The Mad House

Not My Current Words

"Oh God." John whispered, his legs going just about as weak as Sherlock's as he read the contents all the way through. Yet he didn't sit on the desk, not where this letter might be in full view of Sherlock. No, it was good that he had found this before Sherlock did. It was good that he found it before he incriminated them both.
"What is it?" Sherlock whispered, finally letting his pale face out of his hands.
"Nothing, oh it's just...taxes. That's all." John said forcefully, folding the letter hastily along those age old creases and starting now to tuck the thing back inside of its envelope. God he wished there was some sort of fire, something where he might be able to burn this horrid thing!
"Liar." Sherlock said quickly. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Well haven't I?" John said with an anxious chuckle, finally sealing the envelope. "Aren't we both sort of ghosts, I mean if you think about..."
"You're changing the subject. What's in that letter?" Sherlock demanded, getting to his feet. John panicked for a moment, starting now to shove the envelope into his pocket, shaking his head again and trying to force a calm smile onto his face. How was he to disregard this thing as useless, now that Sherlock had detected his lies?
"Nothing, I told you it's just spam mail." John pointed out with a shudder.
"If I was a prostitute I wouldn't be filing for taxes, now would I? Come on then, don't make me take it from you." Sherlock warned.
"No, no. Trust me Sherlock; you don't want to read this." John insisted.
"I would, I really would. It's mine, isn't it? Does it go along with this ring, hm? Is it from my lover?" Sherlock asked anxiously, just now making a lunge. Thankfully John was quicker than that, and he scampered away from Sherlock's long limbs and avoided him once more. That very question sickened John to the core, yet he shook his head once again.
"Don't even try it, Sherlock. Don't." John insisted. Sherlock ran at him again, to which John ducked away, and this continued for quite some time until finally Sherlock used his only formidable weapon. Sure he had long limbs, yet John was quicker, stronger, and running purely on fear. However, whether Sherlock had planned it or not, he played now to his only advantage, and John's only weakness. He used his beauty so as to disadvantage John for just a quick moment, and he did so only when he tripped over the foot of some sort of desk chair. Maybe that chair had been planted there by some sort of higher power, for it was ever so convenient that Sherlock might fall in the very direction that John had been standing, and John then standing directly in front of the old bed. And so together they fell, Sherlock giving a terrified little cry as he wrapped his long arms around John, as if to make sure he would break any fall they both took. Yet it ended so that they didn't hit the floor, they hit the mattress, and for a just a quick moment John felt paralyzed from head to toe, for he had not been tangled with anyone in such a state of breathlessness before, he had not held another body close for as long as he could remember...for as long as he had this wedding ring. There was a moment when they were both impaired, obsessed now only with the weight and proximity of the other, and the heart beats that were flaring up so agressivley in their chests. John wondered for a split second if that was it, if they had been both fighting something for so long, and this fall may just be the tipping point. He wondered for a moment, as he stared with eyes wide into Sherlock's beautiful, swirling irises, if this was not the moment that they both abandoned any shred of decency they might have had and given way to their century old desires. God, if there was a chance that they might be destined for each other, well then what better chance to prove it than now? Yet just as John had thought of the idea, and as all of his limbs went numb in anticipation, Sherlock finally found the power within himself to sit up, snatch the envelope from John's pocket, and jump to his feet in victory.
"Aha!" he exclaimed, sounding completely unfazed by the moment they had just shared, presumably because he had not realized enough to label it as such.
"No, God don't read that." John grumbled.
"And why not?" Sherlock challenged as he fished the letter out of the envelope.
"Because it appears that I wrote it." John whispered, just now straightening himself up on the mattress yet staying seated, so as to curl into that ball of shame. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, staring at John as if to wonder what ever that could mean.
"You wrote this?" he clarified.
"Yes. And it's embarrassing." John admitted quietly.
"Embarrassing." Sherlock muttered. "Well surely that's a word for you, and funny is the word that I might choose."
"Not funny." John corrected again, shaking his head before burying it inside of his hands.
"Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes..." Sherlock started. "I understand that you occupy a profession of infidelity, one which might make the proper gentleman blush in shame. However I admit that you have erupted feelings within myself that I had not thought possible, especially considering how unholy our union might be. I don't have much money, yet what I have can be yours if you would do me the honor of your company and discretion. I know Mr. Trevor may not approve, yet I had thought it over for a long while, and decided that I would rather be killed by his hand, rather than miss this opportunity to be with you. Maybe this house has poisoned my sense of judgement, however it would seem as though your beauty has been enough to bring about my own madness. Please don't confront me on this; it'll be hard to look you in the eyes if your answer is no. If you accept my offer, keep this letter, and if you decline slide it back under my door this afternoon. Don't let Mr. Trevor see it. If it's not arrived before dinner, I'll expect you tonight." Sherlock shuttered, his voice stalling now just before the signature. "Signed John Watson." He finished finally. John fell back upon the bed with a groan of agony, scratching about his cheeks as if that might keep them from blushing up in his shame.
"I'd like to think that's my ancestor's name, and nothing more." John said finally. Sherlock nodded, staying quiet and looking over the letter once more, so as if to decide whether it was true or not. He didn't seem terribly enthused about the whole thing, intrigued perhaps, yet most certainly uncomfortable. John remembered back to when he praised their friendship being built so far from romance, and here was the final proof that John housed deep desires, having been carried along now throughout the centuries.
"It um...well I do admit that I don't remember you ever using such romantic language. Yet I cannot deny that it appears to be your handwriting, if not in some sort of quill or calligraphy pen." Sherlock muttered in a very small voice.
"They're not my words." John insisted.
"Not your current ones." Sherlock corrected. Finally John sat up, knowing that his face had now turned ghostly pale. He looked to Sherlock, who was standing very awkwardly, with that letter in his hand and that golden ring on his finger. Never had a man looked any more conflicted, confused, or beautiful. Never before had John been overcome with both shame and relief, for while it would seem as though his past self had betrayed him, he had also made John's job of admittance all the more simple. Surely he had to say nothing, now it would just be assumed.
"Well...just as you have changed, so have I." John said finally. "I'm a married man, committed."
"Yes, I know." Sherlock agreed. "You're a good husband."
"I am." John agreed. "That letter...well you can burn it if you like. I do not want to give anymore thought to my past."
"Our past." Sherlock reminded him. John nodded, his stomach twisting anxiously telling him again and again that he should just vomit so as to avoid the conclusion his brain was forming.
"Yes." John agreed. "Well it would seem, since we had found that letter in your desk..."
"It would seem as though I kept it." Sherlock finished finally, his voice dropping down an octave fearfully.
"That you did." John agreed. He didn't know if this was an exhilarating discovery or rather a disturbing one. He didn't know if he should rejoice about his past self's accomplishments, or rather be painfully jealous of that pleasure. For a century ago, so far past John's current memory, his past self had achieved the impossible. His past self had found himself with Sherlock Holmes, in the most intimate way imaginable. He had been with him...yes! That brief image, back when Sherlock's face had been foreign. A ghost, lying in his bed...draped in nothing but that black robe that stretched not to his knees. Had that been the state Sherlock arrived in? A century ago had John lay down with that ghost, that ghost in the flesh, and let his hand slide underneath that thin fabric? Had he found his lips so close to Sherlock's, breathing anxiously along his skin in his eagerness, alight with this same fire, the same one which was burning in his chest right now? He had settled his mouth against Sherlock's neck, and felt that man's long fingers pulling away his tie, jacket, and belt? Fallen into his embrace, and felt it finally as their skin touched, and their worlds collided? Lit with an oil lamp, on silken sheets, their cries stiffened with the worry of being overheard? John felt himself beginning to sweat, just now deciding it was time to look away from Sherlock Holmes, deciding that it might be very incriminating if he let his thoughts run wild, and his body therefore react in its excitement. No, he could not allow this eagerness to manifest. He had to let Sherlock know that his passion had been left in that century, even if it was just as alive, just as reincarnated, as were the two of them. Standing here now in such a thick, awkward silence of knowingness. Knowing now that while today they were friends, one married and one a virgin, once they had been something so much more. These bodies, now so foreign and uncomfortable...well they had been together at one point in time. One point in this big, confusing loop of time, caught together in a never ending ring.
"Well we know...we know a couple of things from this letter then." Sherlock muttered. "A Mr. Trevor, he must be our mystery man. And if it was him on that billiard table with me, then it must be the man you were so worried about."
"Why must you label this so directly? He wasn't on a table with you, he was with the past you. And no, I wasn't worried about him, my past self was." John grumbled.
"Don't you sound just like an American." Sherlock chuckled. "Denying your past, just because you're ashamed of it."
