bakerstreet | The soul is the secret

The soul is the secret

the soul bond meme

"I can't live without you...literally."

Wake up. Do what you have to. Work. School. Save the world. Avenge your father's death. Go back to sleep. Average day, for human, demon, sailor scout, angel, slayer, what have you. Though there's some part of you that wonders, in the back of your mind, if this is the day you'll meet your bond.

Because your world is just like ours - or how yours was, in another universe - but with one addition: the soul bond. The soul bond is a concept as old as time itself. People don't question the process, it just is. Some say that it comes from the beginning of time, where each soul was created in a pair, and throughout the lifetimes those souls are reborn into, they search for each other. This is the soul bond. Even if that's mostly faded into myth, it's generally excepted that there is only only one person for anyone. So, soulmates.

Not exactly. Soul bonds are more. They are about the joining of bodies: sexually and psychically. The bond isn't necessarily about love, though the close connection facilitates that emotion growing, and some fondness does appear in almost every case. It's bigger than love, bigger than hate, bigger than anything else; it's finding yourself in someone else, and your never wanting to lose that. Needless to say, the soul bond is the cornerstone of life and society. Marriage is reserved for the bonded, and you're expected to be searching for that other half. There's a good biological reason for that, too, as the unbonded cannot reproduce and those who have not found their bond are doomed to die extremely early in comparison to their peers and in a most painful, withering fashion. Who would want that?

In this world, sex is had with those who are not the other half of your bond, even if society considers that frivolous. For the truth is, sex with any other will never be as good as sex with your other half. When you make love to someone who isn't yours, you'll know it. It's a disappointment.

When you so much as see your bond for the first time, or at least for the first time after you've reached sexual maturity, you'll know, even if you're already "with" someone else. The signs are inescapable. You'll know it's them. You'll become hyper-focused on them, your heart will race, your muscles tighten, your brain shoot off every signal it nose...and you will become aroused beyond belief. Any arousal you've had prior pales in comparison. So go ahead, if you don't want a bond, ignore it. Try. It won't work. The more you ignore it, the more control you'll lose. Did I forget to mention? In this world, sexual drives are a little more animalistic than usual. They would have to be when the mainstay of the races is a sexual-based bond. Those who try to ward off the desire to become one with their other half can achieve mild success - until they absolutely lose themselves. It's not uncommon to see bonds going at it in the streets, unabashed and unashamed, for trying to hold off the inevitable. Sex between bonds in public, generally, is not looked down upon.

You've given in. Of course you did. But what now? The first time you have sex with your bond, it will be beyond compare. You will share memories with each other, as this is the opening of your psychic connection with them. Yes, psychic connection. How would you expect to be truly bonded otherwise? How strong this link is depends on how often you have sex. Even at baseline, though, you'll know if your bond is hurt or in trouble. Fair warning: this will pull at that animal brain, and you will go into a beserker mode to get them back with you. Similarly, you will behave in a territorial manner if you feel the bond is threatened; jealousy often results in shameless public sex, in hopes to re-establish the strength of your connection and make your bond realize that YOU'RE the other part of them, no one else. In addition, bonds don't handle separation well and each partner will be antsy and on edge. It can be done, and most pairs do because of work, duties, and life in general, but returns are usually accompanied by sometimes days-long sex sessions.

Aside from those quirks, the bonding process can be quite useful. A bond can calm you down, and sex with your bond can serve as the ultimate relaxer. Your bond is the one who can heal you, and sex boosts your strength and power. Yes, those of you looking to achieve your ultimate goal...or ultimate form. Being a bond makes you stronger. Don't resist, no matter how surly you are.

The bond is no respecter of person. Outside of sexuality such as straight or gay, types or species don't matter. You could be bonded with someone as different from you as night and day. However, no matter what the case, you'll begin to care for them in some fashion. You'll feel the need to be with each other as much as possible, both sexually and otherwise. They'll become the most important person in the world to you. Of course, this is assuming your bond is someone you can feasibly be with. Perhaps there is some truth to that reincarnation business, as sometimes, those souls are reborn into people who are never meant to be bonds - warring tribes, at-odds species, and even relatives or people with a great amount of age between them.

