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John had been born with the word “Oh” written in fancy cursive in the color of his freckles on the inside of his left arm, near his elbow. Most days, he wondered what it meant. There’s so much to say with an “oh” and too little said. During school days, he often slipped into scenarios in which he would meet his soulmate, and when they would say that one word. When he was eight, his soulmate looked like his sister—blonde hair, glasses, a personality much too big for her little body.
When he was fifteen, the images of his soulmate changed into taller figures with muscles and hard lines. His soulmate looked a lot like his best friend, Tom—tall, short brown hair, and strong arms.
The version of Tom in his daydreams let out a hard “oh” when he saw how handsome he was. John blushed and got very flustered around Tom after he had that particular daydream.
That’s when he found that he was bisexual. Not that it mattered, he thought, since he was meant for only one person, and that could be a boy or a girl. He didn’t think the universe cared what his sexual preference was. Nevertheless, he came out to his mom and his sister, who met him with warmth, and his dad, who met him with contempt. James Watson, hardened war vet, said he would never forgive the universe if it made his only son’s soulmate a boy. John attempted civility and tried to explain it to his father, but he never relented, and never forgave John either, for being interested in boys.
That’s when the “oh” in his fantasies turned from something pleasant to something tinged with darkness. When John was sixteen and suicidal, he imagined the “oh” to come from a tall man with spikey black hair, and the utterance was one of disappointment. Maybe John wasn’t attractive enough for his soul mate, and he was disappointed in knowing that he had to stare at John’s ugly face every single day of his life.
Whenever he involuntarily revisited that fantasy—more like nightmare, but John loved to torture himself—he felt the urge to cut his face off. Instead, he cut his arms and legs. At least my soulmate won’t hate my face because of the scars, he thought. When he cut himself, he imagined cutting away his father’s shame and disappointment. By his seventeenth birthday, his arms resembled a cat’s scratching post. By eighteen, his mom found out and delayed university to send him to a rehab center, to get him some help. John hated it at the time, but years later, he thanked his mother.
When he entered uni, he felt so clumsy and awkward that in his fantasies, the girl he would likely bump into breathed out an “oh” and he would turn to apologize. The girl would be beautiful—high cheekbones, long flowing hair, fair complexion, and bright blue eyes. In the back of his head, John knew he was torturing himself for finding men attractive, but couldn’t bring himself to imagine his soul mate as a boy anymore.
When he met Mary, he stopped imagining potential soulmate encounters. He started imagining their future. A nice wedding in the country, two kids, and a dog. Mary would tend to the garden in the backyard and he would come home from work as a doctor every day to see his beautiful wife taking care of the baby. Mary wasn’t in college and didn’t have any aspirations for herself, or else he would’ve shaped his daydream around what she wanted. He would’ve done anything for her. He would’ve dropped out of school, run away with her, even take a bullet for her. His infatuation was short lived, however, because Mary didn’t care about him at all. They were dating and one day she broke it off, out of the blue, and then ran away. John never saw her again.
So he graduated uni with a broken heart and fresh scars and entered medical school with a heavy heart and fresh fantasies. He couldn’t stomach the thought of short blonde women, so his daydreams morphed back in to men. He could ignore the lingering shame he still felt at his attraction towards men.
In one of his daydreams, he imagined he would say something clever and the man would respond back with “Oh?” as if he was impressed by John’s intelligence. This was a buoy in John’s darkest days.
It took his roommate finding him crying on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood to recover again. It was clear John still had issues, so the doctors signed him up for counseling and gave him antidepressants, and he hoped this would make him feel better. Even though he felt good when he was creating new scars, he also didn’t want to be a burden on his loved ones. He wanted to get better for them.
He kept thinking that if he couldn’t take care of himself, then how could he take care of his patients that he’ll have when he graduates?
When he was finally deemed mentally stable and graduated from medical school, he was deployed in Afghanistan as a war doctor. He was incredibly happy at this chance to serve his country, and he thought of this as a chance to escape his problems, at least for a little bit. John didn’t know when escapism meant war, but the adrenaline and action kept him afloat—he didn’t think about harming himself once while he was there in the desert. Coincidentally, he also stopped imagining his first meeting with his soulmate.
Then John was shot in the shoulder. He was sent home and diagnosed with PTSD and he didn’t know if that was worse than when he was suicidal or not. He was walking through the park one day, cane in hand, when he bumped into a tall lanky figure. The impact made him drop his cane. The figure dropped the armful of books he was holding.
