smoke in here?” She’d pulled her shirt and knickers back on, and retrieved a pack of cigs from her purse pocket.            “By the open window,” John said. “Do you need a light?”            “All covered.” She carried the cigarette and a lighter across the room, and then pushed up the window sash. A flare of light, and then a stream of white smoke. John wasn’t a fan of smoking, but he couldn’t deny that she looked dead sexy doing it.            “Has she... experimented, then? Your friend?”            “Oh, yes. Mostly with women, though.”            “Right.”            There was an awkward pause, and John cleared his throat. “Does she like it?” he asked, and then flushed when Helen laughed loudly. “The army, I mean.”            “Yeah,” Helen sighed, and snorted smoke through her nose. “Says the Medical Corps is great. They paid her nurse’s training, you know.”            “All of it?”            “Yeah,” Helen nodded. “She’s from some rotten little village in Northern Ireland. Never could’ve afforded it, otherwise.”            “Huh...” John mused. Helen stared for a moment out the window.            “Have you? Experimented with men?”            John frowned. “No. I don’t fancy men.”            Helen looked skeptical, but said nothing. John knew that look. He’d been confronted with it over and over for the last eleven years.            “It’s unlikely to matter, anyway,” John went on. “My soulmate has to be incredibly posh. Can’t think we’ll ever run into one another.”            Helen blew out a cloud of smoke with a pensive hum. “I assumed as much. Sherlock. Though, there’s always the registry. Name like that can’t be hard to find.”            “No. It wouldn’t be.”            “Expensive as shit, though, isn’t it? Even for you, on a surgeon’s salary someday. You’d think those rich wankers didn’t want to be found.”            That was exactly what John thought. Men like Sherlock might want to be found, but not by a lower-class, same-sex soulmate with nothing to offer. If the registry were cheaper, everyone would use it. The common people might start to use those lofty, pretentious monikers, too, in hopes of increasing their chances for a fairytale match. Never mind that a true soulmatch didn’t work like that. Hope springs eternal when you’ve nothing to lose.            “Yeah, well,” John finally responded. “I don’t think I’ll ever have £40,000 to blow on that sort of thing. He’ll just have to muddle through, like everyone else.”            “Still...” Helen grinned mischievously. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”            John growled. “Put that damn thing out and come back to bed. Not done with you yet.”            “With pleasure.”***            John sipped at his too-hot tea and tapped one foot nervously against the leg of the café table. Harry was late—Harry was always late—and whatever nerve John built up in preparation for this meeting, he was losing it fast. The barista smiled knowingly when John made accidental eye contact. He probably thought John had been stood up.            Harry arrived on a rush of Autumn wind and animated cursing. “John! You fucking bastard, I know for a fact that midterm exams were over a week ago. Where the hell have you been?” She dropped her bag in to an empty chair and pulled off her damp corduroy jacket. Her umbrella rested, a bit drippy, near her feet. She pointed a short finger at him. “I’ve called.”            “I know. It was... I had some things to wrap up before...”            “Hang on. I need coffee.”            Harry attacked the barista with her unique blend of aggressive charm, and the poor man hardly had time to close the till before she was braying, “Jesus, don’t write your number on the cup! I’m a lezzie. You’d have better luck with my brother.”            “Harry!” John snapped. He was blushing hot. She grinned maniacally and slid into her seat with her breakfast, but without apology. “Are. You. High?” John hissed, keeping his voice down. The rain against the window and the thumping bass line of the shop’s music provided quite a bit of privacy. Still.            “No. I’m hungover, and I need my caffeine. You dragged me down here at the arse-crack of dawn—”            “It’s eleven o’clock, Harry—”            “—for God knows what reason, but you look like you’ve swallowed a pool cue and it’s still lodged somewhere between your stomach and your arsehole—”            “For fuck’s sake!”            “—so spit it out, you tremendous git, or I’m taking my coffee back home where the bed is, Johnny. The soft, dry, non-judgmental bed.”            “Fine!” John finally shouted, then winced his apology to the couple sitting across the aisle. “Just calm down. Most people get quieter when they’re hungover, Harry. Doesn’t your head hurt?”            His sister shrugged eloquently. “A couple paracetamol and a little Irish Cream in the first cup of the day. Works wonders.”            “You’re a disaster,” John sighed, glancing out the window to hide his fond smile.            “And you look like you’re headed to an execution. Possibly yours.”            “Right. No.” John took a bracing gulp of Earl Grey and a deep breath. “Have you heard from Mum recently?”            Harry went still. It was always disturbing when she froze like that. “No,” she answered flatly. “Of course not.”            “Well...” John turned the mug between his fingers.            “Spit it out, John.”            He licked his dry lips. “Da’s sick.”            “...Sick?”            “As in, hospital sick. As in, chemotherapy sick.”            Harry was sitting unnaturally still, like she’d been slipped a paralytic in her clotted cream. Only her eyes moved—blinking, blinking—until she finally unstuck her jaw and scowled at John. “So what?”            “She could use a phone call, Harry. Mum, I mean.”            “She called you,” Harry replied with quiet vehemence. “She could call me, too.”            “Should she?” John wondered. “Would you answer? She’s a right mess.”            Harry’s rigid spine collapsed, and she slumped back into her seat like a puppet with strings suddenly cut. She wiped a small hand across her face and took a long pull from her large coffee. “I’ll answer. Tell her to call.”            “You could call yourself,” John frowned.            “No,” Harry frowned back. “I really couldn’t.”            “Fine,” John huffed, shaking his head. “I’ll tell her. But you’re to be nice to her, when she calls. She won’t make you talk to him.”            To John’s surprise, Harry’s face softened. “I’ll try to be nice,” she said in a low voice.            “Do you want the details?” John asked. Harry grimaced.            “Of course not.”            “Okay.”            “But... Da’s not working, then?”            John shook his head again. “No. He’s been out for weeks, apparently.”            “Invalidity Benefit?”            “I already talked Mum through it. And they’ve got their savings.”            “But John!” Harry suddenly sat upright, looking at him in alarm. “Your school! How’re you going to pay the fees?” John’s lips went tight, and she grabbed his arm across the table. “You’re not dropping out?”            “Of course not. My marks are good. I’ve got recommendations. I can cover the fees myself.”            “How? With scholarships?” Harry head took on a skeptical tilt.            “I thought... well, I was thinking of joining the army. The Medical Corps.”            Harry’s mouth and eyes popped wide open. “The army?”            “Yeah?” John replied, shoulders tight. “Why not?”            “You’re a poof, John,” Harry said, in an aghast whisper.            “Harry, I am not fucking gay.”            “You’ve a man’s soulname, you stupid git! They’d kill you in the army.”            “There’s no law against it,” John argued very softly, feeling his muscles quiver with tension. “Long as you keep yourself to yourself, people with names like mine still serve. It’s nobody else’s business.”            Harry’s face was going red. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, John Watson. Being a bloody doctor isn’t worth getting yourself killed.”            “You’re overreacting—”            “I’m not! You think those murders out in West London went unsolved because the police were giving it their best and brightest effort? Nobody even bothered publicizing the crimes until Michael Boothe died—”            “They’ve no proof those deaths are connected, Harry—”            “They’re connected by the fact the blokes were all openly gay. Male soulnames. That Gay Slayer—what’s-his-face Ireland—was killing poofters like it was his job, and they’re never going to convict him—”            “They will. They are,” John whispered urgently. “For God’s sake, calm down, you’re the one going to get us killed, carrying on like that!”            Harry took the words to heart, breathing shallowly but quietly as the flush receded from her face. She dragged a hand through her frizzing hair and gulped her coffee. The scone still sat, mostly uneaten, on her plate.            “I’m not getting killed,” John assured her. “I’ve lived with the fucking mark for this long, Harry. I know how to handle myself.”            “The army...” Harry’s eyes were suspiciously bright. “You don’t got to do that. We can find another way. Christ, I need a drink,” she moaned, rubbing her forehead. She pinned him with a look. “You can work more hours. I can work more, too, give you some of my cheques.”            Now it was John, blinking back tears and sniffing self-consciously. “Don’t be daft. I won’t take your money.”            “Please, John.”            “It’s a good program,” John went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “The army will pay my fees, so long as my marks stay high, and I serve a few years after foundation school. May not even go into a combat zone. I could be stationed at a recovery hospital.”            Harry’s nostrils flared, but the expected sneer never came. Instead, she looked down at her breakfast and licked her lips. “Think that’s likely? A hospital like that?”            John shrugged. “Don’t know. But I want to be a surgeon, Harry. I really want to. You know we’d never be able to make that work, even with two of us. I’ll be okay. This is the best of a bad lot.”            “Even if the fag-haters don’t string you up, they’ll still be shooting at you,” Harry murmured, still looking down.            “I’ll be sure to duck, then,” John joked. His little sister cracked a smile, but didn’t laugh. “Harry.” She was pulling her scone apart with the tines of her fork. “Harry.”            “What?”            “I’ll be okay,” John said again. She finally looked back at him, and there was an open, fragile kind of fear in her eyes. It twisted John’s stomach as he recalled the last time he’d seen that particular look, dripping blood and snot from her freckled nose. Da did have a talent for making Harry cry. “I’ll come home,” John told her.            “Promise?” she whispered.            John sniffed and tried on a familiar, aching smile. “Sure. Of course.”            “If you die and Da lives, I’ll murder the bastard myself.”            John barked an unexpected laugh, and Harry grinned. “You’re the worst. You’re a nutter,” John said fondly. He stole a bit of scone as he flipped her two fingers, and she cackled like an absolute loon.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 17            Victor Trevor was the only other undergraduate chemist with a boy’s name on his finger. HELIOS, it said, which was suitably urbane. “Victor” was an embarrassingly common name, but it ran in the family and he’d been born in India. His parents never planned on returning to England so soon.            His father was an English diplomat, his mother Indian by birth, and Victor was exactly the sort of person one expected to emerge from such a union. Beautifully dark-haired and warm-skinned. Confident. Polite. Charming to a fault. Well-liked, in spite of his masculine soulmark... or, perhaps, because of it. Victor certainly wasn’t waiting for his soulmatch to explore his nonstandard inclinations.            Victor was 20 years old, and behind Sherlock academically. If the younger boy weren’t trying for two concurrent degrees, he’d have graduated before ever meeting Victor Trevor. Perhaps that would have been best. The hard, compact lines of Victor’s body, his almost-unnatural calm, the flash of his white teeth when he smiled... Sherlock hardly knew what he wanted, but it seemed that Victor did. No one had ever looked at Sherlock with that kind of undisguised hunger. No one since Eurus, and this didn’t feel anything like her sort of predation. This felt hot and tight and delicious. This felt wonderful.            Victor made a habit of waiting in Sherlock’s dormitory hallway after the last class of the day. He lounged against the paneled wall with his ankles crossed and his hands in his jacket pockets. He was stocky and firm. Undeniably sexy. It was a problem. Sherlock never bothered to hide his deductions anymore, but that sort of thing didn’t put Victor off. The man was an open book—boring, predictable, but so... persistent. No one had ever persisted in seeking out Sherlock’s company before.            “Done for the day?” Victor ventured. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Obvious. Victor knew Sherlock’s schedule as well as his own.            “Hungry?” Victor said. “I missed lunch today. Let me take you out to dinner.”            “Not hungry,” Sherlock replied. Victor only smiled.            “I am. I’ll eat, you just sit there and look pretty.” Sherlock flushed, sliding the key into his dorm room door. Victor laughed. “It’ll be well worth it to me, you know. To pay for you to scowl at me across the dinner table.”            Sherlock’s door opened, and he deliberately stood in the open frame to prevent Victor from stepping inside. “Is that what gets you off? Scowling?”            “If the man is pretty enough,” Victor shrugged. “You most certainly are.”            Sherlock swallowed. He knew that the changes puberty wrought on his body were significant, and aesthetically pleasing. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could miss in an environment like Cambridge. Too many hormones, too much freedom. Too many radical ideas about soulmates, and autonomy, and sexual liberation. But hearing it in Victor’s pleasant, cultured voice did something to Sherlock. He wasn’t exactly sure what yet.            