I stand in front of your gravestone. It suits you. Polished. Elegant. Only your name, no dates. Ageless. Timeless. That’s how I’ll always remember you.
You will never get grey hair. I can’t help wondering if you would’ve dyed it if you’d lived to experience it.
Your fingers will never know arthritis. I can’t bear the thought of you being forced to discard your Stradivarius.
The tightly fitted shirts and trousers will always fit you. Your belly will never soften, coerce you to size up.
Your flawless skin will remain so. No wrinkles will blemish parts of your body.
Never will your mesmerising eyes be framed by glasses. The sharp eyesight will forever pierce through souls and puzzles.
221B remains your home. Mrs H doesn’t allow anyone but me and Mycroft up there.
I think Billy misses you. He stopped talking to me after a week of ranting. Apparently, he didn’t like that I yelled at you. Do you know what he said before he got mute?
“He had no other choice, for heaven’s sake!”
His voice is so similar to yours.
I’ve written you a letter. There are things I never told you. Things I can’t bear to say out loud. Not even to your gravestone. I’ll leave it here.
Bye, Sherlock. I miss you. So much.
***
Dear, Sherlock
Retrospect is a bitch, isn’t it. But so is fear. You always called me brave, remember. Well, you were wrong about that, Sherlock. I am a coward. If I had been brave, I would’ve said what I’m about to write, to your face instead of placing this letter on your grave where you won’t be able to read it.
I love you, Sherlock Holmes. Not in the platonic-best friends-flatmates kind of way. The other way. The opposite way. The way everyone assumed from the very first day we met. The I-am-in-love-with-you kind of way.
You were so beautiful that night at Angelo’s. Took my breath away, is what you did, and I couldn’t help myself. I had to know if there was someone special in your life. God, I still cringe thinking about it! You were so gracious about it all. Let me down so gently, totally unprecedented by your normal standards. That’s when I knew you had the biggest heart. You had every right to be rude, to brush me off. We’d only known each other for hours for Christ’s sake!
Well, that’s what I’ve wanted to say for the longest time. I don’t know if you changed your mind after that night. But your brother, Greg, and our landlady seem to agree that I’ve made an impact on you. Mycroft was particularly bemused when he learned that you actually listened to me and tried not to be too harsh with witnesses and clients.
I don’t know, Sherlock. I’m still grieving. Coherency was more your thing than mine anyway. It doesn’t matter. You’re dead and won’t read this. It has more to do with my sanity at this point. The words needed saying, and I don’t want anyone else to read them. I’m the only one who comes here, so it will be safe until tomorrow.
Forever yours. John
Tears are trickling down my cheeks when I’ve read the letter.
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt #307 - Left Unsaid
Title: Leave the things we've left unsaid and come and lay by my side
Author: Shantismurf
Fandom: The Hobbit
Length: 506 words
Rating: Teen
Relationship: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Tags: dwobbit Frodo, reconciliation, pillow talk, tree metaphors
Notes: I believe this scene works as a standalone snippet of conversation, but it is set in the (almost) near future of my secret dwobbit AU, “Dear Your Majasty Mister Oakensheild”. I am cringing over the fact that I have not posted a new update to that wonderful story in a year now. It is dear to my heart and I hope this snippet shows that it's still very much going to be completed…eventually 😅
-------------
“If you are an Oak tree, immovable in your strength, then he is a Birch, pliable and agile. They withstand the harshest winter storms due to their flexible branches, which allow them to move with the wind instead of snapping. Frodo will never be as strong or broad as a Dwarf, or quite as easygoing as a Hobbit. He is something greater than the sum of his parts, with depths to him that hold immeasurable potential.”
Thorin lay back against the pillow and absorbed this with a quiet, peaceful expression before he turned to Bilbo. “Then which tree would you be, amrâlime?”
Bilbo barked a sharp laugh, “Why, I must be a lemon tree, sour and withered!”
