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The first humans were created with four arms, four legs and four eyes… They had two noses and two mouths and they terrified Zeus… He believed they had eminent powers and feared there would come a day when one would take his place as Ruler. To prevent such an incident from ever occurring, Zeus split each human in half and left them to wander aimlessly around the mortal world searching for their other half
Sherlock Holmes had heard the legends, the myths, the stories,more times than he cares to imagine.
“The gods have mercy” his mother would say laying a kiss upon his brow, moving black curls from his eyes. “Someday Sherlock you'll see, the world will be absolutely beautiful when you meet your match. The stars will align for you both when you touch, that first time, my sweet boy. You'll see.”
(He dreams of her, of a color he cant quite see, and swears to himself she'll never want for anything. He'll never let anyone take her away.)
.
It's Mycroft who notices somethings wrong, and perhaps he shouldn't have said anything, but he's young and he's not quite so eloquent in his superiority yet. He stares towards Sherlock grabbing his wrist tightly as he forces him to meet his eyes.
“You can see cant you?” Mycroft says his grip on his wrist tightening.
“Of course I can see you idiot!” Sherlock says annoyed tugging lamely trying to escape his brothers grasp.
“You're the idiot.” Mycroft says letting him go, crossing his arms over his chest, gazing at him pointedly. “The colors.”
“Well...yeah. Everyone can.” Sherlock says licking his lips. “You're only suppose to be missing one.”
“No.” Mycroft says slowly. “You're suppose to be missing all of them.”
Sherlock stares at him, something akin to horror wraps his way up his chest. “You're lying.” he says, even though he can read his brother clear as day- he is not lying. If anything he looks disappointed.
“You know I'm not.” He says and Sherlock shakes his head in disbelief trying to understand what this means- where he is going with this, but Sherlock is barely six and Mycroft is eleven and he's not as smart as him.
“You're the smart one.” Sherlock whispers brokenly.. “What does it mean?”
(And deep down he already knows what his brothers going to say)
“The world wouldn't be cruel enough to give people like us soul mates apparently.”
(And it occurs to Sherlock than that Mycroft too- can see color, in a world where you arent suppose too [at least until you find the one..])
.
(Sherlock stops asking for the soul mate stories after that. He dreams of being a pirate, and stealing her away from this world- sailing into another one with a ship that can fly and her laugh against his skin)
.
He's nine when he spots Mycroft [sixteen] standing in the rain, a black umbrella in hand. Sherlock's not sure what the point is- why stand in the rain if you don't want to get wet?- and while he knows Mycroft is smarter than him- some of the things he does doesn't make a lot of good, common sense.
Sherlock loves the rain. He loves the rain because of how it makes the ground look. The dirt becomes darker and darker gray, the puddles against the gray result in various shades and depths and he wonders, wonders what brown looks like.
He licks his lips, nervous. They haven't spoken about soul mates (or the fact they dont have one) in three years. (Sherlock remembers- there's a room for it) It feels taboo, and he likes the way his heart thunders against his chest.
“Mycroft.” he yells over the rain. “Are you missing brown too?”
Mycroft turns his eyes towards him, and its the only time Sherlock ever sees his brother, really sees his brother, as someone who is capable of feeling something.
“I was never missing anything.” he says, and he closes his umbrella- letting the cold water rain darken his hair, and stain his jeans.
.
He hates high school, at seventeen, [he hated it before] but he is bored, bored, bored, BORED.
He finally understands Mycroft's agitated behavior on his return home from school as an adolescent. Sure, elementary and middle school hadn't been challenging. The kids hadn't been nice, and the work hadn't been challenging but than he was young and deducing them all had been fun. [much more fun than deducing Mycroft or insisting he didn't deduce Mummy to tears today.]
But it was no longer fun to be the smartest person in the room and much to his repulsion he finds he agrees with his git of an older brother. It is like being surrounded by gold fish.
Sarah (who needs glasses that she wont wear because it hurts her ego, and her mother insists no contacts) stands before him, green eyes piercing into him with maybe a morbid curiosity. Her eyes appear dilated, and he takes her wrist delicately to feel her accelerated pulse. [Yes of course, a confession of love] Its all he can do to not roll his eyes.
“I'm afraid there's no point in confessing your love Sarah, as I am not attracted to spineless individuals who are so vain they are afraid of how others will judge them based upon their appearance.”
Her green eyes blur with unshed tears and she pulls her wrist back angrily.
“Not good.” He says inwardly wincing for the on coming slap. “Would it help if I said you knew I wasn't your soul mate anyway?”
