Chapter Text
John had thought of everything: the place, the right time, the most appropriate words.
Cloe would have been in the classroom in a few minutes and he was ready.
John was Cloe’s math tutor, they had snogged at a party some nights before (though they were both drunk), they were already good friends, Cloe was pretty and very sweet, and John's teenage heart beat for her, so he had bought a bouquet of flowers (currently hidden in his back pack) and wanted to ask her to be his girlfriend.
The girl opened the door of the classroom and looked at John with beseeching eyes.
"Help me John Watson Kenobi, you are my only hope!"
And she was a big Star Wars fan, too, how could he not love her?
"Relax Cloe, you have nothing to fear."
"I'm the one who has a math test tomorrow, not you!"
"Do we want to get started, my young Padawan?"
"Yes, Jedi Master."
A couple of hours later, Cloe closed the notebook and stretched out her arms.
"Thank you, you are the best tutor I've ever had."
"You are an excellent student."
"It's not true, but thank you for your compliment."
Cloe turned to John and probably saw something in his eyes, because she tilted slightly her head to one side.
"What's up?"
"Well, I was thinking about the other night, you know... at the party..."
Cloe chuckled, hiding her mouth behind a hand.
"Yes, it was cool."
John bent over his backpack and took the bouquet of flowers, giving it to her.
"I like you very much Cloe, would you like to be my girlfriend?"
Cloe stroked the flowers with the tip of her fingers, but her smile faded.
"John, they are beautiful, and you're so sweet, but we can’t."
"Why? I thought we were getting along greatly. "
"Yes, we have fun, we like the same things and we do get along..."
"So what's wrong?"
"John..."
The girl looked at his right wrist and shook her head.
The boy squeezed his fists on his thighs.
"I love you, no matter what, even without the string. Doesn’t it matter for you?"
"We could never have a future and marry."
"But we could still be together."
"Like this, having fun, as we have done so far. But John, the tattoo on my wrist says I'm destined to meet my soulmate. Everyone says that the happiness you feel when your string becomes a Celtic knot is something indescribable, it’s the most beautiful feeling in the world, it makes you feel completely full and satisfied, and I already know that this person will not be you. I can’t give up true love, do you understand?"
"Yes, yes." John put the bouquet of flowers in his backpack again. “Sorry if I’ve made things awkward."
"No harm done. Are you still my Jedi Master?"
John concealed all his disappointment behind a reassuring smile.
"Sure, my young Padawan."
Sherlock crossed the courtyard of the school, dragging his backpack on the concrete: his jacket was dirty and torn, and his nose was still bleeding.
His schoolmates watched him from the windows of the corridor and gossiped.
"What did he do this time?"
"Would you believe it? Nicole suggested him that he should wear brown contact lenses to hide those eyes, and in reply he said frightening things about her and her family."
"It's your fault, girls. I don’t understand why you keep talking to him: he is a stringless, you should just let him alone."
"So was it Nicole to give him that black eye? Cool!"
"No, idiot! Nicole told what happened to her boyfriend, so he and a couple of friends tried to make Holmes pay for it, but it didn’t end well."
"What do you mean?"
"They're in much worse shape than him."
"Holmes is scaring! He’s not normal."
"Do you realize it only now?"
"If they throw it out of school, it would only be a relief."
"Yes, those like him shouldn’t live among us."
A black car approached Sherlock in front of the school gate, the boy climbed into the back seat, tossing the backpack to the ground, and crossed the arms on his chest without a word.
Mycroft started the car and looked at him from the rearview mirror.
"Are you trying to break every record, little brother? After being the first stringless Holmes are you also trying to be the first one expelled from school?"
Sherlock scoffed: Mycroft didn’t understand, he was a string bearer, just like most of the people of the world.
Sherlock suspected that his brother would never really actively try to search for his own soulmate, because he considered it a waste of energy and was too lazy, but no one would ever talk ill about him, glared at him or pity him because he hadn’t that damn tattoo around his right wrist.
"I bet you are sorry we are not in the Middle Ages, when those like me could be killed."
"Nonsense," Mycroft said abruptly, "you know I always worry about you. But Sherlock, if you always clash against string bearers, your life will be a continuous war."
"It’s not my fault! I just say to them, objectivity, how idiotic they are."