The bond is permanent. This is the person you were meant to be with, after all, until you die (and soul bonds usually die within years of each other). Theoretically, though, it can be broken. Mostly, this is done when one side betrays the other side somehow. As the bond is initiated through sex, it's broken in the same way. What happens next is rarely pretty. Police reports usually find the bodies of the dead bonded, cause of death specifically unknown.

Head spinning yet? It shouldn't be! This is the world you live in.

rules
- Comment with your character, preferences, what you're interested in, and what you're not interested in.
- Crosscanon tagging is expected and encouraged. Mention if you want to make some kind of canon-insertion AU with one of the characters or just have a nebulous AU.

prompts

Meeting - You see your bond in that way for the first time, and it's done. You're done. You have to have them to be complete.

Trying to Fight It - No, you're the type who rebels against this whole "soul bond" system. You're the master of your own design, and you won't give in despite the fact that you could just start masturbating right now.

Failure to Fight - The whole fighting thing didn't work out, and now you're going at each other like you'll die of thirst.

First Time - The legendary first time with soaring sensations, amazing orgasms, and the sharing of memories.

Not the Sharing Type - You're a private person and don't want your brain in someone else's. How can you reconcile this? Maybe doing the act can change your mind. Or maybe you just want relief so badly, you don't care.

Feedback - You feel all of your partners pleasure as well as their pain. If you can't come up with something kinky, I can't help you.

Dirty Thoughts - You know what's naughty? Sending mental images of what you'd like to do to your bond through your connection. It's like mental sexting - or a fun way to torture them.

Learning About Each Other - You're learning what both of you like and don't like and sharing as you go.

Jealousy - Someone tried to approach your bond and it made you a bit miffed. Now it's time for some affirmation of the connection and to make sure that you're still on their mind.

Rough Bond - Your bond is more hate than love sometimes, but it's a thin line. Besides, you still care more about them than anyone else, and god forbid someone hurt them. Besides, rough sex is fun.

Separation - You'll be apart for a while. You need one last hurrah

Reunion - You're back together. Now to make up for lost time. Not just because you want to, either.

Public - Remember how I said sex in public is accepted for bonds. Why not take advantage?

Chasing That High - You keep having sex with people, trying to find you bond.

Chasing That Low - In contrast to the above, you're trying to keep away from a bond by desensitizing yourself to sex.

Bond Party - Some young people throw "mixers" where, hopefully, you may meet your bond. Experimentation is bound to happen...even experimentation with multiple people at the same time, trying to find that one.

Can Never Be - Your bond is with someone you shouldn't have one with. They're your sworn enemy, your teacher, or your sibling. Your body and soul says yes, but your mind says no.

Strengthen - You need energy to defeat the big bad or rule the world. Go to your bond and recharge.

Comfort - A bond is often the only one who can calm their other half down, and that sometimes happens through a grounding via sex, bringing the upset party back to what really matters.

Healing - Healing wounds and healing the connection all comes down to body pressed against body. Just be careful of blood.

Long Time Bond - You've been together for some time now and you know each other like the back of your hands. You can make them come in ten seconds flat if need be, but it's more fun to drag things out, isn't it?

Ritual - You want to make your bond official in the eyes of the government. Unsurprisingly, the marriage ceremony is ritualistic sex.

Impregnation - There's no fertilization between the eggs and sperm of non-bonds, so one surefire way to make sure everything's on the up and up is to get pregnant.
Mind Games - Being psychically connected is all good until they fuck with your head.

Dependency - It's not always easy, being for, all intents and purposes, addicted to a person. You need them like you need breathing, and you'll take what you can even if you're ashamed.

Already with Someone - You love someone, but they're not your bond. Can they keep you when you meet your real bond?

I'm Not Yours, You're Not Mine - You know you're not bonds. Still you want them to stay with you and you'll do anything and try to be better.

