volume twenty – soulmate au.

hello everyone!

and welcome to the twentieth

volume                of               teh!

as   the   title   reads,   today's

theme    is   a   soulmate   au!

whether   in   a   romantic   or

platonic     way,     fluffily     or

angstily, we'll get to see our

beloved    characters   dance

around each other.       enjoy!

–gwyn

(ps. ! this isn't necessarily johnlock! each member worked with a ship of their choice, so you may find more than just one. to discover so, keep on reading...)

:small_orange_diamond:

ᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛꜱ

intro

story one

artwork

story two

edits

story three

outro

ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴏɴᴇ

The first time the flowers appeared in Sherlock’s skin, he didn’t really understand what was happening.

He had been young, at an age that he couldn’t recall, chasing the bees around his yard without a care in the world. When his arm started itching uncomfortably, he looked down and saw tiny, red flowers growing out of his skin. He hadn’t panicked, no, he was far too curious about it to panic. Calmly walking to his mother, he held his arm out and asked her what was happening to him.

“That’s just your soulmate, dear,” she said, ruffling his hair lovingly. “Everytime they get hurt, flowers bloom through your skin in the exact spot they were injured.” Sherlock’s eyes widened in wonder as he cradled his arm against his chest, staring at the small, red blooms there. He found them… beautiful, in a way, even at his young age.

Over the next few days, he watched as the flowers started withering and falling out of his skin, leaving it as smooth and as flawless as it had been before. The irrational, childlike part of him had almost mourned the loss of the flowers, the beauty, the connection to this stranger that he held, but the rational part of his brain pushed it aside and switched focus back to the bees in his garden.

It was the start of something truly wonderful.

Throughout his life, he had grown used to the flowers showing up on his skin. It was never anything too serious, just a few cuts and scrape here and there. Sherlock found their presence comforting, and sometimes, he would even talk to them softly, brushing his fingers over them, pretending as if the person causing them could hear him.

It had become a very normal part of his routine. Not something he would look forward to, per se; he disliked the fact that the person that he was going to fall in love with was getting hurt. But, nonetheless, it was a reminder that he was loved, even if he didn't know it yet.

The day that his shoulder exploded in pain was a terrifying one.

He was hunched over his microscope, staring at whatever slide was under it, when all of the sudden he felt pain, sharp and cutting, rip through his left shoulder. He let out a loud cry, collapsing to his kitchen floor, scrabbling at the buttons on his shirt, desperate to see what was happening.

When he finally got his shirt off, he balked at the sight of his shoulder. Flowers, large and blood colored, were blooming steadily from his shoulder. Along with the flowers were vines of thorns, weaving themselves into his skin, spilling his blood on the floor. He had never gotten thorns before. The pain intensified, and Sherlock inhaled sharply, gripping the back of his shoulder which also had flowers growing. He tried to stand up, and with that, the pain became too much and he ed out.

-

Sherlock had almost forgotten about the shoulder incident. It had been nothing, he reassured everyone. Nothing at all. He was fine, really. He never mentioned the fact that the thorns were still there, buried in his flesh like a gnarled scar.

Well, he forgot until the day that he met one John Watson.

When his eyes first landed on the short man, the deductions started rattling off through his mind: military man, doctor, drunken brother, psychosomatic limp, bullet wound in the left shoulder. He opened his mouth to let them all spill out, he paled as the words died on his tongue. Something seemed… familiar.

Bullet wound in the left shoulder. The left shoulder. Recent enough.

Sherlock gasped. It had to be. It couldn’t be anyone else. He stood up, his shaking hands dropping the vial that he had been holding. His hand made its way up to his shirt, and much to the surprise of everyone else, he unbuttoned his shirt slightly and pulled the fabric away from his gnarled shoulder. John gasped as his own hand came up to rest on his own left shoulder.

At the same time, the two men breathed, “You.”

– sceibbles

ᴀʀᴛᴡᴏʀᴋ

ginny

you know it - it’s the classic “when you touch your soulmate for the first time you see colours” AU!! let’s pretend that handshake didn’t exist lmao. the background image is a picture i took at the sherlock holmes museum during summer break, and i only added some colours to make it less muddy and smudged it. if only i could paint like that haha. which one do you like better, the painted version or the lined version?

ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴛᴡᴏ

"Good luck with that. "

Those were the words that had been carved on Sherlock Holmes' wrist since he was born, perfectly normal words, ordinary even, a single sentence that gave absolutely no hints about the identity of their speaker.

Were they a girl? A boy? Did they even identify with a gender in particular?

The words told him absolutely nothing, and for someone like Sherlock, it was torture.

How was he supposed to find his soulmate when he had so little information?

Because that was what was at stake afterall, love, happiness and all of the stupid things that always came with them in the fairytales. Sometimes he wanted to simply give up the pointless chase, but the part of him that had dreamed of being a pirate, that had longed for adventures and infinite expanses still yearned for that person able to fit him so completely.

