John POV: John didn't expect this patio outing to be entertaining in the least, though he of course did not imagine it would be so miserable. Mary Watson was propped up in a declined rocking chair, with pillows stacked all along the back of it so as to separate her skin and nightgown from the wood which had been baking in the sun all morning. Her body was weak enough that it could not pull the chair into an upright position, so instead of rocking back and forth like a normal elder, instead she was reclined so far back that her feet were pulled up into the air, falling into a deceptively athletic position as she seemed to do some sort of core exercise. Every so often Rosie would rise from her own chair and pull her mother back into the proper sitting position, though as soon as her assistance faded the old woman would fall in a mad decent, as if she was enjoying her time staring directly into the sun.
"Strange sort of family reunion," John declared, tapping his fingers against the diluted lemonade as Rosie scrambled large decorative river rocks to shove underneath the prongs of her mother's chair. Finally, with the braces preventing the chair's curved structure from reclining any farther backwards, the woman was sitting upright. She looked rather ghostly from this angle, with the direct sunlight catching across the smooth, white folds of her skin. Her eyes had sunken into her skull many years back, though still when they were aimed in John's direction he could read them like a book. He could see eons of pain conformed inside, the sort of misery that would age a woman fifty years in a mere seventeen.
"Why, because mother's half dead or because my father is a year younger than I am?" Rosie snapped back. John's eyebrows knit, though he held his tongue. Immediately his brain wanted to snap back with authority, as if some part of his consciences still recognized this sassy teenager as someone under his control. Nevertheless, a direct command would come off as too hostile. He didn't want to ruin this moment, miserable though it may be.
"Well, at least we could get together again. At least we could try to make up for lost time." John suggested. Rosie's scowl said enough. He was tempted to drop the subject.
"I know I'm in no position to blame you for what my father did, but considering you share the same rotten soul I'm tempted not to take this so seriously," Rosie admitted. Mary chuckled in her chair, the entire frame creaking as her frail frame began to shake in forced amusement. She wasn't yet too senile to allow a decent insult to pass by unappreciated.
"I have to hope the soul isn't inherently rotten. I think it's the man who owns it that makes it what it is. My soul...well I'd like it to be redeemable," John pointed out, pursing his lips before taking a sip of lemonade to prevent himself from going on with his ramblings. The grains of unabsorbed powder ground within his teeth, dissolving upon his tongue like pellets of sourness, the sort of artificial flavoring that developed sores upon the gums.
"I can only hope you're right. It's a sad truth, but it's you that I'm most confident in. You, even though you're supposed to be the big bad villain. In my past and in your own."
"I'm not a villain," John reminded her.
"You're a murderer," croaked Mary's suffering voice, the first sign that she had actually been listening this whole time. John blinked in surprise, whereas Rosie immediately covered her mouth, forcing her fingers upon her lips as if deciding she ought to prevent the first of verbal reactions from escaping into her mother's ears.
"Mary, I didn't know you were listening," John muttered.
"I'm not deaf, you idiot!" the woman snarled. "And I'm not weak enough to go unspoken for. I won't sit here and listen...listen to you vouch for yourself." The words she spoke were slow and suffering; as if it took a tremendous amount of effort to merely speak what was on her mind. Nevertheless, the thought was cohesive. It only spoke to the superior state of her mind in comparison to her body, and perhaps the frustration that was beginning to build as a capable brain watched its vessel degrading around it.
"I'm sorry for what happened to you, but I feel the need to remind you that it wasn't my doing," John pointed out. He felt rather like a broken record, reminding these two that he was merely a replacement for their past family member, not a direct copy. Well of course he was drawing a very fine line between taking responsibility for who he used to be and denying any connection between himself and the monster he supposedly inherited. While he was proud to allow himself a spot in this family, this broken shell of one, at least, he was not going to attest for the crimes he did not commit. He was not responsible for breaking this family apart; he was merely the byproduct of the downfall of the previous John Watson.
