bakerstreet | Soul Bond

Soul Bond

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Hi captain ❤️

I got 18, 12, 13. Thoughts? ]

[ My thoughts just go angst angst angst. Eren coming to charge up with a reunion while he's falling off the deep end? ]

[ Welcome to one of my fave time periods: the time between when they see the ocean and when Eren bounces in Marley. ]

Eren had known the day they met that they were bonds. He'd seen Levi from afar before, sure, but then the captain was right in front of him. He hadn't really been sure what was going on then, the strange amnesia of having been a titan for the first(?) time. But he'd known when Levi looked back over his shoulder at him. When Levi kicked him in the face the first time. When Levi told his squad to stay their hands.

It had killed him to know he had to leave, to break this thing between them. It is Mikasa, who loves him, who is left with the task of killing him. He often wishes it could be Levi instead.

They're not there yet, even if Eren has seen it in his head a million times, sees it now, lives through it the way he lives through everything at once. Soon, he thinks. They cross the ocean and that's the last time, maybe. He hates that, hates himself for it, comes around to accepting there has never been and will never be another way. He can't tell Levi; the captain, who cares about humanity more than anyone, would never agree or understand.

So he withdraws instead, from everyone, from Levi who he needs. He's an idiot to think no one notices, but in the end that doesn't — can't — matter. He spends time with the others left from the 104th, building a railroad or some shit, while the higher ups do whatever it is they're doing. Eren can see in all directions at once, but not all of it, not this soon. It comes in starts; there are things he keeps from himself, whether he has any idea of that now or not.

Finally, back in the walls, they have time to breathe. Or they say they do; Eren never has time to breathe anymore. He's too busy living the future. But for the moment, he finds his way to the top of the wall and sits there, knees drawn up to his chest, staring out into the distance where the ocean always waits. Obviously no one can see it from here but now they know for sure it's not a lie.

Not a lie, but still a cage. The ocean can never be the freedom Eren wanted, not as long as the people on the other side of it are gunning for the death of everything he loves.

He knows Levi will find him here. What he's unprepared for is how hard that bond attachment is going to hit him when he does.

The way that Eren had withdrawn isn't lost on Levi, how could it be? The emptiness at his bond's absence is something he can't ignore even if he accepts it. He can't force Eren one way or another. No matter if Levi needed him, he couldn't be the one to push Eren too much on it. Levi always respects Eren's decisions after all, gives him the choice even if it's a terrible one.

However, it's been too long. Levi has given him space but now, when the other goes off alone and everyone else is occupied, Levi makes his way to Eren. He doesn't know what to expect, really. Eren's unpredictable these days.

"Eren," Levi says when he comes upon the other on the wall, a place that had been easy to predict.

Eren also doesn't know what to expect. He thinks he does because he knows too much all the time, but nothing really prepared him for the absence of their bond (nothing can prepare him for when he actually leaves, though he lies to himself about that).

Nothing prepared him for how fast he crumbles with Levi standing there above him.

"Captain," he says. He wants to be aloof, neutral, maintain his emotional distance. He's a whole idiot thinking that's possible, and a good chunk of all his old emotion floods into that one word.

He unfolds all at once and stands up, practically vibrating with the need to touch, hands tightly fisted at his sides, trembling.

There's a crack in Levi's usually stoic expression when he's finally face to face with Eren like this. There's no pretenses to keep up when it's just the two of them. He wishes that he understood what all it is that Eren is going through. He doesn't want him to be alone in it but hasn't he been the one that's pushed Eren into too many choices already?

But he still couldn't quite wrap his mind why he pushed him away, their bond gave them both strength... it gave them both a lot of things. Things that Levi had never had before Eren and he would never have after him. Eren is it.

Levi crosses the distance in several swift steps and his hands start at Eren's shoulders and caress slowly down his arms. He won't require an explanation or anything else, right now all he does is respond to what he knows Eren needs.

Eren can only be alone in this, he thinks. There is no other way. It doesn't yet feel profound, the space between them, a chasm he will make uncrossable (or so he thinks; he's always wrong about how people end up feeling about him).

Eren has been taller than Levi since they met, but he's growing. He'll be tall someday, but he's still in between. Taller than he was at fifteen, though, and noticeably so.

Levi's hands move down his arms and he unballs his fists, bloody crescents left behind but healed automatically, tiny wisps of telltale steam drifting up into the air. He turns his hands to catch Levi's, bringing one to his mouth and kissing it.

"Captain," he says again, against Levi's knuckles. "It's been awhile."

He has an insane moment where he thinks maybe it hasn't, maybe that passage of time is wrong in his head. Sometimes it gets weird, after all. Even if he can't trust his perception of time, he can trust his burning need for Levi, made worse because he's made them both wait so long.

Edited (Me unable to type on mobile ) 2024-02-21 06:53 (UTC)

Levi doesn't chide him on hurting himself. he doesn't comment on the blood or the steam that's impossible not to notice. His hand is taken in eren's, and Eren's hand is so warm. His skin is always so warm and Levi idly thinks about how cold he's been without Eren's touch. Of course, he doesn't let himself focus on that.

