Work Text:
The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return
-Moulin Rouge
Not until John's been in the army for a year does he realize there's something strange about his timer.
As a doctor, he knows it's common for the numbers on a person's wrist to change drastically once or twice throughout their lives. The timing of one meeting is influenced by so many factors that it's perfectly normal for people's times to change.
Nowhere is that more evident than in the army. Everyone's timers fluctuate wildly, and sometimes on a daily or even hourly basis. People stop paying attention to them after a little while, cover them up with cuffs or bandanas or bandages, lest they go completely bonkers.
The one and only person whose time never, ever changes is John.
It's comforting, really. To know that apparently there's nothing that could keep him from meeting his soulmate, whoever she is. To always know that no matter what, she's coming. And soon.
They're a funny thing, timers. No one knows exactly how they function or why they exist. No one has ever been able to duplicate any aspect of them - the fluctuations in pigmentation that are the physical manifestation of the numbers, the method by which the specific numbers are generated, the prediction that any one person is ever going to meet any other - and no one has ever been able to replace or remove them. A lot of people have speculated about whether or not meeting their soulmate changes someone, and what that might mean in the context of the timers, but even the great philosophers could offer no satisfactory answer.
Even when he gets shot the numbers don't change. Later they tell him he flatlined twice but his numbers kept steadily ticking away at the same pace, which is unknown to modern science.
He doesn't tell anyone, of course, but he starts thinking silly things like 'fated' and 'written in the stars,' and is privately gearing himself up to be half of the greatest epic romance in the last thousand years.
Sherlock tries to cut off his timer on three separate occasions before Mycroft finally hacks the hospital database and shows Sherlock the x-rays of the damage he causes himself each time. It was the only thing that convinced him that, yes, despite the fact that he didn't need his timer, both the radial and ulnar arteries were still so entwined with that particular bit of skin and muscle (just like everyone else; he was so normal) that it was impossible to remove the timer without severing them. And the point of the whole thing is that Sherlock doesn't want to die, he wants to live, and the only way he knows how to do that is to get rid of the fucking obsessive fucking timer.
People pay too much attention to their timers. People pay too much attention to everyone's timers. Sherlock is only twelve and even he knows that. He thinks everyone else spends too much time thinking that someday soon they'll meet their soulmate, and because of that they don't put enough effort into the people who are already around them. And they don't make enough friends.
Just about everyone in Sherlock's primary school is slated to meet their soulmate during or soon after uni - except for one girl, who has the second-longest wait: she won't meet her soulmate until she's 28. She's tragic and everyone is very sympathetic. But all of his schoolmates, even her, are so comfortable in the knowledge that their soulmate is coming they never bother becoming friends with Sherlock.
When he can't remove his timer he does the next best thing and tries to hide it. Long gloves, bandages, the works. He invents a material that perfectly mimics human skin, and (among other things) uses it to fashion prostheses for himself to make it look like he's that one individual in every billion lucky enough to be born without the horrid thing. Eventually he realizes that obsessively covering it and constantly worrying about exposure causes him the same amount of inefficiency that obsessively watching it would, and fortunately by the time he's in his late twenties he's learned to ignore it so thoroughly he doesn't remember he has it unless someone points it out. When people do point it out they always make that face, that oh-you-poor-thing face that's more annoying even than the timer itself, because Sherlock has such a long wait.
According to his timer, Sherlock won't meet his soulmate for decades.
The day John is going to meet his soulmate he makes himself get out of bed, and shower, and put on clean clothes, and comb his hair. He has no idea what's going to be different about today that might lead him to meeting anyone new, so he goes for a walk through the park to help things along. And he's much nicer and more sociable than he would normally be, because today is The Day, and when Mike says he'll introduce him to his other friend who's looking for a flatmate John can't keep the giddy grin off his face, because holy shit, this is it, this is it.
John walks into the lab in St Bart's and this tall, striking man glances up at him for a single second, and all John can think is oh.
