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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"Shelby," Harry mutters. As much as he wants to tell the man the deal's off and he can just fuck off back up north - as much as he doubts he'd be kicking anything off by doing so, since Tommy is clearly none too keen on this either - he can't. The words just won't come.

"My office?" he grinds out instead, because if this has to happen, it definitely doesn't have to play out in public.

He nods, and to help himself stay in control of his own body he sticks his hands deep in his pockets. The way over to Harry's office is miserable, a trial unlike any he's ever had. He keeps two people between them for as long as he can, and five paces when he can't any longer.

The door shuts behind him and he stops just short of pressing his back against the door. He's not a frightened animal, he's Tommy fucking Shelby, come to talk business. Fuck, fuck--

"I don't want this," he says, because clarity will help.

"Nor do I," Harry says, grinding out the words like they're sparks struck between his teeth. "Trust me, I've never been less interested in this my whole fucking life."

He's behind his desk because that's where all his stuff is. Not because he needs a physical boundary between them, not because he's hiding. No.

"Could just call this off, right now," he says. "Go our separate ways--"

Spend the rest of their lives acutely, agonisingly conscious of where and who the man is who'll make them complete. Their choice now is between a changed life and a ruined one.

"I mean to do business in London, Mister Starks," he grits out, curling one hand into a tight fist, white-knuckling it. "I'm not abandoning my plans simply because you managed to be-- who you are."

He stumbles over those last words, much to his own irritation.

"We don't need to act on it." A grand plan, when he can feel his knees wanting to buckle, when his stomach feels like a hollow thing, when his heart feels like a fist has wrapped tight around it.

"I'm sure it's been done before."

The fuck it has, Harry wants to spit, what fucking fantasy world are you living in? But he's an idealist at heart, albeit in some of the worst ways possible. He sees the swathes of territory that the Krays are months from leaving vacant, he sees Tommy with his foot soldiers and his money, and there are stars in his eyes. A brighter future.

This is - this is a complication. But it doesn't have to be a roadblock. If they never touch, if they minimise the time they spend alone in the same road - they don't have to seal the deal. Not even when his chest aches and his body feels feverish with bone-deep arousal.

"Alright then," he grits out. Normal meeting. It's a normal meeting. "Care for a drink, Shelby?"

It's all the fucking years getting trampled, getting laughed at in his face when he talked about his ambitions- it's trying to do the right thing and getting laughed at even worse-- it's his family being called backwards idiots and insolent tinkers that has him here.

He has worked his hands to the fucking bone to be here, and he will not let some fucking soulmate bullshit hold him back.

"Whiskey," he says. "Irish." And he steps forward, a few paces, so he can collapse into the chair opposite the desk.

Harry pours him what would be a quadruple measure if he was actually measuring, and a generous Remy Martin for himself, and sets Tommy's glass on the other side of the table.

(Jesus, this man. He'd be Harry's type even if he wasn't his fucking soulmate. Older than his normal tastes run to, obviously, but slim and just - pretty.)

"...So," he says finally. "Plenty of territory going spare, soon enough. You're coming a long way from home to help pick up the slack."

He shivers, almost painfully, when he feels the he's for Harry's fingers on the glass. God, he longs for that touch on his body, his face, his--

"I've kept me ear to the ground," he says, feeling the strength come back to his voice after a few words. "And we've been wanting to expand. It seemed like a good time, and you seem like a good ally."

A good ally-- fuck him, he's about ready to rip the clothes off of him and make-- fuck him in this office. He can't wait to be far away enough again that he doesn't have to look at him, not have to see how handsome he is, how Tommy might have fucked him if circumstances were different.

Harry nods and sips his cognac, beholden to an odd sort of sullenness. Like a child desperately wanting something he knows he can't (or, at least, shouldn't) have. He watches the interplay of muscles in Tommy's throat when he swallows the first sip, the bob of his Adam's apple, and he wants to press biting kisses all over his neck. Leave him bruised and gasping and possessed.

Would he roll over for him, Harry wonders, would he open his legs to be fucked? Would it be his first time? Or would they have to fight it out, rolling around on the bed together, urgent and desperate as they wrestle for dominance. Would he let Tommy fuck him, if he wanted it badly enough?

Christ.

"Better me than the fucking Maltese," he says slowly. "They shouldn't be a problem. They've got their clip joints, their massage parlours - not what you'd call forward thinking."