Mycroft sighed and shook his head in disapproval, but Sherlock didn’t care: he firmly believed what he thought: string bearers were basically idiots. They let the chemical reactions of the substances in their tattoo decide their future, and only on the basis of that they chose whether to bond themselves to a person for life, neglecting any other factor, and how could it be a good decision?
If if was up to him, he would have considered rigorous and scientific criteria to choose his own soulmate, but then he remembered that there was nothing like that for him in the world.
*
John knew he was in trouble when he was called by the A&E head physician after the end of his shift.
"Is it for Mrs. Croney?" John began, taking a seat in front of the other doctor.
Mrs. Croney had come to the A&E with a light flu, but since she was the mayor's wife, she had demanded to be visited before the other patients, but John was trying to save a with a heart attack, and ignored her, telling her to go back in the waiting room, but the woman had lodged a complaint against him.
"Yes, she didn’t like the way she was treated."
"I didn’t anything wrong, ask the nurses! I couldn’t abandon a patient with a heart attack just to look at her sore throat."
"Of course not…"
"I fear there’s a “but” coming."
"Mrs. Croney complained about your manners."
John spreaded out his arms, flabbergasted. "What the hell I had to do, unroll a red carpet in front of her? I was dealing with an emergency!"
"Watson, from an operational point of view, you are a very good and prepared physician, but unfortunately you are a stringless and therefore you lack in empathy. It’s not your fault at all."
"Beg your pardon?"
"Don’t take it as an offense, because it’s not: there are studies that prove it. Stringless people haven’t the chemicals that we string bearers have in our tattoo, that make us particularly empathic, not just when we search for our soulmate. Since you will never know the same feelings we experience, you will never empathize like us."
"What would that mean?"
"You will never be a complete physician. Qualified, but not complete, not for the standards of this hospital."
John gaped: he couldn’t believe his ears.
"Are you firing me?"
"There are other places where people like you can express themselves. For example, in the army, where there’s no need for the same degree of empathy that we need here."
With the excuse that stringless people hadn’t a soulmate to lose, society actively pushed them to carry out the most dangerous jobs, those where it was esay to be killed.
"The same empathy you’re showing by firing me?" John spat, getting up from the chair.
"Watson..."
"Spare me your pathetic apology, goodbye."
Sherlock leaned over the battered corpse, making sure that the flaps of his coat didn’t touch the big puddle of viscous blood.
Behind him, he heard the steps of a policeman running away. He couldn’t blame him: even if the view of a dead body didn’t upset him, Sherlock had to admit that the scene of the crime was lurid.
The man's skull had been smashed with a heavy tool, probably a club hammer, the body had numerous and deep knife lacerations, and the right hand had been cut off and grinded with a blender.
The apartment had been blown up, books, photographs and documents had been burned in the fireplace, and the computer of the victim was smashed to a thousand pieces.
"A robbery ended badly?" Anderson suggested behind him, and it was enough to make Sherlock sigh in annoyance.
"Try using the brain for once, I assure you will not die."
"Sherlock..." Lestrade warned, but the consulting detective went on as if he had not heard him.
"The house was devastated after the murder, not before: if you had observed the blood stains, you would know. This is not a robbery because whoever did this, left here a new flat tv, a stereo, and those three photo frames, that are definitely ugly from an aesthetic point of view, but expensive."
"What do you think happened? In many years I have rarely seen such fury in a murder," Lestrade said, closing the notebook. He was tense and his face was pale.
Sherlock leaned back on the victim and spoke slowly, "I see denial."
"Denial?" Anderson exclaimed, and Sherlock didn’t need to turn to imagine his uncomprehending face.
"Denial. It's a word of English language and means negation."
"I know what it means!” he said indignantly. "I contradicted your interpretation: for me here there is only the murderous fury of a madman."
"Is that Sherlock so? Are we dealing with a psycho? Maybe a serial killer?" Lestrade asked.
"Not at all, this was his first and only victim."
"How do you say that?"
"Because it was his soulmate."
An angry chorus of protests grew around him, and it made him angry: for string bearers such a possibility couldn’t even be considered, so they refused to see the reality: that a simple chemical reaction wasn’t enough to ensure eternal happiness between two soulmates.
"You're only envious because you'll never know the joy of having a soulmate," Donovan said, looking at him with her hands on her hips.
"Chief, you can’t believe him," Anderson said, "It’s impossible!"
"Sherlock, are you sure of what you are saying?"