False Bond - You thought you were bonded, you really did, until you met them

Faking It - There are benefits to faking a bond, including for safety, financial gain, and to secure alliances. Of course, you can't fake it in the bedroom.

Manipulating - You'll get what you want, even if you have to lie and pretend you're bonded to them...how you can fake that, no one knows, but it's worth a shot.

It's Not Me, It's You - Sometimes, mistakes are made. They're your bond, but you're not theirs.

Break the Bond - Because you have a death wish or a snuff kink.

My Ex-Lover is Dead - Your soul bond is gone and you're trying to fill the gap.

OR MAKE UP YOUR OWN

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It would be fair to say, that after the first, anxious week aboard a new vessel, Horatio generally finds himself to be pretty relieved not to have found his soul bond. Some people do, in those early days, and more than once Horatio has been confronted by the results. Men and women rutting and desperate, blocking the narrow corridors of his ships, while he's been staggering, sick from the waves and trying to reach the top deck before he throws up.

It's enough to have taken the shine off the idea, just a little. Enough to solidify his opinion that the best thing about spending nine months at a time at sea? Is that those are nine months when he doesn't need to worry about completely losing his dignity at first sight of someone.

When they made port at the end of a tour, however, all bets were off.

Horatio hadn't chosen the Stardust. Wasn't certain that any of the lieutenants had consciously chosen it, on their last, drunken hurrah before they parted company. But they had found it, and they'd been granted access, and now a half a dozen sailors were mingling with the bright young things on the dance floor.

Horatio, however, was not on the dance floor.

Horatio had been standing at the bar for the last twenty minutes staring at an impeccably dressed stranger, while every single muscle in his body knotted tense with a desire that ran bone deep.

This would have been bad enough, even had the stranger not spent those twenty minutes dedicatedly chatting up a particularly beautiful young man who looked to be in his late teens. That did make it slightly worse.

It's not often that the Stardust gets sailors in. Often they don't stagger far from the docks, certainly not far enough to wash up at his door - but when they do, they bring good money and months of pent-up lust and will generously expend one to satisfy the other. By the time he hears they're tearing up the West End, he's got a good few tarts available for those who like them, and a few pretty boys for those who don't.

That was a few hours ago. Business is in full swing, now, the improprieties becoming steadily less veiled; Harry's been having a nice quiet word with a sweet redhaired boy he full intends to have naked in the next hour or two. He looks up to order another drink, eyes skimming across to the other end of the bar--

And it's that fucking cliché, isn't it, the one he toyed with as a young man before abandoning the belief that his mate would ever cross his path. Your gaze meets a stranger's across a crowded room, and you just know.

(That the stranger is exceptionally easy on the eyes feels irrelevant but doesn't go unnoticed.)

He hears a noise of protest from the redhead when he steps away from him in a daze, but he doesn't care any more; he can barely even see him. All he cares about is the young man with the soft curls of toffee-coloured hair he's making his way over to.

The man's expression is dark and sharp, and everything around him, the boys, the girls, the drinks, and the dancing all fades into an unfocused haze. He can feel himself moving now, coming to meet the stranger half way, driven by a wordless, mindless urgency.

He brushes shoulders with one of his shipmates, they grab his arm, try to speak to him, but all he feels is a bruising obstacle to reaching his goal.

Desperate rutting in narrow corridors. Losing his dignity to a complete stranger. Every harrowing, humiliating fantasy that he's ever had about this moment is closing in on him, and Horatio doesn't actually have it in him not to want them.

He stops himself, just soon enough to keep from flinging himself bodily into the stranger's arms, and not for lacking the compulsion to do so. He clasps both hands on the back of his own neck, because he needs some way of keeping them occupied, and his gaze stays locked, helplessly on Harry's eyes.

"Excuse me," He says, which is fucking pathetic, "But, I think that, perhaps--"

And that's as far as he's getting with that sentence, because his gaze just drifted down to the line of Harry's lips and Horatio is gone. Dead. Gone. In the ground. Useless for anything but this.