"Have you fallen in love with him yet?" Mary wondered, her voice slowly gaining momentum as it became accustomed to speaking. It began to gather more strength, more accusation. Instead of a monotonous groan, instead it seemed to have noticeable emotion, the sort that could be investigated for further meaning. "Rosie said you two...you two have met."
"That's...that's personal," John whispered as he glanced very hesitantly towards Rosie. She seemed extremely interested in this question, as she was the only one capable of playing both sides here. She was well acquainted with her father's past, though she was also embedded into the relationships currently playing out between their teenaged gang. John may feel comfortable admitting his vices to the woman he used to call his wife, though Rosie had the capability to judge and share anything he spoke of this afternoon. How could John admit to anything when there was a strong possibility it would be shared to Victor, or to Sherlock?
"That's a yes," Mary muttered, her withered fingers gripping along the chair's handles as if to solidify her understanding.
"That's an ambiguous answer...intentionally so!" John defended immediately, to which the old woman repeatedly shook her head. Well of course it was a mere jerk of the neck from side to side, though John understood the meaning rather well. She didn't believe him for one moment, and given her past, she had no reason to.
"He used to tell me the same," the woman reminded them. "Oh, Sherlock was just a friend. Victor was just a friend. Nothing was...nothing was happening. Of course not until he told me about the affair. Not until..." Mary broke into a fit of coughs, interrupting herself as she hastened to finish her thought. "Not until I found him overflowing in a bathtub, his limbs swollen and his body hanging over the rib of the tub!"
"Mother, that's morbid!" Rosie defended, her voice catching on a tripwire of emotions that had laced itself across her lips. A quick realization, a painful detail she had never heard before. A denial that turned painful as suddenly she understood that there was more to this story, more ghastly details that her mother had kept hidden for good reason.
"He preferred it to us, Rosie," Mary reminded her. "He'd rather soak than live in the same house as me."
"I thought he had to choose, and he couldn't?" John protested, speaking up for himself as he remembered the last diary entry he had read in the ancient journal. "You made him pick between the family and Sherlock, and he couldn't commit to either. He thought resetting would be the only compromise."
"What?" Rosie whispered, this time unable to hide the sheer amazement within her voice. The girl studied her mother for a moment, her eyes growing wide as she did not recognize an immediate denial in the old woman's expression.
"He's lying," Mary grumbled at last, having taken a moment to recollect herself and repower for the next string of conversation. "He'd say anything to justify himself."
"Why would he lie?" John muttered. "He knew the only person who would read that journal would be me. Why would he try to lie, when he was truthful about everything else?"
"Mother, you never told me this," Rosie debated, leaning forward far enough in her rocking chair that the entire thing began to tip, the backrest beginning to collide with her dyed hair as the entire frame shuttered upon the very edge of the track.
"He was going to leave us, Rosie. I knew that and he knew it too. What choice would I have? What choice, if not to arrange it by my own terms?"
"You forced him out?" Rosie presumed, now beginning to rise to her feet as her muscles refused to sit still any longer. The girl's fists were clenched, though at the moment she seemed to be more likely to punch herself in the side of the head than attack her mother. She seemed more upset about her blind faith in her manipulative mother than angry at the lies she had been told for the past eighteen years.
"I made him choose, and it seemed as if his own family held equal weight to a graduate student he had known for two months."
"Give or take two hundred years!" John reminded her, convinced of the importance of history. Even if he wasn't determined to relive it, certainly each lifetime they had spent together should could for something.
"And that's why he killed himself? Because you weren't giving him a choice?" Rosie clarified, her syllables dropping with such agony that they sounded audibly upon the sidewalk. John was squirming in his chair, not yet moved to his feet, though certainly not comfortable merely sitting down and nodding his head.
"I gave him a choice! A choice between what he was committed to and what he had fantasized!" Mary seemed to want to rise as well, though her body simply could not handle the strain of supporting itself. The words themselves seemed to be too strenuous to tolerate, as the longer she spoke the quieter her voice became, dwindling into the frame of her body until she had to take a break to recapture the passion she wished to speak with. "What compromise could be made? Would you like me to share my house, my bed, my husband with some student with a pretty face?"