He's so handsome. He's completely gorgeous. He asks Mike something and holy shit his voice is amazing. He's also - well, a he, which John never once even considered, much less expected, but - John sneaks a surreptitious look down at his own wrist and yep, sure enough, his timer is all zeroes straight through. John is so happy he could cry.
And then the man, the beautiful man - John's soulmate - comes over and pulls facts about John out of thin air, and John is simultaneously so impressed and enchanted he can barely speak. Not until his soulmate - Sherlock, his name is Sherlock, what the fuck kind of name is Sherlock; John tries to think it's a weird name but instead finds it delightful - has swept out of the room with a fucking wink does John realize they didn't openly acknowledge what was going on here. All in all, probably a good thing. They're meeting at the flat tomorrow night, and surely that's a conversation best had in private.
Despite the cane, despite his shoulder, despite all the people he couldn't save and all the things he's done wrong in his life, John spends the next twenty-four hours buoyant with happiness.
The doors open and someone else walks into the lab behind Mike, and all Sherlock can think is oh.
He's - he's so handsome. The more Sherlock looks at him the more he learns about the man, and the more he learns the more he likes him. Soldier, doctor, brave, devoted, not unintelligent, sad, psychosomatic limp - he's - he's perfect.
For three minutes, Sherlock is in heaven. This man is his soulmate. And he's smiling at Sherlock, and hasn't punched him for calling his brother an alcoholic, and agrees to meet him at 221B tomorrow night. For three minutes, Sherlock's entire body relaxes in a way it never has before, comfortable in his own skin for the first time in his life. For three minutes, and only three minutes, Sherlock is happy.
Three minutes after meeting what he never realized was his ideal human being Sherlock reaches forward to open to the door to the street and his sleeve rides up his wrist.
Six years, eleven months, two weeks, four days, nineteen hours, fifty-seven minutes, three seconds. Two seconds. One.
John Watson is not his soulmate.
John could not be more confused after his first date with Sherlock. They go to a cute Italian restaurant and John flirts clumsily but sincerely, and Sherlock flirts back -
And then Sherlock turns. him. down.
But Sherlock is brilliant and gorgeous and completely mad and lonely, so lonely, so it never crosses John's mind to go anywhere else. He glues himself to Sherlock's side, and saves his life, and then they go on another date (Chinese, this time), and Sherlock flirts even more than he did before. And when they get back to Baker Street Sherlock walks into the flat ahead of him, calls "Goodnight, John," over his shoulder, and closes his bedroom door without a backward glance.
John spends the next week scattering his things about the flat and researching non-normative soulmate relationships. He learns about asexuality and aromanticism. He learns about queerplatonic relationships. He learns that some soulmates meet, and then both marry other people, and remain perfectly happy. He learns that soulmates are not necessarily people with foregone romantic interest: they are, simply, the two people in all the world who fit together best. Sometimes it's completely platonic; there are even rare but documented cases of parent/child or sibling soulmates. Sometimes the relationships are romantic but sexless.
That last, John thinks, is what's going on here. He would think that this was supposed to be platonic, except John is dead straight and hasn't ever wanted to sleep with someone as badly as he wants to sleep with Sherlock. So romantic but sexless it is. John loves him despite it. It doesn't occur to John to love him for it.
So John dates other people just so he can sleep with them, and continues living at Baker Street with his soulmate, and then Irene Adler shows up and blows everything to hell.
Because Sherlock clearly likes her. Is clearly attracted to her, which is just not on. So John does something he's never done before: he waits until Sherlock is asleep, and then he creeps close and lifts Sherlock's sleeve and looks at his always carefully-hidden timer.
There are years and years left.
John Watson is not Sherlock's soulmate.
From that moment on, John's world is black.
John Watson is not his soulmate, and Sherlock Holmes does not care.
John continues being perfect. Over the years Sherlock falls completely, utterly in love with him. Falls so deeply he's consumed by it; his every thought and action dictated by his ever-growing devotion to John.
The week after John moved in Sherlock sneaked a look at his timer. Which, of course, didn't coincide with Sherlock's own. He'd assumed that John's timer would still be running, but it wasn't. It was solid zeroes. Considering John's pigheaded loyalty, the most likely conclusion was that John's soulmate was dead.