I need the relevant data, he thought. Too soon to theorize.            “Fine,” Sherlock said. Victor’s eyebrows shot up. “Meet me outside at seven-thirty. I’m not dressing up.”            “Aren’t you?” Victor smirked. “What if I wanted to show you off?”            “Then you’d be better off buying a fancy dog. Take it on promenades around Jesus Green. Buy it one of those ridiculous bejeweled collars.”            “No, you aren’t one for collaring, are you?” Victor said, slowly. His smirk didn’t fade.            Sherlock bit his lip and fought down his blush. “I’m unlikely to eat.”            “I’m unlikely to care.”            “Fine, then. Seven-thirty.” Sherlock went to close the dorm room door, but Victor caught it with one hand.            “Do you know what I like about you, Sherlock?”            Sherlock raised a brow. “I’m pretty,” he sneered.            “You’re interesting,” Victor murmured, with his voice pitched low. “So few people are, you know.” Then Victor released the door, backing away with his hands back in his pockets. “I’ll look forward to tonight. I think you will, too.”            The shorter man turned around, winking smugly, and Sherlock caught himself watching Victor’s backside before he slammed the door shut with a bang.***            At seven-thirty exactly, Sherlock stepped out on to the front steps of the residence hall. Victor was waiting, hands still in his pockets. The shorter man had changed clothes: cotton-and-silk shirt, pale denim trousers, darker denim jacket with sueded leather at the shoulders. Purple-striped Adidas high-tops, the white leather kept glaringly bright. He looked... Well. Sherlock pressed his lips together tightly to keep his observations to himself.            Sherlock was in fresh clothes, too. He hadn’t dressed up—humiliating to think he’d even mentioned the possibility—but his usual mode of dress was more formal than Victor’s. Wool trousers with a windowpane pattern. Good leather boots. Knit turtleneck to disguise the (frankly absurd) length of his pale neck. Victor’s gaze traveled over him in a way that made every part of Sherlock’s body tingle.            It wasn’t awful.            The restaurant was close enough to campus to walk, but not a regular student haunt. Too expensive. Victor smiled at the host in a rather knowing way, and they found themselves seated in a dimly lit corner for two. Despite Sherlock’s insistence that he was not hungry, Victor ordered them a spinach dip to share. It smelled foul. One bite was quite enough of that, but the wine went down well enough. It wasn’t advisable to drink so much on an empty stomach, Sherlock supposed. The server wasn’t inclined to care, however, and Victor certainly seemed pleased.            Victor ordered them both Chinese chicken salads for dinner—the apparent specialty of the establishment—and Sherlock managed a few bites, avoiding the mandarin orange slices and incongruous ramen noodle bits. Victor did most of the talking, as well as most of the eating, but that tingling gaze remained focused on Sherlock’s mouth, his hands, his long throat when he swallowed his wine. The whole evening seemed... uncomfortably possessive. Sherlock had never been on a date before. He imagined this was how things were usually done.            On the walk back to the dormitory, Victor took his hand. In public.            No man had ever wanted to hold Sherlock’s hand in public before.            “Are you glad you came?” Victor asked, once they reached the brick steps.            “Yes,” Sherlock admitted. Victor still had his hand, and he wasn’t sure how to reclaim it.            “Will you agree next time as well? Perhaps with less scowling?”            There was a hard, bright edge to Victor’s teasing smile. Sherlock shrugged. “Perhaps.”            “I think you will,” Victor ruminated, pulling Sherlock’s hand up to his mouth. He pressed a lingering kiss into the back of it. “I think you’ll jump at the chance.”            Sherlock stiffened. “I do not jump.”            “Not yet.” Victor's smile broadened. His teeth really were beautiful. “But you’ll learn.”            The older man dropped his hand, backing away again down the staircase. “Until next time, Pretty Boy.” He didn’t wait for a reply, but skipped away down the steps. Sherlock forced himself to turn before he could be caught out staring.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 26            “Watson!” His CO bellowed. “Get your arse in gear! Move, move, move...”            John moved, and it felt like the whole world moved with him. The world sharpened, focused, until the gun in his hands and the mud under on his feet felt like extensions of his own flesh. Like the run over boot-churned, uneven ground was what John Watson had been made for. Like he had a purpose. It was electric.            Basic training was designed to cull the herd, and John had privately expected to end up on the chopping block. He’d played rugby in school, so John was tough enough and pretty quick. Resourceful. Decisive. A man’s man, though his father never acknowledged it. The army, though... it wasn’t a secondary school. War wasn’t a game. John wondered if the higher-ups would see some inborn weakness in him—or perhaps just the name on his finger—and cut him loose, then and there. It kept him up at night. But John knew he was a going to be a good doctor, and army money was the only way to get there, so he signed on the dotted line.            This feeling, though... this wasn’t what John expected.            If a person could be made for something, then John Watson was made for combat. Maybe it was his father’s blood rising up in him, or his own rough upbringing, or maybe just the strange chemistry of blood-bone-bile that settled his gut and steadied his hands. He could set a bone while machine guns blared in the background. He could stitch up a wound while bombs whistled overhead. And John could shoot a gun like he was born with it in his hand. Gifted, his instructors said. No one had ever said anything like that about John before.            John had been in Afghanistan for nine brutal months. He was the kind of short you couldn’t miss, and that—coupled with the posh man’s name on his hand—meant John spent more time than most swinging his fists. He didn’t much mind.            John wasn’t made for killing, but he knew how to hit back.            “Watson! On your six!”            He swung around, bringing up the Sig just as a bullet blasted into the ground near his skidding feet. He didn’t hesitate. John dropped to his knee, raised the pistol in both hands, and sighted the enemy combatant where he ducked below a distant berm. Long shot for the Sig Sauer, but manageable. Hopefully the arsehole didn’t have a GPMG hidden away over there. John waited for the first sign of movement over the obstruction.            He kept his breath even and his mind clear. He took his shot. As soon the enemy dropped, John was back on his feet and hustling to where Lieutenant Evans had taken a shot to the leg.            “Holy Jesus, Watson,” the Captain shouted over comms. “Nice shot!”            John felt something warm and dangerous settle into his stomach, and he grinned. He’d been chastised before for smiling like a maniac on the battlefield, but he couldn’t help it. “I’m nearly to Evans, sir,” he replied.            “Get him stable. We’ve got evac inbound,” Lance Corporal Han barked down the line.            “Got him. Stablizing now. ETA?”            “Six minutes,” Han replied.            “Copy that,” John said. Evans was breathing, but shallowly. Lucky bastard had missed the major arteries, but there was still a lot of blood. Maybe too much. John tied a tourniquet just below the knee, pulling tight, and worked to wash the wound. It was a clean shot but a messy injury. High risk of infection. Washing out the sand was like playing whack-a-mole. The damn stuff was hiding in every nook and cranny, and Evans had been unconscious for too long.            “I’m cauterizing the injury,” John informed his superiors.            “Copy that,” Captain Sholto acknowledged. “Under two minutes.”            “Faster,” John shot back.            “They’re still taking fire further down,” Han said. John tucked the bite-strip between Evans’s teeth and pulled out the cauterization gun. John hated the smell of burning flesh, but he sealed up as much of the damage as he could. Evans didn’t flinch, which wasn’t a good sign.            “Tell evac I’m going to need a transfusion. Evans is AB negative. Have it ready when we arrive.”            “Got it. Less than a minute out.”            “Come on, Evans, you great ginger bastard,” John mumbled. “They’re on their way.”***            John’s shower was short but blissfully cold, and he was reluctant to pull his vest back on once he managed to get dry. Sweat was a fact of life in the desert, but it didn’t mean John liked it. There was a lot about Afghanistan that John didn’t like. Heat. Bugs. Bloody buggering evil sand. The danger should have made his list, too, probably, and the stress of pingponging between outright terror and the mundanity of treating another idiot private’s STD. Training to be a field surgeon in the actual field was a bit ludicrous, but he found he rather liked all that. The unpredictability of army life. The adrenaline, the thrill. John wasn’t exactly sure what that made him.            Captain James Sholto was the smartest man John had ever met, and the least sociable. He was older than John by at least five years, but he had the kind of face that aged kindly. Handsome, but harsh. Their friendship had developed slowly, in a way that was unusual on the battlefield. Most men fell into friendships hard and fast overseas, where the line between buddy and brother blurred into irrelevance. John had plenty of mates just like that.            The Captain wasn’t like that at all. He held himself apart from his men, and even from his fellow commanders. At first John thought it was an overdeveloped sense of propriety, but that theory went up in smoke the first time John saw him stalk naked from his bunk to the showers and back again. James was just... surly. Hard to crack. He didn’t suffer fools well, and he thought nearly everyone was a fool. It should’ve been off-putting—it was, to most people—but John had a talent for drawing out the most irascible men. He liked them. They were challenging, and John Watson never turned down a challenge.            Fairly recently, John and James had become inseparable. James was the best friend John had ever known, though it embarrassed him to admit it. Their friendship would have raised eyebrows, anywhere but the army, and maybe it raised them anyway. John couldn’t be arsed to care.             “John? You decent?”            He grinned, in spite of himself, and pulled the door open. “Never.”            James followed him back into the bunk John shared with two other low-ranking medical officers. It was small, but comparatively private, as two of the three were always on-shift at any one time.            “How’s Evans?” James asked. John sighed.            “He’ll live.” When James shot him an unimpressed glance, John shook his head. “He lost the foot. Saved the knee, though. Won’t know about hypoxia until he wakes up.”            “Will he?”            “Looks like it. He’s responding to stimuli.”            James nodded. “He’ll go home to his soulmatch. That’s what matters.”            John sighed again, rubbing a hand across his mouth. He hung the towel over a hook next to his bed and stretched up with both arms to crack his back. He heard James make a small sound, a hmmmm sound. Almost... appreciative. John flushed, reaching for his undershirt.            “Don’t cover up on my account,” James murmured. His voice was low, and a bit smoky, and John thought, the first time he heard it, that James ought to be on the evening news.            “Ha bloody ha,” John scoffed, still a bit too pink across the collarbones.            “John.”            James was right behind John when he turned around. His face was inscrutable, but his eyes were restless—running across John’s cheeks and down his chest, from shoulder to shoulder and back up to his face. John could practically feel that look on his skin. They were standing so close, much too close to one another. John felt the heat radiating from James’s long, lean, khaki-covered chest. His eyes were the loveliest, palest blue.            “Your soulmate...” John stuttered, then flushed hotter. God, what did that even mean? What was he saying? Surely James wasn’t... wasn’t...             John was trembling, which made him suddenly and irrationally angry. He balled both hands into fists.  He felt weak.            “This?” James rumbled quietly, looking down at his own soulname with soft eyes. “I want to find her. I need her. But she isn’t here.”            John couldn’t tear his eyes away from that sweet, scarred word. SHARON. Why would James be doing this, here, with him? Why would any man look at another bloke like this, if he was lucky enough to have a name like that on his hand? James lifted John’s left fist and stroked over the back, avoiding his third finger. John’s hand relaxed.            “Platonic, right?”            John nodded, unable to answer.            “It’s all right if it isn’t.”            “I’m not gay,” John forced out. His voice was small and tight.            “Okay, then,” James replied. His mouth tucked up on one side in a small smirk.            James shifted his weight, releasing John’s fingers, and leaned one hand against the wall near the shorter man’s head.            “James?”            “It’s all right, John,” the taller man breathed, his other hand pressing hard on John’s neck. “It’s not a gay thing. Not really. Sometimes a bloke just has to... get off, you know? Gets boring wanking by yourself in your bunk, day after day.”            John swallowed, and James traced the action with his rough thumb.            “Nothing happens that you don’t want,” James soothed, leaning closer. John closed his eyes and his nostrils flared. “Do you, John? Want?”            “I—well, I—”            “I’m not going to kiss you,” James whispered. John could feel his breath and smell his sweat. “Not on the lips. That’s not what this is. But I want to touch you. Can I touch you, John?”            