That your soulmate might be another man is, at best, acknowledged. Accepted, certainly not, and had this taken place a hundred years ago they might both have been beaten to death in an alleyway for daring to embody a sin against nature. Now, with the permissive Sixties in full swing? Things have changed, but, well. Harry knows deep down that he built his little palace around himself, at least in part, so that in the centre of it he'd be safe to be himself.

It was so he could do things like cup this man's cheek, thumb rubbing across the blade of his cheekbone, and just revel in the electrical spark between them without being immediately called out for being a disgusting old poof.

"Let's go somewhere quieter," he says, and his voice is the quiet roll of distant thunder that signals a storm to come.

The touch, however small, makes Horatio feels dizzy. He tightens his fists at his sides, fighting the urge to touch the other man back. Unable to trust himself if he does.

"Yes," Horatio replies, And then, because he is comfortably oblivious to the fact that Harry owns this place, "Somewhere close, though."

Because there is definitely a time limit on how long Horatio can keep his hands at his side.

"Come on with you. I've got a room upstairs."

Little more than a studio - a box room above his office with a bed and a sink and a securely locked door. He uses it as a hideaway when he's being watched by the fuzz, or at least, when he suspects that he is.

"What's your name?" he asks, as a careless afterthought. Whatever it is doesn't exactly matter.

"Horatio." Murmered, almost embarrassed. He should have thought to ask, but he was too distracted. Is still too distracted, really, but he focuses enough to return the question, "And yours?"

There are other questions he should be asking. Standard questions that you ask someone when you first meet them. What he does, what interests him, but he knows that'll come. Eventually, if everything people say is true, it'll come without them even needing to exchange words.

And he'll probably be able to focus on the answers better when he's not so intensely fucking turned on.

"Harry Starks," he says, and takes Horatio's elbow. Outright steering him toward the STAFF ONLY door at the back of the room. "This is my club."

There are words said behind them - catcalls, quite possibly, lewd accusations launched at Horatio rather than himself - but he's deaf to them. Anything not in his immediate orbit, or Horatio's, might as well not exist. The rest of the universe could fall away and he'd just be relieved that they'll have some time alone.

"Upstairs."

The narrow staircase beyond the door goes up to his little bedroom and the bathroom attached. It was never really meant to be lived in, but it's as appropriate as he's got, when his need for privacy is this acute.

In the morning Horatio will have to deal with the fact that half the officers of his last crew watched him stumble, stricken, into the back room of a seedy club with another man. And perhaps, in a few hours, he'll be able to worry about that.

He slips ahead of Harry when they reach the staircase, stretching his arm out behind him to maintain the warm, solid contact of Harry's hand on his elbow.

The relief he feels when he finds the door to Harry's tiny bedsit is acute. He pushes it open, and immediately he's turning to walk in backwards, the full beam of his attention fixed back on Harry, letting himself drink in the lines of the other man's face this close and this bright.

"Harry Starks." He searches out the other man's hand with his, and grips it painfully tight, pulling him forward, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"And you." Harry's voice is gravel-rough, and he uses the grip on his hand just as Horatio does, to close the gap between them.

He's had moments, of course, where he's seen some pretty face across the room and known he could have them bent over within an hour of meeting them; this is not that. This is fucking alchemy, it's witchcraft, and brings with it the sharp awareness that he will never want anything in his life like he wants this man.

"God," he mutters, cupping his jaw in one hand, examining him like a sculpture, a piece of fine art. "The pleasure really is all mine."

There is a part of Horatio that relishes the hand on his jaw, that feels heavy with pleasure at just being admired by this man. Feels warm and good and right with the knowledge that Harry is pleased by him. A part of him that would like nothing more than for the other man to undress and inspect every inch of him, to confirm that he is pleased with every last inch before they go any further.

Unfortunately, no other part of Horatio is feeling that patient. He surges forward against Harry's touch, pressing himself as close to the other man as he can. He kisses him, firm and desperate, like a drowning man searching for air.

The honeymoon period lasts a few weeks.

