By: timespaceandabluebox (Team Green Government)
John and Sherlock's love has lasted through more than one lifetime. Songs used: Gay Pirates, Baby's a Red, and Oh No!
They had lived at least two lives together before the current one. John wouldn’t have been a great believer in reincarnation, but he had reincarnated at least four times, so he didn’t really have a choice. Sherlock had reincarnated the two times John knew of, but he wasn’t aware of it and wouldn’t have believed John.
Neither of the two lives before had ended well, and the lives where they hadn’t been together had been even worse. But John had high hopes for this life.
The first life that they had found each other, as soul mates, John was already John, but Sherlock was called Sebastian. They were pirates.
More accurately, John was a pirate with some medical experience, which meant he was respected and valued and even got his own cabin, and Sherlock – or Sebastian, as he was called in that life – was a slave of the pirates on the same ship as John.
John was working hard, as usual, when he ran into Sebastian. Literally ran into him, because he had been running and not watching where he was going.
“Oh, sorry,” John said, feeling bad for knocking over one of the young slaves on the ship.
“’Sal right I know you’re on your way to check on the captain,” said the young boy or teenager. It was hard to tell what age he was, because he could’ve been scrawny with malnutrition or with youth.
“How did you know that?” John asked. No one was supposed to know the captain had taken ill.
The boy smirked. “It’s obvious from the way you act. I ain’t stupid.”
“Am not,” John corrected absentmindedly. This boy was brilliant, if he could really tell why he was in a rush. “What’s your name, boy?”
“I ain’t – am not a boy. I’m fourteen years old,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height. “An’ I’m Sebastian.”
“Okay, Sebastian, I’ll be wanting to talk to you later. Come to my cabin later tonight. Don’t worry about any curfew.” John wanted to learn exactly how intelligent the boy was. They could use more intelligent lads. But he had to get to the captain.
Sebastian’s smirk got bigger but he nodded and scampered off.
After supper John returned to his room to find Sebastian was waiting outside for him. “Have you been here long?” he asked.
“Nah,” Sebastian said. “We goin’ in or what?”’ John was a bit surprised about how forward he was being, but it wasn’t like he cared.
“Yes. Please come in. Have you eaten?” They went into John’s cabin. It was small, but it was nowhere near as cramped as most places on the ship.
“Nice room,” Sebastian said. Then he pressed himself up against John. He was taller than John had thought, and his mouth reached John’s neck. “So what do you want?”
John shoved Sebastian back when he realized what he meant. “I don’t want you to be my whore,” he said, scandalized. He knew this sort of thing was common enough, but he had never wanted to partake in it.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “There’s no other alternative reason you could have to bring me here.”
“I wanted to teach you, because you seem like an intelligent lad!”
Sebastian frowned and stared at his hands. “It’s unusual that I get something wrong.” He looked up through his lashes. “Too bad. You’re the first one to ask that I wanted to fuck.”
John frowned and tried not to be flustered. Sebastian noticed anyway and laughed at him. “You liked hearing that, didn’t you? But you aren’t going to do anything about it. Just start teaching me.”
John did, although he grew more and more unnerved as the night went on, because Sebastian seemed to know what he was going to do before he did it. Sebastian seemed to blossom under the praise John gave him every time he predicted something right.
They continued the lessons and John was planning to ask the captain to let Sebastian to join the crew, because he was the smartest and most interesting person John had ever met and deserved better than he had. Afterwards, when he thought about it, John realized he had been in love with Sebastian almost from the beginning.
But Sebastian’s fellow slaves were not pleased Sebastian had allowed himself to become what they called “John’s pet.” They gang-raped him, put glass in the sandals John had given him and forced him to keep them on. After binding up Sebastian’s bleeding feet for what felt like the hundredth time, John couldn’t deal with, and went down to where they kept the slaves to talk to them. It was more like yelling at them, though.
Instead of being intimidated, though, the slaves threatened to kill Sebastian unless he helped them plan their munity. John agreed.
Later at night, during their usual lesson, Sebastian asked, “Why didn’t you let them kill me?”
“Because you’re too brilliant to die,” John said. “Now recite to me all the countries in Europe.”
“Europe is boring,” Sebastian said, but let them continue on with the lesson.
Soon after, John sent Sebastian to go to bed. “You won’t learn anything if you’re tired.”
Sebastian grumbled, but stood up to go. “Thanks for risking your life for me,” he mumbled as he left. “I love you.”
He was gone before John could reply. John wasn’t sure if he had heard that right, but he had gotten to know Sebastian well in the past weeks, and he was sure that he would never say he loved John without meaning it in a romantic way. He was too awkward about emotions for that.