Oh, John.
In waking hours John continues flirting with him, and Sherlock continues dying a little each time he plays at indifference. He can't, won't, do this to John. In less than a decade Sherlock's soulmate will show up, and then - what? Biology can be a terrible thing. Sherlock will not, will not allow John to fall in love with him, only for Sherlock's bloody biology to get in the way and take it from him. John must find someone else.
Standing on the roof of St. Bart's in the cold, pale sunshine, Sherlock is so glad he never slept with John. Never kissed him, never spouted off any of the romantic nonsense he was always thinking, never did anything that might lead John to suspect how deeply Sherlock loves him. John lost his soulmate already; he's about to lose Sherlock, too.
Later, after it's all over, after John held his non-timer wrist and Sherlock had to keep his eyes open and saw that he'd made a mistake, a terrible mistake, because whether he thought Sherlock felt the same or not John had clearly fallen in love with him anyway - after all of everything is over and done, Sherlock sits by himself in Molly's spare room and curls over his fucking timer and whoever his soulmate is Sherlock HATES them.
When Mary shows up and quickly develops a bit of a crush on him, the first time they're alone together John shows her his wrist and tells her his soulmate is dead. He never tells her that his timer ticked down to zero a long, long time before said soulmate actually died.
She's the first person he's done this to who immediately shoves out her own wrist, says "Same," and then follows that up with, "So when you finally get 'round to asking me out, let's do French instead of Chinese, yeah?"
And when Sherlock comes back John forgives him - of course he forgives him, how could he not? - but John stays with Mary. Sherlock's wrist still says there's two years to go, and John starts living based on Sherlock's timer. He has two years to make this work. Two years to get their lives settled in such a way that when Sherlock falls in love with someone else, John will get to keep him in his life anyway.
...And then John's wife is an assassin, which is fine, and she shoots Sherlock - she shoots Sherlock - and John could kill her. Quite aside from the fact that John's perfectly willing to kill anyone who harms Sherlock, and even though she has no idea that Sherlock is actually secretly his soulmate, she does know what John went through when Sherlock died. She helped him through it, for Christ's sake! And now here she is trying to put him through the same thing all over again? Did she ever care about him at all, even a little? John may not love her as much as he loves Sherlock but he never would've done something like this to her. Was she manipulating him right from the start?
John leaves her, for a little while anyway. Moves back into Baker Street with Sherlock and tries to remind himself that this is temporary. Sherlock's soulmate is coming, in a little less than a year now. And what is John supposed to do, just stay here and wait for that? Sherlock tells him he wants John to go back to Mary, so on Christmas he does, even though he dies every time he tries to tell himself that this is what he's supposed to want.
And then Sherlock kills Magnussen.
John can't move, can't breathe, just stands there and watches Sherlock's hair whip about in the wind and his gloved hands going up to his head and in the floodlights John can see the numbers on his wrist counting down to when his soulmate will come. He thinks - hopes - he's the only person who sees the tear drip off Sherlock's chin. Sherlock turns to him and John's heart shatters.
Sherlock is smiling. A sad little smile, but he doesn't look upset or contrite or - or scared, like John is scared, John is terrified.
"But," John says, voice catching in his throat, "I'm not your soulmate."
Sherlock's smile grows wider, and sadder. He says, "I know."
They come and take Sherlock away and John struggles. He knows he won't be able to get to Sherlock, but he tries anyway, and thankfully what he was hoping for happens and one of the soldiers knocks him out so John doesn't have to live through the next few hours of his life.
John spends a long time feeling guilty and wanting to die. Once he forces himself to stop wallowing in self-pity, he spends a long, long time thinking.
The truth of the matter is this: John Watson is a frightened, selfish being. It took something this huge to show him that, so he won't back away from the revelation. If nothing else he owes it to Sherlock.
Sherlock, who is John's soulmate. Sherlock, who is the love of John's life. Sherlock, who isn't supposed to end up with John, and yet loves him anyway.