Horatio is an absolute pleasure. He's not a virgin, but Harry is almost certain that he's the first man he's fucked - or rather, been fucked by. Introducing him to those various pleasures of the flesh has been both an exhaustive and exhausting education. Harry has never been rough with his boys, not if they don't care for it, but for Horatio he finds a gentle patience that he's never encountered in himself before. Sex with him feels....rewarding, emotionally, in a way that is alien but beautiful.

Reality has to reassert itself eventually, of course.

He takes Horatio to one of his Chelsea parties on the strict understanding that the things that takes place - the orgiastic fumbles that each and every one of these events descends to - absolutely shall not involve him. He will personally break the fingers of any man who so much as leers in his direction. It's not as if he hasn't been clear to the point of impropriety that Horatio is his bond. His mate.

He leaves him, for ten minutes, after the fun begins - tells him to get a drink and do what he pleases, and that he'll be back soon.

In the spare bedroom of his flat, he watches a high-ranking officer of the Metropolitan Police being stripped naked, while a young man who he knows to be seventeen but could pass for fourteen does the exact same thing. He passes a camera to a fourth man.

For his own part, every second that Horatio spends with Harry leaves him feeling delirious. If you'd asked him to describe the kind of person who he'd most like to find himself bonded too, pretty much the last answer he would have given would have been a description of Harry. Yet, somehow, all the things that Horatio hadn't thought he wanted in a partner, are the things that seem to complete him best in Harry. Like the other man fills the empty spaces that Horatio feels in himself.

When they're together, he enjoys being at the stardust. Enjoys going for a drink. Enjoys being able to attend such events, while being able to rely upon Harry to do all of the actual socializing which Horatio truly, madly, deeply, hates.

Perhaps this is what misleadingly suggests to Harry, that it's a good idea to leave him alone at one of his parties, to pass his drink awkwardly from hand to hand while the other guests studiously avoid him. Just in case, the drink makes them more friendly than they mean to be. Just in case, Harry returns at the wrong moment and gets the wrong impression.

Horatio has two drinks, trying to distract himself from the hard truth that without Harry there, yes, all social engagements remain excruciatingly miserable, before giving up, and setting off to find his bond.

It's not difficult, exactly. There's an invisible line inside of him, always tugging, always niggling, wanting him to find Harry. Guiding his feet right to the threshold of the spare bedroom.

Harry looks up sharply, when the door creaks, from where he's directing the action - 'action' here being an unconscious, naked body being draped over the smaller and equally naked body of the young man being paid handsomely for his time. The copper is barely conscious, just enough to realise what's happening and protest in groaned mumbles that he wants this to stop, that he isn't like this and doesn't want -

The camera does not pick up those objections, of course, and the boy twists his face into a portrait of wounded innocence such that even the photographer hesitates. Then the clicking starts.

Harry glances to Horatio and takes a pull on his cigarette.

"You get lonely, darling?"

Horatio's first, awful, thought, is that the young man under the officer is the victim here. He catches sight of that wounded, youthful expression and he's already a stride too far into the room when the camera clicks, and the expression drops, and is replaced by one of bemused disapproval at Horatio's presence.

And Harry's talking to him, and like always, his voice cuts through all of Horatio's confusion and anxiety. Like a gust of warm air on a freezing cold day, and it would be too easy to just say that yes he was lonely, and yes he missed Harry, and could they just step outside and look the other way while whatever happens here happens?

Perhaps, had he thought about it longer, he would have done just that. But in the instant, shock and disgust win out, and instead he rounds on Harry,

"What is this? What are you doing?"

"Just taking care of business, love," Harry says, utterly unperturbed. "You remember the Chief Inspector, don't you?"

The man produces a loud, incoherent slurry of noise that would probably be a lot of threats and curses if he weren't heavily drugged. Harry slaps him, hard, round the back of the head and he immediately goes quiet.

"Oi. You shut your fucking mouth. I've bent over backwards for you, you little shit. I won't have to make you out for a nonce if you behave, you understand?" He turns to the other two in the room. "Finish up here. Good clear shot of his face, alright? I wouldn't want his own mother to be able to deny what she's looking at."

Nods all round, and he puts a hand on Horatio's shoulder.

"Now, do we need to have a quiet word?"