"He was conflicted, he was miserable. And you drove him to kill them!"
"So he wasn't a murderer, not truly," John decided. "He was just desperate."
"I don't want to hear any more of this," Rosie decided, shaking her head pointedly before grabbing the lemonade pitcher from the glass coffee table. "Mother, I'm not moving you. I hope you bake in the sun." with that the girl stormed off, pulling violently at the screen door before throwing it open in a fit of unchecked rage. John hesitated where he sat, wondering which of the two he ought to comfort, though in the end he did not rise. Instead he looked towards the old woman, and startlingly he saw a look of glee upon her face. Those cracked lips, those which seemed so strained to even form a word, were now pulled into a smile. The corners of her lips had conformed into the banks of her cheeks, and while no teeth were yet visible, it was obvious that she was smiling.  

John slept poorly that night, or at least he was tossing and turning until the house decided to wake him violently. He had settled down around eleven o'clock, after having attempted to play video games in the old fashion with Victor. It had been a long while since they could sit together unrestricted and alone, and perhaps the reason for that could be connected most directly to unwillingness. The air around Victor was beginning to sour, and every breath John took that had been recycled through his best friend's lungs felt as if it was sabotaging his cells on the way down his windpipe. As if it was laced with an airborne poison, John's entre chest began to heave in protest if he sat next to Victor for more than ten minutes. It was an unfortunate response, perhaps psychosomatic, perhaps driven by that maddening structure that lingered some miles away. It was desperate, wasn't it? Trying its hardest to drive the two friends apart by sowing seeds of mistrust, but now here it was, succeeding. John hated to have fallen prey, even if his soul was historically susceptible to such influence. Was it a fault of character, or a fault of genes? Perhaps it was easier to allow the house to win, as it would seem that poorly fitted structure knew much better than John ever could. It had, after all, predicted his love affair. It had predicted the kiss he had shared that fateful night.
Perhaps it had been for the better, that interruption spawned from the mirror. If John Watson had not emerged from his own reflection, if he had not used his knowledge to break the barrier of stubbornness, well perhaps John would never have taken action upon himself. Perhaps he would have been content in this stage of denial, figuring he ought to leave Sherlock and Victor alone. Though there was a line to cross, was there not? A line of faithfulness, in which John was in the position to choose how Victor got his heart broken. It was ever apparent that Sherlock was not satisfied in their relationship, and John would be a fool to assume that their relationship would have lasted without his interference. Sherlock was not made to be loyal, his soul was rooted back to his original profession, to the boredom that had driven him from the urban centers into the backwoods, free to do as he like, love as he wanted, and move as a wanderer throughout the most unacceptable parts of town. In Sherlock's soul he was still wandering, and it seemed to be John's eternal task to catch him. Catch him for a moment, or for a night. Tonight, it would seem, his hands were shooting out in front of him. Tonight it seemed the house would close his fingers around his prey.
It began with a tug, a sharp pull at his neck that nearly flung him over the side of his borrowed bed. The clock was nearing midnight as John's neck pulled him once again, this time to the point where he had to shoot his hands out from under the blankets in order to catch himself against the carpet, using the whole of his athleticism to avoid crashing down upon the floor in a commotion which could wake the whole house. Whatever this was, this sudden violence, it was certainly only intended for him.
John rolled across the carpet once more, being dragged in one dramatic scrape towards the door by a force which was only beginning to reveal itself from the tangles of his tee shirt. There was a lump within the fabric, a sort of jagged spire that was erupting from his chest. But no, it couldn't be a growth, a freak tumor, not even a knife impaled from his back through the front. John was able to pull himself into a sitting position long enough to untangled his shirt from the perpetrator, revealing the necklace he had made a habit to wear, the pendant shining and sparkling with what beams of moonlight it was able to catch. They key was steering him, yanking him, and its destination was not difficult to decipher. Even when sitting upon his bedroom floor, John's heart acted as a compass. He could feel which direction the key was pointing, he could sense that it was leading him back home. The way the metal prongs extended, the way they strained...certainly the key was reaching for its lock. Certainly it was signaling that tonight, of all nights, was the moment he had been waiting for.