This is the hardest thing to admit to himself: Sherlock loves John, and loves him well. John loves Sherlock, and doesn't love him well at all.
Love is more than just a feeling, John realizes. It's a set of actions and choices, a prioritization and a purposeful vulnerability. John's loved Sherlock for a long time, but he's never done right by him. Every single one of John's choices is dictated by 1) what John wants, and 2) what everyone else thinks and says John is supposed to want. He's never put Sherlock first, never made him a priority, never opened up and told Sherlock his secrets or the truth, especially not when it matters.
That stops now. Sherlock is going to meet his soulmate very soon, but so what? Even if he does fall in love with his soulmate, whoever that is, and even if that eclipses whatever he feels for John - in no way should that affect John's treatment of Sherlock. John's loved him for a long time, but now John will be devoted to him. John's sole goal in life will not be his own petty wants, but Sherlock's happiness. Whatever Sherlock needs, John will do for him. Whatever Sherlock wants, John will get. From now on, John's guiding principle is nothing other than Sherlock's ultimate good.
John clatters up the stairs to 221B and rushes through the door. It bounces shut behind him. Sherlock is sitting in his chair, one of his sleeves rolled up to his elbow, probably working on something, and John can't see anything in the room but him.
Sherlock looks completely poleaxed. There's something fragile in his face balanced between despair and hopefulness.
Very, very quietly: "John?"
"It comes to this," John says, ignoring the fact that he's panting like a racehorse. He knows what he's going to say and has to get it all said before he has a breakdown. "I love you. I have always loved you. I've known I was in love with you since the moment you first spoke to me. I will always love you, from now until the end of time. And I don't - I don't want anything, Sherlock. I know this is weird, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. But I'm here now and I - I'm not going away. Not ever again. I know your soulmate is coming and that is fine. Please don't be - don't think that you have to do anything for me. You've done so much, given me so much - I was so alone, and I owe you everything. All I want now, all I want, is for you to be happy. Please just - just let me stay, and make you happy. And when your soulmate comes please let me stay, and we can team up and between the two of us we can make you the happiest man who ever lived."
Sherlock stood when John started speaking, and now John stands there, chest heaving, gulping down tears as Sherlock stares at him with wide eyes. "John," he breathes. John doesn't move. He'll wait for Sherlock, for as long as he needs. Forever.
Slowly, Sherlock walks over to him. He stands a breath away from John, his face tilting down as John's tilts up. There's a look in his eye akin to wonder.
A smile breaks across Sherlock's face. It's the purest smile John has ever seen.
"Oh, John," Sherlock says again, shaking his head. "The happiest man alive? I already am."
And then he tips down just a bit, and puts one huge palm warm on John's jaw, and closes his eyes, and kisses him.
John kisses him back, of course he does, and Sherlock's lips are so soft and sweet that John could cry. So clumsy that John does cry, just a little, just one sob wracking through his whole body. He and Sherlock stand in the middle of the sitting room in the middle of the flat in the middle of the day and hold on to each other for dear life and kiss like they're about to die.
Sherlock's hands frame his face, thumbs soothing over his cheekbones, and Sherlock drags his lips away to pepper kisses on his cheeks and eyes and chin and forehead. John clutches at Sherlock, kisses every bit of him he can reach, wraps his own hand around one of Sherlock's and kisses his fingers, his knuckles, down the side of his wrist in some kind of forgotten chivalry.
Sherlock is crowded over him, their faces pressed together, and he chuckles when John kisses his wrist. John opens his eyes, and before he can look at Sherlock's face he's confronted with the sight of Sherlock's timer.
Solid zeroes.
"Oh," says John, stomach sinking to his toes. "They're already here."
He knew it would be hard when Sherlock's soulmate finally arrived. He couldn't even imagine how devastated he feels. No prior version of him could comprehend how much he does not care. Sherlock's soulmate will make Sherlock happy, and for that alone John loves them, too.
