The Mad House

Never In This Life

Entry Four: They're both odd, they're both very odd. I feel like half the mystery of this house is the occupants who live in it, although I'm not entirely sure how the two know each other. I was told Sherlock Holmes was here on business, but he seems to do nothing business like at all. In fact I have never seen a lazier person. All he does is sit around and smoke. He never leaves the house to go on walks, or to enjoy the pond that sits out back. Whatever business he is here on, well it must only take place at night. For Mr. Holmes hardly ever converses with our host until past dinner time, when he interrupts desert in his impatience, and leaves with Mr. Trevor to go upstairs. I never see them until breakfast the next morning. It really is interesting. Sometimes I ask myself what they discuss, after the sun has set. I wonder if they've taken to gossiping, sitting in the armchairs behind a closed door, and talking about me. I worry that they think wrongly of me, for having to stay here so long. It's only been four days, but still I feel as though I overstayed my visit. Or rather...that would have been my polite inclination had this been anywhere else. I wasn't going to stay at my sister's house for this long, yet here in the Mad House (what a fitting name it was), I feel as though my trip has just begun. I'm tempted to ask Mr. Holmes how long he's been here, and yet I'm sure he'll just answer back in enigmas. He always does, that peculiar man. He never likes a straight answer. Yet I've come to appreciate them, both Mr. Holmes and Mr. Trevor. I've come to appreciate how generous they are, and how sociable they can be. Mr. Trevor very much likes long talks, long mindless rambles that go on until you're not entirely sure what time it is. And Mr. Holmes likes wine, and will talk so long as he's drinking and is being offered compliments. Funny man he is, that Mr. Holmes. Very funny indeed. Just as with the house, Mr. Holmes lingers on my mind longer with every passing day. Well, I suppose that is just a side effect of living with a very beautiful man. Beautiful things have the tendency to be unforgettable. 

John sat at his desk in something of a state of urgency. It was still somewhere inside of two o'clock, yet at what end of the hour he did not know. It took a lot of effort to strain his eyes up to the clock on the wall, and follow the hands of the clock. Besides, he found himself in a sort of dream world. Occasionally a student would stop in and ask him a question or two, whether that be on their homework, or returned tests, or just to pop in to say hello. John looked normal, he knew that he came across as such. He knew that he smiled, and chatted, and lived up to his academic expectations. He talked of bacteria with one student, and mammals with another. He told them about his weekend, and he corrected their mistakes with a blue pen. Yet he wasn't...he wasn't there. If that made any sense, no, he wasn't present. His shell of a body smiled and talked and corrected, yet his soul was still wandering. His soul was still creeping along the halls of the house, puffing out cigarette smoke and watching as Sherlock Holmes ascended the stairs in his black robe. His soul was still standing and staring, and knowing that he should follow.
"Professor?" asked that familiar voice, that deep baritone which was the only voice that would bring his body and soul back together. No need to be in the house when he was with Sherlock, no need to avoid the present when the present was preferable to the past.
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. Sorry I was a bit...out of myself." John admitted with a little sigh, getting to his feet and grabbing the coat off of the back of his chair. Sherlock was draped in a long trench coat, with his collar stuck all the way up to his cheeks. He looked very good, very much the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. John wondered if he had a girlfriend or not, someone to appreciate him in such a sense. Someone who would have found that freckle.
"That's quite alright Professor. I admit myself to be a little bit lost as well." Sherlock admitted with a grin.
"It only gets worse." John promised, zipping up his jacket and grabbing the picture from his desk. He shoved it into his bag and shouldered it, grabbing finally his empty coffee mug before starting towards the door with Sherlock at his heels. Together they walked down into the parking lot, an awkwardly public place to be seen with a student getting into his car. All the same, Sherlock was a graduate student, and so there were different social norms involved. For all these spectators could know, they were simply off to do some research together. Well they were researching, just not researching anything within the range of biology, or any sort of natural science. Instead they were looking into themselves, they were studying the walls of the house, they were studying the very essence which made them whole...the things which connected them. And so no, it was not anything akin to kidnapping, or close to a social visit. They were here to investigate, they were here to discover. Sherlock sat rather awkwardly in John's car, for it was a small little thing not made for giants like him. The passenger seat was always Mary's throne, and so it was adjusted as such. Sherlock was much too polite to move it back, and so as he sat he was hunched over, with his knees coming up almost to his chest.
"You can move the seat you know?" John offered with a little chuckle.
"No it's...well I don't want to mess anything up. How far is the house?" Sherlock wondered.
"It's about ten minutes." John said with a shrug. He was lying, of course. Or at least he was exaggerating his estimations, considering he didn't have to estimate. The journey from the college to the house was twelve minutes and twenty seconds, give or take. Yet John didn't want to admit how he knew that, for it may come across as a little bit obsessive, or threatening.