"Yes, I'm sure: the assassin is a homophobe, militant in a far-right political party: when he met the victim and the chemical reaction of the string happened, he lost his head, couldn’t accept that his soulmate was male, so he slaughtered him, cut off his hand and grinded it, then smashed his face to deny this reality. Look for someone with a Celtic knot on the wrist who haven’t a soulmate. Or leave this murder unresolved," Sherlock said, and left the room, ignoring once again the looks of disapproval of the cops. To tell the truth, he should have thanked them: the more he worked with them, the more his idea was confirmed, that true love was just an illusion.
*
The army had been a good place for John, but when he was injured, he was forced to leave it.
The man who returned to London was tired, depressed, and confused.
The afternoon he met Mike, John no longer saw a reason to continue living: every time he thought he had found his place in the world, he had been told that no, that place was not for him, that a place for him actually didn’t exist.
He couldn’t even find a flatmate to split the rent of a flat, but after all he was a stringless, what else did he expect?
That's why when his old college mate told him that there was another person like him, a stringless who was looking for a flatmate, John wanted to read it as a sign of destiny.
"Right this morning he was complaining about how hard it is to find a flatmate," Mike said as they crossed the corridors of the hospital.
"It's not easy for us."
Mike laughed as he adjusted his glasses on his nose.
"I think Sherlock would have problems with it even if he was a string bearer."
"Why?"
"He’s an eccentric guy... you'll see."
They went into one of the laboratories, where a tall, thin man with a halo of dark and wild curls was bent over a microscope. Next to him, a young woman was doing everything to keep a conversation alive, but he didn’t seem to be interested.
"Have you read the last issue of Nature, Sherlock?"
"No, I'm busy with this case."
"You know, you should do it as soon as possible."
"Why? There’re proper articles about poisons or murders?"
"Oh... no, no.” The girl put a strand of hair behind her ear and laughed nervously. "But there is an article talking about a new experimental technique: doctor are injecting an experimental chemical compound into some stringless volunteers, that could recreate the string we have around our wrist. Scientists are convinced that even those like you could create a bond with those like me... stringless and string bearer... that’s it..."
Sherlock put a new slide under the microscope and took notes on a notebook without answering her.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes."
"And…?"
"Molly, get to the point, I'm working."
"Don’t you think it's a wonderful news?"
"No."
"How can you talk like that?" Molly paled and stiffened.
"I don’t care at all and I don’t see why I should: being a stringless is one of the few good things of life, a blessing, really. Now, could you pass me the slides that are right next to you? Molly?"
Sherlock raised his eyes from the microscope in time to see Molly leaving the lab, and he looked around with an astonished expression on his face, as if he didn’t realize he had just broken the girl's heart.
Then his eyes shifted over to John, and there was a spark of interest in them as his lips curled in a smile, and John unconsciously straightened his back under that careful scrutiny.
His eyes were dark blue and, albeit different from the brown ones of the string bearers, could almost go unnoticed, but this Sherlock man possessed the the most peculiar blue eyes John had ever seen. They were hypnotic, and John was certain that many people would find them terrifying, but he was immediately attracted by them.
"Time is essential in this experiment, you have to pass me the slides in the exact order I'll tell you," Sherlock said without too many preamble, looking back at the microscope.
"Me?" John asked, surprised.
"For a military doctor it shouldn’t be too difficult."
"But how...?" John turned to Mike, thinking of an elaborate joke, but the other man raised his hands.
"No, Sherlock does it all alone, I didn’t tell him anything about you."
"So, those slides?" Sherlock insisted.
"C-coming," John replied.
Several hours later John was sitting with Sherlock in a Chinese restaurant that was open all night.
The result of the experiment had allowed Sherlock to expose a murderer who had poisoned a colleague on the workplace, hoping to take his place.
Sherlock had been focused on the lab tests all the time, and only after having called Lestrade to tell him the results, had mentioned to John that he was looking for a flatmate, suggesting to go to dinner together to see if they could find an agreement.
"Do you really think what you said this afternoon to that girl... er... Molly? That you think being a stringless is a blessing?"
"Yes, sure."
"It's not common to hear someone talking like this."
"That's because people are idiots."
"You're rather cynical."
"No, I'm objective: there’re more than seven billion people on the earth, the soulmate of a string bearer might live at the other end of the world, and the hopes of meeting them, from a statistical point of view, are minimal. In addition, even if the media and society pretend not to see it, even soulmates fight, cheat and kill each other. Building your own existence on a chemical reaction is tragically stupid, yet people are using money and energy to make this happen when they can spend their time in a more profitable way."
