Mystrade Oneshots

54) Petals

Angst
Mentions of domestic abuse
Soulmate AU

Another clump of those perfect ice blue petals fell from Greg's arm.

He watched them flow from his wrist, onto his desk and then finally settle in various places on the floor.

A few seconds later another bundle fell from the side of his head and he winced for his soulmate. That one must have hurt.

This was always happening. Nearly everyday he got to see those brilliant blue petals.

He would have been concerned, but he knew their injuries often weren't very serious, because the petals nearly always wilted and dropped off within a minute or so. The worse the injury, the longer the petals stayed.

He also knew his soulmate saw those same brown petals everyday too. Greg was captain of the rugby team at his school, he was always getting hurt in practice and sometimes worse in actual matches.

He broke his nose once. It amused him to think of his soulmate with a large brown flower stuck to their nose for a week.

One day they were going to join up and play for England together, him and his soulmate. The amount they got injured they must practice a lot. They were probably a very good rugby player. Maybe even better than Greg.

"They must be playing another match." He murmured, picking up one of the petals and gently running his finger across it as if it were the cheek of the very person who caused them.

One day he wanted to see these rugby skills for himself. Maybe in more than one context. He was only sixteen, but it didn't hurt to plan ahead.

Years went by and at the age of twenty two, those blue petals stopped falling eveyday.

Greg had panicked for weeks, thinking something awful must have happened to his soulmate because he'd been used to seeing the flowers everyday for about ten years.

But then, when he was out with mates for a night on the town, he saw them. Even through his blurry, drunken eyes he could recognise those petals. They came from a small concentrated space on his index finger and fell onto the cold, wet concrete. A paper cut probably.

He knees became weak and he fell to the floor, cradling his finger, weeping like a baby. His soulmate was alive.

After a while he came to the conclusion that his soulmate must have turned eighteen and went to university, thus ending their rugby days.

Years still passed, decades even. The dream of becoming a famous rugby player had been abandoned years ago when he'd joined the police force.

Now, at the age of forty, he'd moved to London and worked his way up the ranks to Detective Inspector.

He'd also become acquainted with a rather annoying character by the name of Sherlock Holmes. The man was a genius, Greg couldn't deny that, but he was also a pompous git.

But...Greg was desperate. He needed help with the case of a notorious serial killer or many, many people would die, and his pride wasn't worth more than those lives. He was truly in Sherlock's dept, but what he didn't realise was that he was about to be even more so.

"Sherlock, this place is disgusting! You need to actually take care of your flat or they'll kick you out." Greg exclaimed, walking into the flat that Sherlock was currently renting by himself.

"That doesn't matter now, Graham. This is my brother, Mycroft." Sherlock said, pointing vaguely in the direction of a tall, thin man sat in a clean-ish arm chair on the other side of the room. "Now come here."