"It didn't have to be," Levi says simply, a reminder that he's been available and he will remain so. Things are difficult for Eren in ways that no one, including Levi, could probably understand completely. Levi keeps himself controlled, in spite of his desires to draw him in closer, to kiss him he lets Eren maintain the control of the pace since he's the one that had created this distance.

"I know," Eren says, but he thinks it did have to be this way.

With them touching like this, the present is crystal clear. There is always the future/past, time made meaningless in a confusion Eren cannot quite sort out. He'll get better at it, but it won't ever completely go away. For now, though, Levi is an anchor that keeps him here. This is what they should be, he knows.

This is what they cannot be for long, he also knows. Selfishly, he wants to stay here and never leave. He wants to hold on to his captain and the thing between them forever. If he does, he damns the island.

If he doesn't, he damns the world. Eren has never been very good at this sort of balancing act.

He's also never been good at restraint, so he leans down and kisses Levi, more demand than question because he's still Eren. His passion hasn't been burned out or smothered, not yet, and here it comes in full force. The strength he gets from Levi here with him is more than anything he could muster alone and he knows that. He doesn't mean to just take, take, take, but sometimes that's all he can do.

Levi on the other hand is a master of restraint. No matter how much he had wanted to push back, to stop allowing Eren to isolate himself he hadn’t allowed it of himself. He gave Eren what he thought Eren needed or… wanted. Sometimes it’s hard to tell at all what the truth of it might be.

The tight reins he’s held onto all this time loosen with Eren making that move. Eren closes the last bit of distance and Levi can finally meet him back. He kisses back with every ounce of need and desire and all the stress of sleepless nights, everything pent up as he bent to Eren’s will. He reaches up, fingers digging into his hair and holding him into the kiss — not that it’s necessary.

This isn’t the most private of spots but people will be smart enough to make them selves scarce if they happened upon the pair.

“Eren,” a sharp bite to the younger’s bottom lip. “Don’t hold me so far again. If nothing else you’re denying yourself power and strength.”

It's all Eren can do not to make some embarrassing needy sound against Levi's mouth. He barely manages. He's always been too easy to read like this. Why did he think he could cut this off, shut himself away from Levi? Levi has been so many things to him: a hero, an inspiration, a saviour, the other half of his soul, his captain. There are so many words he wants to say and doesn't know how.

Goodbye is not one of them. At least today he doesn't need to. Not yet, not yet.

The sound he was fighting against escapes his lip at that bite. It's barely anything; why is so he so sensitive? He knows the answer — the bond between them and the time he's forced himself to be apart. It makes him want this more.

"Okay, Captain," he says. "I don't need power, though." A lie. "I just need you." Not a lie.

Levi reaches up to cup Eren's cheek, sighing softly. He knows that Eren needs power, that he needs Levi to have that power. But it's not all about power, Levi knows that too.

"I am yours," Levi says simply. "Take what you need."

He kisses him, eyes closing and heat, desire rising in him.

Take what you need, Levi says, and Eren feels like he might break into pieces. Isn't that what he's always done? Take, take, take. There is no give left in him. Maybe there never was; he's always been selfish. He acts on his own whims as often as not, and that was true long before he realised how much of his life was already orchestrated and set out — but at least he's doing this to himself.

Isn't that still free will?

He kisses back once more, mouth opening, demanding, hungry. Take.

His hands move around Levi's back, down to his ass, pulling them flush against each other. They shouldn't do this here, but Eren doesn't care. This thing between them hasn't been a secret in a long time. They were made for each other. Who can argue with that now?

Levi would have demanded another location normally. He even thinks of it now but it's been so long since Eren's touched him, kissed him. If tried to move their venue there's the chance that Eren will pull away from him again and then how long would it be before he came back?

So he doesn't protest, doesn't protest anything that he might have once upon a time. Eren trumps everything else, all of his idiosyncrasies.

Kissing Eren feels like freedom. Levi's free to pour his feelings, his desires for the other into the kiss, groaning as their bodies press flush. His spine tingles and he finally tries tugs Eren down to the ground with him even if it forces their bodies apart to get to move from standing.

Part of Eren thrills at Levi's lack of protest. There was a time there would be absolutely zero chance of kissing in public, let alone anything else. In this, too, Eren will push as far as he can for as long as he can. It's in his nature, running wild through any barrier he's allowed to for his entire life.

That isn't to say he doesn't respect what Levi wants. He wants to be needed, to make Levi happy too. He's wanted Levi's praise about everything since the day they met. He's just…also Eren.

He lets Levi pull him down without protest. He's a little clumsy about it, not wanting to let go enough to make that transition very fluid. Could be worse, though. He ends up on his knees; if he scrapes one, it doesn't matter to him. That will heal so fast he won't have time to notice it, these days.

"I miss you," he says, and he means it, even if the distance between them is (will always be) his fault. Even if this is the last time (he's not sure; he can't pinpoint time correctly), he will always, always need more of Levi than he gets to have. That's just the way of the world.

He hates that. He longs for the freedom to just be them, unencumbered by anything else. There is no such thing. He'll take what he can get.