Thorin just rolled over him and tickled his soft sides until he squirmed and giggled, then dropped a sweet kiss on the tip of his nose. He looked down at his lover with fond contemplation before he answered, “You, dear Hobbit, are a Beech tree, I think. Smooth and ageless, they grow taller and reach wider than other trees, sheltering the forest below with their dense branches, just as your influence and great heart have stretched to encompass all of Arda, it seems.”
Bilbo just lay there, stunned, as Thorin continued. “Their fruit is covered in prickly burrs, but the center is sweet and delicious,” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively and Bilbo scoffed, breaking out of his shock and trying desperately not to show how very touched he was by Thorin's sweet words. In the Shire, the Beech tree was a symbol of wisdom and the written word, rather fitting, that.
“And how do you know so much, my dear Dwarf?” He sassed back.
“I can know things about trees!” he protested in mock defense.
“Hmm more than just how to cut them down, I see. Impressive,” his eyes narrowed assessingly. “And where, pray tell, did you gain this wealth of knowledge?”
“If you must know,” Thorin said in a lofty tone, “copies of your printed works are quite popular in Erebor.”
At that, Bilbo just spluttered and coughed for a good minute solid. “Mine?! You read my books? How many?!” His voice got squeakier with each exclamation.
“I did say you were quite popular in the mountain, for all that you've not been there, these long years,” he answered quietly, while wrapping Bilbo up in a warm hug, enveloping him in the broadness of his chest and the soft warmth of his crisp hair.
It had been quite an afternoon of revelations, though there was still much that had happened in the last 25 years that had been left unsaid. There's time for that later. Quite past time for a little kip now, Bilbo thought sleepily, as he burrowed closer and lifted his nose to ruffle through the long, full beard offered so tantalizingly.
Thorin huffed. “You keep that up and there will be no napping, burglar,” he growled.
Bilbo smiled dreamily, settled his head on a warm, thick shoulder, and went to sleep.
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial with the prompt #FFF307 ~ left unsaid. I got inspired of this fan art that I saw on X Twit. The artist made it in 2021, long before the anime had begun. It was the image of an alive Lady Fuyuki and her son Yukiya playing Go, a strategic game for two people. I thought, what if Yukimasa were there watching them. The rest of this fic was canon divergence except for a few things that we knew via the anime. No one talks about Yukimasa. I would like to know him better.
—
Fandom: Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master
Characters : Yukimasa, mentions of Yukiya, Lady Fuyuki, Lady Azusa and Wakamiya/Nazukihiko
Word count: 920
—
“Is that your final move?” An older woman asked her opponent questioning him gently about his decision. The one who played against her was a boy who was 15 years of age and quite resembled her physically. He wore the baby blue uniform of a lower official in the imperial court. His longish auburn hair nestled behind his head. Tied in a golden elastic band that glistened when the sunlight hit it. The woman too had the same hair colour that almost reached her waist. It was loose and shining beautifully. Her cheeks looked healthy. She was smiling at him, carefully examining the serious mien in front of her. She raised her left arm to touch his face but stopped herself. The two were deeply engaged in Go. In one brief moment, the familiar face of his second wife, Lady Azusa, appeared next to them.
“This is your first family.” She said smiling at them proudly. Then the other two followed to focus their attention to him and began to laugh. The quiet domestic scenes abruptly changed into something sinister. The tableau made Yukimasa fearful. The sound of their loud voices as if mocking him was deafening that he covered his ears and closed his eyes at once.
Yukimasa gasped. It woke him up. A dream then. Only a dream. It felt so real he thought it was happening in real time. Sitting upright, he looked around and was thankful that his sharp breathing didn’t wake up his wife. Catching his breath prompted him to clutch at his chest. His gaze turned to the windows where the skies were clear, suddenly azure. Dawn was coming. He rose from his feet and treaded lightly toward the kitchen.
What a strange thing to dream about his first and second wives conniving with his second son against him.
He scratched his head.