John’s voice broke, along with his composure. “Oh, God, yes...”            James was on him so fast, John nearly blacked out. He had John’s zipper pulled down and his cock pulled out, and John hardly had time to feel embarrassed before he was pulling, twisting the erection through his calloused fingers.            John licked his lips, and James watched his tongue with hot eyes. He didn’t kiss him. Instead, he unzipped his own trousers and took John’s left hand in his right. “Touch me?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. John’s breath left his body in a rush. He nodded, just once, and James guided his sweating palm to his cock. He grunted when John wrapped his shorter fingers around the length of it. Hot, so hot, and hard, and soft, too. Just like his own, really, but somehow so much better. He pulled back the foreskin as he stroked toward the base, revealing a dripping head.            “I couldn’t believe it when you made that goddamn shot,” James panted.            John snorted. “That’s what gets you hot? Pistols at dawn?”            “It shouldn’t. I’m a sick bastard.” James’s tongue was exploring John’s right shoulder, and his hand tightened around John’s twitching dick. “But you’re so goddamn hot with a gun in your hand—”            “Don’t stop. Please. Ohhh fuck, James—”            “Yeah,” James groaned. He lined up their cocks and wrapped his hand around them, pressing them together so hard that John thought he might choke. “You’re hard for me, aren’t you? You’re hard and wet and I’m going to take you apart.”            John wrapped his own fist around them both, two hands and two cocks, and they moved together. It felt... Jesus, nothing had ever felt quite like this. James was larger than John, in height and in length, and there was something about that... It felt... It wasn’t better than sex with a woman, but it was firm, and sweaty, and primal in a way John had never felt before. Raw. And James wouldn’t stop talking in that deep, raspy voice. John’s whole body was shaking.            “I want you to come, John,” James was grunting into his ear. “I want to watch you come.”            The orgasm was unlike any John had felt before. It felt illicit. It felt wicked. As he arched his back and keened, John’s mind went strangely, sinfully blank. It didn’t feel like going to Hell. He didn’t feel anything but pleasure.            James’s hand was still moving, using John’s come to slick its passage over his own hard cock. He was staring down, but not at himself. He was watching John’s dick twitch and soften, watching John’s come trickle down his bare stomach. John dragged a finger through the mess as James watched with narrowed eyes. Then he leaned in, put his lips right next to James’s ear.            “Come on me, you bastard.”            James came, and moaned, and leaned into John with all of his weight. His face contorted, and his stomach contracted, and he buried his face in John’s neck. He smelled like sand and sex. His come was on John’s belly, coating his fingers—the finger with SHERLOCK scarred into it. A man’s name, and a different man’s come, and John knew, suddenly, that there was no coming back from this. John Watson wasn’t gay, but he was... well, something. Someone who knew what it felt like to want another man, and to wear the proof of that want on his own skin.            He was going to be sick.            “John?” James said, with enough authority in his voice to command immediate attention. John’s eyes snapped back to meet his. “That felt bloody brilliant. Best wank in months.”            John tried to smile, but there was come on his hand and James’s masculine smell in his nose. John could hear a voice in his head, so much like his father’s, hissing, Not gay, eh? His heart was in danger of tachycardia.            “John. We’re just two blokes getting off.” John shook his head a little, but James grabbed his chin with his clean hand and held it steady. “It’s just getting off. We’re mates, and we trust each other, and we didn’t want to be alone. That’s all this is. Calm the fuck down.”            John tried. He took a few deep breaths as James used John’s nearby towel to clean them both off. He was gentle. His face betrayed no uneasiness, no disgust. “We’re mates,” John finally whispered. James looked up at him. “You’re my best mate, over here.”            “I know.”            “And it’s just getting off,” John said. He tried not to sound so lost.            “It’s better than wanking by yourself while the barracks listens in,” James said wryly.            “Okay,” John swallowed. “Okay.”            “It doesn’t happen again,” James told him, tossing the towel to the floor. “Not unless you ask me for it. Not unless you want to.” John didn’t reply, and James frowned, taking a step away. “Are you all right?”            John closed his eyes, still leaning against the rough wall.            “I’m fine,” he replied, trying on a smile. “It’s all fine.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 23            “Five years, Victor. You can’t—I can’t—”            “You always knew it was a possibility,” Victor interrupted gruffly. His normally-unshakable calm was rattled. Sherlock could hear the uneasiness, and the resulting detachment, through the tinny phone line. “If he’d ever bothered to check the international registry, it would have happened years ago.”            Sherlock knew that tone of disapproval. Intimately. Even across nearly 2000 miles, Sherlock flinched in response.            “Please, Victor. Don’t do this. You’re under no obligation—”            “Of course I’m not. Don’t be stupid.” Sherlock mouth shut with a sharp click. “You don’t understand what it’s like. A true soulmatch. Helios is...”            Sherlock couldn’t help asking, “What?”            “Perfect. Made for me. You wouldn’t understand.”            That was likely true, but it didn’t negate anything Sherlock was thinking, or feeling. Sentiment, the Mycroft inside his brain sneered. Sherlock was always tempted to photograph those little glances, those tiny smiles Mycroft shot at Anthea when he thought no one was looking. It would serve the besotted bastard right.            “This is our home. I can’t just pack up and leave at your whim,” Sherlock argued. Victor sucked in a breath, and Sherlock braced himself instinctively with one hand on the kitchen benchtop.            “My whim?” Victor said, quiet and dangerous. “My fucking whim, is it? You will do exactly as I ask, you pretty little twit, or so help me...” He paused, breathing hard. Sherlock wasn’t breathing at all.            The younger man’s eyes were tight and achy, but Sherlock never let himself cry. It was the one thing Victor loved most about him. Sherlock Holmes was unbreakable.            “I love you,” Sherlock whispered, and it gutted him.            “I know,” Victor answered. Always the same. I know, Pretty Boy. You are mine. But instead of completing the sentiment, Victor sighed. “I know you do. I didn’t come to Santorini to find him, you know. I’ve enjoyed our time together.”            Sherlock nearly choked. “Our time together? Five years. A quinary of our lives.”            “We aren’t soulmates, Sherlock. Your soulname is... well, it’s common, isn’t it? And Helios couldn’t be more refined. You and I suited well enough, but we aren’t matched. Did you think something like that could last forever? We should be grateful.”            Sherlock closed his eyes. He would not cry. “When are you coming home?”            “Helios and I will be back in London at the end of the week. I need you gone by then.”            “Does he... does he know about me?”            “No,” Victor snorted. “Of course not. What good would that do?”            “Our friends will tell him,” Sherlock replied in a deadened monotone. “Better to warn him, in advance. You’re far more likely to be forgiven if he believes you’re forthright.”            “Yeah...” Victor thought aloud. “Yeah, you’re right. Very good, boy.”            Sherlock’s heart swelled automatically, before his stomach dropped hard enough to send him to the sink. He bent over, gagging.            “Sherlock? Are you coming down? Call Sebastian. Don’t let yourself crash and forget to pack your things.” When Sherlock didn’t reply, Victor’s tone changed to one of sharp command. “Sherlock! Stop that at once! Take your goddamn medicine!”            “Yes, sir,” Sherlock breathed. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”            “Good. Don’t call me again at this number. I’ll let you know when we’re on our way to the airport. And Sherlock?”            Breathe, Sherlock told himself. Just breathe.            “Yes, sir?”            “You’ve been a good boy. I'm sorry you made me so angry.”            “Thank—thank you, sir.”            “Goodbye, Pretty Boy.”            And he was gone. Victor was gone. Sherlock was alone.***            Sebastian’s flat smelled of marijuana and unwashed laundry. Victor would never have allowed their home to get into such a state. He would have made Sherlock clean the kitchen floors with his tongue.            “You can kip on the sofa for a while, but I’ve no room for a flatmate.” Sebastian eyed him with his particular sort of predatory smirk. “Only one bed.”            “I believe Margot would object to an arrangement of that sort,” Sherlock answered coldly, eyes flicking toward Sebastian’s left hand. “Not to mention Victor, when he found out.”            “Mmm, I’ve sampled Victor’s castaways before,” Sebastian said with a condescending smile. “He never seemed to mind.” Sherlock was careful not to react to the crude implication. He knew Victor wasn’t faithful during their years together. Sherlock wasn’t an idiot.            Instead, Sherlock fixed Sebastian with a jaded look. “Not interested.”            “Suit yourself,” the other man shrugged. “So long as you pay for the product and stay out of my way, it’s fine with me. You can play me something, once in a while—” Sebastian nodded toward Sherlock's violin case, clutched tightly in one hand. “None of that pretentious, new school nonsense, but your Vaughan Williams is nice enough.” Sherlock didn't reply. Vaughan Williams. Honestly.            Sebastian meandered into the messy kitchen with Sherlock trailing behind. “I think you know where most everything is in here. Don’t touch my liquor or my weed. I don’t keep product in the flat, so don’t bother searching.” A lie—well-practiced, but not smooth enough to fool Sherlock. “If anything but food and soap go missing, I’ll take it out of your hide. One way or another.”            Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes. Boring. Sebastian grabbed a lone key off the hook near the door. “Spare key,” he said, tossing it to Sherlock. “Don’t lose it. And don’t bring anyone back here. You want to fuck anyone but me, you do it where I can’t bloody hear you.”            “I assume I’m not offered the same courtesy.”            “You aren’t offered any courtesies, Freak. You’re eating my food and wanking in my shower. But anyway, Margot’s on leave from St. Mary’s for another two weeks. She’s the only fuck I’ll be enjoying until she takes off again. One more year,” he murmured wistfully.            Despite the man’s idiocy, and knotty morality, Sebastian Wilkes was the closest friend Sherlock had left, without Victor. Right. Without Victor.            “Sebastian,” Sherlock ventured quietly. “Do you love Margot?”            Sebastian’s blue eyes widened and his jaw stiffened. “Of course I do! What kind of question is that?”            “You have sex with other people.”            “Men. I have sex with men. I would never with another woman.”            Sherlock blinked. “And Margot agreed to this?”            Sebastian was staring at Sherlock, as if he were observing a particularly slow tortoise at the zoo. “Of course, yes. It’s... it’s what’s done, eh? Just hand jobs, blow jobs. Quick and dirty, no penetration. I use protection. She’s free to do as she likes with the girls at St. Mary’s, makes no difference to me. In fact—” Sebastian licked his lips. “I like to watch, sometimes, when she tapes it for me. Best kind of porn in the world.”            “What about after her graduation?”            “She’ll move back to London. I’ll finally take that awful banking job her father’s been trying to force on me for years. Couple of kids, maybe. Who knows?”            Sherlock nodded, as if this all sounded anything but insane. “Will you still sleep with other people?”            A sudden light came into Sebastian’s eyes, and he laughed a little. “Right! Okay! You’ve never matched. You don’t know... well, of course you don’t, but fuck me...”            “What?” Sherlock bit out. “What don’t I know?”            Sebastian’s expression was horribly patronizing. “Margot’s my true soulmatch. No question. The sex with Margot is... magnificent. Unparalleled. Once you’ve been with your soulmate, watched them when they—” Sebastian shook his head, flushed. “You can’t go back. Why would you fuck someone else, when your soulmate is right there?”            “So... why did Margot go to Durham? Why didn’t you go with her?”            Sebastian just smiled. “It’s her mother’s alma mater. And what would I do in bloody Durham? Take up rowing?”            “It seems your particular trade could be practiced anywhere.”            “Ha. Too right. I’ve already got my supply chain well in hand here, though. Long distance is a bitch, but we’ve made it work.”            It was an uncomfortable feeling, respecting Sebastian. The man was a bastard, and the worst kind of idiot, but he was sincere. Sherlock couldn’t find a single lie in that long explanation—possibly the longest conversation they’d ever had without Victor to play gatekeeper. Without Victor, the beast in Sherlock’s brain reminded him. He shut the thought down as quickly as he could.            “Well,” Sherlock mumbled. “Thank you. For the sofa.”            “Quite right,” Sebastian agreed. He narrowed his eyes, taking in Sherlock’s wan face and shaking hands. “You need a hit? I can cut you a deal on the new line. Haven’t had the chance to road test it yet, so you’ll have to be my guinea pig.”            “Fine.”***            The phone call was undeniably lowering. Even the dial tone seemed to echo with disapproval. Sherlock had tried to find a way through this complete catastrophe of a situation without making the call, but... well, if there was a solution, Sherlock couldn’t see it. And Sherlock Holmes could see everything.            “Brother mine,” Mycroft drawled upon answering. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”            “Don’t act as if you don’t already know.” The headache was coming back, stronger than before. Sherlock’s eyes twitched toward his own blue-spotted forearm.            “Has your former admirer returned from Greece then?”            “Victor was never my admirer,” Sherlock spat.            “No,” Mycroft replied. Sherlock could hear the arched eyebrow. “I suppose that was you, wasn’t it?”            “Fuck off.”            “You called me, little brother. For a purpose, one presumes.”            “Yes, I—” God, it was mortifying. “I need to come home.”            “Come home?” Mycroft repeated. He must have been truly surprised, because Mycroft never repeated anyone’s words.            “I can’t very well stay on a friend’s sofa indefinitely!”            “Is that what you’re doing? I thought perhaps you’d found another paramour.”            Sherlock gritted his teeth. “It isn’t like that.”            “Sebastian Wilkes is a young man whose reputation precedes him.”            “Not. Interested.”            “You’ll forgive my confusion. You are, in fact, homeless. You have expensive... habits. You have no access to your trust fund, per our parents’ strict instructions—”            “Your instructions!”            “Victor is no longer supporting you. And so I must assume you’ll acquire your particular vice through trade. What exactly is your trade, again?”            Sherlock couldn’t answer without screaming, so he didn’t bother to try. Mycroft sighed.            “You are welcome to return home, either to Surrey or to the townhouse, provided you are clean and sober. I can tell from your breathing and your choice of accommodation that you are not.”  Mycroft’s voice was still sneering, but Sherlock could detect the hint of pain buried underneath. “Sherlock, I can provide you with the best possible treatment. The finest facility in the country. Our parents and Anthea are so desperately worried. Let me help you.”            Sherlock closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the sofa. It would be so easy—taking Mycroft’s help. Going into treatment. Bluffing his way through the 90 days, and then back into his brother’s London townhouse. Stealing money or valuables to get the high that he needed. Hiding the habit as long as he could. Sherlock had done it all before.            He was so damn tired, and so very alone.            “Goodbye, Mycroft.”            “Sherlock, I—”            The dial tone didn’t sound disappointed anymore. It sounded sad.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 30            “When did you get out?”            His younger sister eyed him wearily. “Three weeks ago.”            “Does Mum know?”            “’Course she knows,” Harry scoffed. “Can’t exactly hide it, can I? You noticed.”            John winced. “I did, yeah. But it wasn’t—I suppose I thought—”            “Right.” Harry’s expression was foreboding.            “Well.” John rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Fuck me.”            Harry sipped at her seltzer water with a little frown of distaste. Then her eyes went a bit vacant as her vision snagged on something across the room. John turned to watch Harry’s soulmatch, Clara, set down another tray of smallish sandwiches. “Do you know what Clara said,” Harry asked, “first time she met Mum and Da?”            “No clue.”            “Even monsters have matches.”            The crowd around Mum was thinning, and John probably needed to step in and give her break for a while. Play the dutiful son. God knew Harry wasn’t going to bother. He caught his sister’s eye and bobbed his head toward the waiting mourners.            “Going back in,” he said.            “Better you than me,” she replied, and that was undeniably true.            John bobbed his head at a few sad smiles as he crossed the threshold into the dining room. He pulled at the arm of his mother’s jacket, and she turned away from old Mrs. Hampdon, who’d been talking nonstop for at least five minutes. “Excuse me, ma’am,” John said apologetically, “I need to borrow my Mum.”            “Of course, Johnny,” the elderly woman nodded with watery eyes. “Goodness, you’ve grown into a right hero, haven’t you? So handsome! Just like your father.”            John smiled weakly, and led Mum into a calm corner before he was forced to reply.            “Take a break, Mum. Harry and I can shake hands out here.”            “Oh,” his mother breathed, looking a little lost, “I couldn’t. All these people, here out of the kindness of their—”            “It’s all right,” John insisted. “Really. Just go have a lie down. No one’ll blame you.”            “Won’t they?” She asked. Her eyes were dry but distant behind her big, round glasses. “He wouldn’t—he wouldn’t want me to leave. In the middle of a party.”            “It’s not a party, Mum. It’s a funeral.” John gripped her hand, pressing two fingers against her wrist. Her pulse was quick but steady. “He’d understand.”            “Oh. Well.”            “I’ll come and get you, after things die down a bit.” John’s mother visibly wavered, rocking back and forth on her sensible black heels. Her right hand gripped her left, squeezing in an unconscious rhythm.            “Yes, all right, John,” she finally sighed. She reached up to cup his clean-shaven cheek. “Thank you. I’ll just...”            John pressed a small, dry kiss to her palm. “Go on, Mum.”            Rachel Watson disappeared down the back hall with rounded shoulders and a hand pressed to the wallpaper, as if she might collapse. John watched her carefully until she slipped into her bedroom, closing the door.            “That was good of you,” a quiet voice remarked. John’s mouth quirked at the corners even before he turned.            “She needs a break,” John said.            His sister’s soulmatch nodded, dark eyes warm and mouth serious. “We all do. But your mother most of all.”            They stood in companionable silence. Clara was taller than John, and more poised, long-haired and brown-skinned—an elegant anomaly in a room full of his mother’s Scots-Catholic neighbors. Perhaps that was why they hadn’t descended on John.            The guests might have been willing to impose their condolences on Mum, but they were (wisely) giving both Watson children a wide berth. Gossip was meat-and-potatoes around here, and Harry Watson-Clarke was still infamous for her temper, as much as her unconventional soulmatch. John’s little sister shot the mourners brave enough to approach her a tight-lipped smile, and then went back to scowling into her drink.            John cleared his throat. “I didn’t—erm... Harry said she’s been... unwell.”            “That’s one way to put it,” Clara deadpanned.            “I just mean—I didn’t—” He sighed, and clenched his fists. “I’m so damned sorry, Clara. I didn’t realize it got so bad.”            “You were working,” Clara said, eyes still on Harry. “Overseas.”            “’S no excuse,” John mumbled.            “Isn’t it?” She replied, raising one thick eyebrow. “It’s not your problem, John. You didn’t put a bottle in her hand at age twelve, and command her to drink up.”            It was like a blow to the gut, even after all these years. Those words, in this house. John’s Da, red-faced and bleary-eyed, holding the bottle to Mum’s lips while she frowned, tried to pull away. Drink up, you frigid piece. Jesus, you’d think I were poisonin’ you! His navy-blue eyes on John’s while he laughed. She’s no fun at all, your Mum. Get your old man another, Johnny Boy, there’s a lad...            John’s fists were clenched. His breath was quick and shallow, and the edges of his vision blurred.            “It’s all right,” Clara soothed. Her faded Jamaican accent made the word all into something long and soothing. “It’s all right, John. Breathe.”            “I’m fine,” John wheezed.            “Yes,” Clara said, with no change in her expression. “It’s all fine, isn’t it?”            John opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He could feel his nostrils flaring, but he still wasn’t getting enough air. Clara watched him for another moment before taking him by the hand and pulling him into the quiet kitchen.            “If you need to break something, there are about a hundred bottles of your father’s crap beer in the cellar,” Clara remarked, filling a glass of water at the sink. She handed it to him, and John took a long swallow. It was strange, how very comfortable she seemed in his childhood home. How at ease.            He’d only met Clara once before, at her matching ceremony with Harry; he’d secured leave for the event and arrived that same morning. Harry had been radiantly happy, and Clara set John back on his heels with her sardonic wit. She was so beautiful—slender and lithe, with thick black hair piled up under her veil. In another life, if they were different people... well. John could hardly believe Harry’s luck.            “Ta very much.” John coughed a little. “I don’t think that’ll help.”            “Suit yourself. I’d drag Harry down there first thing if it wasn’t such a minefield.” She dropped the H from Harry’s name in a way that was undeniably charming.            “She’s okay?” John wanted to know.            Clara’s eyes narrowed. “Will be.”            “I thought—god, it’s so stupid, but I thought she might be pregnant.”            That surprised a laugh out of Clara. “No, God, can you imagine?”            “I really, really can’t.”            “Not sure it’s in the cards for us,” Clara shrugged.            “There are things you could do, aren’t there?” John leaned back against the counter. “Sperm donation, that sort of thing?”            “Yes. And the world’s starting to loosen up—make allowances for people like us.” John choked back a little cough, thinking (guiltily) of James, and his talk of children, and the woman’s name waiting there on his left hand. The woman who wrote to him nearly every day.            Clara, misinterpreting his discomfort, flushed a bit and rushed on: “Harry and I, I mean. In our parents’ day, same-sex soulmates couldn’t even live together without... repercussions. There are clinics who’d agree to work with us now.” She sighed, twisting a long piece of hair through her fingers. Clara was younger than John, but seemed so much wiser. More self-assured. “We both work so much. Such long hours. We’re independent people, Harry and I, with plenty of our own issues to sort through. I’m not sure we’ll ever want to bring a child into our mess.”            “You’re not a mess,” John protested loyally.            “Hmm. Well. Less of a mess than Harry, I suppose.” She smirked at him, then lifted her left hand with a shrug. “It was so much easier for me. In some ways.” She traced the letters—HARRY—with a painted fingertip. “I’d never... wanted a boy. You see?” She glanced up, and John nodded through his blush. “Never even a passing fancy. I knew I was attracted to girls, but it was easy to ignore. I just thought, well, when the right man comes along...” She snorted, and John huffed a laugh.            “And then your sister walked into the restaurant, all piss and vinegar and that Watson charm...” Clara smiled and rubbed her soulmark absentmindedly. “Picking up an order for ‘Harry.’ Flashed her ID, and smiled, and it was like I’d been hit by a bus. Breathless. Utterly flattened.”            “Is it always like that, do you think?” John realized he’d wondered aloud, a moment too late. His cheeks felt hot and he sniffed in discomfort. “Just—you know—”            “I don’t,” Clara replied with an even, serious voice. “I don’t know. I think it must be. Not that feeling, exactly, but something. Everyone says it’s unmistakable. No matter how many ‘John’s there are in the world, only one will ever be the right one. Only one can be you.”            “I don’t expect I’ll ever find out,” John confessed, quietly, and then swigged his water. “Posh bloody name. Not so many of those in the Middle East.”            Clara was watching him again, in that unflappable way she had. “Do you want to find out? Find him?”            “Everyone wants to find their soulmate,” John said woodenly. “But I’ve made my peace. I’m sure he isn’t looking for me.”            Clara leaned in, frowning. “Well, then, he’s an idiot.”            John’s bark of laughter surprised them both. He wiped his face again and set the empty glass in the sink. He offered Clara his elbow.            She took his arm with a squeeze. “Once more unto the breach?”            “Or close the wall up with our English dead,” John muttered, and then snickered madly. He bit his lip, guilty, and cleared his throat. “Right, sorry. Not the moment.”            Clara shot him a wry look. “You’re more like Harry than I ever imagined.”            “Bite your tongue!” John chided, and lead her back to his sister’s side.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 28            “I’m sure you’re all wondering why we’ve asked you to join us tonight.”            “You’re pregnant?!”            Sherlock rolled his eyes to the ceiling and groaned. “Of course Anthea isn’t pregnant. Look at her shoes, Mummy! And she had a glass of the malbec with dinner.”            “Glad my shoes don’t scream ‘eating for two,’” Anthea remarked dryly. “And no, Mummy, I’m so sorry. But we aren’t expecting.”            Mycroft wore a lovely, long-suffering expression, which Sherlock cherished. Anthea smoothed the fabric of her exquisitely-tailored skirt over her hips, pointedly, and then caught Sherlock’s eye. The corner of her lip tucked up—the smile equivalent of a wink. She really was too good for his brother.            “Oh my,” Mummy cried, clasping a hand to her mouth. “I apologize. I was quite carried away, wasn’t I?”            “Quite,” Mycroft said flatly. Father sent him a quelling look and Mycroft cleared his throat. “I regret that the news is far less pleasant than any... procreation.” The word sounded a lot like flatulence when Mycroft said it. “It concerns Eurus.”            Mummy froze in her seat. Father reached for one of her hands, pressing it between both of his own. Anthea’s eyes turned toward Sherlock again, careful and direct. Her ubiquitous BlackBerry was noticeably absent this evening.            “Out with it, Myc,” Father murmured.            “Hadiya Ganem has died.” Mycroft did not acknowledge Mummy’s quick gasp. “It was an accident, a simple matter of choking on a bit of fruit. Nothing suspicious. She was alone when it happened, and the body wasn’t discovered for nearly a day.”            “That poor woman,” Mummy whimpered, gripping Father’s hand.            “I had considered keeping this information to myself—”            “Of course you did,” Sherlock muttered.            “—But Anthea impressed upon me your right to know Nanny Hadiya’s fate. It is, however, imperative that we keep the news of her death from Eurus. At any cost.”            It was telling that no one questioned why the concealment was necessary. No one looked at Sherlock now. Even Anthea was gazing at her own folded hands.            “She’ll know,” Sherlock said, breaking the silence. “She’ll read the truth on your faces, immediately. It’s no use attempting to bluff Eurus. Of all people.”            “I have seen our sister since I was made aware of the death,” Mycroft said. “She did not deduce it.”            “How do you know?”            “He knows,” Anthea put in, quietly. “Her vitals are monitored during those meetings. Heart rate, breathing, pupil dilation. She didn’t react. Mycroft kept it buried,” she concluded with a proud little nod toward her navy-suited husband, and nominal boss.            “Well, she’ll read it all over me,” Father frowned. “I can’t bury something like this. Not with my own child. She’d know in an instant.”            “Yes,” Mycroft agreed.            Father huffed. “What do you propose I do? Wear a bag over my face during visits?”            “I propose that you do not.”            “...Do not what?”            “Visit.”            “Mycroft Holmes.” Mummy clenched her jaw. “Eurus is our daughter. We are not leaving her alone in that—that place, to rot.”            Mycroft’s face remained impassive, but his tone chilled. “Eurus is your daughter. Sherlock is your son. And we all must think of what is best for the entire family.”            “I don’t require protection from Eurus,” Sherlock sniffed with heat rising in his cheeks. “I’m not a child any longer. She’s been confined for eighteen years. I can certainly manage her impotent displeasure.”            “Eurus is anything but impotent,” Mycroft replied with infuriating calm. “She has driven off so many doctors that the psychiatric staff is no longer willing, nor able, to treat her. Some she merely frightened. More recently, she’s taken to convincing them to love her.”            “Love her?” Mummy repeated.            “Well, I say love...”            Anthea sighed. “They fancy themselves in love, anyway. Eurus, of course, feels nothing in return. Doesn’t claim to, in fact. It’s the damndest thing.”            “So she manipulates them into—what?” Sherlock wondered. “Providing her with cigarettes? Contraband books? Extra dessert in the dining hall?”            “Sherlock.” Mycroft’s tone was distinctly disappointed.            “Those meetings...” Sherlock murmured. “Anthea said, ‘during those meetings.’ What meetings are you taking with Eurus?”            Mycroft considered ignoring the question—the impulse was written all over his pinched face—but, instead, he clucked his tongue. “Our sister’s intellect is unparalleled. A once-in-a-generation genius. To ignore such a resource would be foolhardy.”            “Mycroft, your sister is not a resource,” Mummy snarled. Mycroft’s eyes flashed wide, taken aback by her tone. Anthea laid a flat palm against the top of her soulmatch’s hand.            “Lydia,” Father cut in with cautious regret. “Let’s leave the boys to their bickering. We’ll sort the rest out with you tomorrow, Mycroft?” It sounded like a question, but the authority in Father’s eyes was unmistakable.            “Of course, Father,” Mycroft nodded. “And Mummy. I apologize for your distress.”            “Sort this out, Myc,” Mummy said through clenched teeth. “What a mess you’ve made.”            “Hadiya died, Mummy. He’s doing his best,” Sherlock commented quietly.            “Well, his best isn’t very good, then, is it?” Mummy sniffed. Father took her arm, but he shot Mycroft a loaded glance as they left the dining room together.            The silence was punctuated by a ticking clock. The grandfather in the hall? Of course, obvious. It needed winding. Sherlock had subconsciously synced his breathing with that just-barely-uneven metronome tick.            “For fuck’s sake.” Anthea rolled her eyes. “You are both impossible morons.” She reached across the table for Mummy’s abandoned glass of port. She finished it off in one long swallow. “Sherlock. Your brother uses Eurus to solve problems. She sees what even he cannot.”            “And in exchange?”            She sent the younger man a hard look. “She doesn’t accept anything less than quid pro quo. Would you?”            Sherlock stiffened. “I am not psychotic.”            “Neither is she,” Anthea shrugged. “Or, rather, it’s a mistake to think she’s only that.”            “A psychotic genius,” Mycroft said. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. Anthea’s face betrayed the depth of her worry. “Completely without empathy. Brutally bored. Clever beyond reason.” His sharp face contracted, as though in pain. “Beyond reason,” he repeated bleakly.            The clock ticked. Sherlock breathed. Mycroft, it seemed, did not. Anthea practically vibrated her concern. That sentiment—it took up so much space. Mycroft, Anthea, and Sherlock were all too full of it. There was no room for their usual sniping and feigned detachment. “What do you need from me?” Sherlock murmured.            “Mummy will never agree, if I ask,” Mycroft said, still with closed eyes.            “No.”            “Father won’t be amenable, either, but he will listen to reason. He’s shortened their visits incrementally for the last two years, upon my request. He no longer allows Mummy to visit on her own.”            “I will speak with our mother,” Sherlock agreed.            “Do more than speak, Sherlock.” Mycroft finally opened his eyes, and they were sharp again. Cutting.            “Obviously.”            “Eurus cannot be allowed to read the truth on our mother’s face.”            “God forbid,” Anthea murmured.            “What exactly are we looking to prevent here?” Sherlock demanded. “What is she capable of? From inside Sherrinford?”            Mycroft looked down his pointed nose. “Horrors.”            “Oh please,” Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Imprecise. And melodramatic, even for you.”            “Just so.” His older brother lofted a brow. “Let me be... explicit, then. Eurus is currently maintaining at least three illicit affairs with staff on the Sherrinford grounds.”            “At least?”            “I am not prideful enough to believe I’ve identified all of Eurus’s machinations. She has some hold over her most recent psychiatrist—some form of blackmail. So far, the man has not cooperated with any of our inquiries. He’s terrified. He’ll accept no assurance of our ability to protect him.”            “That’s absurd. She has no hope of ever leaving Sherrinford.”            “Why should she need to?” Anthea wanted to know. “Mycroft rarely carries out his own directives. The elephantine matriarch need not scavenge her own food or fend off her own attackers.” Sherlock reflected, not for the first time, on how perfect his brother’s soulmatch was for Mycroft. Annoyingly repetitive thought, and not a useful one. Sherlock resisted the urge to rub his fingers across the four pale letters on his left hand.            “Eurus is some sort of—of mastermind, in this analogy? Some great institutionalized Machiavelli?”            “Empress Wu Zetian, I should think,” Anthea replied sardonically. “Machiavelli, Sherlock? Bit cliché. You’re meant to be the imaginative one.”            It was a solid hit. Sherlock couldn’t help his tiny, squint-eyed smile.            “If Eurus is so dangerous, why not put her in solitary confinement?”            “You’ve argued against that course of action in the past,” Mycroft said.            “And you for it,” Sherlock countered. “What’s changed?”            “There is no such thing as true isolation. Not even in Sherrinford. I am reluctant to push her toward any more committed action.”            “More committed than seducing her nurses and terrifying her therapists?”            Mycroft’s voice dropped very low and very quiet. “This is a game to Eurus. These people are playthings. You, however, are not.” Anthea stood, resting her hand briefly on Mycroft’s shoulder. He didn’t acknowledge the action, and she didn’t seem to expect it. She left the dining room without a word. Once she’d gone, Mycroft unclenched his jaw and went on. “Eurus believes you to be her adversary. As much as I am. I, however, am boring. I visit. I give her the opportunity to... vent her spleen, as it were. She has not had that from you.”            “I will not visit.”            “Certainly not. I shouldn’t allow it.”            Sherlock’s hackles rose out of sheer spite, but Mycroft dismissed that with a look.            “I worry,” Mycroft remarked, almost idly.            “For me?”            His brother’s brow drew tight. “Constantly.”            Sherlock’s fingers twitched against his thighs. Mycroft’s eyes narrowed.            “How goes the sobriety, little brother?”            “How goes the diet?” Sherlock shot back.            Mycroft ignored that. “Your intrepid inspector is due for a promotion. I suspect he’ll be made chief inspector within the year.”            “He’s not my anything. And he’s an idiot.”            “Quite. But he’s likely to come across increasingly interesting cases, as his prospects improve. If you mean to continue this crime-solving lark—”            “It’s not a lark.”            “—it behooves you to stay in Detective Inspector Lestrade’s good graces.”            “Behooves me? Am I the elderly grandmother in a period drama?”            “You are an addict with a very unstable track record,” Mycroft retorted without pity. “But you’re nearly a year into your latest attempt at sobriety, and I’d hate for this unfortunate incident to upset your recovery.”            It hit Sherlock, rather suddenly. Years of his elder brother’s rules and restrictions, chafing him raw. The drugs busts. The spying. His cool aloofness with Anthea. Their stoic devotion, and their public restraint. The unclimbable monolith of Mycroft’s expectations, and the phone which was always answered no matter how often Sherlock backslid.            He asked the question, because that was what the genius Holmeses did. Ask and answer.            “Why haven’t you and Anthea had children?”            Mycroft’s face smiled, but it was a lie. “Our lives are not without risk.”            “...And sacrifice.”            “Indeed.”            Sherlock nodded. It hurt rather badly somewhere deep inside his chest. Fear? No. He had, despite it all, outgrown his fear of Eurus. He was cautious of her. Wary. But this feeling couldn’t be fear, because Sherlock did not feel afraid. This was... something deeper. Something blue and cold, which made his eyes blink too much, on the verge of watering.            Sherlock Holmes did not cry.            “I’ll talk Mummy around. Guilt, if I have to.”            “Thank you,” Mycroft nodded. “I know how greatly you dislike it.”            “Eurus will find out, someday. About Hadiya.”            “Assuredly.”            “What then?”            Mycroft shook his head and turned his gaze toward the door, where Anthea had last exited. He breathed in, and then sighed between sharp teeth, “Horrors.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 36            He was going to die alone. Alone, bleeding out into the sand of a goddamned wasteland. He was going to die in the sand like so many soldiers before him, and John Watson could only think, They’re going to put this in the paper. They’ll put our names in the paper, and he’ll know.            It was stupid, thinking about that right now. About SHERLOCK. About John’s own obituary. He should be thinking of ways to get out of this, to find help, to save his own stupid, useless life. But the shot went through his left shoulder. Dominant hand. Too much damage for full mobility, and that’s if the nerves survived. Odds of a full recovery: slim. So.            John Hamish Watson was a Captain with Her Majesty’s Armed Services, serving with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. He was a trauma surgeon and expert marksman. He leaves behind a sister, Harry, and her soulmatch, Clara Watson-Clarke. His soulmark read “Sherlock,” but Watson was unmatched at the time of his death. He was thirty-six years old.            Thirty-six. Jesus Christ.            It felt oddly disloyal, thinking about his soulmate as he lay there. He didn’t owe James anything—they hadn’t been in the same room together for fourteen months—but it seemed like he ought to be recalling his face. His big hands. The way he laughed, almost in silence. John loved the self-conscious way he laughed.             He could recall James perfectly, if he tried, but he found he didn’t really want to. Coping mechanism? Who the Hell knew? James was breaking in new recruits, reluctantly but no doubt efficiently, while John’s longest running relationship dissolved into something as distant and meaningless as everything else right now. Ran out of him like blood and piss, into the burning sand. Not that you could properly call what James gave him a ‘relationship.’ Close friendship. Laughter and adrenaline and innuendo. A few months of mutual wanks, years ago, and nothing but long, loaded looks since then. Not gay, but... Jesus Christ.            John was distantly aware that he was in pain. A lot of pain. He’d gone unpleasantly numb, though, and quite cold. The sun beating down on him did nothing to stop his shivering. He could still hear the firefight, but it was a distant sort of thing. It didn’t matter. John was a casualty now, wasn’t he?            Please, God, let me live.            He wondered, idly, if it was disrespectful to pray. John didn’t believe in God. John Watson didn’t believe in much of anything.                        Fainting in the desert,