“It's no wonder you can already see.” she seethes, she's shaking she's so angry. “You have to have a soul to have a soul mate.”
“I-”
“Piss off.” She says already walking away, anger in every step, and maybe, maybe just a little bit of heartbreak.
He wishes she had just hit him instead.
.
He buys his first hit of heroin after that.
.
He's a mess by the time he goes to college. Mycroft has already secured a minor position in the British government. It isnt minor.
[He thinks of his poor, average, normal, dull parents who will never have grandchildren, but at least they have each other. He thinks he would trade it all to be dull. Hed trade every room, rip apart every foundation of his mind palace if it would just give him, her.]
He decides not to think about it and lets the needle penetrate his vein, silencing his thoughts instead.
.
He's high when he sees her for the first time, walking into the morgue of Barts, DI Lestrade trailing at his heels. He turns towards the left to bark at Stamford to have someone get the bloody body, but instead he sees a very unfamiliar, familiar face turn to face him.
He'd recognize the girl from his dreams anywhere, and he takes an involuntarily step backwards simultaneously ripping off his leather glove to lay two fingers on his pulse. Elevated. It shouldn't be elevated. He licks his lips, as he scans over her, her being a hundred thousand more times interesting than the murder of some 46 year old man.
Graduated College top of her class. Orphaned. Introvert. Has a cat. He swallows as he stares at her eyes the rest of the deduction drowning into the background. Her eyes are dilated.
“You're not...” He starts unable to find the words, as he blinks slowly forcing his mind to move along with him. “Stamford.” he says slowly.
“No, I'm...”
“New. Clearly. Top of your class, Orphaned. Mother deceased rather recently, cancer. Sorry. One cat, Persian. You've had him since you were in Uni-”
“Wow.” She breathes.
He smiles despite himself, he had hoped shed say something like that.
“Not the reaction I was expecting.” He says slowly taking a step towards her.
(The five year old him is ready to set the morgue on fire to lay a finger on her, to see what color brown looks like, because he knows, he just knows this is her. The man, however, refuses. But he aches. Oh, he aches in her presence. )
“What were you expecting?” She says quietly, her eyes staring up at his- oh so hopeful- and the color, god he wanted to see what color they were thick with the emotion that was literally oozing out of her pores.
“Piss off.”
She laughs and it sounds like music. He wonders if she's a fan of the violin.
“You were wrong though.”
He sighs frustrated at the statement and he can see his brother smirking at him in the recesses of his mind palace.
“Two cats?”
“Not my mother.” She says clearing her throat painfully. “Father.”
“It's always something...”
It's the first time hes sorry for deducing something that would cause her eyes to water and waver like that.
(It wont be the last time either)
.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they began to die from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart
He goes to Barts more than is necessary, a yearning to be near her that he cant describe or even quench. It's a dance between the two of them, she tries to let his hands brush his when she hands him tools, and the occasional limb for his experiments. He always sees it coming and moves effectively out of the way.
He should just stay away from her, really, he should. Because their will come a day he is not quick enough and their fingers will brush, and he'll either be wracked with guilt or disappointment. (Guilt for ruining her life- or disappointment that she isn't the one, that he even allowed himself to believe at all. Because after all, Mycroft is never, ever wrong.)
But he comes back to Bart- day after day-regardless of the warnings Mycroft throws (Caring is not an advantage Sherlock) or the amount of time he wastes in his mind palace counting the minutes until he can make his way there again.
(He wants to burn the morgue down with the two of them in it. He'd drag them to the very depths of hell and the flames would lick them, and melt their bodies together back to the way they were suppose to be, four feet, four arms, two faces- hes sure of it.)
.
It happens, inevitably as he knew it would. He isn't prepared for the emotional slaughter that hits him when he grabs her by the arm. It was instinctual, to not let her fall to the ground, but the blinding light of the room is almost enough to make him let go.
When the burning sensation in his eyes fades, he lets go and gets his first glimpse of brown. It's ..its everything he thought it would be. His fingers shake with the need to run his fingers through it, and her eyes- so many shades of brown his breath is caught in his throat and he has to swallow all of the sentiment down. (down,way down)
“It's you.” she whispers. “I knew it would be you.” and she moves to close the gasp between them, and a smarter part of him steps backwards.
(Caring is not an advantage Sherlock)
The pain is obliterating, what would be a beginning for most is an ending for Sherlock Holmes.