Thankfully the phantom key calmed down as soon as John settled into the driver's seat, steering quietly out of the driveway without daring to use the headlights just yet. He worried the high beams would shine into Victor's window, alerting him of the occasion that was occurring right under his nose. Instead, John relied on the lights of the street, allowing the pale orange to illuminate his embargo towards his final destination. For a moment of hesitation, John let the car idle in the driveway, the cloth seats still smelling faintly of Victor's cologne, and stared into the dark bedroom window. He could almost convince himself he saw the face of his friend, though perhaps it was merely the street lamps throwing strange, humanoid shadows upon the pattered curtains. Certainly Victor was not awake, what reason would he have? The house had only summoned one tonight.
The chain around his neck began to jump and jolt the closer John got, though it would seem that the car was moving faster than the phantom chord, the one which was presumably tied around the key fastened to the chain. If there was a mythical hand pulling, it could not keep up with the car, and so thankfully they key could only jerk and twist, though it could never lurch across his neck, never hard enough to cause the boy to steer a borrowed car off the road. It would be a predictable disaster, perhaps one that would lead to proper deportation, if John had crashed Victor's car on the way to make love to Victor's boyfriend. The house seemed to understand this. The house kept its anxieties to a minimum.
John, on the other hand, could hardly sit still. His hands were gripping the steering wheel with a determined intensity, his fingernails cutting into the tight leather stitching. His forehead had already begun to sweat, and it was only until he could feel the back of his shirt begin to stick to his skin and the car seat all at once that he realized he was still dressed in his pajamas. A quite unromantic outfit to be sure, though one which spoke of the true disheveled nature he had been alerted in. Perhaps that would be meaningful, in a way. Perhaps it would speak to his true determination to the matter. Was it really going to happen tonight? Was it meant to be? Was Sherlock waiting for him on the other side of the door, somehow transported there despite the lock which stood between them? The speedometer read close to ninety, the trees were a blur, and yet somehow John managed to steer into the driveway, the correct dirt road, and pull the car through the massive potholes which were beginning to deepen, large voids which were perhaps set by the sympathetic side of the ancient house, deployed with the intention of breaking John's momentum. Perhaps there was some part of that structure who felt for Victor, the one part that was continually returning him to the scene despite his two hundred years of suffering. Of abandonment.
When John arrived to the porch, his car was the only one. There was no sign of Sherlock, though the boy had other ways of getting around. The house itself had other ways of organizing movement. John would not be surprised to see magic tonight, or learn the art of teleportation; in fact he figured he'd learn a lot of things. From the house, for one, and from Sherlock Holmes as well. This was a night of firsts, a night of experiences, a night of experimentation. This is when John Watson offered himself to the house, when he finally succeeded to the pressure applied by countless generations. John flung the car door open, even before he was able to turn the engine off, and after a brief struggle with getting the keys out of the ignition he began to scramble for what felt like his life. His motions were being prompted by the chain around his neck, the one which had begun to pull with a superhuman force, the sort of urgency that had the chance to decapitate him if it so wished. John's feet scuffed against the gravel, trying his best to keep steady with the tugging of the key, trying to avoid the disaster that would undoubtedly ensue if he kept his feet still for too long. Instead the boy jumped upon the porch, forcing his short legs to clear all three steps and strain for the rotting wooden frame. The door was already open, having hung upon its hinges in welcome, as if it had been opened especially to welcome him, locked for all other intruders. As he passed through the threshold John heard the door snap shut behind him, the entire structure rattled at his back as he was prompted up the stairs, nearly floating with the weight of the key tugging violently against the underside of his chin. It might be drawing blood, as there was a metallic smell in the air, a corrosive stench that may or may not have been accompanied by the silent, insensible crawl of blood along his skin.