Israel’s thousands stand

At the rock of Kadesh.

Hark! the Lord’s command...
            A hymn, then? What dark pit had John dragged that memory out of? Mum forcing Harry into an ironed dress and knotting John’s tie, walking them hand-in-hand down the narrow aisle of the local parish. The smell of incense, and the ache of the hard pew. Up and down—kneel and rise, kneel and rise—until John’s khakis were baggy at the knee. Mum’s little pill box hat, pinned in just so. They’d buried their mother in that hat.            Would Harry wear black to his funeral? She did it for Mum. All Watsons looked absolute shit in black; his mother used to rib his father about that, a bit. Clara could wear black, though, and John figured she would. Maybe she’d even go with Harry to the service, hold her hand in the cemetery. That’d be nice. Maybe his death would... bring them back together, or something. Jolt Harry back into recovery. John thought that’d make his death nearly worthwhile. To be able—finally—to give his sister something worth remembering.            Jesus, he was cold. He was getting a sunburn while he froze to death.            John had heard somewhere that police officers, whilst in training, had to let someone use a taser on them. It was important for officers to know what it felt like before they tried it out on anybody else. That made sense, in a perverse way. Would dying—or, he supposed, nearly dying—have made John a better doctor? Would he be more compassionate? More likely to fight for each patient’s life? Keep the chest compressions going just a bit longer?            Or would it confirm what John already knew: That life was only a series of nearly-deaths. Near-misses. That staying alive one more time meant nothing, in the scheme of things, because death was always one unlucky shot away.            He was going to die. His unlucky shot. SHERLOCK was a widower.            John closed his eyes and surrendered to it. John hadn’t surrendered much in nearly twenty years—not since he grabbed an angry, spotty, crying Harry by the hand and hauled her out the door. Put her into the backseat of his rusted-out Ford Cortina, and drove away from his father’s drunken rage. Was this what it felt like, to watch your life flash before your eyes? If so, John couldn’t decide whether he was getting the Best of John Watson, or his outtakes reel.            He’d bought Harry a beer that night, to take the edge off. So she could finally sleep.                        Speak to the Rock,
                        Bid the waters flow,

Strike not its bosom

Opened long ago.
            If ever there were an appropriate time to be maudlin, it was when you were dying. Alone. He could hear music—that old hymn, what is its goddamn name?—but John figured that was the hemorrhagic shock. His brain shutting down as the oxygen ran out along with the blood. How long had he been lying here? It felt like ages.            His head was spinning, tilting to the left. No... He was actually tilting. He could feel the sand press hot and rough against his right cheek. And the sound wasn’t singing, or even enemy fire, but someone speaking to him in a quick, desperate tenor.            “Hold on, Cap, you bloody bastard!” It sounded like Murray. Jesus, Bill Murray shouldn’t have to watch John die. John rolled back again toward the left; his shoulder jolted and then burned. Oh Mary fucking Mother of God, it hurt. His compression bandage—self-applied, and soaked to the point of uselessness—was ripped away. The burn of quick-and-dirty cauterization, to stem the blood flow. Oh God, oooh God, fuckingshityoumotherfucker. “I know, Cap, Jesus, I know. Watson! Don’t you pass out on me!”            John was lifted into the air. Stretcher. At least two medics, then. Three, because someone kept pressure on his shoulder as they ran. There was a good reason that voice kept screaming at John to stay awake, but John couldn’t quite put the pieces together. He’d never been so cold. He wished someone would make him a decent cup of tea. He wished he had a soft place to sit, and maybe a fire going in the hearth. He wished he wasn’t so damn alone.                        Still Thou dost say,
                        Wherefore struggle so?

Call for the Spirit,

Whisper soft and low,

Speak to the Rock

Bid the waters flow.