"Men like you and me," he says, as he feels his face flush, as he feels his cock stiffen just slightly, "we grew up with forward thinking. Didn't we?"

(He's thinking of the first time he fucked a man, in an alleyway in Small Heath. It chafed and they never talked of it again, but he has to think about it now-- he knows it wouldn't be like that with Harry, if they chose to, if they chose to touch each other he knows they'd make each other feel like no one else had made them feel before. But he is not ready, he can't.)

"No reason we shouldn't get along with you and your associates. Is there?"

"Not in the least," Harry says. "The firm won't have a problem with you and yours, so long as you don't fuck us about."

This normally means 'so long as you don't fuck us about beyond the parameters of "fucking about" that are considered inevitable in arrangements such as these'. This time, though, he thinks he would feel - betrayed, if Tommy overstepped even a little. And Harry would feel awful guilt, himself, if he were to take advantage of a good-faith agreement made between the two of them.

(He'd give up all his worldly wealth to kiss him, he thinks, just once.)

"The numbers your man and mine talked over the blower, they still work for you?"

Tommy has betrayed his fair share of people, when it served him- not for just anything, but situations have called for it. Now, though, he knows he has to be very careful about what he agrees to, because whatever it is he'll never want to break.

He nods, sipping his whiskey before taking out a cigarette- he doesn't offer Harry one. That would be too close.

"They still work. I can have fifty men down 'ere within the week, long as you can find 'em lodgings."

"I can. I'm friendly with a few decent landlords - " 'Decent' here meaning 'crooked in a way that is advantageous to Harry and his friends'. "I'll get them housed. And you - "

He glances up from his papers and his drink, chancing eye contact. His pupils are blown; his gaze betrays everything.

"You plan on being around much? Overseeing affairs?"

His hand stutters on its way to his mouth, cigarette hanging loosely between his fingers. His pupils dilate again just looking at Harry, at the way he's holding his pen, at the way his eyes are inspecting him.

"I- was, yes. But I have brothers that can oversee much of it. Keep meself to the North as much as possible."

He doesn't want to, he wants to stay here, right here, within touching distance of Harry, he wants to be close to him. He's practically making himself sick trying to suppress all of this.

"Oh aye?"

Harry watches him, silently, for a few long moments.

"You didn't trust them to broker this, and that's the easiest part. You really trust 'em to get it off the ground?"

He shakes his head, then ducks it to light his cigarette. It sharply illuminates his face for a second before he's clouded in smoke.

"They'll oversee the things I know they can handle. I'll stay as far away as I can when I need to be here."

He keeps himself from saying do you want me to stay? Do you never want me to leave again, do you want me to jump this bloody desk and fuck you in that chair? But some of it is clear from the line if his shoulders, the light in his eyes.

"Alright then."

And so it goes, for the longest three months of Harry's life.

He thought time dragged when he was banged up. He was wrong. Prison has nothing, nothing on the cell of a life without your soulmate in it.

Professionally all goes well, of course. Tommy's boys from Birmingham are reasonably well-behaved, and the firm are as welcoming as they know how to be. The Twins are remanded in custody and their empire is under new management in a matter of days. Say what you like about Shelby - he's a strategist the likes of which Harry has never seen before. Fast, efficient and leaving no room to manoeuvre. It is, at least, bloodless enough - or involving the blood of nobody worthwhile - that the Met just don't care to regroup to take down another contender. Not yet.

Harry's fucking rolling in it, money pouring in from all sides, and he's the most miserable he's ever been.

Food tastes like ash in his mouth. Liquor makes him sleepy and miserable without the warm pleasurable haze. Not even his precious lithium raises his spirits. Sex with his boys is mechanical and joyless; orgasm is about as satisfying as a sneeze. Eventually he just gives up.

He's as good as his word, barely speaking to Tommy, communicating largely through go-betweens. And he feels a sickness of the soul that he thought was limited to Victorian poets as they lay dying of consumption.

Finally, when he knows Shelby's in town, he just stomps miserably out of his Chelsea flat and - unusually - takes his own car to Tommy's lodgings.

The three months weren't kind to Tommy, either. On that first night, he called Polly, and finally he broke, whispering in a tight voice that it's Harry Starks, Pol, it's fucking Starks-

She knew immediately. She didn't urge him to go and embrace his soulmate, because she knows how much this meant to Tommy; she also knows Tommy's heart isn't urged easily, can't be convinced to do anything it doesn't want to do. She tells him to get back to Birmingham, but he's different from then on out. He's short-tempered, snaps where he would usually have waved an irritation off. He wasn't having much sex to begin with, but even wanking has turned into an irritating task, and he stops doing it- apart from mornings when he wakes up hard and aching and has his hand wrapped around his cock before he's fully awake, thinking of a hard London accent and dark hair.