The only things he had were the sentence and the handwriting, sharp, precise, clean, the kind of handwriting that meant business, that screamed of loneliness and cold night of boredom...

At least that's what how he liked to imagine the other, probably a man, someone like him, a genius bored to death by his peers, floating above everyone like the kind of pretty carnival balloon Sherlock had seen once when he was seven, alone, like him, but not bothered by the loneliness.

"Good luck with that. "

Those were the last words his soulmate would ever tell him, and that's why he needed to discover who they were before he heard that fateful sentence.

It was strange wasn't it, how the universe had seemingly decided that giving humans soulmates was a good idea, but that it would be even better if you only understood who they were after you lost them.

All around the world, people spent their entire life looking for the one but they only knew whether or not they had succeeded when their soulmate left them forever.

It would have been so much simpler if it had been first words carved on everyone's wrist, poets would still have found ways to make love end in tragedy but it wouldn't have been commonplace like it was in reality.

People had soulmates, people lost them and there was nothing one could do about it, it was the one truth that everyone could agree on.

Everyone except Sherlock Holmes.

He didn't want to live a tragedy, didn't want to lose the only person able to understand him just after finding them, so he would just need to find them as soon as possible and hopefully spend the rest of his life with them.

It was an easy plan, simplistic really, and maybe it could have worked if his soulmate had had the decency to be at least a little bit specific with his last word.

Good luck with that, Good luck with what? Good luck with your exams? Good luck finding someone better than me? Good luck with your life?

Sherlock didn't know, and if there was something he hated, it was not knowing.

The words were so vague, they could mean everything and nothing at once, he could imagine thousands of scenes, millions of different scenarios where one might say this sentence before parting ways.

Good luck with what?

Years ed, Sherlock Holmes became a detective and always paid extra attention to everyone's handwriting, examining the curve of the cursives, the space between the letters in the hope of finding similarities.

Years ed, and Sherlock Holmes found himself slowly losing hope, closing himself off to the rest of the world, drifting amidst drug-fueled delusions.

If he couldn't save his soulmate, then what was the point of even meeting him?

If he was to learn of their true worth too late, too late to save them, too late to love them, then what was even the point of looking?

If he couldn't save his soulmate, then Sherlock Holmes would defy the universe and refuse to meet them.

"Good luck with that. "

The words echoed in his mind, somehow taunting in their tonelessness, and he didn't know whether he wanted to cry or to laugh.

--------

Working as a detective was calming somehow, therapeutic in a way talking would never be, he saw the words etched on the deads' wrists, the names half formed on their cold lips and everything made sense.

The work became his every-day, his solace, better than the drugs that slowed his mind, better than the cases Mycroft sometimes gave him, filled with faceless men and nameless organisation, better than anything he had ever tried to alleviate the boredom because for once, it showed him just how pointless life truly was.

What was the point of soulmates anyway? Everybody died at some point, there was no way around it, so why should he bother himself with finding someone that would just end up dying one day or another?

"She was my soulmate! " some of his clients would sometimes sob, holding their wrists close to their chest and Sherlock couldn't stop himself from sneering.

So what?

You met them, isn't it enough?

"You can't understand. " they would say and the detective couldn't have found himself agreeing more.

And then, John Watson entered his life.

For someone that never let anyone close, Sherlock got attached to the army doctor surprisingly quickly and he couldn't help but wonder if the other was the one.

Of course, John didn't really fit the profile he had imagined with the penmanship, but for once in his life, he would have liked to be wrong about something...

If only the handwriting had fit...

But it looked nothing like it, where the ex-soldier's was somewhat small, scrawny and hurried, his soulmate was controlled, deliberate, but with the edges of something more just beneath the surface of those inky letters, something that burnt and raged just out of his perception.

John Watson wasn't his soulmate but he was his nonetheless, his first friend, his best friend, his only friend, and Sherlock Holmes knew he could be satisfied with this life.

"Good luck with that."

Jeff Hope screamed "Moriarty", and the detective knew he would need it.

---------

Jim Moriarty - hi~, Sherlock's mind added automatically - was everything he had ever thought couldn't be mixed together.

Perfectly controlled one second and completely manic the next, hissing, screaming, playing with his own voice like he played with everyone's lives, and so, so smart, a shining beacon of genius illuminating London's crime scene.

Sometimes Sherlock thought that in another life, a life where the search of his soulmate had gone differently, he could have been Moriarty and Moriarty could have been him, two sides of the same coin, completely opposed and yet so alike that looking at the other man felt like glancing at his own reflection.

They played, cat and mouse, spider and fly, Jim harmed John so the detective harmed Jim, helping Mycroft catch the other when he knew very well what would happen to him.

He came back though, he always seemed to somehow, sharper, crazier, his mind fragmented beyond repair and glued back together in a parody of its old self.

Richard Brook, Reichenbach, it was all clever, so very clever, and Sherlock couldn't help but ire his enemy's genius.