"I'm not ashamed of anything!" John denied.
"Oh no? Aren't just ashamed that you had been so desperate, so as to call on me in such a way? Not ashamed that at one point your pure little soul descended to my filthy level?" Sherlock challenged.
"Stop that Sherlock, you know that's not true." John insisted.
"You seemed to think it was the other night." Sherlock pointed out with a sneer.
"I don't want to argue." John interjected quickly. "We get nowhere when we argue."
"Well, you seem to like to argue more than you like to face the facts, it would seem." Sherlock insisted, stuffing the letter into its envelope and stowing it in his own coat pocket. John wanted to speak against that, for it was rather rude if he kept it all to himself when it belonged to the past, yet all the same John had the photograph. It would seem as though they were desperate to keep a hold of the other's possessions, some of those deep rooted, provocative things that might remind them of the crazy lives they had lived before. Now they both houses those little memories, those sexual souvenirs in a way. Perhaps they were both battling demons, that demon that manifested as the little voice in the back of your head. Perhaps Sherlock, despite his pride and mannerisms, felt the need to read such a letter in some late hour of the night. Perhaps imagining it to have just arrived, so as to give him that much needed kick of adrenaline.
"Maybe I don't entirely like the facts." John admitted finally.
"Well, just as most history, this isn't going to change no matter how much we ignore it. It's our job now, to stay on task. We've come to find the mystery man, and now we've been offered a Mr. Trevor." Sherlock pointed out.
"That doesn't help though, does it? I can't imagine how many Mr. Trevor's there are out there in the world." John pointed out with a little frown.
"Surely there must be more documents on this house? Newspapers, reports? What about the official condemn notice? Or death records, birth certificates...well there has to be something more than this structure!" Sherlock insisted.
"We could go to the Town Hall, if you think we've found all we can here." John suggested with a shrug.
"Yes, yes I think that's wise. Or the library, for old newspapers." Sherlock added.
"Oh come on, this isn't some horror movie. No one keeps old newspapers for that long." John scoffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance and getting up to his feet rather sharply.
"Yes well, let's hope you're wrong." Sherlock muttered, following John down the trapdoor as they both wished that their preoccupation with the new search might distract them from their latest discoveries. Oh but it was no use, even if they didn't discuss it. John could tell himself that the Town Hall was more exhilarating than his past affair with Sherlock, yet as much as he wanted to think about all the questions he was going to ask Mrs. Hudson he could only imagine just more and more detail of the night they shared. All the more infuriating was the question of whether such images had simply been conjured from his mind or if they were being offered from the House now that the truth had gotten out. Perhaps that could only be answered by asking Sherlock how he saw the whole thing in his head, and if their pictures matched. Yet that would only be asking too much, for if John had to sit here in the car and listen to Sherlock list off the things he saw them doing in his head...well let's just say it wasn't very likely that those same things wouldn't play out in the moments following. All the same, Sherlock hadn't had any experiences like that yet. He didn't know what to expect, perhaps he had no images at all. Perhaps he shuttered a bit uncomfortably, yet could not imagine any farther than just kissing. Oh wouldn't it be ghastly if John was the one who had to explain it all to him? Well no, these days it was hard to avoid any movies without some explicit context. And even if Sherlock did know just how to be intimate, well surely it was driving him mad? Surely it was making him all the more curious, all the more anxious? If he was so set on the idea of soulmates, well perhaps he was beginning to wonder if he had found his after all. Supposedly that answer would come with the existence of Victor Trevor. If the man was not alive today then it would be only too obvious that John was meant to be with Sherlock. If he was alive, well then that would make things all the more complicated? It would put this apparent pattern back into play, a live triangle that had stood the tests of time. Perhaps that's why the house brought them back in the first place! Perhaps it didn't approve of the ending they had given themselves, perhaps it thought Sherlock was destined for the other. They sat in what might have been the most uncomfortable silence John had ever experienced, for he knew that just as soon as Sherlock's eyes turned to the window and glassed over that he was lost now in the very same thoughts. He was considering it, pondering it, and wondering now what it might all mean. What the significance was, behind his previous affair with John, and his current state of companion. The drive to the Town Hall only took about ten minutes, yet it felt more like ten days when finally John pulled into the parking lot. His heart had been beating so loudly, yet he had insisted on keeping his breathing under control and so he had been basically suffocating himself as he drove. He felt as though the only way to supply himself oxygen was through large gasps, and of course Sherlock might suspect something was up if he just began gasping behind the wheel. And so as soon as John jumped out of the car (which was only a couple of seconds after he put it in park) he took a great big gulp of air, stretching out his legs and waiting now for Sherlock to get situated. The boy emerged from the car looking quite nervous, looking up at John before nodding and walking inside as properly as he could manage. Thankfully Mrs. Hudson was sitting at the desk, for she had just addressed Sherlock before she saw John come in behind him. Her business face melted away as a genuine smile appeared on her face, and she looked straight past Sherlock as if he no longer concerned her. 

