Victor had already had enough of the house; he had enough of its aura and its dark, gloomy feeling. Sherlock's sudden break in personality was enough to force Victor back outside, for as soon as Sherlock stepped away there seemed to be sudden lack of oxygen within the building. It was as if Victor's muscles had demanded three times as much just to stand, and with his heart beating so quickly he felt as if his lung capacity was simply not enough. As Sherlock slunk away, back peddling across the foyer as if his legs knew where to go without the aid of his eyes, Victor began to retreat back towards the front door. There was a moment of panic building within his heart, his feet beginning to trip over themselves as he attempted to escape the way he came. Sherlock still hadn't blinked, and Victor didn't dare lose eye contact. For some reason he imagined that as soon as he took his eyes off of the retreating boy he would vanish, perhaps deeper into the house, perhaps in the very doorway Victor was trying to escape from.
Was he afraid of Sherlock? At the moment Victor didn't know. But the house was telling him things, the house itself was whispering, and Victor didn't like what he heard. He didn't like the ideas as they were presented to him. He didn't like the halls which veered into darkness, he didn't trust the shadows that Sherlock chose to vanish into. And so Victor stepped outside. He yanked the door open and fell through, stumbling across the threshold and hoping that the aged wooden porch would be enough to hold him.
"Victor!" called an anxious voice, a pair of urgent hands catching him almost as soon as he emerged into the...darkness? Victor blinked. The sunny afternoon he had left had suddenly been clouded over; a thick darkness hovering over the landscape as if the night had come on much quicker than it ought to. Crickets were chirping earlier than usual. The moonlight felt out of place. Rosie had caught him, for suddenly Victor realized his legs were not able to hold himself up any longer. He leaned heavily into the girl's figure, striding slowly across the floorboards until the railing could serve as a proper crutch.
"You've been in there for ages! I thought you had vanished!" Rosie exclaimed, allowing Victor to slide from her grasp but still keeping her hands clenched, her knuckles white and her fingernails chewed all the way to the stump.
Victor shook his head, peering his eyes out from under the porch and staring up into the sky to confirm his worst suspicions. There was no storm cloud blocking the sun, in fact the night was clear and cold. There was no sun. The moon was shining, and the stars were out. It was later, much later, than it was when he entered.
"I was in there for two minutes? What are you talking about?" Victor grumbled.
"More like three hours!" Rosie wailed. "don't try to lie to me, it won't work."
"I just stepped in, spoke with Sherlock and...and stepped out," Victor whispered, his voice beginning to rise in a heightened panic as Rosie's expression didn't change. He half expected her to begin laughing, to admit that she had somehow shifted the daylight as a convoluted practical joke. When her face, usually so lighthearted, remained in its serious, concerned expression, Victor knew something was wrong. Seriously wrong.
"Sherlock said he couldn't find you," she whispered. "He's trying to find signal, we were about to call the police."
"I was in there for two minutes!" Victor exclaimed, finally finding strength enough to stomp his foot against the deck and cause the poor crumbling thing to buckle. Rosie stepped back, as if afraid of the sudden outburst, though she remained calm.
"Alright, if that's what you believe. You must have blacked out, or lost time somewhere along the way," she decided at last. Rosie pulled her hand through her hair, tangling her painted nails along the knots as she stepped off of the porch and stared around the grounds. Victor followed her gaze towards Sherlock, who was holding his phone above his head near the pond in a long and almost exaggerated pose. His body had extended to its full length, and as he craned Victor thought he looked like the pasty English version of the statue of liberty. It was only then that Victor realized his outfit was different. Or rather, it was different than what he was wearing inside.
"Sherlock!" Rosie called, waving her arms above her head to get the distant boy's attention. Sherlock stiffened, dropping his arm before racing up towards the porch in relief. He looked different, he looked normal. There was no hint of aggression, nor of seduction. His attire was proper. Now that Victor thought about it, the Sherlock he had encountered inside was wearing nothing but a long black robe. Had that processed as normal in its time?