In his study taking his teapot and a cup, Yukimasa began to check up on the paperwork he abandoned last night. He searched for his ink only to accidentally bump against a box and spilling several black and white shiny flat stones that were kept inside the opened pouch. He also found a couple more board games he used to play with his children.
So this is where Azusa hides them.
One of them was a Go board, which made of Narra wood, he got as a birthday gift from his father. Clearing his table from the paper clutter, he laid out the board and lined up the Go stones from both corners.
Yukimasa was not a good Go player. Yes, he understood the intricacies of this game but he preferred athleticism where he could run around and show his physical stamina. No doubt that his three sons—Yukima, Yukiya and Yukichi— inherited this love for playing Kemari for a short period of time.
He thought of his first wife Fuyuki. She excelled in every board game. Even with the military tactics game, she would never shy away from a high-ranking soldier to show her abilities.
After their marriage it was customary that she lived in Taruhi as the mistress of the mansion, away from her family. She drove away her ladies-in-waiting, who wished her dead, but playing board games were the only things that made her content. Especially if she were able to entice him to play against her. There were occasions where it became a foreplay that ended disastrously for both parties due to her frail body and tepid mouth. It made him feel less than a man.
He surmised that Yukiya, his and Fuyuki’s only child, might think he wished for the same thing: Fuyuki dying. That wasn’t true at all. He loved Fuyuki once, a long time ago. But as soon as she opened her mouth urging him to use her powerful parents, who were the heads of the Northern Family, to advance himself the little affection he had for her always disappeared only to come back again. This emotion inside him became repetitive. He still had dignity in his body. He wanted to flourish as a governor of this town not only due to his wife’s influence but also for his own capabilities. It was hard to say these things to Yukiya. Especially if the child feigned his own intellectual prowess to everybody, including him. Yukimasa knew that his son sacrificed a part of himself while both of them played along with this charade. As a father and a former husband of two intellectuals, he admitted that it was convenient for him, for his conscience to not recognise it. Some things were better left unsaid.
In the long run, it might not be ideal.
Yukiya shed his blockhead persona. He finished at the top of his class in the military academy and was enjoying his close relationship with the crown prince. The stuff that Yukiya told them when he first served His Highness was a total farce. Wakamiya didn’t want to let Yukiya go.
If only Fuyuki were a man… that would be Yukiya now. All the cunning and wickedness he inherited from his mother that it scared Yukimasa all the time.
It must be too late to make amends now. To feel regret was a waste of time. He wanted to assure Yukiya that everything was all right between them, but his pride and fear of his first wife always succeeded.
Laying his head down on one side, his left cheek felt the coolness of the wooden Go board. He let out a sigh he was keeping for so long.
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial #307 Left Unsaid
WC: 323
CW: None
To My Darling Grandbabies,
I want nothing left unsaid. As much I would love to be in your life as long as you live, that isn't possible. It isn't how the generations work.
With only so much time to tell you all I want you to know, only so much time to share what I have learned, so this letter.
To my darling HK, it is okay to be a tomboy, to dress however you want. To be unapologetically yourself. Keep your own style, my love. Whether you want to play softball or design clothes, or both, do you.
To my bonus granddaughter, GG, it is alright to be a girly girl who loves wrestling. To know the name of every member of the WWE and every Taylor Swift song. Keep your individuality. Stey stubborn. It will serve you well.
To my baby VMA, I pray you keep your love for dance and music. That you will grow to have the amazing qualities of the two great-grandma’s you are named after. You have so much to say that you can't get your sentences out. Keep talking, baby girl. The world needs what you have to tell it.
To my grandson, EK, I don't know you. Not in the way that I know your cousins. For that I apologize. To you, I pray that all the mistakes your parents made will be the ones you avoid. May all your dreams come true.
For all you and any that may come after. For your children and theirs, my biggest hope for you is that one day, in His time, we will meet again in heaven.
Always know that your grandma loves you with all that is in her. Everyday that I have spent with you is a blessing. Everyday that I will miss with you I will mourn.
Know that once I am gone, my prayers will continue to cover you.
