Sherlock woke with the next pull, this one forcing him to shoot his hands up and catch the bent elbows of his companions. His lips let loose a short scream, though John still had the intuition to hide rather than to approach whatever entity was pulling Sherlock away. Despite his utmost love for the boy he was still not prepared to face the unknown, especially when the formidable presence might have been brewed within the very walls of this ghostly house. Instead of fighting, and instead of even clutching onto Sherlock's hand, John reached for the bedside table. Fumbling his hands about the wood he came to clutch a box of matches, scrambling to illuminate whichever force was choosing to attack them. Victor, being the caring soul he was, grabbed hold of each of Sherlock's hands, though he was still not willing to fight the presence in the shadows, not even when Sherlock was nearly pulled from his sweaty grip with another, increasingly powerful yank. By now the boy was stretched along the bed, his foot tangled in the air by a form not yet understood. His face was stricken with fear, fear being the common feeling throughout the small group, though it would seem as if their tongues had been tied. Instead of displaying their fear, instead of acting upon it, they instead kept their mouths shut, perhaps too embarrassed to address each other now that the passion had faded and the realization had begun to settle in.
John's fingers fumbled for a match, and in the darkness he had a hard time striking the thin stick against the box. Yet in a moment of bravery the boy scurried to the end of the bed, leaning heavily upon his knees as he approached the seemingly infinite darkness. As the match box struck there was another pull, this time pulling Sherlock's leg off of the edge of the bed. In the shadows it would appear that the void was attempting to take him, as if a black hole had opened up within the bedroom floor only to summon the most beautiful of their party. Though when the match struck, when the flame ignited, John was able to see for himself the pair of grizzled hands which were wrapped tightly around Sherlock's white ankle. In the flickering orange light the skin appeared almost translucent, so thin and sickly that it may have been the bones of a past lover, come to reclaim Sherlock as his own. Though, as John raised the light he realized that this skeleton was animated, alive even, with drooping gray facial hair and eyes which shone familiarly.
"Victor!" John exclaimed, holding the match to the creature's face and recognizing the eyes which stared at him from the other side. It was Victor; or rather...it had to be. There was no other man on earth with quite the same sculpt, nor the piercing blue eyes which proved to be so characteristic. And yet he was fit into a sickly shell, a disturbed human shape that hardly seemed alive at all. The creature laughed, a disturbing grumble of what may pass as humor, and his gnarled smile only widened. He appeared to be more of a cryptid than a man, as if the house had reanimated one of the lost corpses which had been buried beneath its foundations. An original copy of the boy who was scrambling near the headboard, one of the first and most violent of his kind. His grip, already powerful, seemed to tighten around Sherlock's ankle, clasping around his foot and causing the boy to cry out in pain. With another yank, powerful beyond his thin body's capabilities, the man ripped the boy from the arms of his protector, sliding Sherlock Holmes past John's awe inspired gaze and into the darkness which lay at the foot of the monster.
"The lamp, Victor...get the lamp!" John demanded, slapping his friend in the arm while he anxiously extinguished the match which was creeping a bit too closely to his hands. Victor scrambled to his bedside table, and in a moment the room was bathed in an almost disturbingly calming light, a pale orange that glowed carefully through the dust ridden glass it was confined in. The scene it illuminated, however, was much less cheerful.
There were two bodies writhing on the floor, one of which was the bare and unmistakable Sherlock Holmes, while the other was a sickly old man, dressed only in rags and expelling a stench so foul he may very well have festered in a marsh for weeks before appearing upon their floor. Sherlock appeared to be struggling, though at the moment the man's strength was overpowering him, and while his limbs still had the capability to flail they were being held down with each of the other man's limbs, with fingers wrapped around wrists and shoes digging deeply into bare ankles. Thankfully such an arrangement assured that the elder was ultimately as incapacitated as was his victim, as all that he was able to do was press his mouth onto Sherlock's exposed skin, digging his grey beard into the boy's neck with an almost animalistic ferocity. This of course seemed no different to the boy's choice of entertainment for the night, with one sickening and alarming difference: Sherlock obviously did not appreciate the attention. Instead of leaning into the lips of his youthful suitors, it would appear that Sherlock Holmes had found his limits with this rough and unappreciated man, for his face was squished into a grimace of disgust, his eyes closed with the intention of blocking out all that he could not control.
