A/N: The first (and so far only) human!AU I've written; it started out very randomly one evening inspired by a post on tumblr for the following prompt:

"Soulmate!AU where you wake up on your 18th birthday with the first words your soulmate will say to you tattooed on your body, so you'll know them when you meet them."

It was originally meant to be just a one-shot that I had written in one go, with no real plans on continuation, but people on tumblr asked for a sequel and I actually did have some more ideas, so there'll be one more chapter with a conclusion to this little AU.
Hope you enjoy :)

When John Noble had woken up on his eighteenth birthday, he hadn't even thought to check his body for the ominous words he knew would most likely be haunting him for a good part of his life (as they were wont to do with most people).
That day had passed in a blur of grey rain clouds and countless offers of condolences from darkly dressed people he barely took any note of - some more genuine than others - as he found himself alone in the world, for good now. The last living member of the Noble family.

It hadn't been until a week later when he'd bumped his toe on one of the moving boxes and taken his sock off to check how bad it was that he'd discovered the small words on the inside of his right ankle:

'Blimey, and I thought my choice had been bad!'

The realisation of the meaning behind the tattoo had come crushing down on him, and the tears he had stubbornly managed to hold back all week finally found their escape down his cheeks.

What was the point of letting people get close to him when he was just going to lose them again?

He decided to never let his eyes linger on those words again - out of sight, out of mind - choosing to cover his ankle with long trousers even in the hottest of summers, earning him several raised eyebrows on occasion.

But words of such importance had a way of burning themselves deeply into memory, anyway.

And so John still found himself having dozens of small near heart attacks in the course of the following years, whenever he heard a stranger around him say 'blimey'.
The shock of the moment was usually quick to fade again though, since it often ended at only that single word or in a completely different context, and as more and more time passed he began to react continually less to hearing it.

As he grew older and the pain of loss lessened just the slightest bit with time, he began opening up enough to allow some attraction to affect him. He went through a few casual relationships, keeping things nice and simple, often with the help of not having exchanged those fateful words on first meetings, so his partners tended not to be hurt too much if he decided to end things between them when they grew a little too close for comfort to him – they still had their soulmates waiting for them somewhere, after all.

Ending his last relationship had been a little harder than usual, though, and it had made him wary of throwing himself into another one, so he enjoyed his single life for a longer while.

It wasn't until he began noticing an attractive blonde on the same bus he tended to take home in the evenings, who started to greet him with kind smiles after the first few times they shared it, that he began warming up to the potential idea of dating again. The bus tended to be horribly crowded due to the hour, though, so he always spotted her on the other end of it, with dozens of people blocking his way. And with her getting out several stops before his, they never really got into conversation.

The more often they shared the bus, the brighter her smile seemed to get, and one time his answering grin must have been ridiculously wide, since he saw her biting her full bottom lip to hold in the laughter that he swore he could see sparkling in her eyes, even over the distance.

They began communicating via facial expressions and hand gestures after that; it started with an exchange about a fellow drunk passenger whose stench of alcohol was filling the bus in a most unpleasant way, and later about the premises they passed, gesticulating to let the other know if they liked a pub with both thumbs pointing up or advised against visiting a particular restaurant with a grimace and shake of head. He even concluded that she must've eaten spoilt food in one, when she seemed to hold her belly with one hand (as far as he could see, at least) and the back of the other against her forehead, hinting at sickness – her adorably scrunched up face underlining the notion. He made a mental note to stay away from that one.

John was beginning to actually look forward to the crowded rides home, the silly 'communication' with his mysterious, pretty blonde filling him with more joy than he would ever have expected. (Once she had gifted him with a gorgeous tongue touched smile after a particularly enthusiastic gesture of his, making his stomach flutter in a peculiar way. He was definitely looking forward to the possibility of getting another smile of that kind.)

When the bus wasn't quite as crowded as usual for the first time ever since he'd noticed her one evening, he made his way over to where he'd spotted her, pushing past people with half-hearted apologies, but when he finally reached her seat, she was distracted by a conversation with someone on the phone.

He froze when he realised she was talking to what sounded very much to be her bloke, who she'd apparently be meeting at the next stop from what he gathered.

'Course such a gorgeous woman would be already taken – he should've expected it, really.
Didn't stop his heart from sinking, though.

(But then again, maybe it was better that way, a small voice at the back of his mind told him. He didn't even really know anything personal about her, and yet he was already feeling a connection – he would've probably just run into danger of getting way too close to her, anyway. In a way he might not be able to handle if he were to lose it again.)

He quickly made his way to a close free seat before she could turn her head and spot him (and the disappointed look on his face), and plopped down into it. But soon after his bum met the surface, he realised there was a reason why the seat had been free and that he'd made a mistake by sitting down on it; cold wetness seeped through the material of his trousers, making him jump up and automatically wipe at the wet part. His hands came back sticky and when he sniffed at them he pulled a face, cursing about 'of course having to choose the one seat drenched with beer, of all things' under his breath.

This just wasn't his day.

He stared awkwardly at his hands, unsure of what to do about them, when a voice suddenly sounded right behind his shoulder.

"Blimey, and I thought my choice had been bad!"

John turned and saw his lovely (and sadly most likely already taken, he reminded himself) blonde standing next to him, with her tongue tucked between her teeth in a (gorgeous) grin and amusement sparkling in her eyes, and he was so surprised by the sudden sight that it took him a moment to notice she was pointing at her feet. Following her gesture with his eyes, he saw her lift her right shoe off the ground, pulling sticky strings from a chewing gum along with it.

When he looked up again after she'd put it back down, he only had the split of a second to react when she threw a packet of tissues at him, stumping him again with the sudden action.

"Gotta hurry - return them later?" she requested with a bright smile while making her way to the open doors (he hadn't even noticed the bus had come to a stop), the chewing gum making smacking noises under her shoe, and gave him a small wave before stepping out of the bus.

He never even got to say a word before the doors closed behind her and the bus began to move again.

John stared at the packet of tissues in his hand, before finally getting one out and making use of it. As he was wiping his hands, he replayed the scene that had just occured in his mind, and he registered only then that she'd used the once dreaded expression 'blimey' – and that it had been the first time he'd ever heard anyone say that exact, complete phrase actually directed at him... Funny coincidence, that.

He had seen her on so many evenings in the bus, communicating in that comical, silent way of theirs - creating a connection between them that would actually make him call her an acquaintance by now - that it didn't even dawn on him that those had also been the first words she'd ever actually said to him until the bus reached his stop.