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My tears are falling onto my fingers; the past fast-forwards through the ticking moments. As the love I bestowed upon him turns to mist today, I am struck by the sudden, staggering realisation that I am but a bankrupt player in the gambling game of fate. I garnered the whole of my sincerity to offer him, only to receive a turn-back in return, and a silence so profound it borders on the ghastly.
Within that vast, murky void, only another alter ego of mine continues to exist. Confused, I stand beside myself, ears straining to listen. I have split my very soul into two halves: one half collapsed under the weight of injury, and the other standing by, helplessly witnessing it. I long to hold my own shoulders, trembling in the piercing cold; I long to draw near to soothe the foolish child sobbing within my chest. I want to say, “Forget him, why must you remain so wretched?” Indeed, why should I exile myself within the bitter nectar of memory? Why yearn for a man who never, from the very beginning, belonged to my mundane world? Yet the moment that reason speaks, it is instantly suffocated by the frailty of my heart.
London is raining again today, that persistent, drizzling mist that clings stubbornly to each ancient brick of the streets, caressing the bleak, grey rooftops before dissolving into a dense fog. I stand by the window of my office at Scotland Yard, my fingers idly tracing the rim of a teacup that has long since gone cold. The cigarette smoke drifts listlessly from my fingertips, mingling with the damp, ethereal air.
I remember those first days, when the London sun still held a lingering, sweet remnant of autumn, pale and feeble as it perched upon the shoulder of your coat. Meeting you, the powerful man who stands behind the shadows of the government, a Mycroft Holmes remote and immutable, was something I had never dared to dream of. But destiny is a cruel jester. From our very first glance that year, when your sharp eyes locked onto mine, I felt a strange, almost maddening sensation. It was not the awkwardness of two strangers, but a deep, secret familiarity, as though we had known each other in some far-distant past life, and were now unwittingly finding one another again amidst the vast sea of humanity. You stood there, leaning on your familiar black umbrella, proud and solitary, whilst I was merely a commonplace inspector, covered in the dust of the mortal world. Yet, that immense chasm was somehow erased by an invisible thread, pulling me inexorably into your firmament.
During that time, I loved you with all the foolish, pure devotion of a man who thought himself long hardened by life. I gathered the most extravagant, absurd dreams, wishing that the stars in the night sky might descend to illuminate our clandestine love. Every rendezvous, every hurried touch of hands behind the leather seats of that sleek, black motorcar left my soul intoxicated, drunk on the wine of passion. I loved you as one loves the most pristine elements of youth, an unmerited, uncalculating affection, offering nothing but unblemished devotion. In the late evenings, I would sit waiting for you beneath the amber glow of the streetlamp, my heart silently singing songs of anticipation, counting every second, every minute until your tall, slender, stiff yet utterly elegant figure emerged from the corner of the street. Then, I truly believed I could use the warmth of an ordinary man to thaw a heart frozen by political machinations and the burdens of the state.
You gave me a taste of love’s breathless sweetness. The tightly held embraces in the dark, your breath always carrying a faint sweetness, and the exceedingly subtle tremor of your shoulders when you dropped your guard before me all of it was intoxicating, all of it as radiant as a midsummer night’s dream. You taught me the ultimate vibration of the soul, when two entirely different spirits find resonance in every single beat.
But life is ruthless in its fairness. Hand in hand with those intoxicating days were the bitter pills I was forced to swallow day after day. Loving a Holmes was never an easy feat, and with Mycroft, it was a gamble in which I held a hand destined to lose. You belong to the nation, to the dark secrets that cannot be brought to light. I had to learn to accept ornate falsehoods, sudden disappearances without a word of farewell, and that utter coldness whenever you donned the mask of the "ruler". There were nights when I would startle awake in an empty room, with nothing left but the faint, lingering scent of your incense upon the pillow, whilst you were already far away, plunged into some invisible war on the other side of the globe. That bitterness seeped slowly, gradually into my flesh and blood, like a gentle yet fatal poison, reminding me that I would never truly, fully possess this man.
Love, from past to present, is a whirlwind. It arrives unannounced, sweeping away every prejudice, every defensive barrier of a middle-aged man who has already crossed the meridian of his life. Though anyone would know what would happen in a flash, I still accepted it all, the gentle joys along with the damnation. How could I forget those late evenings in the quiet room, when you cast off your proud overcoat to rest your head upon my shoulder, your breath smelling faintly of tea mingled with a subtle scent of incense. That was a gentle joy, a redeeming happiness that seemed capable of erasing all class divides. Yet, it came hand in hand with a relentless chain of damnation. It was the cold glances when you stood before colleagues, the traceless disappearances following secret orders, and my own sense of helplessness as I stood on the periphery of your life, forever unable to touch the core of a magnificent, solitary mind.