John signed a deep heaving breath. “It’s not like I was having a good day anyway,” he muttered. He stooped to pick up the other man’s books when he heard him breathe out, “Oh.”
It made John halt in his motions. What did he just- did he say- John looked up at the tall figure. Curly brown hair, long coat, sharp features, and his mouth open in realization.
“I’m Sherlock. I think you might be-” he never finished. He didn’t have to. John knew exactly what he was going to say, because the thought crossed his mind the first time Sherlock opened his mouth.
“John. John Watson. Pleasure to meet you,” he said, sticking out his hand for Sherlock to shake. Sherlock looked down at the hand and smirked.
“Sherlock Holmes, and the pleasure is all mine,” he said, meeting John’s eyes with an intense stare. John was paralyzed, and he was still holding Sherlock’s hand. After all those daydreams and hypotheticals, he never would’ve imagine his meeting to be like this. Too stiff, too formal, John was having a difficult day and had said something snippy, yet it was everything he needed it to be and more.
Sherlock gave him his cane and if he was honest, John had forgotten all about it, and was now standing perfectly upright without the aid of his cane. John handed Sherlock his books and they forgot their business they were both rushing to, not five minutes ago, to sit on one of the park benches and talk. And talk. And talk. They talked until five o’clock at night, and that’s when Sherlock took him to Angelo’s. They had a perfect dinner there that night, where Sherlock told him all about his detective work, and how he hadn’t really been in a relationship before, so sorry if he screws this up, but no he could never be anything but perfect. John told him about his time in the war, and how his sister got married just last week. Sherlock rattled off some deductions—some about John and some about the other customers at the restaurant.
“Incredible,” John said in bright-eyed amazement.
Sherlock gave him a long, lingering look. “That’s not what people normally say,” he said, looking back down at his food. He wasn’t really eating it, just moving it around his plate with his fork.
“What do people normally say?” he asked.
Sherlock looked back up and smirked off in the distance. “Piss off,” he said.
John chuckled at that. Clearly the comments didn’t effect Sherlock all that much, but as long as John was around, he’ll keep them from getting to this gorgeous man in front of him.
Sherlock took him back to his place, 221B Baker Street, and they had tea that the landlady, Mrs. Hudson, prepared for them. John thought that tea was a formality, as drinks usually are when someone invites someone into their flat, but Sherlock was genuinely interested in more conversation. He could tell Sherlock was shy about this kind of thing, but he also respected Sherlock’s wish to go slow, even if he didn’t say it out loud.
He didn’t know if that was intuition talking, or if he really did have a better ability to read Sherlock because he was his soulmate.
John fell asleep on Sherlock’s couch. He didn’t mean to, but when he woke up, he saw Sherlock performing an experiment on the kitchen table. That can’t be safe, he thought.
“Sorry for falling asleep on you last night,” John said, sitting up and stretching.
“Quite alright. Normal people like you need sleep,” Sherlock said, barely throwing John a glance.
John laughed at his language.
“Listen—I know we’ve just met and all, but this flat is rather expensive, it being in central London, and it would unburden me if there was someone around to help pay the rent. I’m afraid being the world only consulting detective isn’t something that pays very well. If you’d like-”
John blinked once and laughed. He wasn’t awake enough yet. “Is this your way of asking me to move in with you?” John asked. What an adorable man, he thought. He found his soulmate and yet is still taking the roundabout way of asking him to move in with him.
“I- yes. But I wasn’t sure if you’d like your own space or not. People like privacy,” he said innocently, overly concentrating on his experiment.
“I’d love to. This place is much better than my flat, it would be easier to share the fiscal responsibility than both of us living separately, and I can imagine waking up to you in the mornings will be fun,” John grinned. Sherlock looked up at John in surprise at the last part. This man clearly isn’t on the receiving end of much affection. He’d have to fix that.
Sherlock’s lips slowly moved to transform into a grin.
Mrs. Hudson came barreling up the stairs.
“Ah Mrs. Hudson! Doctor Watson has decided to move in!” Sherlock shouts, looking at her as she entered the room.
“Oh, fantastic! There’s another bedroom upstairs if you’ll be needing two bedrooms,” she said with a smile.
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” John said, locking eyes with Sherlock. They shared a private smile. Nothing too intimate just yet, but sharing a bed will be nice. Sherlock would agree.
“Nope, but thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” he said, moving his eyes back to her after giving John one last lingering look.
“Oh, Sherlock,” she said giggling, as she made her leave.