The scene itself processed in the same manner a rock may be swallowed and digested. It was as if John's pupils were not able to process what he was seeing, as if the orange light that was filtering into his brain needed to be censored before he could properly understand it. The nerves fired with sharp and painful lurches, the cones and rods of his cells contracted and wished to close, processing the scene with the same intensity as they would react to a splash of acid. The look upon Sherlock's face, the fear that was displayed in those barred teeth, the way his face shrived and was lost to the utmost disgust...it was unbearable. It was inhumane. And it was as if the entire world had shifted, as if the light had changed from a calming orange to a blinding red, an almost inky scarlet that bled in front of his eyes like a thick screen. The room changed, the room spun, the walls themselves seemed to begin turning, shifting, and changing. Even John's stomach felt the slightest pull, a yank in the wrong direction, a gentle tug in orbit of the scene playing out before him.
From Sherlock's lips there emitted a scream, something of disgust and recognition, a cry for help that was mixed equally with a low moan of helplessness, as if he too began to realize that this house was orchestrating this event. As if he imagined none of his companions had the ability to interrupt what the house had planned. That in itself was a call to action, the sort of jolt that needed to be applied to John's bloodstream, like a car battery after it had been jumped. In that moment John remembered the feeling of possession, the feeling of taking another soul into his own and merging the pieces together. Which gaps of his personality were missing, and in this case necessary, were sewn neatly with the ghosts of his previous lifespans, skewing his ratio of good and evil. Tilting the scales from rational to emotional...from helpless to capable. From individual to historical.
As John remembered back, he could recall there were some words being thrown from one Victor to the other. He could remember his friend yelling from the bed, and yet the younger Victor never dared to leave the bed, hanging onto the edge of the mattress as if it was a life boat in these perilous waters. In the moment John hardly recognized the older Victor to be a direct descendant, in fact he hardly recognized him as flesh and bones at all. He seemed more of a specter, a creature that one could never wrap their hands around properly. Despite this, despite entering what was convincingly a hopeless battle, John Watson pledged himself to try. Instead of using his words, evidently ones that were falling on deaf ears, ears that could hear only his own breathing and the squeals of his captured prey, John determined to fight. And so, as a man possessed, John leapt from the mattress safe haven into the shadowy depths of the floor, falling for what felt like miles, not inches. It was as if the two had been descended into the floor itself, hidden within a cavern constructed of hardwood and darkness. And yet, despite the distance, John finally felt his body collide with that of the attacker's. He felt his chest hit upon a bony back, he felt his arms wrap around a body which was wholly unfamiliar. The scent of decay hit his nostrils with the added force of a counterattack, though it was all John could do but clench his nose and ignore his five senses. The latter was not as difficult as he imagined, being that anger had flooded all of the nerve receptors in his brain. Instead of processing sensations or even conflicting emotions, John could only see the scene before him. He could only see the way Sherlock's face relaxed, fading into an expression of relief as he felt the arms and legs of his attacker begin to peel away, pulled off by John's aggressiveness. In an instant John fell off of the old man, pulling his thin form down with him as the two descended into a struggle upon the hardwood. As crippled as the elder appeared to be, his strength was undeniable, and while John had the element of surprise and momentum, both had been lost after the initial attack. He wished he had leapt with a greater ferocity, perhaps forcing his weight upon the spine of his victim and breaking it in the initial impact.
In the beginning, John had the advantage. He had pinned the old man beneath his body weight, taking the creature's bony neck within his hands and attempting to crush it underneath his grip. He kicked and kneed the old man, forcing the entire weight of his torso deep into the man's stomach, trying to wedge his knee underneath his ribcage and manually force his heart to stop beating. These were desperate attempts, those which did not appear to be working. The man, no matter how fragile he first appeared, fought back with a tiger-like ferocity. Instead of submitting to his fate, instead he used his own strength to his advantage. It was an interesting tactic, for instead of fighting to protecting his own life, the older Victor decided he ought to use offense to play the best defense. Thus, instead of attempting to free his neck from John's grip he instead reached for John's eye sockets, barring long fingernails and dragging them lengthwise across John's quick and desperately shut lids. As much as John attempted to resist reacting, he caved to the temptation of protection. His value of life appeared to be much higher than that of his aggressor, and thus he instinctively batted the hands away, disregarding the loss of control he suddenly allowed.