It's so obviously worse when he does go down to London. The handful of times he met Harry it was in a room full of people, a table between them so that their hearts don't betray their minds.

He had expected London to raise him up above everything else. Instead it's made him the most miserable man in any room.

Tommy stays in separate lodgings; the men he's employed for the London jobs need to know that he's apart from them, lest they start rioting. So he stays in something a bit nicer, a bit more upscale, in a slightly nicer part of town. He smokes whole packs of cigarettes while he works, drinks far too much whiskey. When Harry comes calling it's too early in the day for him to be tipsy, but there are circles under his eyes, stress lines on his face. There's a knock, and he attributes the lurch in his chest to the ongoing misery; tries to ignore it, and he calls out: "Who is it?"

"It's me, Shelby." His voice is rough, too, from chainsmoking and a lack of sleep. Usually, in his depressive phases, his vices catch up with him; he drinks too much, overeats, doesn't bother with exercise. It makes him bloated and even more grouchy when he has to loosen his belt a notch. Now, he's tightened it. A lack of interest in everything has seem him lose weight and it's trimmed the fat off his muscle, leaving him a rangy, hungry animal at his soulmate's door.

He takes a short breath and says three words which he's been choking down for weeks now, that he knows are true but have the power to change everything - but everything's already changed, hasn't it? This isn't manageable. Not long-term, not short-term, not at all.

"This isn't working."

He chokes on a breath and stubs out his cigarette before he burns himself- he has some reasonable thought left in him, apparently. He's halfway out of his chair at the window before he's even realized it, hand raised to open the door-

He knows Harry is right. He knows it in the way he wants to pull open that door and pull the man inside and never let him leave him again. But over the past three months, he's started to realize that it's the loss of control that frightens him the most: Harry has already turned him into someone he doesn't recognize. What other things will he do to him?

So instead of opening the door he leans his forehead against the cheap wood, fists clenched at his side.

"You have no idea how hard I've worked to get here, Starks." It's a feeble defense. As if that will keep him away, as if that's convinced Tommy himself.

"And you think I had all this handed to me, do you?" he says, incredulous more than angry. "I started out some dirty kike spiv on the bombsite of my own fucking home, Shelby, everything I've got now I built with my own two fucking hands. But I ain't here to play a game of who had the hardest time of it. All I know is that this, what's come between you and I, right now - perhaps we can work with it, but what we cannot do is waste away trying to ignore it.

He grits his teeth.

"I know that, you know that, so how's about you open the fucking door?"

Anger coils inside of him at that, which is ridiculous, but it works. His eyes are bright and hard when he throws the door open, and before he knows it he's got a fist curled in Harry's collar.

"Don't think you understand me just because there is something written into our biology," he spits, and he hauls Harry inside before kicking the door shut behind him- the neighbors are already peering out the windows, and he won't have an audience for this.

Touching him might have been a mistake but it's the best mistake Tommy's ever made; Harry grabs onto the other man's lapels in turn, gripping so hard his knuckles whiten, and he holds on like he's incapable of letting go. He manhandles him against the door and comes up close, holding his height over the other man.

"I'm not pretending," he hisses. "You're mine, Shelby. I'm yours. If there's one single fucking thing further I need to understand about you, I don't care to know it."

The breath gets knocked out of him when his back hits the door, and he only manages to get it back with extreme effort-- his chest rises and falls in quick bursts, his other hand having come up to Harry's collar. The man's a good four inches taller than Tommy, and it leaves him looking up at him, fire still in his eyes.

"I've no interest in being ruled," he spits, but instead of pushing he's pulling him in, their bodies flush against each other. "Just like you. If we cannot avoid that, I'd rather cut you out."

He needs to know, Harry does, how completely serious Tommy is about this.

"You think I'd want to keep you, do you?" Harry mutters. "Treat you like my boys, have you come and go as I please, take your share in the business?"

He breathes deep, smelling whiskey and cigarette smoke and sweat. His cock twitches in his trousers.

"Nothing would sicken me more, Shelby. You hear me? You're my bond. You're no more my fucking possession than I am yours."

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