(The world wouldn't be cruel enough to give people like us soul mates...apparently)
He has to tell her goodbye, and he has to make her believe that she didn't see anything. That whatever color or colors or whatever she just experienced was wrong that whatever she thinks she's just discovered has in fact always been there. The feat itself seems impossible- but he's never been one to run away from a challenge.
[Even though, that's exactly what he's doing- running]
So in the coldest voice he can manage he asks her, “What are you talking about?”
She stares at him blinking once or twice. “You're my..” she cant get the words out and he thinks she may in fact choke if she does manage to get them out. “You....you didn't....everything's the same..for you?” she manages to squeak out. And he can tell by the way she's looking into his eyes that she was missing blue.
(It makes his chest constrict painfully, and without another word he redirects his attention to the microscope samples in front of him as she runs out of the room with a soft, choked, strangled, mutilated, out of this world, anguished sob that nearly has him tearing after her.)
When he injects the needle into his skin, he tells himself that it was worth it.
.
Life gets easier when he meets John Watson.
and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate
And in someways, it was true- like in Plato's Symposium. John had in fact filled the loneliness that had come from the dismissal of Molly Hooper. And Sherlock did indeed cling to him, he couldn't quite go into Bart without him- and it was easier- so much easier to tear Molly down and push her away and ensure with his deductions that she had been wrong those few short years ago.
What happened to the lipstick?
It wasn't working for me
Really, I thought it was a big improvement, your mouth is to small now.
[Liar]
Okay.
But John was temporary. John, while an honest and good man with a passion for adrenaline and danger- his world was gray scale. And a man like John would find his soul mate as long as one of their adventures doesn't take his life first.
.
{You are sparing her} He reminds himself when he degrades her choice of suitors, as he has done many times before. (He cant, no, wont admit that the fact she is trying to move on to some other man makes him feel ill, and worse violent)
Christmas is the worst. The minute she strips off her over sized coat and reveals her pale shoulders, her thin frame, all he can see is the effort she put in, from the gaudy earring rings, to the ridiculous bow, to the black lace push up bra. He tries to swallow the jealousy that erupts inside him (or maybe its the guilt of trying so desperately to replace her with a certain brown haired- brown eyed dominatrix) but it's for naught as he ends up erupting anyway.
“I've see you got a new boyfriend Molly, and you're serious about him.”
“What, sorry what?” She stumbles
“Take a day off .” John mutters followed by Lestrade's “Shut up and have a drink.”
(He really should have listened) But he finds that he's started and he cant stop and the words almost sputter out of him and everyone can see the train wreck about to happen (everyone but him, because of course, of course he always misses something)
“Oh, come on. Surely you've all seen the present at top of the bag, perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slap-dash at best. It's for someone special, then.” He says moving for the present sparing her only the briefest of looks. “Shade of red echoes her lipstick - either an unconscious association or one that she's deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has looovvve on her mind. In fact, that she's serious about him is clear from the fact that she's giving him a gift at all - that would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn - and that she's seeing him tonight is evident from her makeup and what she's wearing - obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts... “
Dearest Sherlock Love Molly XXX
It's like the wind has been knocked out of him. Of course you blundering idiot, he says to himself pushing down his dismay. Of course.
“You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always.”
He turns to go. He has every intention to leave. This is what he had wanted, her hope destroyed. It was better for her (the world wouldn't be so cruel to give us soul mates, apparently, apparently, apparently) but he finds that he can not. He's loved her now more than ever, and wonders if there was ever actually a time he hadn't.
“I am sorry. Forgive me.” Her eyes turn to stare into his, and before he can stop himself, the sentiment comes pouring out “Merry Christmas Molly Hooper.” and he presses his lips to her cheek.
{The surge within him is stronger than he's ever felt, and he wonders what it must feel like to not know where one of them began and the other end, intertwining together as they were made to be...}
.
“Sherlock- what are you doing?” John asks as he sits with nothing but a blanket around him, eyes pressed against the microscope he had stolen from Barts [years ago when he had said What are you talking about instead of finally]
“Mud samples.” he murmurs adjusting a knob, somewhere between here and not here, John thinks.
“Yes. But why.”
And here is where he supposed to give an elaborate explanation about the intricate differences. He should give as to how this is useful to identifying boot marts and time and location and consistency. But instead a more raw honest answer comes out. “I like brown.”
“What?” John says, and of course, it sounded ridiculous. But the smile that graces his features is beyond his control.
(It's sad. John will later think. He looked sad)
“Nothing.” he says. “It's nothing.”
.
“You look a bit like my dad. He's dead. Oh sorry...”
[Yes, I already knew that]
“Molly, please don't feel the need to make conversation. It's really not your area.”