Sherlock chuckles again, a rumble of pure delight. "John," he says, nuzzling his hairline. Then he shakes his hand free, and cups John's face in his palms, and tips his head to meet Sherlock's eyes. John tries not to look like he's dying.
Sherlock says: "My timer went down to zero the moment you opened the door."
They're a funny thing, timers. No one knows exactly how they function or why they exist. A lot of people have speculated about whether or not meeting their soulmate changes someone, and what that might mean in the context of timers, but even the great philosophers could offer no satisfactory answer.
There's a lot of talking and a lot of tears. John's every instinct screams at him to protect himself, to hide the worst of it, to protect Sherlock from the hurt of knowing how John thought about him and treated him and from the work of dealing with John's self-recrimination and ongoing struggle to not just love Sherlock but love him well.
But he doesn't. John doesn't hide any of it. And he doesn't berate Sherlock for anything he's done, either, the lies and the manipulation - all done to protect John, sure, but John has finally learned that that's no way to love someone - and they disagree about some things but they don't come close to fighting.
The first time John met Sherlock he thought he fell in love with him. Maybe he did; doesn't matter. Now, wrapped around each other on the sofa in the one place either of them has ever truly felt was home and letting all their secrets spill like clear water, it's like John and Sherlock are meeting for the first time all over again, and John never knew it was possible to love someone this much. Never knew something like this existed.
He and Sherlock are wrapped up together on the couch, a quiet while they think over everything that's been said so far, and the quality of the silence changes. It's nothing specific, nothing John could put his finger on, but he can tell Sherlock's gearing up to say something big, so he braces himself for impact.
What Sherlock says is: "Who was your soulmate?"
John blinks. John blinks again. John does not understand. "What?"
"Your soulmate," Sherlock says with his lips against John's temple, and sighs. "Who was it? What were they like?"
"Sherlock, what are you talking about?" It's funny, after all these hours of talking and thinking that he suddenly knows everything about Sherlock Holmes, to be reminded all over again that no matter how much they love each other, learning about each other is never going to end. Honestly, John's excited to keep getting to know Sherlock better and better for as many years as the fates allow.
"Your soulmate," Sherlock repeats, taking John's wrist in his hand and rubbing his thumb over the line of zeroes. "I know it's none of my business, but I'd like to know. If you're willing to tell me. I promise not to pry if you don't want to. But I'd like to - I'd like to do what I can. To give you ease." He raises John's hand and kisses his wrist gently, looking for all the world like he's fighting back tears.
"Sherlock, I seriously have no idea what you're on about."
"All right," Sherlock says, kissing his wrist again and then wrapping John up in his arms, his voice soothing like he's trying to calm a wounded animal. "All right."
"Are you - are you serious right now?" John asks incredulously. Sherlock shrugs, nods, doesn't say anything else. "Why the fuck do you suddenly believe my soulmate is dead? Where in fuck have you been for the last eight hours? Is this - Are you having some kind of break with reality or something? I've never known you to suffer depersonalization before -" Suddenly worried that something might be really wrong John flips into doctor mode, rolling over so he can peer at Sherlock's pupils and take his temperature and his pulse.
"Stop - would you stop it -" Sherlock says, batting at John's hands, but John's lost him so many times already and isn't going to do it again. "Would you just - John. Your timer has been solid zeroes since we met. I know you, John Watson, and I know you wouldn't have left your soulmate, and yet there you were."
"Ye-e-s," John says slowly. "Of course my timer has been solid zeroes since we met. That's how it works. Why on earth do you think I've got some random dead soulmate?"
Before Sherlock can say anything else it clicks.
"Oh my god," John breathes. Then: "Oh my god. Sherlock - have you thought that this whole time? That I met my soulmate and they died before you and I met?"
Sherlock looks away. "I looked at your wrist while you were asleep after you'd only been living here a few days. It's the only logical conclusion."
John almost laughs - and then it catches up with him, what Sherlock said before: I know you wouldn't have left your soulmate.
"Oh my god," John says again, because here's an entirely new way John mistreated Sherlock that he didn't even know about before.
