What The House Forgot

Just A House After All

Sherlock stood carefully by the wall, his foot propped against the plaster as a breath of marijuana escaped his lips. It was John who had presented the key, for it had somehow found its way back upon his bed stand the following day, though he was still having trouble going through the motions of locking the door. As of now, Sherlock's historical bedroom remained open for business, the bed having been made since their last visit, the body vanished or absorbed into the very foundations. Well of course John was having difficulties shutting the door, abandoning that bed and the master who was due to attend it. Then again, his self-control was much more admirable than was Victor's. The boy was still blubbering in the corner, not daring to look inside. Perhaps he was still lamenting the loss of his older counterpart, that or he was upset about the oath of chastity they had all taken in regards to their time traveling companions. It was a lot to give up, a lot of love that was wasted. And yet, sex led to jealousy between them. And jealousy led to war. Best to lock this room and forget the temptation. Best to lock this room and render the entire house useless from here on out.
"Oh, if you're going to be so hesitant then I'll do it," Rosie snarled, appearing from the bottom of the stairs with her trademark snarl. Her black leather combat boots slammed against the carpeting as she yanked the key from John's ever reluctant hand, wrapping the chain around her wrist as she grabbed for the handle of the door.
Sherlock was the only one who looked relieved to see the door handle snap into position for the final time, the only one to blow a breath of relief as Rosie stuck the key into the lock and turned it definitely.
"There we go, my excitable friends," Rosie chuckled, wrapping the chain around her neck and tucking the key safely underneath her shirt. John sneered at this obvious ploy of sexuality, as Rosie was undoubtedly taking advantage of the two gay men who would never dare go fishing within a woman's shirt. Additionally, the only bisexual one within the crowd also happened to be her father. All in all, the key was definitely safest when tucked deep upon Rosie's chest.
"No more of this, then," John muttered. "No more of this house. No more of this rotten destiny."
"It's quiet now. Can't you feel it?" Victor was lamenting in the corner, still wiping his tears, as he rubbed his hand against the wallpaper. The old house seemingly shifted under his touch, the white paper yellowing before their very eyes. "It's quiet," Victor repeated.
"Perhaps it knows it was beaten," Sherlock suggested.
"Or perhaps all that hatred is gone," Victor corrected. "It has no more reason to be upset."
"We can only guess," John pointed out. "Who knows if we'll wake up again in the next fifty years? Who knows if we'll have to go through it again? All I know is that we are free, at least until our next lifetime."
"I feel...hallow. Hallow for the first time in my life," Sherlock pointed out. To demonstrate he very gently prodded himself in the chest, perhaps attempting to mimic the hole which had been carved out. "I feel like they're gone. The ghosts. I feel like they've left us."
"It can't be that easy," Rosie protested. "One group hug isn't going to break the rules of time itself."
"It wasn't time controlling us," John protested. "It was this house. It was the ghosts inside."
"In hundreds of lifetimes, perhaps cooperation was the only thing they never tried," Victor suggested, patting the walls of the house once more, if only to hear a remarkably normal creak in response.
"I'm going to put a timer on it. how long until Sherlock can't resist? How long until he seduces his new best friends?" Rosie chuckled, leading the way down the staircase. She was undoubtedly worried with the same thoughts that crossed John's mind, the realization that this house may have lost all the powers it retained: thus the power to stand up after two hundred years of decay.
"I'll just...find someone new," Sherlock admitted. "It's not like it's hard."
"Bet!" Rosie snarled. "Speak for yourself, but I'm pretty sure the entire LGBTQ population of England is currently in this foyer."
"I'll give it a week. A month, actually...but that's for personal choices," Sherlock scoffed. John chuckled to himself, admiring that sweet aroma that hastened from the boy's lips. He had left America disgusted the smell of weed, though when he returned he would find it a comfort. A reminder of what he had left behind...no, what he would return to soon. Surely this was his home, here on the other side of the ocean. Not necessarily the territory anymore, this decrepit house and murderous plot of land, but the people who now stood at his side. His lover, his host, and his daughter. What more could a boy want, and how much would he be willing to sacrifice to keep it for the rest of his life? One more year of schooling in America was all that stood in the way of the rest of his life with them.
