Work Text:
Sherlock Holmes isn't a man of poetry. He never has been. Sure, he has read significant literature before. As you do, seeking a higher education. He also couldn't deny to have found it particularly helpful when attempting to learn a new language. He has begun with his mother tongue at the age of five with Treasure Island, and one book has followed the next. Le Petit Prince in French, Dornröschen and Faust in German, Petrarchan sonnets in Italian, Los detectivos savajes in Spanish. As you do. Crime and Punishment in Russian, Li Bai's works in Chinese, and that bit of Arabic he could understand had certainly sounded like poetry to him when he had heard Victor speak it. And yes, if you must know, he may have enjoyed some of that literature.
But he doesn't write poetry. Why waste your time on something so trivial to his work? Also: why risk giving away more of what lays in the very depths of your heart than strictly necessary? (Which has already been more than enough at this point.)
Therefore, he hasn't planned for this letter to be written, has never meant for a piece of paper to turn him inside out and expose himself. But, as is a burden to him on so many occasions these days, he couldn't hold it in for much longer.
In the short space of time, which make a few hours on his own still, hours in which he's waiting for John to find him in this empty house, waiting for his psychopathic wife, he finds himself holding in his shaking hands a pen and a piece of paper. Before he knew it the tip of the pen scribbles over the empty space to fill it out, and he starts to write.
“'I can take them on my own.' I have always said that. Or I wouldn't be the one you know, would I? It's cold, even in here (without you). Even that coat collar can't protect me from this (from my feelings, from the pain). I have trouble feeling my own heartbeat. It could be so hard to admit and yet it is so easy now. I am a frightened man.
I may have to kill a man, and once they know I'll be on the run and go. Again. (Alone.) By now, you could be used to watch me struggle. Always from several rooms away. Even if you were right beside me. I would always find a way to hide away. Too afraid to say, 'Tonight I need you to stay'.
So what now? You're so far gone, I'm gone on you. It shouldn't be so hard. And yet.
Don't want to call you in the night time, don't want to give you all my pieces. Nor hand you all my trouble, or give you all my demons. Oh trust me, there be demons. In here, these walls. This 'palace', in which I hide away while you have to watch me struggle from several rooms away. But tonight I need you to stay.
There are just so many things I didn't say.
John. So many times where I would have needed your saving arms around me. Catch me before I fall further. (Fall for you.) I was once so afraid of falling.
Now I am standing on both my feet, up against the wall. Hear them coming down the hall. You remember these halls from that first night? The first of many nights (in which you saved me from myself and thus, my life). You have killed a man, but you must know, oh, my turn now to run and go.
Don't want to call you in the night time, don't want to give you all my pieces, don't want to hand you all my trouble, nor give you all my demons. No longer I can watch you struggle from several rooms away. Tonight, I'll get you. I need you to stay.
The nights alone are way too cold, the thunder growls so strongly. It reminds me of the one-way conversations, my blood is pumping hotly. I cannot take the world all by myself, cannot take them on my own. But would you really hear the pain if I just,
Called you in the night time, and gave you all my pieces? Handed you all my trouble, showed you all my demons? Would you have closed your eyes to all my struggles, or washed my blood away? Would you have listened if I had asked you to stay?
Is it too late to ask you to take my hand and run away? Tonight I need you to stay.
The run and go together sounds surprisingly okay. Tonight I need you to say.
Over cold winters or the ornate fields of May. Tonight I need you to say.
I need you to stay, I need you to stay, I need you to stay. And if you stay tonight and the sun sees another day, I will still need you to stay.”