"Oh Mr. Watson! So lovely to see you again! How's the house?" she asked excitedly.
"Well that's why we're here. We've been digging around in its history, but we haven't gotten far. Figured you might have something filed away for it?" John presumed.
"Oh I'm not sure, we don't keep things labeled by houses." She muttered. "Although I can check for building permits and whatnot, if that's helpful?"
"Anything." John agreed. "We were thinking death certificates too?"
"For whom, the old owners?" Mrs. Hudson wondered, spinning slightly in her swivel chair behind all of the snow globes that had been laden on the desk before her.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check under John Watson. My ancestor." John added quickly.
"Yes alright. Give me a moment, you gentleman can sit down and have a cookie if you'd like." She said with a grin, gesturing to the little waiting room that had been set up next to her desk. It was made up of a single couch and a coffee table, one that seemed to have every issue of gossip magazines since the Town Hall had first been established. The mounds of magazines were topped with a little pink tray filed with sugar cookies, equally ancient things by the looks of them.
"Oh well, thank you." Sherlock said with a little smile, going over to plop down on the couch as if his legs really couldn't support him any longer. John looked over a bit hesitantly, noticing now just how small that couch was, more of a loveseat really.
"I think I'll just stand." He decided finally, to which Mrs. Hudson gave a little chuckle of approval before getting to her feet and disappearing.
"I can move over, if you really want to sit." Sherlock offered, squishing himself up against the armrest of the coach and offering John a whole separate cushion.
"No, no it's not you." John insisted. "It's just my legs, you know. Well after that car ride I'd rather stretch them out."
"It wasn't even ten minutes." Sherlock pointed out.
"Oh I think it was just about ten." John debated, shaking out his legs a bit obnoxiously so as to make it look like he was stretching them. In reality, he almost certainly looked like a fool.
"Don't make this weird, John." Sherlock begged.
"Nothing's weird. I'm not making anything weird, I'm just...well I'm just living, you know? Just going with the flow, I'm not making anything weird." John insisted, although as he spoke his throat got quite tight, almost as if it too was begging him to shut up. Sherlock sighed heavily, as if he saw straight through that.
"That letter doesn't define either of us. I know that...well I know it's ancient history. It wasn't you, wasn't me. We together never did anything along those lines. It was just; well it was just our past selves. Nothing they did means anything." Sherlock insisted. John nodded, for really what was he supposed to do? Hopefully Sherlock couldn't tell that he was housing his own fantasies in his head, hopefully Sherlock was too optimistic in the nature of men to realize that all the while Sherlock defended their past selves John was instead envying them. It wasn't weird because it happened; it was weird because he wanted it to happen again.
"Alright then. You're right." John agreed. "I will sit down then, I will." And so he moved over to the couch, trying to make a point somehow by sitting not against the armrest, but directly in the middle of the available cushion. Just close enough now to squish his leg up against Sherlock's, and to have their shoulders brush. John began to seethe with embarrassment, for this was the point he was trying to make not to Sherlock, but to himself as well. He needed to prove that he could be close to him, while all the while proving to himself that he could be close without losing whatever ounce of self-control he had. John felt like there should be some sort of driving force behind his deprivation, something a bit more noble than just shame. And yet for whatever reason he didn't make a move just because, quite like his past self, he would be embarrassed if he got rejected. Never did a thought of his marriage pop into his head, or what an affair with Sherlock might do to his growing family. No, he just thought of his own shame. What sort of rotten person was he, then, to think only of himself not once but twice in such a relationship? And it wasn't as if some poor excuse of destiny would be enough to stifle Mary's anger, should she ever find out. John really needed to reevaluate his life here, or rather the combination of both of his lives. He needed to measure his losses, should he ever get what he wanted most in the world...