As the group passed through the foyer they seemed to walk especially slowly, for while the house was beginning to creak and groan without any force applied they were all beginning to realize that this was their last time inside. The marble floors echoed with a goodbye with each footfall, the statues in the alcoves appeared to wave in the corners of their eyes. The entire house seemed to echo with its farewells, though John would be confident enough to say that had nothing to do with its sentient state. No, in fact those noises could be accredited to the simple construction of an old house. All which made this place special, all which made it alive...all had been lost when that door had been locked. The game was over. The house seemed to know that. The house, if it still had consciousness at all, seemed to have forfeited.
Two hundred years of history was forgotten as the last boy stepped carefully off of the porch, planting his feet upon the gravel driveway and starting for the car. John didn't feel sad, though there was a particular feeling of loss instilled within his stomach. It was a strange feeling of abandoning destiny, abandoning all that you once wished to preserve. He had his life figured out until this point, this point when it was supposed to end and start again. From here on out it was up to him, not up to this house, not up to the ghosts. It was his choice who to love, what to do, and where to go. Sherlock and Victor both moved with the same confidence, the same numbing realization that the shackles had been lifted from their ankles and hands.
When the last car door shut, that was when the first shingle fell. At first it might have been accredited to loose staples, or perhaps a very targeted gust of wind. The thing fluttered from atop of the roof, slamming down upon the gravel in an almost ceremonious decay. The greenhouse was the next to go, a shattering of glass which was loud enough to reach their ears through the car, the weight of two hundred years finally coming down upon the glass and collapsing the structure underneath time itself. The porch began to rot away, the boards dissolving as if dipped in acid, crumbling and faltering where they lay. The roof, once mighty and proud in its construction, began to groan and cave, collapsing in on itself at first to reveal a gaping hole in the middle of the house. As the ceiling gave way so too did the walls, beginning to buckle under the weight they were forced to hold for decades too long, boards jutting out and wallpaper tearing as the levels of the house slowly collapsed. The windows, once so clever looking, the eyes of the house itself, were lost in the fall and shattered upon impact. Slowly the house caved, in one or two minutes that captured two hundred years of appropriate decay, collapsing from a standing, impressive structure into a mere pile of rubble. John could hear the chandelier crash to the floor; he could feel the marble floors cracking. The murals crumbling, the fireplace chilling, the furniture being crushed under the weight. Sherlock's mattress releasing the feathers which had composed it, John's journal being lost within the rubble. Plates and cups shattering in the foundation of the house, a wedding ring lost and rolling throughout as the attic crumbled inside of itself. Memories, hundreds of years of memories, hundreds of generations of men...lost within the pile of ash.
Noiselessly, Rosie squirted windshield wiper fluid onto the window, clearing the dust away with a couple of swoops of the rubber blades. John swallowed his sob, Victor held his breath, and Sherlock clung so ferociously to his seat he nearly dug his fingernails into the fabric.
"So that's it, in the end," Rosie muttered, starting the engine as if the fall of history did not concern her very much. John gritted his teeth, but nodded towards the pile of rubble all the same. He tried not to grow attached to the bricks he saw lying about, nor to the wooden boards which were splintered under the weight of their neighbor. It was a house without a use, without a purpose. Its spirit had left it; its ghosts had gone home.
"I guess it was just a house," John declared in a whisper. "Just a house after all."

A/N: Well y'all, that's the end of an era! Oh how I love the Mad House, and I knew that I had to write a sequel before my time behind the keyboard was up. I love their craziness, and I think you all know by now that I'm obsessed with creepy old buildings. I think the sequel wrapped their story up nicely, and at least let me see them all through to the end. It's a dangerous thing, writing time loops, as you have to figure out how to stop them or else you've got a trilogy on your hands! In all honesty, this was the last Johnlock fic I'm probably going to write. While I have one more in the docket to be published this Sunday, I think that's going to be the finale to my time with these three. I'm beginning to transition to original works instead of fanfiction, and I hope that I can make a sort of side career out of that! Without going into too many details, and of course without getting too sappy, I'll leave it at that. So for now, let's just get hyped for a SUPER crazy book coming next Sunday, and I'll see you then! Thanks for reading you guys! :)