"Like you do?"
"Sure. That's why I consider my condition a blessing: not having bonds makes me free, I can do what I like."
For much of his adolescence, John had felt the weight of being a stringless, unable to create a lasting bond with someone, and knew that most of stringless people felt that way: suicide rate among them was much higher than among the string bearers.
He himself had had bad thoughts no later than that afternoon.
To know someone like Sherlock, who thought out of the box was a pleasant change of pace.
John leaned against the back of the chair. "So should I see the world like you do?"
"Absolutely."
The former soldier laughed amused: surely one couldn’t say that Sherlock lacked self-esteem.
"But I'm sorry for Molly, she has a huge crush for you. You were rather cruel with her."
"Cruel? No, it's the opposite, I've been kind." Sherlock's face has the same astonished expression it had that afternoon, when Molly had left the lab. John scratched an eyebrow: didn’t Sherlock understand? Really?
"Kind?"
"Obviously, I've made it clear, in unmistakable terms, that I'm not interested in her, so she'll drop this infatuation, and focus on finding her soulmate, if that's what she wants."
"Human relationships don’t work in a so simple way," John explained. He found strangely fascinating that a smart man like Sherlock could be at the same time so naive, almost candid around human relationships.
"The more reason to be happy with my condition."
"But... don’t you ever feel alone?"
Sherlock didn’t immediately answer to John's observation, he thought about that, leaning his chopsticks on the table and putting his hands under his chin.
"You can only understand solitude if you have someone at your side, and later that person has gone: it never happened to me, so no, I never felt alone."
John didn’t say anything, but found that the last statement was incredibly sad.
The former soldier moved to Baker Street the following day: the rent was cheap, and Sherlock’s quirks, that had terrorized all the previous potential roommates, were not a problem to John, who had lived in much worse places with worse company when he was in the army (although the bowl of human intestines found in the fridge on the second day made him jump in terror).
Soon, without even realizing it, John found himself covering the position of personal assistant and right arm of the consulting detective.
As he had already guessed, Sherlock possessed an uncommon intelligence and was able to solve the most intricate cases, but when he was focused on one of those, he didn’t think of anything else, neglecting his health, to the point he didn’t eat or sleep for days, and the doctor who was in John couldn’t allow it. Also, when he was searching for clues on a crime scene, the rest of the world disappeared for Sherlock, and John often had to be his bodyguard and saving him from danger.
It was a role John didn’t mind at all; indeed, perhaps for the first time in life, John felt he had found the right place in the world for him, a place where he wasn’t pitied or derided for the absence of the tattoo around his wrist, a place where his existence had a sense.
Normally, Sherlock hated the attentions of other people, especially when he was working on a case: he couldn’t stand to be distracted to to eat or rest, but he understood that John had the a doctor inside him, and he just couldn’t help but worrying for him, so he accepted the cups of tea or the rusks with honey that John put in front of him, ordering him to drink and eat.
Initially, Sherlock said to himself that he did it only for the good of their living arrangement, because if John had left, looking for a new flatmate would have been a real nuisance, but over time, and with his great surprise, he realized that he didn’t stoically bear John's attentions, as he had made himself believe; he liked them, almost waited for them, and if they didn’t come, he was disappointed. The sound of the ceramic plate leaning on the coffee table near his armchair, or the blanket John put on him when he was lying on the couch provoked a strange, pleasant warmth inside himself, something he had never experienced before.
It was a mystery worth to be unveiled.
Sometimes John thought that Sherlock didn’t know himself, or that he wanted to give the world an image of himself that wasn’t true.
For example, Sherlock always proclaimed he hadn’t a heart, that feelings were an obstacle to his work, but then when he put the violin under his chin and got lost in the music for hours, he was able to create original and unique melodies, vibrating with strong emotions that shattered John’ soul.
A person with no feelings couldn’t ever create such powerful music, in John's opinion.
Yet the former soldier didn’t blame Sherlock for the mask that he wore, concealing his heart; something so beautiful and precious must be protected from the world.
John didn’t understand why Sherlock had decided to reveal to him that side of himself, but he was extremely flattered.