Speak to the Rock,

Till the waters flow.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 33            DI Lestrade rocked back on his heels a few times, pondering something. His close-cropped hair flashed dull silver under the streetlights. Finally, he turned toward Sherlock. “What about that new coroner, eh?”            Sherlock raised a brow. “Molly Hooper is an adequate pathologist.”            “She likes you.”            “No, she doesn’t. No one likes me.”            “Sherlock,” Lestrade sighed, looking inexplicably fond. “She fancies you. It’s obvious, even to a moron like me.”            “She finds me attractive,” Sherlock conceded, with a genuine sneer. “However, she’s a marginally intelligent woman. Surely she realizes what an abominable life partner I’d be sure to make.”            “Not sure she cares, mate.”            “We are not mates.”            “She likes you. You can’t control a thing like that. Well, we mere mortals can’t, can we?” Lestrade rubbed his hands together and blew hot breath into his fist. “’Suppose you’ve never suffered from anything as pedestrian as an innocent crush.”            “No,” Sherlock agreed flatly. “Nothing quite like that.”            Lestrade hummed to himself—a simple, repeating stanza, most likely from the radio—until Sally Donovan approached with a sour expression.            “Well, Freak,” she said. “Want to tell us what the perp keeps in his sock drawer? Porn and a Beretta?”            “Hardly,” Sherlock scoffed.            “Let’s hear it then,” Lestrade said, waving a hand.            “You’re looking for a quiet man in his late 40’s. No children. Mid-level job with limited customer service, and plenty of time to listen to himself think. Likely Caucasian, then, and unmatched. He favors his right hip when standing—old injury, likely football—and wears shoes at least two years old, but in excellent nick. He attends church services regularly and has an unhealthy attachment to his elderly aunt.”            “What’s a bloke like that doing around here?” Sally wanted to know.            Sherlock huffed. “Obvious. Look around you.”            Lestrade and Sally turned to search the park, brows raised. It was evening, and rather cold, but that didn’t explain the empty streets. It was a neighborhood composed of disconsolate parts—rank alleyways, chained-up schoolyards, and paycheque advance establishments. Cleared out of foot traffic at the mere whisper of police presence. Not even the usual homeless camped out on park benches. A block of government apartments rose up across the way; now and again, a shade flicked aside, revealing the silhouette of a curious onlooker.            “Drugs, maybe?” Lestrade offered. Sherlock pressed the heels of his hands to his temples.            “Drugs? Really.”            “Anderson said the victim had the look of an addict.”            “Anderson is an idiot. Of course your victim’s an addict. Your perpetrator is, too—he spends his time making nice with an elderly lady. Prescription drugs, probably, Prozac or oxycodon, and he doesn’t buy them on the street. He need only raid her medicine cabinet.”            “So what’s the perp doing here?” Sally said.            “Prostitution, you useless—” Sherlock stopped himself when Lestrade grunted at him. (Decorum, Sherlock. Try to keep it professional, eh?) “Gay sex. This area is known for a very particular kind of prostitute. The male kind.”            “How’d you know that, then?” Sally smirked. “Customer, are you? ’Round here?”            “Donovan!” Lestrade warned. Sally flushed. So much for decorum.             “I don’t hire prostitutes,” Sherlock replied coolly. “Too many variables.”            “Not denying he’s a poof, though,” Sally said to Lestrade. He raised a finger, and Sally rolled her eyes. “Not saying there’s anything wrong with it—”            “Go hurry Anderson along,” Lestrade commanded, and Sally went with her head down.            The quiet was far less comfortable now, with the weight of Sally’s words between them. Sherlock was glad he wore his leather gloves, because Lestrade side-eyed his left hand with more-than-casual interest.            “Are you gay, then?” Lestrade wondered, deliberately blunt. Sherlock had at least trained him out of the annoying small talk. “It’s a man’s name, innit? John?”            “Yes,” Sherlock replied. “One assumes. I’ve never met him.”            “Bad luck, mate,” Lestrade winced. “Me and the missus didn’t meet until I was in my thirties, though. Could still happen for you.”            “No.” Sherlock turned away, which slammed the door on that discussion. (Hopefully.) Sally was a bint, but she’d served a purpose tonight: it would be worth the invasion of his privacy if Lestrade saw fit to warn Molly Hooper off. Rejecting people’s sexual advances—be they man or woman—made the Consulting Detective’s skin crawl.***            A week or so later, the mobile buzzed in Sherlock’s pocket—the sustained ring of a call rather than a text. Too late for his mother, and too early for any of his shadier contacts. That left only one possibility.            “What do you want?”            “Hello, Sherlock.”            “What do you want?”            Mycroft sighed. “A report crossed my desk which may be of interest to you.”            “A case?”            “No.”            Sherlock frowned. “What sort of report?”            “An army doctor, on deployment. Afghanistan. Gunshot wound.”            “Suspicious? Friendly fire?”            “No.”            “Mycroft,” Sherlock snapped. “Why are you telling me this?”            Mycroft hesitated. It was a pronounced pause, and Sherlock’s heartbeat sped up, in spite of himself. There was always something. “As you know, when a person enters military service, their soulname is recorded for the purpose of identifying a body—”            “No,” Sherlock snarled.            “Sherlock—”            “No!” He could hear Mycroft draw another breath, but Sherlock cut him off: “Whatever you’ve called to tell me, don’t. Do not. I don’t want to know.”            “I really think it’s best—”            “Shut up, Mycroft!” Sherlock was breathing hard now. Mycroft didn’t try to interject again. “It’s my decision. It’s my choice, and I choose not to know. Do you understand?”            This time, the pause was long enough to let Sherlock’s heart slow and his breathing even out. (Judging the cost, weighing the variables, perhaps reviewing the file while he pondered Sherlock's request. No, not request. Demand. His right not to know. Mycroft never could comprehend anyone else's rights.) Finally, Mycroft spoke: “I understand, little brother. I don’t agree. But as you'll no doubt interpret any further information from me as a betrayal..." Mycroft's tone was cynical. "I leave the decision to you. You know where to find me, should you change your mind.”            “Right. Yes. Remember that.”            “Of course.”            “If you tell Mummy, I will set fire to the Diogenes Club.”            Sherlock hung up.      ***            Lestrade found Sherlock on the roof of the London Business School after dark—directed there, no doubt, by the British Government himself. He had a large sandwich in a paper bag and a worried expression on his face.            “It’s not a danger night, Lestrade,” Sherlock muttered, not altogether truthfully. “You needn’t be here.”            “When’s the last time you had something to eat?” Sherlock shrugged. The older man sighed, “I brought you a sarnie. Eat it, and I’ll go.”            Sherlock accepted the sandwich silently, rolling back the paper to take a modest bite. Lestrade brought out a cigarette and lit it, offering Sherlock one from the pack. He declined in favor of chewing.            “Vickie’s leaving me,” the DI announced, apropos of nothing. Sherlock glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Obvious, of course, Sherlock had noticed the signs weeks ago. He kept chewing, and Lestrade sighed again.            “You probably saw that coming,” he said, blowing white smoke through his teeth. “I didn’t. Stupid, yeah, okay, I’m a right moron. She’s never been what you might call faithful. But... you know. My daughter. Our history. I never thought she’d actually leave.”            Sherlock tipped his head in thought. “She’s your soulmatch.”            Lestrade took another drag, and shook his head a little. “Well... no.”            “No?” Sherlock repeated in shock. He looked down at Lestrade’s hand. VICTORIA.            Lestrade hummed, a sad little sound. “Yeah, she’s ‘Victoria,’ all right, but... Jesus, you cannot tell anyone. You understand?” He met Sherlock’s eye with a serious frown. “No one, Sherlock.”            Sherlock nodded, eyes narrowed and brain racing.            “My mark came in when I was twelve. Vickie got hers at eleven. I’d only been twelve for three days when it happened, right? And Vic was so... God, she’s so beautiful. Funny. And we were both in our thirties already. My parents were gone, and I just thought... What difference does it make? Three days?”            “It means she isn’t your soulmate,” Sherlock answered, a bit stupidly. Lestrade just coughed a little and shuffled his feet. Nervous? Anxious? Guilty. “She doesn’t know.”            “Told her I was eleven, too. She was happy. I was happy. We had the matching ceremony three months later. Never even crossed my mind that it might be a mistake.”            Sherlock wasn’t sure what to say. He’d managed to eat half of the bacon sandwich while Lestrade distracted him, but now his stomach was uncomfortably queasy. Sherlock really hadn’t deduced this. Lestrade was a liar, and Sherlock had not known.            “You think it’s your fault that she has been unfaithful,” Sherlock said. “It’s why you’ve allowed her cheating, all these years. You’re punishing yourself for your dishonesty.”            Lestrade shrugged, and dropped the spent cigarette. He ground it out with his toe against the asphalt. “She has a right to be happy, same as anyone. And I got my kid out of the deal. Can’t ask for more than that.”            “Can’t you?”            The Detective Inspector sniffed once, hard, and glanced down at Sherlock’s sandwich. “You finish that,” he commanded. “Your brother’s a nasty piece of work when he’s worried about you.”            “Yes,” Sherlock agreed.            “I’m going home. Danielle has a project due tomorrow—something about tectonic plates. Got to make sure she’s dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s.”            Sherlock frowned. “Who’s Danielle?”            “My daughter, you berk!” Lestrade shook his head, but he was smiling. “I expect you tomorrow, to finish your paperwork on the last case.”            “I’m busy tomorrow.”            “No, you’re not.  You’re just going to smoke cigarettes and stew.”            “I’ve quit smoking,” Sherlock told him. “Reduced my lung capacity. Can’t afford that.”            “Will wonders never cease?” Lestrade grinned. He started to walk away, but pointed a finger over his shoulder. “My office. Tomorrow.”            “Not happening.”            “No cases without paperwork. Don’t test me, Genius.”            Sherlock huffed. “Fine.”            “And eat your sandwich.”            “Go parent someone else, Grant!”            “Gladly, William.”            Sherlock didn't laugh—laughter, he'd found, was too close to weeping for his comfort. Something to be kept private, if it must be indulged at all. But he watched Lestrade all the way to the door, and thought about the most effective way to talk him into doing Sherlock's paperwork. (Leverage the worry from Sherlock's 'danger night?' No. Stupid, obvious. Reciprocal offering of food, to be interpreted as a gesture of 'thanks.' ) While Sherlock mulled it over, the persistent, itchy ache of his inner elbows faded a bit. Enough. For tonight, it was enough.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

JOHN – AGE 37            Please, Johnny, the email read. Don’t be twat. Call me back and let me get you settled somewhere. If you won’t stay with me, I can help you find a flat nearby. My new place is pretty close to the Tube, and there’s good nightlife. Gay clubs, too. If it’s the deposit that’s a problem, you know Clara would spot you some cash to get back on your feet. She’s good that way. Too good for me.            John closed the message before he typed something he’d regret.            The bedsit was chilly, with a radiator that clunked at all hours and a window that needed replacing. The draft blew right across John’s mattress while he slept; he’d been forced to wear long sleeves and sweatpants to bed every night. A far cry from sand in his sheets, sweating the night away in just his y-fronts. He’d even bought a dressing gown, for God’s sake.            John’s cane rested at a lazy angle against the edge of his desk. He rolled his injured shoulder, felt the pinch in the tight skin of the entry wound on his back. Ten months, and the damned thing still ached every morning. The stretches helped less and less in the frigid mid-winter weather.            John took a long swig of his tea, and choked down a few bites of an apple. He hadn’t eaten a real breakfast since leaving hospital; the thought of sausages and eggs turned his stomach. He’d lost a fair bit of muscle during rehabilitation, and avoided the sight of his exposed collarbones, his hipbones, his ribcage. Eating too much made his stomach clench and ache. He knew he should eat more, maybe small amounts more often, but the thought set John’s teeth on edge. Eating used to be something John did for pleasure, and the discomfort of it now was like an insult. John was slight—there wasn’t any other word for it.            Bill Murray used to call him “Wee Watson,” and John used to knock him around a bit when he did. Giant git. John really ought to reply to one of Murray’s emails, but he'd been avoiding anything with the mod.uk suffix. He pulled his cane over and stood with a long sigh, closing his laptop.            John buttoned himself into a blue plaid shirt, and tucked it neatly into dark denims. Harry always ribbed him about tucking his shirts, but it just felt... wrong, somehow, not to dress with strict tidiness. Military precision. To be fair, everything felt wrong right now. At least his clothing felt familiar, and safe. Like he could armor himself every morning in layers of cotton and leather and wool.            Poor protection, really. Most of the danger was inside his own head.            There was a meeting with Ella this morning. A meeting, John called it, because appointment sounded ridiculous. It was still voluntary, after all. John didn’t have to go and listen to his therapist explain exactly what was fucking John up this week. She was a good person, Ella, and probably a good therapist. John was a piss-poor patient. He knew it.            John shrugged on his coat and double-checked that he’d locked The Drawer—the desk drawer with the unloaded service pistol John still hadn’t returned. It wasn’t morbid, despite what Harry thought. It was practical. It was an option. John didn’t have a lot of those, these days.***            “John? John Watson!”            John slowed to a reluctant stop. A plump man in a light-colored coat and bright tie hurried toward him, smiling broadly. When he caught up, he thrust out his hand. “Stamford! Mike Stamford. We were at Bart’s together.”            John was taken aback. “Yes, sorry, yes. Mike!” They shook hands, and John tried to stop blinking quite so much. “Hello, hi.”            Still smiling, Mike gestured toward his own waistline. “Yeah, I know. I got fat!”            “No...”            Mike waved this away with a small laugh. “I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?”            John glanced down and then back into Mike’s cheerful face. “I got shot.”            If Mike was embarrassed, it only lasted a moment. Before John quite knew what was happening, he’d ordered a truly dreadful take-away coffee from the cart in the park and sat down next to Mike on a bench. The weather was bright and gray, in a way only Londoners ever experienced. He now knew that Mike Stamford had found his soulmatch (LOURDES, of all things) and was father to two round-faced, swotty children. He flipped through the photos on Mike’s phone and smiled fondly at all the appropriate moments. At least, he thought they were appropriate. Mike seemed satisfied with his participation, anyway.            If his eyes were a bit worried, underneath all that cheer, it was easy enough to ignore.            “Are you still at Bart’s, then?” John finally got around to asking.            “Teaching now. Bright young things, like we used to be.” Mike shook his head. “God, I hate them.” John laughed, and it didn’t feel forced. “What about you? Just staying in town until you get yourself sorted?”            “Can’t afford London on an army pension.”            “And you can’t stand to be anywhere else. Not the John Watson I know!”            “Well, I’m not the John Watson—” He cut himself off with a wince. His left hand was shaking. Mike took a sip from his coffee and glanced down, then seemed to freeze. His eyes widened. John cleared his throat.            “Erm, huh. Couldn’t Harry help?” Mike wondered.            “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Harry could hardly help herself, these days. And John was no one’s charity case.            Mike glanced back down at John’s hand. John frowned, folding it into a fist atop his thigh. “I don’t know...” Mike mused, distracted. “You could get a flatshare or something...”            “Come on. Who’d want me for a flatmate?”            Mike’s eyes snapped into focus, meeting John’s self-deprecating smile. He laughed.            “What?”            “You’re the second person to say that to me today!”            John tilted his head. There was a manic glint in Mike’s eye that tugged on John’s memory. Nights spent in the dormitory basement, smoking weed and planning pranks Mike was all too eager to carry out. The child-size mannequin dressed as Napoleon, relocated every few days to stay ahead of campus police. The bubble solution poured into the fountain on the green. The toilet paper rolling down from the roof.            John nearly smiled, and it felt real. “Who was the first?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