[Because talking to you, no, lying to you it's painful. I need quiet.]
“When he was dying. He was always cheerful. He was lovely. Except when he thought no one could see him. I saw him once. He looked sad.”
“Molly.” He warns. [Don't do this]
“You look sad...when you think he cant see you.”
[The assessment makes his heart thump wildly in his chest, and his stomach clench, /does she think he's my soul mate?/]
“Are you okay. Don't just say you are, because I know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.”
“You can see me.” He says automatically, trying to assure her.
[It's her response that shatters him]
“I don't count.”
He turns to look at her, really look at her and he remembers the first glimpse of dark, warm, brown. The feeling of being lost and finally coming home. The feel of the simultaneous start and end of everything and he finds himself sinking. I did it, I ruined her. I pushed her so far away she has no idea of her worth. The sentiment is like a jagged razor as she keeps talking.
“ What I'm trying to say is that, if there's anything I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. No, I just mean... I mean... if there's anything you need - it's fine.”
“B-but what could I need from you?”
[The world wouldn't be so cruel to give someone like us soul mates, apparently...]
“Nothing. I don't know.”
.
He hates that he's here in the lab waiting for her, but he needs her. And Molly is his soul mate, and he is sorry. So sorry that he is. But this cant be done without her, and he doesn't want to give her hope- when its not safe to give her more, not when he's only good for breaking everything he touches.
“You were wrong you know.”
She jumps, startled and truth be told- he's startled too. He didn't want to reveal any sentiment, and he didn't want to do it this way.
“You do count. You've always counted, and I've always trusted you. But you were right, I'm not okay.”
Her eyes are wide with emotion she dare not let shine through as he moves towards her. “Tell me what's wrong?”
“Molly...I think I'm going to do die.”
Her eyes moisten at the words but still, she keeps it all inside and he trembles in her beauty as she spills out selflessly “what do you need?”
And he knows then, she'd follow him into the depths of hell.
[He doesn't know that she already has, and always will. Always.]
“If I wasn't everything that you think I am[your soul mate]- everything that -I- think I am-[your soul mate] would you still want to help me?”
“What do you need?”
He needs what he's always needed, and its so freeing to say it.
“You.”
I need you.
.
He breaks his code that night when he pushes his mouth against hers. He breaks, all rational thought when his hands slip beneath her jumper and come to rest upon her frantic heart beat. He breaks everything as his body aligns with hers for the very first (and very last) time. He commits it to memory, the way she moans and whimpers and writhes against him. Desperate. He presses his forehead into her clavicle and tries not to relish in the feeling of her, of his home.
(Tonight, the five year old in him rests, because for once, he kept a promise- his soul mate, if only for tonight, wanted for nothing.)
“This cant happen again.” He says after its over.
“I know.” she says quietly. “Its okay.” She adds and he's not sure if shes trying to convince herself or him as he leaves. “Once is enough.”
.
He works a lot, tearing apart Moriarty web. His body aches in ways he can not explain. It's an ache that goes past his bruised skin, and broken flesh. It's an ache that goes bone deep, farther even.
He doesn't have a lot of spare time on his hands, but every chance he gets he's slinking off to London to watch her.
[He watches all of them when he goes. But he goes for her.]
She's isolated unlike the rest of them and he hates that. He hates the price of her silence has had on her small frame. She's lost weight, nearly seven pounds. Her hands tremble when she teaches a class, and her smile doesn't reach her eyes.
[He mutters useless apologies and mumbled thanks that will never quite reach her]
The second time he manages to slip away, over a year later, she looks a little healthier and there is a twinkle in her She's met someone recently, she's hopeful.
[He tells himself it doesn't matter that he is her soul mate and that it cant possible last- the thought doesn't last and he shoots up that night in hopes to blanket the pain.]
.
“You all most blew everything.” Mycroft says and his voice is raised, and it raises the skin on Sherlock's forearms. He hates that Mycroft makes him feel five years old, even though now he is at least as tall as his brother and at least twice as strong.
“You were wrong.” Sherlock says, his eyes drugged, dead and withering in pain. “You were wrong and you're never wrong. How could you have been wrong?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The world was cruel enough to give me a soul mate apparently.” Sherlock spits the venom falling short with a sob.
“Molly Hooper.” Mycroft says slowly, as he watches his little brothers face crumple.
“Oh Sherlock...what have you done?”
[(Nothing! He wants to scream. I've done nothing and that's the problem!) And when Mycroft puts an arm awkwardly around his little brothers shoulder and Sherlock in turn sobs into the crook of his brothers arm. Mycroft never looks at him, and the two never speak of it again.]