The rift came as silently as a mould consuming the fibres of timber. I, with all the instinct of a man who loved truly, tried to draw closer to you. I wanted to share the burden upon those slender shoulders; I wanted to warm the freezing winter nights with my crude warmth. But that devotion, ironically, gradually became a burden to a man like Mycroft. You were accustomed to controlling the entire world with pure algorithms and reasoning; you viewed emotion as a redundant variable, a flaw in your perfect defence system. My ardour, my inquiring messages, my anxious embraces in your eyes, perhaps, they had merely become a nuisance.
And then, what was bound to come, arrived.
One melancholy day, following the persistent tolling of the telephone, I was dragged away from the dust-laden case files at Scotland Yard. The voice from the other end of the line was both familiar and distant. Why did it feel so estranged? I did not wish to explain; I did not wish to investigate, but you shattered my illusions.
You opened with an apology as fragile as mist, informing me that the dinner I had anticipated all week long was to be cancelled due to an unexpected, urgent meeting. You told me not to wait, saying that in the next two or three days you would proactively seek me out when a gap in your schedule permitted. Upon hearing my long, utterly helpless sigh through the receiver, you lowered your voice slightly, uttering the name "Gregory" with a touch of sternness, reproaching me for why I must always sulk and withdraw myself in the face of the obvious. You reminded me of your position and the burden upon your shoulders things that had existed long before the words "friends" or some ambiguous title bound us together. You said you could not abandon the greater good merely to indulge daily whims, things that, in your rational world, were perhaps nothing more than a fickle caprice.
Then, as if recognising the cruelty within your own words, you softened your tone to soothe me, shifting instead to a dry, hollow apology. Your time, from the very beginning, had never belonged to yourself, let alone to me. You denied any coldness; you explained that it was merely pure busyness. Yet the manner in which you hastily redirected the conversation towards a professional request felt like a blade gently, ruthlessly slicing through my pride. You required the assistance of this inspector for a fair, rational transaction.
But the zenith of the agony did not lie in that busyness. It arrived when you uttered the words that would decree the fate of this misguided romance. You confessed that you could no longer maintain your footing in a state of constant anxiety, caution, and vigilance against every risk. The way our relationship functioned had, to a man who prized absolute control like yourself, seemingly become an onerous obstacle. You hesitated, searching for a word to define it, before settling upon a temporary cessation of contact as the most peaceful means of purgation. Amidst the tense political negotiations and macro-schemes out there, you could not permit yourself to be distracted by a commonplace man. "I am certain you understand," you concluded with an imposing assertion, granting me not a single chance to explain or to hold on.
That day, I lost myself.
I offered a bitter smile to no one, raising a hand to run through my hair. At this age, the dark locks of my youth, once brimming with enthusiastic vigour, had now turned almost entirely grey. The face in the mirror was deeply etched with the lines of time and sleepless nights. I am growing old; the Gregory who once belonged to you is feebly aging according to the immutable laws of nature. Yet, strange and agonising though it was, whilst time could ravage my flesh and fade many a memory, it remained utterly powerless against the love I harboured for you. My soul is still intoxicated, still madly yearning for those bygone days. Whenever I face the silent night alone, the loneliness tears at me, an incessant ache reminding me that this wound of the heart has not healed for a single day.
I wonder, when a day comes that this head of hair is completely white, when my legs can no longer step firmly, and this breath becomes a faint gasp, will I at last be able to cease loving you? That question echoes in my mind like a somber reverberation from the void, yet the answer from the depths of my soul is but a hopeless shake of the head. No, I shall never cease to love you. That love has become a fragment of destiny, a sacred faith that I am willing to carry with me into the deep grave.
You have gone far away, flown back to your own vast firmament, leaving me with bitter reminiscences and a void that nothing can ever fill.
oOo
I have nothing left. Love, heart, time, devotion all the most splendid treasures of a human existence- I offered entirely to you with both hands, only to receive an empty palm in return. The most fragile and reverent part of my soul, ironically, was crushed without mercy by your powerful fingers, crumbling into everlasting dust.