"Alright, then maybe I will just move it back a bit." Sherlock decided finally, pulling the level and sliding the chair almost all the way back, just so that he could sit like a normal person.
"Mary will figure it out in the end." John said confidently, without really thinking about what he was saying. For of course Sherlock wouldn't know who Mary was.
"Oh your, your wife then?" Sherlock presumed, his voice getting very small and very awkward, as if he didn't really like using such words around other people. Perhaps he was just feeling a little bit awkward, considering personal lives were hardly ever discussed on a college campus, especially not between students and professors. All the same, they were on their way to a very personal place, and they were about to discuss matters which were much more personal than either one of them would like to delve into. It was rather amusing, then, to know that Sherlock had trouble saying the word 'wife' without trembling.
"Ya." John said quietly, although his wife seemed so far away now that it was almost irrelevant to bring her up. She seemed so far away from this life, this life that they were discovering piece by piece. John knew that if Sherlock and he had any connection at all, that they would be so removed from this real world they had built up for themselves that they ought to just leave it all behind. The house operated on a different clock, the house operated with different motives, and different connections. In this world John might be a professor, and Sherlock might be a graduate student, but not in that house. In that house, all titles and roles were abandoned; in that house it seemed that anarchy might ensue. Or rather, they would revert to a more primitive version of themselves. That photograph alone proved that things happened inside those walls that could not fully be explained. That photograph proved that Sherlock here was very drastically different from the Sherlock who lived in that house. But did he live in that house? No, it was impossible. It was physically impossible for any of this to actually be true...yet all the while John's brain was betraying him. For with the arrival of another person to share in the confusion, he found himself accepting things much easier than he had before. He found himself nodding along, no matter how crazy this world got to be. He found himself making sense of it all, purely on the basis that none of it made sense at all. As promised, it took about twelve minutes for the house to finally come within view. Those remaining twenty seconds, then, were occupied with rolling up the driveway and staring down that familiar house, with the windows that seemed to be looking right back. John sighed heavily, clutching onto the wheel and reminding himself not to be afraid. Obviously this house had powers, but it didn't have the intentions of hurting them. If it wanted to kill John it would've done that by now. If it wanted to kill John, well then why was it continually leading him straight back? All the while John was staring at the house apprehensively, Sherlock was gaping. He was looking up at the house with a look that could only be recognition, with his mouth hanging open in astonishment, for he it seemed as though he had found something he never even knew he had lost.
"This is it." John said rather obviously, pulling the car to a stop right outside the front porch. Just as soon as the car stopped moving Sherlock unstrapped himself from his seatbelt, stumbling outside in an almost maddened sort of way, as if he was staring upon one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen in his life. He stood gawking all the while John joined him in the gravel, smiling a bit proudly. He was happy to see that Sherlock was impressed, yet all the while he was even more pleased to see that there was something a lot deeper than just amazement. There was that same look of purpose alight in Sherlock's eyes, that same look that John wore the day he first looked upon this structure.
"It's beautiful." Sherlock murmured, looking back at John just so that he could make sure this wasn't all some sort of big joke. Just to make sure this actually was the house, and they weren't just making a detour on their way to a shack down on the edge of the city.
"I think so." John agreed in a sort of grumble. "But it's got far more than looks, Sherlock. Far more."
"That's what a lot of people say about me." Sherlock mumbled a bit proudly. John looked over at him with a little side smile, however Sherlock looked a bit ashamed at his own words. Almost as if he was surprised he had actually said such a thing out loud. Then again, John decided to just ignore that comment, considering they had both been witness to his ancestor's (or past self's, who knows?) way of putting such good looks to work. And so he just got the key from his pocket, locking his car doors and starting his way up to the front door. Sherlock followed along eagerly, bounding up the stairs and breathing very deep breaths, taking in the house and all of its surroundings in the same sort of way someone might do when they have returned home after a long while. Taking in every little thing, everything they might have taken for granted before...and just savoring it all. John smiled at him, in his own way to call Sherlock to attention, and with that he stuck the key in the lock and turned. And just like that, the door swung open before them both. John stood back, lingering so that he could allow Sherlock to be the first one in. He was curious what the boy might do. John had felt drawn to certain parts of the house when he had first entered, so it might be some sort of character study to see how Sherlock might react, and where he might wander to. This might help him piece together this puzzle, once and for all. Sherlock might have been his missing link all along. Sherlock wandered inside like a man in a trance, his feet walking without full consent of his mind. He merely wandered, here and there about the foyer as if he knew just where to step, and just what to look at. For a moment he stared at the painting which was on the ceiling, and for another moment he observed the chandelier, and then again he stared for a long while at the various statues which were hidden away in the shadowed alcoves. And John merely watched, he felt as though none of the art which was hiding about this house would even come close to the amount of beauty depicted before him in human form, and so John merely closed the door behind him, pocketed the key, and leaned up against the wood. He watched as Sherlock's eyes sparkled, like a child's on Christmas day, and he watched as his long limbs swayed this way and that, swaying from side to side in his own majestic way. John felt more complete now than he ever had, there was a feeling of pleasure that wasn't just coming from himself and Sherlock, but from the house itself. It was considerably warmer, John could feel that warmth and that pride within his very bones, this house was congratulating him on following the clues it had left for him. It was congratulating him for finding the missing link, and bringing this household back together again. Something made John speculate that they had been here before, both of them in this house in other ages...long ago. The house was merely welcoming Sherlock back, it was accepting him once more as part of the family. Finally Sherlock began to walk, without a word he mounted the staircase and ascended like a man on a mission. His fingertips trailed the wooden banister, in a pattern which may already be so familiar to him, and he stepped up the stairway in quite the dreamlike stance.