"John?" He doesn't realize he's hiding his face in Sherlock's neck and shaking until he hears the uncertainty in Sherlock's voice.
Well, he said he was done with the secrets and the lies and the protection of his own heart and pride, and he meant it.
"Sherlock," John says, raising his head enough for Sherlock to hear him, though he can't quite meet Sherlock's eye, "my timer went down to zero the moment I opened the door, too."
"No it didn't," Sherlock says, sounding utterly baffled. "Your timer has been zeroes for years."
"Not just now," John says shamefacedly. "The first time. At Bart's."
For a moment Sherlock doesn't say anything. Then, "What?"
Somehow, John finds the strength to look Sherlock in the face and say the words. "My timer went down to zero the moment I first saw you."
"Oh," says Sherlock. Not an exhalation, not an exclamation, but the word 'oh,' as if all John told him is that there are no more crisps. But then, much more quietly: "All this time?"
"Yes," John says firmly - then breaks, bowing his head, trying not to start crying again. "Yes, god, I'm sorry, Sherlock, I'm so sorry - I shouldn't have left you, I shouldn't have lied, god, I should've told you - I'm so sorry -"
"All this time," Sherlock says in that same strangely calm voice, "you knew I was your soulmate, and you thought that I didn't want you and didn't love you."
Seeing where this is going and what Sherlock's missing John says fiercely: "All this time you thought you hadn't met your soulmate and that I didn't want or love you."
"I have loved you," Sherlock says, "from the moment I laid eyes on you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."
John tries to smile. "So we've loved each other from the same moment, then."
"And we're here now," Sherlock says. He takes a deep breath, and then another, and says again: "We're here now."
"Yes. We're together now. And I swear to you, I will never leave you again."
That's not even the most fraught or painful conversation they have over the course of the afternoon. By the time they're too wrung out to keep going it's dark but their favorite Chinese place is still delivering, and though it's awkward for a little while by the time the food arrives they're teasing and laughing and talking about nothing just like they always have, so that's all right.
Later, deep in the night, John sees Sherlock cradling his wrist in his opposite hand, rubbing his thumb across his timer. It's so dark he probably can't see it, though he's staring at it.
John knows he didn't make a sound, but all the same Sherlock whispers, "I've always hated this bloody thing. I wish I'd never seen it. We could've -" he cuts himself off. They talked about that a bit, at the beginning, before they both realized that it would be easy to drown in their regrets.
"No we couldn't have," John whispers back. "Well, I couldn't have, anyway. I couldn't have loved you the way you deserve, Sherlock. I don't think I can love you the way you deserve now, but at least now I know about it. At least now I'm trying."
"I wouldn't have cared."
"Exactly," John says, still whispering. "I'd have treated you poorly, you'd have put up with it, I never would have learned to do better, and neither of us would have learned to value you the way you should be. I don't think anyone can know that it had to be this way, but from where I am? This, right now, is the best possible outcome, and the only way to get here was the way we did."
He believes it now, but he knows there are going to be times he doesn't believe it at all. Would it have been better, if John managed to learn his lesson before he married someone who tried to murder Sherlock? Would it have been worse, if Sherlock hadn't sacrificed his life for John so many times? If one thing had worked out better in the moment, would it have made it necessary for even worse things to happen to get them here? Would Sherlock ever have been hurt at all, if John simply loved him selflessly from the beginning?
"John," Sherlock says, a hint of reprimand in his voice, as though he knows what path John's thoughts had taken. He probably does. John puts his hand over Sherlock's on his timer, rests there for a moment, then squeezes and tugs just a little.
"Come lie down, please," John says, and everything else is blown away by the sheer joy of it when Sherlock immediately shuffles down and into his arms.
"You know," John whispers. He's already told Sherlock about the steadiness of his timer, and Sherlock's already told him that he isn't sure if his ever fluctuated. "After mine kept ticking when I was shot, I thought you and I were going to be the greatest romance in a thousand years." John kisses him, just because he can't help it. "Good to know I was right."
"I love you," Sherlock says.
"I love you too," John says.
Sherlock smiles. "I know."