Horatio doesn't move. Doesn't let himself be ushered quietly away. Doesn't back off. Instead he brings his arm up to knock Harry's hand from his shoulder, even though doing so leaves the place where it had briefly rested feeling cold and deprived.

"Why? So I can listen to you defend this? Explain how crucial it is to your business that you have the power to destroy your friends?"

Horatio hadn't liked the Chief Inspector. Instinctively, didn't like anyone who Harry introduced to him by their title, rather than their name. But he had been warm and loud and jolly and he and Harry had never seemed to bear each other even the slightest hint of hostility.

Harry refocuses on Horatio, phasing out everything around them, and his amiable expression settles into something coldly serious.

"This is how I work, Horatio. I ain't got to justify myself to you or anybody."

"You don't have to justify it?"

Horatio's expression creases, but he doesn't back down. Stays tense.

"Harry, you're making a teenager sexually assault an unconscious man so you can blackmail him with the photographs. You couldn't justify that even if you wanted too."

"Just as well that I don't want to, don't have to and don't plan to, then, eh?"

He applies his hand to Horatio's shoulder again and applies some force, this time, to get him out of the room.

"This is how my work is done. I never said it was pretty, did I?"

Horatio doesn't knock Harry's hand away this time, but he sets his feet more firmly on the floor, not letting himself be pushed out easily. It's pure, angry stubbornness. If Horatio is stuck with Harry's ugly, awful business, then Harry can be stuck with Horatio not accepting it. Not being conveniently moved out of sight of it, even if that would make this argument easier for all involved.

"And I'm supposed to just accept that, am I? You run this business, if this is how your work is done then that's only because this is how you chose to do it. Because you choose to be reprehensible."

He's digging for something. For Harry to look upset or angry with him, rather than mildly annoyed that Horatio is interrupting his work day. For Harry to feel the same sting that Horatio just felt, of having the gilt scraped off the bones of what they feel for one another.

Harry, still expressionless, beckons over the man who was previously scene-setting.

"Give us a hand, would you?" he says, voice quiet and low.

Without comment, the hand on Horatio's left shoulder is joined by another on his right; they drag him, bodily and regardless of protest, to Harry's bedroom. Harry passes a five to his assistant and lets him go, then shuts the door.

He turns back to Horatio. His eyes are dark and bleak.

"Now. You. Listen. You don't talk to me like that in front of anybody else, you understand?"

Horatio had struggled. He hadn't raised his voice. Hadn't risked drawing any other attention to what Harry was doing, but he had dug in his heels and made them force him out of the room.

And when Harry's bedroom door shuts and the two of them are alone again, he is shaking with rage.

"Or you'll what?" He practically spits the words in the other man's face.

Horatio can recognize, intellectually, that Harry is angry. That Harry is dangerous. That there will be an answer to his question and that he won't like it one bit. But there isn't a space in his brain to be afraid of the other man just yet. He can adore Harry, and he's just discovered that he can also be furious with Harry, but there's no space staked out between those two feelings, for anything else.

Edited 2016-01-18 15:58 (UTC)

Harry takes two steps closer, putting their faces inches apart, dominating Horatio's personal space with his presence. He reaches up and touches his cheek with contradictory, devastating gentleness.

"I don't want to have to show you," he says, very softly. "Don't make me, eh?"

Horatio jerks his face away from the touch, but again, doesn't step back. Doesn't want to yield any ground on this. He doesn't snap back as quickly this time, though. Instead, when he speaks, his voice is tight. Like the words are being pressed out of him.

"It's such a pity, that you couldn't just choose someone for this. I'm sure you could hand pick a dozen people who could be exactly what it would suit you to have." It hurts to say it. To suggest that there could be any other person in the world more deserving of Harry's bond than he is. But Horatio is too black minded for it not to feel at least partly true. There are boys who could be complicit. Quiet and respectful in the face of something wicked. He is not one of them. "But you are stuck with me. And I cannot flatter your strength by holding my tongue while you do awful things."

Edited 2016-01-18 17:22 (UTC)

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