"Victor, thank God," Sherlock breathed, exhaling powerfully as he recovered from his light jog up from the pond. He pocketed his phone, sliding his hand in and out of his pocket as if looking for something meaningful to do. The boy's cheeks were flushed, but not nearly so hostile.
"You were in there. Thirty seconds ago, I saw you walk away," Victor protested. Sherlock blinked his confusion, looking towards Rosie as if wondering whether they needed the ambulance after all.
"I wasn't there long. I went back for the lighter. Rosie said you had gone to look for me," Sherlock defended.
"I wasn't able to get in at all! The door was closed the whole time, and you jerks ignored my knocking!" Rosie exclaimed, anchoring her hands upon her hips and dropping her face into a deep and disappointed frown. Victor pushed himself off of the railing, wanting to separate himself from that house and from his friends for one moment longer. He stumbled off down the steps, planting his feet upon the gravel and walking in exasperation towards the car. He couldn't tell what kind of practical joke this was. He couldn't tell if they were even joking. Yet they each told a different narrative, trusting their experience more than their peers, and it was in that distrust that the confusion lay. How could all three of their stories be correct? How could they all have been two places at once?
"Can we just go home?" Victor whispered, pulling at the door handle to find it locked. He shuttered, still feeling the pressure applied to his chest, still feeling the tickling breath along his neck.
"That's probably for the best," Rosie agreed in a stifled voice, scrambling off the porch with Sherlock in her wake.
"You really didn't speak to me?" Victor clarified, turning towards Sherlock as he approached the back door of the car, his stature positioned much more hesitantly than that swagger he had approached with. Even now he looked too modest, too polite to attempt such breakage of boundaries.
"I didn't see anyone inside," Sherlock swore, his voice ducking down in hesitation as he stared worriedly at his shoes. "Though I thought I heard someone, someone upstairs."
"There was no one upstairs," Victor swore. "But if you didn't talk to me...someone else did."
"Get in the car, both of you," Rosie demanded, yanking open her door and sliding urgently into the driver's seat. Sherlock and Victor followed closely behind, staring silently in front of them with a strange sense of maturity. Victor felt different as the car began to pull back out the driveway, he felt strangely complete. For the longest time he had felt separated, as if his soul was not entirely within his body. Though tonight he realized that was only half true. Yes, it was not inside, though after stepping inside that house he realized he could visit it whenever he saw fit. 

Thankfully their houses were within walking distance, and so when Rosie pulled the car into her driveway the three of them were still in the company of each other. It felt remarkably wrong to step outside just yet, staring at the evidence of a lapse in time. Victor looked hesitantly at the clock on the dashboard, now reading three hours later than when they had first arrived. His stomach felt twisted, though he dared not speak a word of protest again. Victor didn't feel like he was allowed to comment, he knew that with every continued word he would only be called another level of crazy. The silence in the car only spoke to the other's ideas on the subject. Their lips were sealed just as tightly, though their brains were working twice as hard.
Rosie was the first one to get out of the car, and Victor was the last. He opened the door quietly, turning along the leather seat and staring blankly down the road, the street lights allowing him to see past the driveways all the way to what he thought was his house. They all looked the same, so he might be mistaken.
"Well, maybe we'll stick to the park next time," Sherlock offered, trembling next to his open door and looking down at Victor's broken, hallowed frame. Rosie nodded her agreement, clicking the lock button a couple of times to encourage Victor to get to his feet and allow the door to close. When finally he was able to hoist himself onto his legs it felt like a dream, as if he finally stepped back into the world of the living after being absent for so long. When he looked around, Victor half expected Sherlock to have vanished. He didn't feel real. He didn't seem to fit inside of this world.
There might have been more conversation, though whatever farewells their hesitant mouths could utter were interrupted by the sudden screeching of a new, unrecognizable voice.