Sebastian arrived late the next day. John had been worried he wouldn’t show up at all. Finally, he heard the knock on the door of his cabin.
When he let Sebastian in, Sebastian seemed reluctant and sulky and didn’t even say hello. John didn’t like to see him so worried, so he made the stupid decision to kiss him once the door was closed.
John had meant for it to be a short, simple kiss, but Sebastian responded quickly and deepened the kiss. Their noses knocked together when Sebastian tried to get his tongue in John’s mouth and John pulled back.
Sebastian was smirking. “Shouldn’t’ve been worried, should I have?” he said. “Knew you liked me. Just wasn’t sure you’d let yourself have me.”
John tried not to be embarrassed. “Sit down. Today you’ll be learning about medicine.”
Sebastian frowned. “After that you expect me to listen to you talk?” He sat down. “I suppose I’ll be interested if it’s about anatomy.”
John swallowed. “I’m not taking advantage of you.” He sat down.
Sebastian made eye contact. “You wouldn’t be.”
After, John and Sebastian sat in John’s hammock. “Sebastian, let’s go far away.”
Sebastian laughed. “How? When? I’m not allowed off the ship when we stop.”
They sat in silence for a while, but then Sebastian left with a kiss. John knew it wasn’t going to end well.
It didn’t. Not three weeks later, the captain found out John had been conspiring with the slaves because of a young boy. He made them walk the plank.
“We’ll meet again,” John said as they got onto the plank.
Sebastian just laughed at him as he fell.
The second time they met, John had been a skinny American named Dave and Sherlock had been a woman named Rose. It was the1950s, and Dave was a regular, all-American guy working at his father’s mechanic shop. Rose, on the other hand, was a Soviet spy.
They met when Dave was walking to the bar to meet with his friends.
“Do you have a light?” said a voice from the shadows. A very feminine voice. Dave was already interested.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling out his matches and lit her up. “I’m Dave. What’s your name?”
She smiled wolfishly. “I’m Rose. I’ve just moved here. Care to show me around?” She had an accent Dave couldn’t place and she was more forward than any polite lady he had ever met, but Dave sure didn’t mind.
“Sure. I’m going down to the bar to meet up with some of my friends. Care to come?” She nodded and they started walking.
The more they talked, the more Dave felt like he had met Rose before. Then, just as she had ordered her second beer, it hit him.
“You’re Sebastian!” he said. She just gave him a weird look. Could it be that she wasn’t really the pirate boy from his past life?
No, he decided. Rose just didn’t remember being Sebastian. Either way, Dave was already in love.
Dave had to romance her for several months before she gave in. “I don’t do love; don’t do friends. And I don’t need a relationship,” she said.
“We’re friends,” Dave pointed out.
“Caring is not an advantage.” They were sitting on Dave’s roof and smoking. It was windy, so Rose’s red hair was getting all messed up. John had to stop himself from reaching out to fix it. She didn’t like that sort of thing.
Dave stubbed out his cigarette. “That’s not true and you know it.”
“It is true.” She wasn’t looking at him, but her face looked sad.
“What’s wrong?” He tried to get Rose to look at him, but she wouldn’t. That’s when he knew for sure something was wrong.
She glared at him. “Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong. Are you in trouble with someone?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. But I’m a Communist spy, so nothing good could come from caring about a capitalist.”
At least she trusted him. “I don’t care,” Dave said.
She raised a single eyebrow.
She shook her head. “You may not, but I do.” She didn’t sound convinced to Dave.
“Well . . . we may not agree on religion, but we both care about the working man. Besides, I love you.”
“Haven’t we known each other for too short a time for it to be love?” she said. But She had leaned towards him and was smiling that wolfish smile.
“I feel like I’ve known you for a lot long than that, though, wouldn’t you agree?” Dave said, then kissed her. She didn’t even hesitate before responding in kind. Everything had gone better than expected.
Two weeks later she was caught and arrested. Some of the people in town implicated Dave, too, because he had been dating her. They were imprisoned and both caught pneumonia. Within five weeks of being in jail, they were both dead.
So understandably, the next time John met his soul mate, and he was a British private detective named Sherlock, he was cautious. Even though he fell in love with Sherlock painfully quickly, he figured that if they got together he would end up dying somehow. So even though it was painful, John resisted the urge to try start a relationship and told himself it was enough to just be friends.
After the Reichenbach incident, John cursed himself for waiting, and thought about committing suicide, so he could skip to the next life. But a certain feeling told him not to, so he held on.
He was eternally grateful for that feeling when Sherlock came back to him, miraculously still alive. He decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. The gamble paid off.