.
They go on a date. His version of a date, when he's “back from the dead.”
He's losing John to his soul mate, Mary. Mary who brought color and lit up his world in a way Sherlock never could (in a way John never could for him) But still. The loss is tangible because how on earth is he going to go back to ignoring Molly on his own? Who on earth will be his distraction from the pain?
He thinks about his absence on the “case” to distract him from her presence. He'd forgotten how intelligent she is, how beautiful, amazing, observant, patient, kind she is. It makes his breath catch and he remembers her mentioning food.
He offers to take her to get some Fish and Chips, and it isn't long after that he sees the ring.
“I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper. You deserve it.”
[He's surprised he means it, even if everything around him is falling to pieces]
“ After all not all the men you fall for turn out to be sociopaths.”
[But I wasn't just a man was I? I was yours, at least, I was suppose to be wasn't I?]
He leaves her alone unable to bare the look in her eyes, the hunch of her shoulders, the subtle little pain of telling him goodbye hurts her as much as it does him.
[Did he really expect to do this dance forever?]
.
She slaps him and it vibrates the room [this time, there is no one here to see] she stares at him, and there are tears in her eyes threatening to spill as she looks at him.
“I don't understand.” Sherlock says finally “You know the rumors in the paper weren't true. And it cant be the drug use...you already hit me for that.”
“You died.” She whispers. And it is than he realizes how she knows, even though he purposefully didn't say anything.
His hand reaches to cup her cheek, his thumb catching and rubbing her tears across her cheek.
“I am sorry.” he says earnestly.
“I'm sorry isn't good enough.” She says closing her eyes tightly. “Do you know what it was like-”
He interrupts her abruptly “What color did you lose?”
[Because he would have lost brown, and since he was only ever missing brown, obviously only one color would be affected for her and he has to know if he's right...]
“Which color?” She laughs incredulously, the tears continuing steadily down her face. “I lost all of them. I lost everything.”
He wonders what would happen if he were to ever actually lose her. He doesn't hold the thought to long, as the ache is impossible. He's kept her at arms length to keep her safe- to give her better. Nothing is ever going to happen to Molly Hooper.
(He's wrong)
.
It's over dramatic. It's a scene ripped out of every backwards romance novel, movie, script except it is her that goes down. Not him.
She isn't targeted. She isn't kidnapped. But she is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Moriarty has Sherlock at gun point in St Bart's hospital, and Molly walks down the hospital corridor and sees. He wants to tell her to go, but he cant because Moriarty will notice and this isn't a variable he had planned for, for gods sake she was suppose to be off.
[Please, don't.]
But Molly either doesn't see, or she doesn't care because she's already making her way quietly down to him. He notices she has a syringe in her hand and he keeps his eyes fixed on the man before him.
[For a minute, for a minute he thinks having here may work out even better than what he originally planned- but it is a short lived moment, the calm before the storm- if only he'd known- if only he'd known]
Moriarty turns as she raises her hand to stab him in the neck.
The next few seconds all her can hear is the sound of a gun- and two bodies fall to the floor.
He stares up at John, his eyes wide with fear, anger, resentment, and hurt as his world starts to blur.
“No. No. No. No!” He screams, crossing the greyish tile of the floor (the floor he knows to be white) “What have you done!”
He scrambles towards her,tripping over Moriarty's body, before venomously shoving his carcass away from her. Their blood mixing together in a dark, sticky black mess.
“No. No. No.” He sobs, staring into Molly's gaunt white face. The bullet had gone right through Moriarty's head right into hers. Her eyes are open in horror and a dark hole is pressed in her temple, black streams running down her face and oh god. no.
//He doesn't get a goodbye. No words of parting- no semblance of closure. He just sits on the floor of Barts pressing kisses to her forehead and cradling her to his chest, and sobbing.//
.
Sherlock Holmes had heard the legends, the myths, the stories,more times than he cares to imagine.
“The gods have mercy” his mother would say laying a kiss upon his brow, moving black curls from his eyes. “Someday Sherlock you'll see, the world will be absolutely beautiful when you meet your match. The stars will align for you both when you touch, that first time, my sweet boy. You'll see.”
(He dreams of her, of a color he cant quite see, and swears to himself she'll never want for anything. He'll never let anyone take her away.)
/Except they don't. And he cant. And she did. And its over./
.
I don't want to love her
I don't want her in my life
I don't want her near me
But she's so deep inside.
-Fin-