Sherlock thought that John underestimated himself: the former soldier thought he was ordinary and dull, when he was actually a complex man with a thousand contradictions, he was patient but also impulsive, he got angry with him for a trifle, and then forgave him for most serious issues; he was loyal and ready to face any danger just because Sherlock asked him to.
Sherlock couldn’t believe that John didn’t see the true himself, and wondered how many times the world had let him down, or denigrated him, to make him lose confidence in himself.
He thought he was extremely lucky to have met him, and to be the one that could see the real John Watson.
The first time John admitted to being in love with Sherlock, it was at the end of a particularly long and complex investigation.
Returning to Baker Street after their statements at Scotland Yard, Sherlock complained of having a severe headache, and John wasn’t surprised, since Sherlock hadn’t slept for nearly two days. He suggested him to go to bed, but after about an hour, Sherlock reappeared in the living room, because he couldn’t sleep: the fatigue, coupled with the nervous energy that still ran in his veins, prevented him from relaxing. He sat on the couch next to John, who was watching a documentary about the Pacific Ocean and the doctor came up with an idea. He put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him to himself, leaning Sherlock’s head on his knees; with the thumb of his right hand he gently massaged his temple, until Sherlock's eyes closed and the detective fell asleep.
While his fingers were touching delicate skin, John realized that he had never been so happy in his life: not when he had kissed Cloe at the party, or when he was taken for the internship at the hospital. He wondered if this was the happiness the string bearers felt when they found their soulmate: the rest of the world would cry that no, John was wrong, the love of soulmates wasn’t comparable at all to the one of stringless people, but John realized that he didn’t care.
He loved Sherlock.
He was happy with him.
He wanted to spend the rest of his life with him.
And he didn’t care if other people stubbornly labeled that love as wrong.
When John put his hand on his shoulder to make him lay down, Sherlock didn’t know what it would happen or what John would do: that kind of human interaction wasn’t his forte, but he let himself be guided, he trusted him, let John took care of him, and as he fell asleep with the delicate touch of John’s fingers on his temple, he thought that John was and would be the only one in the world allowed to touch him.
And maybe he was falling in love with him.
It happened in a spontaneous and natural way, and they weren’t particularly surprised; it wasn’t an extraordinary revelation, but rather the progression of the natural order of things between them.
They were standing in the kitchen, side by side, Sherlock was spreading honey over two slices of bread and John was taking the tea bags out of the mugs: he gave Sherlock his mug, and when the consulting detective took it, he leaned slightly toward John.
The ex-soldier blinked quickly, just the time to realize that was going to happen, raised on tiptoes, and they met halfway for their first kiss.
Just like that.
This doesn’t mean that the kiss wasn’t a gorgeous, because it was, and that morning breakfast was soon forgotten in favor of more enjoyable activities, something John hadn’t do in a long time, and Sherlock had never tried.
Several hours later, they were lying down on the large double bed with the sheets tangled around their legs, John lying on his back, playing with Sherlock's curls, while Sherlock had his head resting on John’s chest.
"I love you."
Sherlock was the first to confess his feelings, shy, hesitant, whispering on John’s skin, and knowing how much he was reluctant to talk about sentiments, John accepted those words like the most precious of the gifts.
"I love you too. I’ve been fascinated by you since the first moment I saw you, but you’ve become something more important for me almost immediately. And I don’t care if we haven’t any tattoos to say that we're made for each other, I know I've never loved anyone the way I love you."
Sherlock's left hand gently grabbed his lover's side.
"It’s the same for me: you are the only one for me, John Watson, the one and only."
"Good... that’s good."
John was about to fall asleep when Sherlock spoke again.
"John?"
"Hm?"
"Even if we were string bearers and, supposedly, our soulmates were other people, I would still have chosen you."
John couldn’t answer with words to such a beautiful love declaration, so he did it with his body, making love to Sherlock again.
The next morning, John opened the window: it was a warm and pleasant spring day, so he impulsively turned to Sherlock, still sleepy, and extended his hand.
"Get up, we’re going out in half an hour."
"Why?"
"I want to have breakfast with you in that new French bistro on Devonshire Street."
Sherlock's eyes sparkled with interest.
"The one that has the tarte tatin?"
"Exactly."
Sherlock was not following any case and John wasn’t on shift at the clinic, so, after breakfast, they decided to take a stroll down to Regent's Park: the roses in Queen Mary's Gardens were about to blossom, and Sherlock was interested in a new variety of Canadian Explorer Rose, which the bees were particularly fond of.