"Rosie!" the call shrieked, announcing the presence of an older woman who came walking aggressively out of the front door. Victor blinked, trying to gauge exactly how old the newcomer was. This must be Rosie's mother, though by the way her back was bent, in an aged and struggling hunch, she appeared to be much older. Her hair was shocked white, perhaps from stress or bad genes, and was arranged so badly on top of her head that it appeared to be a welt rather than a bun. Her clothes were loose fitting and old, and by the way she walked it appeared that she hadn't left the house in the past ten years.
"Mom, what?" Rosie whined, locking the doors once more for good measure as if that was supposed to ease her mother's fears.
"You've been there, you've been there!" the woman insisted, her face draining white as a sheet as she approached the small group. As of now she hadn't paid attention to the newcomers, all of her motherly energies were focused upon her daughter.
"Been where, exactly?"
"I was tracking your phone! I was tracking you because you were late, and you're never late! And here I see...I see you're at the house!" she wailed. Rosie groaned, slapping her hand against her face as if she couldn't believe how thoughtless she was.
"I should have turned that off ages ago!" Rosie whined.
"You can't go there, it's off limits! No, no...I should have told you years before..." the old woman's voice broke, her old head hanging upon her neck like such a weight that it dragged her entire frame towards the ground.
"Ma'am, we were only going for some sightseeing. It was in the newspaper, you see, and we like a good ghost..."
"Who are you?" the woman interrupted. Sherlock blinked, obviously not used to getting interrupted. The woman craned her neck, hoisting her body backwards in order to get a good look at the face which stood so proudly above her. Victor hoped that she would recognize him, that she would realize her daughter was in good hands and decide the house wasn't too much of a bad omen. What could not be expected was the sudden scream that erupted from her lips. What Victor never imagined was the way the old woman's body began to shake as if she had been shocked with high voltage, her legs wobbling backwards as she tried to stare more precisely at the boy who stood before her.
"Sherlock!" she whispered.
"Yes! Rosie's told you about me, then?" the boy agreed, his voice sporting an air of relief, as if her knowing him must ensure a good reputation.
"I've met you before. Met you years before. God da*n that house...god da*n that bast*rd."
"Mother, don't use that language around my friends!" Rosie protested, her voice drawing on in its embarrassment. Victor blushed, though he didn't feel offended. He felt afraid.
"He was right, what would you know? Those stories, those deliriums...he always swore to it,"
"Mrs. Watson, I'm not sure that we've met before," Sherlock offered nervously, as if his testament would ease her crazy mutterings.
"Of course you've never met me! God, what are you, seventeen? No, no you've never met me. But I knew you. I knew you before," Mrs. Watson swiveled on her heel, arching her back in an attempt to fix her glare upon another unsuspecting teenager. Victor trembled under her gaze, wondering if he was supposed to offer a hand to shake or begin running in the opposite direction. She smacked her dry lips, stomping one of her feet upon the sidewalk as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Yes, yes. I figured you'd be here too," Mrs. Watson breathed. "I forgot your name, but I remember you at the airport. I remember you two never quite getting along."
"You were at the airport?" Victor wondered.
"Nineteen years ago, I was! Nineteen years!" Mrs. Watson's upper lip began to tremble, though she turned away from the boys, planting her feet firmly on the sidewalk as she stared upon her own front door. "Rosie, come on then. Come inside. We'll have to get ready."
"Get ready for what?" Rosie wondered, her voice forcefully sympathetic, as if she best understood how to deal with her mother's ramblings.
"Get ready for your father. He'll be here soon." 

  John POV: John was prepared to sacrifice all of his year's earnings on a single plane ticket, as his parents discussed airfare like it was more expensive than just buying a boat and sailing to Europe himself. When all he had to sacrifice was four hundred dollars for a round trip it almost felt like a relief, hitting that purchase button without the massive debt he was prepared to go into. It felt as if he had somehow scammed the airports, as if they had forgotten to raise the prices for a boy so desperate.