They exchanged messages and here they were, on St Bart's rooftop, Jim wanted him to die but the detective had a plan and everything would be alright, wouldn't it?

"Good luck with that. "

Sherlock silenced the little voice in his head and opened the door.

---------

They talked, turning around eachother like they always seemed to, Moriarty told him to jump and he sounded crazier, more manic while somehow looking more exhausted than he ever had.

"You're ordinary, you're on the side of the angels. " and the disappointment, the utter excruciating pain was so clear in his voice that Sherlock couldn't help but deny it.

"I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

There was a beat, something invisible and imperceptible, a change of axis before Jim smiled.

"You're me. " the criminal said "Thank you. " he added, blinking quickly.

Something was glinting in the corner of his eyes, but the detective ignored it.

"Sherlock Holmes. "

Jim Moriarty.

Why did it feel so right when their hands touched?

"Thank you, bless you. "

How could someone look so happy and yet so dead at the same time?

Something fluttered in his chest, a voice screamed in his head, but Sherlock did his best to push it in a dark corner of his mind.

"Good luck with that. "

Familiar words in a familiar tone, the sentence rolling off unknown lips in a way that made his heart painfully clench in his chest.

The criminal spoke in that tilting voice of his, bringing him back violently to reality.

"As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends, you've got a way out. Well-"

And he seemed so peaceful, so tranquil at that moment...

"Good luck with that. "

The words hit like a lightning strike, too slow, too fast, and impossibly painful all at once.

Time slowed, the world shifted out of axis once more, everything happened in an instant and the next second, his soulmate was lying dead on the rooftop, pieces of his genius brain splattered on the ground.

Sherlock wanted to laugh or to cry, maybe both at once, but he did neither, he just stood there, completely still for a moment that seemed to stretch forever and then he was kneeling next to the other man, holding his wrist.

I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.

This time he couldn't stop himself from laughing, bursting into peals of laughter that echoed emptily around him, permeating the cold London air.

Sherlock didn't know how long he kneeled next to the cooling corpse, watching his own handwriting etched on the criminals wrists, watching the way Jim's lips were curled upwards even in death like he had just pulled the greatest trick of them all, but he ultimately let go of the other, standing up.

-Lazarus is a go-SH

Jim would have wanted them to die together, but the detective had lived all his life without a soulmate, he could very well spend the rest of his existence without him...

And his voice, his damned voice echoed in his mind a last time, the familiar words rolling on his bloody tongue and falling off his cooling lips.

"Good luck with that. "

ᴇᴅɪᴛꜱ

victor

this is a soulmate au where your world is black and white until you meet your soulmate, and as the love grows stronger, colors get brighter.

jesslyn

the king

ꜱᴛᴏʀʏ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ

William Sherlock Scott Holmes would never get to experience the peaceful feeling that everyone described when seeing the green grass.

He would never be able to see that beautiful blue color that the sky bare. Nor that turquoise of the ocean when its waves crashed on his feet.

He resented the sun, for no matter how much heat it provided, it would never be associated to that comforting yellow colour that people cherished.

He never knew how to respond when people would tell him that he had beautiful blue eyes. The awkward smile was embedded into his memory.

He could not appreciate the vibrant purple of the flowers at home.

He wouldn't know if his mother was wearing lipstick or not, if his brother was wearing a different suit for once, or if his ties were all the same or not.

Wiliam Sherlock Scott Holmes could not see colour.

Because in this goddamned world, soulmates existed.

And Sherlock would never get one.

At least, that's what he told himself.

…

Growing up, he was the kid that was left out. His tall and gangly form, the black curls that topped that crazy smart brain of his betrayed him.

'You think you're so smart Holmes'

'You ever stick out that ugly nose of yours from those books huh?'

'Crying like a baby, look at him..'

He never had friends.

So why would he have a soulmate?

…

With that idea embedded into his mind, he lived.

Trying not to lash out on the people who could see the world bright and colored.

Until he met him.

Until he met John.

…

At first, he didn't pay any attention to the subjects that entered the lab, and stood there, watching him work for some seconds.

But then…

'Well, bit different from my day'

'You’ve no idea!'

Nonchalantly, Sherlock asked Mike to lend him a phone

'Sorry. It’s in my coat'

Again, Sherlock didn't pay any mind to the unknown voice that said promptly:

'Er, here. Use mine'.

'Oh. Thank you'. He says, uninterested, and stands up to take the phone, but he's taken aback.

An explosion of color.

Blue, red, yellow, green, purple, all colors expanded from the man standing in front of him, handing Sherlock the phone, his eyes shining with equal amazement.

Sherlock would have gaped if it wasn't so degrading, at the sight in front of him. Even a simple lab was so beautiful. And even more the short man standing there.

His soulmate.

He swallowed his excitement and smirked.

'Afghanistan or Iraq?'

– gwyn

that's it dear sherlockians! see you all on the next volume!