They walked side by side, their fingers touching from time to time, so John slipped his hand into Sherlock's; the detective immediately stopped talking about bees and roses and looked down, an interrogative expression wrinking his face.
"What are you doing?"
John retreated to his hand: ot was clear that Sherlock didn’t like pda, he should have known.
"Nothing, nothing... sorry."
"Why did you take your hand off?"
"Because it's clear that you don’t like it."
"It's not true, I just asked you what you were doing."
"I wanted to walk hand in hand with you, but it doesn’t matter if you find it annoying."
"No… but you've never done it before today... oh, I understand! It's something people do after having sex!" Sherlock exclaimed aloud and John looked around embarrassed, hoping no one would hear them.
“Er… yes, something like that."
Sherlock looked at the tip of his shoes, his cheeks pink.
"It's all new to me, I'm afraid you must have a lot of patience," he replied, giving him his hand, and John took it with a fond smile.
It was a warm day, and they both had the sleeves of their shirt rolled up to their elbows; their wrists were uncovered, the absence of the tattoo obvious to everyone, and as they reached the Queen Mary's Gardens, John couldn’t help but notice the disgusted looks that some pairs of soulmates threw at them.
Things proceeded very fast from that, but John wasn’t surprised, and certainly had nothing to complain about when one night, coming back from work, he found candles on the table, Sherlock playing his favorite music with the violin, and a blue velvet box containing two platinum bands, resting on his plate.
They had already decided to spend the rest of life together, so why wait longer?
John and Sherlock were complementary, their differences compensated and blended, instead of turning into sharp and cutting edges, but there was a point where they would never agree.
Sherlock fundamentally despised the string bearers, ie 90% of world's population: he never sought their approval, on the contrary he lived constantly against the world. His hostile attitude was justified, if one thought of how stringless people had been treated in the past (and even in modern times they were the first victims of contempt and intolerance), but John thought it was wearisome to live like that: he preferred a softer and more accommodating attitude.
Sherlock often reproved him for seeking the approval of string bearers, and it was true, but John didn’t think about it like a flaw.
That is why John thought there was nothing wrong the day he updated his blog to announce not the latest case solved by Sherlock, but their upcoming civil partnership.
The response of the readers, unfortunately, wasn’t what he wished for: save for Mrs. Hudson and her sister, who reacted with joy, everyone else attacked them with hysterical, outrageous messages, heavy insults and even death threats, and this reminded John, brutally and painfully, that for many people they were still a minority of inferior beings.
John closed the computer in a fit anger and threw it on the sofa: he didn’t understand those messages of hate, he didn’t understand how someone could feel endangered or attacked only because two stringless guys loved each other. The fact that he and Sherlock had decided to spend the rest of their life together didn’t diminish the bond between the soulmates, so why so much hate toward them?
They hadn’t done anything wrong, they didn’t deserve it.
"Don’t tell me you expected something different," Sherlock exclaimed from the kitchen in a sarcastic voice. He was looking the microscope and didn’t even raise his head.
The ex-soldier, who was already angry on his own, didn’t take Sherlock’s words very well.
"Sorry if I hoped a good news would be welcomed differently."
"Vain hope," Sherlock replied, getting more and more annoyed “You should stop looking for the approval of string bearers, it's just a waste of time."
"Have you read what they wrote about us? Don’t you care? At all?"
"No, you know that I don’t give a toss about the opinion of other people," the detective shrugged, waving his hand in the air.
"Well, I do!"
"That's because you're an idiot."
"AH! Thank you so much, this is really cheering me up!"
John realized that if he stayed, he and Sherlock would end up fighting seriously, saying things they didn’t think, so he grabbed his jacket and wallet and went out to the pub to drink a pint of beer. Or two or three.
He didn’t think he was asking for much, in the end: he wanted respect for their relationship, he wanted that, reading the news of their civil partnership, people reacted the same way they reacted when soulmates announced their wedding.
There was no reason why their love shouldn’t be respected like the one of the soulmates, it made him angry that people didn’t understand, but Sherlock's reaction made him furious even more to, because he almost seemed not to care about them, and this hurts him.
Almost in response to his doubts, he got a message on his phone:
"Your opinion is the only thing that matters to me.
The rest of the world can go to hell.
SH"
John smiled, warmed by the message.