"I've seen this house before." Sherlock admitted quietly, below his breath all the while he kept walking. He kept moving forward, farther into this house where he was supposed to be. He kept stepping deeper and deeper into its walls, abandoning his life on the outside world. All the while he had never been in this house before; he was still retracting his ancient footsteps.
"In this life?" John clarified quietly.
"No." Sherlock whispered back, pausing at the top of the stairwell and taking a deep breath, looking around the hallways with a quiet little smile. "Not in this life at all." His gaze had now settled on the door in front of him, the door closest to the hallway, which John had not been inside before. The door was closed, and yet John had seen it opened just once before. He had seen it opened once in his dream. This was the door in which the bed stood, this was the door depicted in his photograph...This was Sherlock's bed. This was his stage.
"You know this room?" John wondered.
"Yes." Sherlock said simply. "Yes I feel...I feel repulsed. But welcomed. My stomach is twisting but my heart is lurching...something is in there, isn't it? Something was in there?" John sighed heavily, feeling that he could not explain this without the help of a visual aid. He grabbed the photograph from his bag, which was still hanging loyally on his shoulder, and held it up to the door for reference. In the picture you could just barely see the frame; chopped into view around the corners, and only visible if you were looking for it. Yet the frame itself was distinct, the frame which held steady around the door. It was carved like no other door, it was unique in its design and depicted distinctly in the picture that was held in John's hand. This ancient picture.
"You were in there." John muttered simply. Sherlock nodded sharply, pushing past John as if he had enough of this drama. He pushed past John and went for the handle, opening the door up in something of a mad fit of anxiety. As if he wanted to know what was in this room more than anything in the world, as if he was expecting something that would change his life. And yet, when he opened it up, it proved to be nothing more than a bedroom. Nothing more than a large bed set in the middle of the room, with a blue comforter, looking just about as good as new. And yet all the same, that bed was the same. It was identical in the dream, and in the photograph, and in this life now. And yet all the same, as familiar as this room was to John, he still knew that it did not belong to him. No, he had never slept in that bed; he had never woken up tangled in its sheets. This was not his room; this was not where he was supposed to be. This room was bigger than his own, this bed was larger, the decorations were fancier. This wasn't a bed for a guest; this was a bed for a master. The master, the original owner. The name which had been painted over on the deed, in an attempt to pass off this house and all of its mysteries onto someone else, someone they considered more worthy of the burden.
"Do you think this was your room?" John asked curiously, for of course he only had solid evidence that one other man had ever lived here. If it was not John's room, then it must be Sherlock's.
"I can't tell." Sherlock admitted quietly. "It feels right, but it doesn't feel like I own it. I recognize it but it seems to be borrowed, all the same."
"You don't think you just happened to um...to stay over then?" John mumbled apprehensively. "Perhaps this picture...well perhaps this was a woman's room." he suggested, although the words caught painfully in his throat. Thankfully Sherlock chuckled, glancing over at John with something of a sideways, knowing smile.
"If the present is at all similar to the past...well then I highly doubt it." Sherlock said mysteriously, shaking his head and going back to his examination of the room. John didn't want to ask what he meant by that, he didn't feel that the question was within his rights. And so he merely lingered near the door, feeling rather like a trespasser in this room. He felt as though he was not allowed to step foot inside, without someone's permission first. Sherlock merely walked in, for he needed no special permission. He seemed to understand that, all the while he knew of course that this wasn't his room to rule over. He was just a frequent guest. John's stomach turned at the thought, for whatever reason he didn't like the idea of Sherlock being some lady's lover. He didn't like the idea of a woman being so close to him...in fact he despised the fact. For whatever reason John felt a sort of protectiveness over Sherlock, even if his past self did get up to rather scandalous forms of entertainment. That seemed so distant from Sherlock now, that seemed just so unlike him.