Prompt 30: Diary
'John. This exercise seems to be as useless to me as it was to you, writing a diary of one's experiences is something best left to adolescent girls and the forgetful. I can not forget, will not forget. Would you forgive me if you knew that I have attempted to delete all recollection of you from my mind palace? Based on our previous interactions I don't doubt that you would. Still, I yearn to ask you, to hear your voice assuage my fears beyond all doubt. It was a pointless exercise because you, my dearest John, have become so much a part of me that to separate us would be the cruelest form of torture, like tearing one's very being apart. I suffer this pain and worse, the knowledge that you suffer it too in my absence, though at times, when I truly lose my grip on what is real and what is just the palace in my mind playing memories and fantasies before me, I get to see you one more, hear your voice as though you are whispering in my ear. It's probably not good that I get such relief when you do not, but I would not stop these imaginary yous from tormenting me so sweetly even if I could. You have ruined me John Watson, without even trying you have ruined me and I should by all rights detest you for it, this vulnerability that you have created in me, that has caused me to have to leave you, but I cannot.
Strange, isn't it? How the mind is almost constantly at work without us ever realising? I for one do not recall saving the fifty seven various inflections you use when saying my name and their various meanings, nor do I remember inventing a subsequent twelve for how you might say my name if we were to allow what was growing between us to consummate, or was it just me staring at your mouth for hours on end, wondering if it could possibly be a soft as it looked. You have a habit of licking your lips, did you know? I doubt it for if you did you would surely stop and that would be a crime, I could never tear my eyes away from that tiny flicker of tongue pulling across your lips. A very welcome distraction. Some nights, after a very hard chase or a quiet dinner at Angelo's, there would be a moment, a pause so pregnant that even the slightest of movements would break the spell but in those moments, staring at each other in the dark, I could truly believe that you wanted me, in every possible sense of the word. If that is the case then I hope that some day you will forgive me for this, for leaving you so coldly.
Even now, a full year later I can still see your face when you visited my grave. So many things left unsaid between us, even now in death we can't seem to find the courage to confess. I have been gone a long time, and will be gone for so much longer still, and I wonder often if you will have found someone else to take care of and hold close while I'm away, a girlfriend that won't be disturbed by The Work or rather just me so she'll stay, and you'll get your normal life and a beautiful wife and the 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. I was always selfish, but in this I find myself to be more so than even I thought I would be. I would begrudge you that comfort, the normality and stability she would provide just so I could make sure you stayed mine, even if we were simply flatmates once more, although simple was never a word that I would have used to describe our relationship.
I can't share you John, I was the youngest child in a ridiculously upper class family, I was never taught to share what belongs to me, and surely you know that you are mine? It goes without saying that I am yours also, for what else could I be when you would kill for me, die for me, over and over again you would do it just to be sure that I was safe. I have been yours since the first moment. I know that to have you with me, or to tell you that I am alive would be the death of you, and here I am selfish again because I will force you to live without me just so I don't have to live without you. I am trying desperately to make it safe for me to come home to you, but Moriarty's web was a tangled one and I must break every strand, crumble each one into dust before I can return.
It is... Harrowing. I love the mystery, the puzzle of a case, but these are generally brutal, no finesse or care taken, no genius behind the crimes. I'm sitting in one of the old hide outs I have... Cleared. If anyone were to see me (apart from expressing shock at the fact that I'm not dead) they would surely laugh at the sight. I do not look my self. By way of a disguise I am going unshaven, and wearing clothes that once would only have been good for sleeping in as my everyday attire. People avoid eye contact with a homeless man you see, and they can slip by unnoticed into the strangest places in the world. The real reason for their mirth would undoubtedly come from what I am writing in. It belonged to Molly not so long ago, but she gave the fluffy pink monstrosity to me as a parting gift and instructed me to use it as I am now. These thoughts are not going to cease simply because I have written them down, that would be ridiculous. No. But perhaps, in the future, if you see fit to forgive me for this, I will give them to you, my letters to you I suppose is what they are.
If you are going to read these then I may as well be honest. I miss you. Every fibre of my being misses you and thoughts of you are the only thing that convinces me to keep going. You are an extraordinary man John, and I thought that I was telling the truth when I said that being alone protected me because it always has before, but I was wrong. You have protected me and fought for me and been the best friend anyone could possibly ask for and I thought I didn't need you but I do, more than I need the work or relief from boredom. I need you like Mycroft's assistant needs her phone, I need you like Mrs Hudson needs to reassure us that she is not our housekeeper, I need you like Lestrade needs sleep, I need you like Mycroft needs to be in control, I need you more than I need myself. I can't help but hope that you need me too, because the point of no return has long since passed for me and I think the damage would be irreparable should you leave me. Perhaps the Greeks were right, and we were truly born with four arms, four legs, and a single heart, split into two beings and dropped to the Earth, trying to find one another again to complete ourselves. Perhaps you were given the heart and I was given the head.
I know there is something rather significant that I have not written, but you know, don't you? How could you possibly not know how much I love you? Love is a chemical defect found in the losing side, and I would happily be part of the losing side forever if it meant that you loved me too. I love you so much that my heart clenched just thinking of you, it's rather disconcerting actually and highly illogical but I think I like it, a reminder that you are the only heart I'm likely to have. I am here John, in your position exactly on the other side of the world and taking comfort in the idea that perhaps the air that I'm breathing has passed through your lungs before being carried to me. I will never stop telling you how much you have come to mean to me when I come home. Wait for me, my dearest John. I will come home for you.
Love, now and always,
SH'
A/N: Happy halloween guys! Have two for the price of one today just because!