The truth was, John would have paid anything. He would have paid in his own internal organs if that could guarantee him safe passage across the Atlantic. There was an urgency building, a sort of tugging within his stomach that was constantly yanking him towards England. The school year only proved that he was not supposed to be apart from his best friend for this long. The weeks that passed by, empty and lonely, were all in mourning for the delightful junior year he was supposed to be having alongside Victor Trevor. The late Victor Trevor, in everyone else's mind. To his peers, Victor was not a boy worth pursuing. Though they were not bounded by so thick a rope. They were not, in some ways, linked by destiny.
As soon as Victor spoke of replacing him, John knew he had to travel. There were friends suddenly mentioned in his phone calls, constant friends, ones he spoke of with such high esteem you would guess they'd known each other longer than their lives were allow. A girl named Rosie, one who had the audacity to share John's last name! And Sherlock...a boy named Sherlock. There was a particular tone that Victor used to speak of Sherlock, a pattern of speech that was wholly irregular. Usually Victor spoke with a determined air, a confidence that could be found in none other than his speech patterns. Though when he spoke of Sherlock, somehow his octave dropped. When he spoke of Sherlock he sounded shy, embarrassed almost, as if every word he spoke ought to be his last on that subject.
John knew that this might happen. He knew that there would be someone, somewhere along the line, that brought out a particular softness in his best friend. The signs had been there, John had read them carefully, observed them as they were presented. As they grew up alongside each other it was impossible not to realize they were growing in separate directions. Victor, in all of his attributes, always had much different priorities. And here it was, the final proof. As soon as the boy's voice dropped an octave John knew for certain: Victor had fallen in love.
This was a long time coming. Though how far it had already come remained to be seen. Was Victor too afraid to admit to John that he hadn't made a best friend, but gained a boyfriend? Was he afraid to admit his true feelings for another boy, in fear of scaring off his best friend? It would be ridiculous to assume that this changed anything between them, so ridiculous in fact that John always felt the need to interrupt Victor's forceful stories, those which sounded like they so obviously omitted the most important details, with reassurances. He felt that he needed to interrupt the rationalization with bouts of explanation, speaking to Victor as if they were still children and laying out his emotions for the world to see. John needed to speak definitively; he needed to assure Victor that whatever was happening with his heart was his business alone, and nothing to base judgment on. Though John was not brave enough to speak without being spoken to, and as long as Victor tried to hide his secrets then John would appreciate that. He would nod along, and hold in the truth he was beginning to recognize.
Perhaps it was this sudden shift in lives that forced John over the ocean so quickly. Perhaps he wanted to be there for every step of the way, to make up for lost time, for confessions, for stressful conversations, for the days Victor could hardly sleep for fear of his first date, or first kiss. Victor had offered a helping hand for John during his time of romantic expeditions, and it only seemed fair that John be there to assist Victor in his own. But was it too late? Had John been replaced by a girl with the same name? Was he wiped from Victor's priorities in favor of his new batch of accented friends?
It wasn't difficult to leave America behind. Almost as soon as school let out John was boarding the plane, waving to his parents from behind the same doors he was not allowed to cross that fateful day. Waving from behind the glass as Victor had, back when they had assumed that was the last time they would see each other in person. And yet the summer held infinite possibilities, and when Victor's parents offered John the guest room indefinitely he had hastily accepted. He committed to the whole summer in England, a gap of time that might make up for the lost time accumulated throughout the school year. It didn't feel like leaving home, he didn't feel as if he was neglecting his life, instead he felt as if he was returning to it. His parents, surely, would understand.
John texted Victor one last time as he stood in the boarding line, he even videotaped himself walking down the echoing carpeted tube, the walkway that descended against the plane's doors to allow easy access inside the commercial airliner. John dragged his large carry-on behind him, having packed as if he was planning to stay for the rest of his life. His suitcase had been overweight and added another fifty dollars to his flight charge, and the carry-ons he was sneaking past security were stuffed full of more clothes and things he felt he would need. For some reason John had packed clothes for all sorts of weather, assuming that the summer months would not be the only ones so tempting. Perhaps he could just move into the Trevor's house, perhaps he could live there forever?