As John rocked dangerously back and forth the old man took this as an advantage. He tilted John, toppling him from his top spot, and leapt across his body with arms shooting right back for the eye sockets. Instead of steadying himself John tried to keep the creature at bay, kicking him in the stomach and succeeding at keeping him at least an arm's length away from his most vulnerable vision. The old man stumbled and fell upon the floor, giving John the moment he needed to leap to his feet, scrambling to brace himself before the old man rocketed towards his ankles in a pathetic tackling attempt. Thankfully, John was ready. The boy braced himself against the impact, and instead of taking it with full force he instead counter attacked, catching the old man's head against a sharp, determined kick from his bare foot. It was not a deadly attack, and yet with all of his soccer experience John was able to deliver a blow that smacked hard and sure against the skull of his aggressor, so powerful that his foot began to throb painfully, having perhaps broken itself in the attempt of shattering the head of an elder relation of his best friend. The impact, while painful on John's side, proved to be devastating to the already sickly old man. The old Victor collapsed upon the floor, heaving a heavy breath as he clawed his fingernails into the hardwood, attempting to draw himself back to life to no avail. His limbs twitched like those of a dying animal, surely miserable but with a life expectancy. That would not do. That could not do. John had to go farther. He had to finish this.
Victor Trevor's protests were lost as John heaved some of his determined breaths, clouding his ear drums and hearing only the whistling of his aching lungs, his tired body which protested the effort yet not the assault. In John's head there was no inkling of regret, there was no moral compass that was beginning to point in another direction. Instead he felt words inside of him, incentives and aggressions, spoken in words that he would not have summoned. An older vernacular, an older vocabulary, suggesting and encouraging deeds that would not have immediately come to mind. And yet, when this monster was cowering at his feet, as the old man gripped upon the wood and attempted to straighten himself, it was still John's own fist that balled and went barreling towards his exposed gray face. It may have been a different internal voice, yet there was no hesitation from each of the cells which composed John's own body. He was the one that swung. He was the one to hit that grizzled chin, sending the creature falling back onto the baseboard of the bed and collapsing into the mahogany that may have once supported his own youthful love affair.
If John had been any less enraged he may have needed an implement of murder, a weapon to aid in the disposal of this unappreciated interruption. In the past he had used a pistol, a knife...even a brick or a crow bar would have done the trick. And yet John was flowing with the potential to use his hands. He was made of the metal which needed to smack across bone, he had the capability to move his body at the speed of a bullet, or to cut with the edge of his hand as cleanly as would a blade. He could move closer, he could attack cleaner, he could be ferocious. John barred his teeth, staring upon the form of the old man as he hurried to recollect himself, attempting to drape his thin limbs across the baseboard to hold himself into an upright position. The man's nose was issuing a steady stream of blood, tangling the scarlet fluid within the grey tangle of his beard. He looked monstrous, he looked helpless...and worse still he looked familiar. Despite the age, despite the crooked form and the wrinkles, there was an obvious facial structure underneath the gore. There were familiar eyes, sparkling with the same intelligence, with the same familiarity. This creature looked like Victor Trevor, and worse still, he looked as if he recognized John Watson for who he was. He was an impossibility, a paradox, a glitch in the house's grand scheme. A repeat...a mistake. And yet he was a friend. He used to be the same as the boy who was now cowering on the mattress, wrapping his lover in his arms and attempting to comfort the shaken Sherlock Holmes. This old man, crippled and pathetic, would have worn the same smile that John had grown used to seeing, grown used to summoning, grown used to cherishing. He would have laughed the same way, folded his hair the same way, looked at the world in the same manner. This was his friend, this was Victor Trevor. And yet...and yet John could not determine why such a clarification necessitated hesitation. Despite the way those blue eyes grew in protest, despite the way his old muscles trembled as they attempted to maintain his upright position, John still decided there ought to be no mercy. Instead of hesitating with the familiarity, John barred his teeth. Instead of determining a stopping point, a clear victory which his aggressor would not recover from, instead John recognized the exact moment to go in for the kill. The moment in which final victory would be awarded.