Yet a cruel fate still forces me to share the very air you breathe. The suffocating weight of having to meet you again, merely due to the complications surrounding Sherlock, causes my chest to tighten, strangling me to the absolute limit. Confronting the man I once loved so deeply, the man who banished me from his life with a cold word, I see nothing but an utter, abysmal emptiness. I am in such pain, a dull yet ferocious agony, clawing through every fibre of muscle, every vein. I want to weep, to scream until I pierce the high heavens, to shatter this facade of composure... and yet, and yet I still smile. I smile to greet you; I smile socially at everything around me. I know I am not well.
The hollow within me now resembles a cosmic black hole, ruthlessly and greedily devouring what little faint light remains, leaving only a dizzying, dreamlike illusion of time. I know I must depart; this city, this police station, or this very dark alcove of nostalgia no longer holds a place for me. I am like a misfit in a universal world, walking down a crowded street as though strolling through a graveyard of dead emotions. The emptiness encompasses me, swallowing me into nothingness.
As my weary steps take me through the valley of life, I ought to know there is a dark shadow gripping my feet, seeking to drag me deep into the cold earth. The cruel currents of life have worn everything away, leaving me with little attachment to this weary mortal realm, and now, there is no one left to wipe away the tears. Wandering lost in an indefinite space, though I know the blood still runs warm in a heart that still flutters, though I know I am still a breathing organism, my soul has long since dissipated.
Where is the man of the past? Where is the you of those warm winter nights? The river of memory is now but a strip of freezing ice, barren save for the echoes of past laughter and tears returning like a dirge for the dead. Amidst this brutal reality, I find myself drifting through strange dreams. In that illusory, dreamlike realm, you still love me with the most pristine and purest affection; there, even if the mortal world bestows upon me a myriad of bitterness and storms, your arms remain ever my home, my ultimate peaceful harbour. For my heart shall always love you like a first love.
Did we love wrongly or rightly?
Was my devotion a mistake, or was it your ultimate, supreme sobriety that is to be blamed?
People say that if one still feels the pain, one still cares. If that be so, my heart still cares for you to the point of breaking. When will the great storm finally arrive? When will a tempest of earth and sky sweep away the days I spent infatuated, spent driven mad by a single shadow, so that I may be liberated from this cycle of suffering, that I may no longer carry this millennial sorrow? I close my eyes, surrendering to a long sigh, allowing the darkness to consume the wasted half of my life.
I decided to tender my resignation. New Scotland Yard, the cases, the police sirens wailing day and night... all of those things were once my life, but now they merely remind me of the days I met you, of when I could gaze upon your form. I want to leave. I want to flee this city of mist that has borne witness to my wretchedness.
People saw me submit my papers; they saw me clear my desk with a serene countenance, without a single ripple of emotion. Friends and colleagues called me brave; they said I knew how to let go to enjoy life. They saw me smile; they saw me pack my luggage to prepare for distant travels. They thought I was going to rest, to find myself again after years of dedication to justice.
But no one knew, no one could fathom, that behind that composure, calm as a windless lake a soul was drowning. I travelled, but I chose the most perilous locales. I threw myself into extreme sports, scaling lofty peaks without safety ropes, plunging into raging, churning torrents, standing upon sheer cliffs looking down into an abyss that stretched beyond sight. Those who journeyed with me cheered me on; they said Greg Lestrade was a daring man who knew not the meaning of fear.
They were mistaken. I am not brave. I am merely a man seeking death by lawful means.
When a person has surrendered the entirety of their time, will, devotion, and heart to another, only to receive cold neglect and disdain in return, then that person's existence in this world loses all meaning. I view myself as a nuisance, not only to Mycroft, but to this entire world. I play at perilous games not to seek a thrill, but to await an accidental death. A death by misadventure would cause no one grief, would not trouble Mycroft, and most importantly, it would liberate me from the dull pain gnawing at my heart each day. I wish to borrow the hand of fate to terminate a misguided human life.
Whilst in freefall from an altitude of four thousand metres, I suddenly thought of the human condition, of the nuanced words people often employ to speak of the transience of life. This life is a temporary abode, a roadside inn where we merely stop before departing once more.
My love for you—ah, it is akin to a small, foolish, and stubborn river. Gathering all its headwaters from the rains of my soul, it rushes unceasingly towards the vast sea. But your ocean is too immense, too bitter, too cold, and too majestic. It casually swallows my small, forgiving river into the heart of the vast deep, without leaving a single ripple, a trace, or an echo. The river has dissolved into the sea, whilst I dissolve into nothingness, turning into an illusion of time that vanishes amidst the boundless mists and winds of London.