SHERLOCK – AGE 34            Two quick knocks, which meant Mike Stamford had returned to the lab after the morning’s consultation. Unexpected. Forgot something? Mike was a competent surgeon, but less familiar with the kind of violent deaths Sherlock’s work provided. Possible he looked up the answer to that question about the fingernails.            The door opened. Sherlock glanced up.            A stranger followed Mike into the room. Blonde hair, crew cut. Square jaw. Tan, and more wrinkled than could be explained by age (history of sun exposure, skin damage). Short stature. Firm build—an athlete with a recent injury, gone a bit thin around the edges. Clothing a little too loose on an underfed frame. The cane was an affectation, but not one born of vanity. Psychosomatic injury, then.            Or... not entirely. There was stiffness in the way he held his left shoulder. Interesting.            “Bit different from my day,” the man commented. Pleasant voice. Saint Bart’s alum.            “Oh, you’ve no idea,” Mike replied, ominously.            “Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine,” Sherlock asked. They were here to speak to him, after all. Best to get on with it.            “And what’s wrong with the landline?”            “I prefer to text.”            “Sorry,” the smiling man sighed, a bit put-upon. “It’s in my coat.”            “Erm, here,” the stranger said, drawing a deep breath. “Use mine.” He pulled a mobile from his coat pocket, raising his brow. His eyes looked dark from across the room.            “Oh. Thank you,” Sherlock replied. He smiled at the shorter man—wait, why was he smiling? He went closer to retrieve the device.            Mike grinned in a way which was a bit unsettling. “Old friend of mine,” Mike remarked, practically gleeful. “John Watson.”            Sherlock blinked, startled. He did not betray his unease physically, but he took the phone and turned away quickly. The phone was interesting, but it didn’t really belong to the stranger. A secondhand gift. Sherlock turned it once in his hand, observing.            JOHN. Sherlock kept his breathing as even as he could, while the menagerie inside his head positively roared its approval.            No. No, terribly unlikely. Mycroft tried to inform Sherlock of his soulmate’s death, nearly a year ago. He had, hadn’t he? Or was that quite right? Sherlock deleted the telephone call shortly thereafter, and couldn’t pull the exact details to mind. The likelihood was slim-to-nil, really, so what was Mike playing at? Sherlock’s lab gloves made texting difficult, but he found he really did not wish to remove them.            “Afghanistan or Iraq?” Sherlock wondered aloud.            Damn. Damn it. That one just slipped out. Mike’s smile grew impossibly wider.            “Sorry?” John (John, JOHN) asked.            “Which was it?” Sherlock clarified, endeavoring to sound neutral. “Afghanistan or Iraq?”            John sent Mike a significant glance, and then looked down at his feet. “Afghanistan.” (An army doctor, on deployment. Afghanistan. Gunshot wound.) “Sorry, how did you—?”            “Ah! Molly. Coffee. Thank you.” Sherlock passed back John’s phone, seemingly distracted by the coroner’s arrival. John took the mobile with his dominant left hand. The letters SHE were clearly visible near the hamate bone.            Sherlock’s chest flooded with something prickly and unpleasant. Or... mostly unpleasant. It should feel unpleasant, merely by virtue of its familiarity, because it was like the first time Sherlock ever injected cocaine—he felt energized, and loose-limbed, and suspiciously at ease. Sherlock wanted to talk to John, to make John talk to him. Not for any purpose, really, but because talking to John was pleasant. Sherlock felt awkward, rather nervous, but even that unusual sensation couldn’t dull the high. He stiffened his spine as he deliberately ignored the shorter man.            “What happened to the lipstick?” Sherlock observed bluntly. Molly blushed.            “It wasn’t working for me.”            “Really?” Sherlock frowned, walking away from them (from JOHN). “I thought it was a big improvement. Mouth’s too... small now.” It wasn’t true, but Molly still hadn’t given up on her relentless, pointless infatuation. He couldn’t abide her inept flirting in front of John.            “Okay...” Molly muttered a bit sadly, making herself scarce.            Sherlock drew a breath as he returned to his work station. “How do you feel about the violin?”            There was a long, loaded pause. “I’m sorry, what?”            “I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?” Sherlock risked a glance back at John. “Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.” He smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, but his heart was a marching band inside his chest.            John’s sun-beaten brow wrinkled further, and he looked to Mike. “Oh, you—you told him about me?”            “Not a word,” Mike breathed. He watched the pair of them like it was Wimbledon finals.            “Then who said anything about flatmates?”            “I did.” It was too much. Sherlock thought he might pass out, which would be terribly lowering. He pulled his gloves off with shaking hands. His own soulmark (JOHN) was white enough to be nearly indistinguishable from the pale skin; Sherlock had tested countless lotions and whitening creams over the years. Nothing like the hyperpigmented scar standing out against John’s deep-set tan. He grabbed up his coat, abandoning the Work on the table, half-finished.            “Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for, and here he is...” He shouldn’t look at John. At JOHN. Not now, anyway, and possibly not ever. “Just back from lunch, with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan.” (Damn! Looked again.) “Wasn’t a difficult leap,” Sherlock concluded.            “How did you know about Afghanistan?” John asked. He didn’t sound angry, or upset, or disturbed. He sounded... curious.            “I’ve got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.” Lie. Ridiculous lie. Sherlock didn’t need a flatmate for the money. “We’ll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o’clock.” He met John’s eyes—dark, yes, but an unusual deep blue, beautiful, golden eyelashes—and barreled on. “Sorry. Got to dash. I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”            Get out! Sherlock had to get out, before John asked any of the obvious questions hovering just behind those blue eyes.            “Is that it?”            Sherlock swerved away from the door. Oh. That tone. It was commanding, and not a bit unsettled. Sherlock mentally adjusted John’s military rank. First Lieutenant... no, Captain. Dear God. Captain John Watson.            “Is that what?” Sherlock tucked his hands into his coat pockets, out of sight.            John smiled. Sherlock swallowed audibly. “We’ve only just met, and we’re going to go look at a flat?”            “Problem?”            A spark flared in John’s eyes—a challenge. “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 name. Sherlock had to tell John his name. Could he distract him from it? Just a bit a longer? Draw this out, just a bit, before it all came crashing down? Sherlock went still, and refused to look away.            “I know you’re an Army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. 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 soulmatch. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic. Quite correctly, I’m afraid.”            John glanced down at his leg. His mouth grew tight.            Sherlock’s voice softened. “That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”            He turned to go, but the look on John’s face stopped him short. John was tired, suddenly, and somehow smaller. He held his cane in his right hand like he wasn’t sure whether it was a weapon or a shackle. His eyes were distant. (Haunted.)            Sherlock turned back, drawing John’s gaze again.            “The name’s Sherlock Holmes.” John’s eyes went wide and laser-focused. “And the address is 221B Baker Street.” John opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock winked at him—winked, like some kind of saucy dinde—and clicked his tongue.            “Afternoon!” he called to Mike, and ducked quickly out of the room.            As the door swung shut behind him, he heard Mike’s smug voice ring out:            “Yeah. He’s always like that.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A STRANGE MEETINGI don't know how I'm meant to be writing this. I'm not a writer. Ella thought keeping a blog would help, but it hasn't. Not sure what kind of help it's meant to provide; a bit like whispering into a void, really. The black hole of the world wide web.I told you the truth, Ella: Nothing ever happens to me. But today, something did. Something happened.I was walking in the park, and I bumped into Doctor Mike Stamford. We were sort of mates when we were students at St. Bart's. We got coffee together, and I mentioned that I wanted to move out of my bedsit. Said I wanted to stay in London, but it seemed impossible with the rents so bloody high. He said he knew of someone else in a similar situation. So we went to the labs at Bart's, and Mike introduced us.Except, he didn't. He didn't introduce us. The man knew who I was, somehow. He knew everything about me. He knew I'd served in Afghanistan, and he knew I'd been invalided. He said my wound was psychosomatic, so he didn't get everything right, but he even knew why I was there. The bedsit. The flatshare. Mike hadn't mentioned a word of it.And then... well, it seems quite unbelievable. But his name is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock. I'm not drawing any conclusions. Well, I am, but I'm trying not to. Mike looked like a cat eating a bloody canary.I googled "Sherlock Holmes" when I got back to the flat and found a link to his website: The Science of Deduction .It's mad. I think he might be mad. He was certainly arrogant, and really quite rude, and he looks about 12 (he isn't, though, Harry, so bugger right off). He's clearly a bit public school, as expected, and... Yes, I definitely think he might be mad.He was also strangely likable. He was charming. It really was all just a bit strange.So tomorrow, we're off to look at a flat. Me and the madman. Me and Sherlock Holmes. 
13 comments
   
What the...?!?!
   Harry Watson 29 January 19:37
Sherlock? Is this bloke your soulmate? Jesus, Watson, congratulations! Have you told the Major?

Bill Murray 29 January 20:14

John Watson, call me right fucking now!

Harry Watson 29 January 20:19

Blimey, mate. Have you gone full-gay, then?
   Bill Murray 29 January 20:31

Hahahahaha!! He can't be! The way he used to look at Clara!
   Harry Watson 29 January 20:34

Any word from her?
   Bill Murray 29 January 20:41

Nah. It's fine. Anyway we're talking about my brother!! Who still hasn't called!!!
   Harry Watson 29 January 20:43

Can't you two email each other or something? This is meant to be for me to record my thoughts.
   John Watson  29 January 21:02

Not denying it then?
   Bill Murray 29 January 21:32

I'm not gay. He might be my soulmate. I don't know. It doesn't matter.
   John Watson  29 January 21:42

Doesn't matter?!? LOL!!
   Harry Watson 29 January 22:00

LOL? You're 36, Harry. Thirty-six years old.
   John Watson  29 January 22:03

And you're a cunt. Call me.

Harry Watson 29 January 22:05