John lunged, hands first, towards the head of his victim. Using the same tactics as his aggressor his fingers shot straight for the eyes, and admittedly, that same blindness appeared to pass upon himself. While no pain was inflicted upon him, save for defensive attacks that resulted in short scratches upon his face and chest, John felt equally powerless. The world had turned into a blur, as if his very mind was attempting to censor what he was about to do. He could still feel it, he could feel his hands tearing and scratching and digging and hitting...and yet he could not see. For a while his pallet, his artistic canvas, felt solid and cold. A stone, a rock perhaps, in which he could hit and smash without any hope of breaking. Before long, however, his fingers were tangled within hair, whether it be the hair on the old man's head or chin. His grip solidified inside of this and began to pull and push, and before long he did not feel anything solid any more. John's fingers turned warm and wet, instead of pushing upon bone he was instead tearing into sinew and tissue, he was clawing his way not into the skull, but through it. He was extinguishing life, one finger at a time. And, in some sickening rationality, he was enjoying it. Something within this process was exhilarating, a spark of excitement that seemed to stem from the feeling of gore squishing between his fingers. He felt almost godlike as he crouched overtop the body of his victim, still blind to his crimes as a shield of red was offered in front of his eyes, acting as blinders for the reality of the situation. All John could hope for was a bit of transgression, a bit of secrets that were stuck and safe in the shadows. All he could hope was that he was not smiling for the duration of the kill. 

Victor POV: Victor spent those horrific minutes with his tongue jammed between his teeth, biting down so hard that he began to draw blood. The pain, it would seem, was necessary for his silence. If he dared to loosen his bite he would undoubtedly scream, and screaming would only enrage the crouching figure, drawing unnecessary attention to the few that he had not yet finished off. There was no room for explanation, nor any protesting. If Victor called the attention to himself instead of the old man perhaps it would be his body on the floor, his brains and blood spread so thinly it would appear as if they had been stirred and ladled onto each individual floorboard. He had to be silent, he had no choice but to clutch Sherlock Holmes to his chest and watch as John tore his fingers into eye sockets that held his own eyes. As John ripped apart a skull that was shaped just like his own. As John tore across a face that he must have recognized.
The fear was more than the regret, for in the moment Victor was too worried about himself to give much mind to the loss of his only ally in this strange and twisted affair. He couldn't dwell too long upon the concept of loneliness, considering there would be no need to mourn his loss of friends if he too was dead. Instead, Victor had to be considering his own life; he had to be considering his escape route. John was satisfied now; he was still ripping apart his corpse with delightful effort, stained red from head to toe and still pounding determinedly. The skull had split some minutes prior, the sound echoing across the floor with the consistency of fine china being pounded and broken upon tile. By now the boy must be going for the spinal cord, determined not only to murder his victim but to study the exact makeup of the human anatomy. As soon as the boy's attention faded there were two options, one of which necessitated a run for dear life and the other requiring the most uncomfortable car ride home.
In the first scenario, John's rage is unsatisfied and uncontrollable. At the moment Victor wasn't sure what the boy was determined to do, if he was disgusted by the old man's attempt at making love to their mutual partner, or if he was merely determined to erase all competition from the map. Was he now so possessive, already regretting his decision to allow Victor into the bed those hours before? Would his frustrations go unchecked, thus spurring him to attack not only the withered old creature, but his previous best friend as well? Victor was of course not in the right place to look innocent, for at the moment he was holding Sherlock to his chest as if the latter was a child. Sherlock's legs were curled into his chest and his arms were draped around Victor's shoulders, allowing the boy to wrap his arms around Sherlock's torso and support him from underneath, cradling and holding him for protection and companionship. And yet this position, however meaningful and heartwarming, may prove to be too intimate for the jealous John Watson. Would it get Victor killed just as soon as John's attention shifted from one Victor Trevor to the other? Was it time to erase their entire species from the map? In the prior instance, Victor had two options. He looked towards the door and the window as potential escape routes, regardless of the height in which the trio now sat. This was the second floor, undoubtedly made higher by the dramatic height of the ceilings below. He would be falling nearly thirty feet, if not more, before he hit the ground. Yet the window would open, he could see a latch even in this darkness, an illuminated piece of metal, seemingly brightened by the house to demonstrate his escape. The door would prove more logical, and yet the bed was perfectly squared within the door frame, positioned there to be the primary focal point when the suitor stepped through the door. And in such a way, John's attack at the foot of the bed put him directly in front of the door, within lunging range of anyone who tried to escape in that way. Thus, it appeared Victor had to choose between deaths if he was to find himself going against his best friend. Mutilation, or a free fall?