The former soldier just wanted to go out, have dinner at the restaurant and to walk in a park hand in hand with his boyfriend, without being watched with contempt by other people, but perhaps with the time the situation would improve: after all the status of stringless people was already far better than in the past.
He no longer wanted to have a beer at the pub, just to go home and make peace with his boyfriend (and future husband), he was typing an answer on the phone, when someone shouted an angry "HEY" at him, and he raised his head, finding that in front of him there were five bulky men, who were surrounding him.
Years in the army and a natural instinct made him immediately smell troubles. He put the phone away and got ready for a fight.
"Can I do something for you?"
"You're John Watson, the one of the blog."
"Yes, so what?"
"Don’t talk to me like that, asshole!"
"Well, what do you want from me?"
"The last post of your blog is sick, erase it!"
"No way!"
"That's why I hate those like you: you have to shout from the rooftops what you do with our lives, and you dare to believe that you are equal to us."
"But we are!"
"SHUT UP!"
Sherlock looked at his phone for the second time. He thought that, after his message, John would have been back home soon, but hours had passed and he was still alone.
He sighed: he didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t good at apologizing. Besides, he didn’t think there was something wrong in his opinion, and didn’t feel the need to apologize, but maybe the mistake had been to insult John: he didn’t deserve it.
The phone rang, but it wasn’t John, it was Lestrade. Now he wasn’t moody to work on a case, but he answered anyway.
"I have no time, Lestrade."
"Thanks god you answered. Sherlock, it’s about John."
"John? What happened to him?"
"He was attacked by some men and now he’s at Barts. You must come here immediately."
Lestrade and Donovan were waiting for Sherlock at the entrance of the ICU, and they started when they saw him: pale, upset, on the verge of tears.
Donovan in particular was very impressed, believing that nothing could shake the glacial indifference of that man, but perhaps she was wrong.
A nurse blocked Sherlock in front of John's room: "Are you a relative? This is ICU, only relatives are allowed here."
"We are engaged and about to marry..."
The nurse's hard look was clearly telling what he thought of the civil partnerships, and he became even more resolute in throwing Sherlock out of the unit.
"Get out."
Sherlock snarled and tried to get around him, but the man pushed him away, then barked to the cops.
"Take him away, he's a nuisance, patients here need calm and silence."
Lestrade tried to help Sherlock.
"Come on, no need to be so harsh. You see, John haven’t any relatives here in London, his sister lives in another city, I think we can make an exception in this case."
"Not for those like them," the nurse said in a contemptuous tone, walking toward the inspector, but a moment later he found himself handcuffed.
"Assault on a officer, I saw it clearly," Donovan said. "Follow me to the police station."
"You can’t be serious!"
"Don’t worsen your position," Lestrade urged, and dragged him away, leaving Sherlock free to enter John's room.
The former soldier had his head wrapped in bandages, the left leg in a cast, a IV attached to his arm, and his face was swollen and bruised.
Sherlock looked at him for a long time, in shock, paralyzed by the fear that John wouldn’t wake up again; he could not believe he had talked to John just that morning, and now he was in a coma in a hospital bed.
The head injury had caused a cerebral hemorrhage and the prognosis remained guarded until the hematoma had reabsorbed.
Sherlock stood at the foot of the bed all night and the next morning, and none of the doctors who went to visit John could convince him to go out or sit; Lestrade came into the room to let him know that the perpetrators had been arrested and punished: such behaviors weren’t tolerated anymore.
But Sherlock continued to stand and look at John, like a puppet; he recovered from his torpor only when he seemed to perceive an imperceptible movement of John's left hand under the sheet, then collapsed to his knees next to him, took his hand and brought it to his lips.
He hesitantly hoped that his partner would wake up immediately, but it didn’t happen.
"When we met you asked me if I ever felt alone, and of course I said no, but if you would ask me again, my answer would be different.
Right now, I feel alone, terribly so, because you've come into my life and filled up every empty space of it... you showed me what it's like to be happy and loved, and you can’t leave me now, not after the promise we've made. We have to marry, remember? So you have to assume your responsibilities and come back to me. Please."
Exhausted, he laid his forehead on the mattress and slowly surrendered to sleep.
He woke to a weak tickle in his hair, where John's hand was stroking it slowly.
Sherlock lifted his shaking head and wiped his eyes, "John!"
The former soldier smiled weakly.
"I've heard you, I'm here."