What The House Forgot

Genealogy and Good Guesses

Victor POV: It was a Tuesday, though the summer holiday ensured that Sherlock and Rosie would be doing nothing of any importance. Both were what his parents categorized as 'deadbeats', a category Victor had also fallen into as of late. This type of undesirable teenager had no job over the summer months, and spent their free time lazing around their houses, playing video games or staring at walls until reality felt like a falsification. Thankfully Victor had saved himself from summer employment by inviting John over, though Sherlock and Rosie had no such excuse.
They planned to meet at the rugby fields, as the school was a safe walking distance away and it ensured total privacy. While Victor would have preferred to meet at Rosie's house, the midpoint between the three, her mother had been spiraling into a new stage of dementia after her introduction to the new neighbors. Rosie insisted that this was normal, and that her mother had been suffering delusions ever since her father had died, though it seemed a strange coincidence that the disease could so suddenly progress. They had never spoken of the scene outside of the Watson home, in which Mrs. Watson had spoken of encounters that could not have possibly happened. Perhaps Rosie chalked it all up to delusion. Victor, on the other hand, was too afraid to delve too deeply. He was afraid if he asked, he would get an answer he didn't want. Better to remain ignorant, at least in this moment of time.
As they walked, Victor explained the neighborhood to John. He pointed to the neighbors that he could remember, to the houses that all looked the same save for their small, noticeable, distinguishing marks. The house with the flower beds, the house with the garden. The house with the gnomes, and the one with the flags. There was the one with the stone mailbox, the one with the red shutters...and it continued. Whereas all of these homes were made with a bit more care than an American suburb, it still felt dizzying when faced with neighbors that had the same home as you. Therefore, everyone had their thing. The Trevor's thing was the American flag, stamped into the ground on the insistence of Mr. Trevor. Perhaps it would be replaced with Union Jack, though at the moment none of the Trevors felt sure enough about such a transition. It was harder to relocate your loyalty than it was your family.
"When you meet Rosie, try not to talk about the last name," Victor suggested at last, casting a dark eye towards the Watson house that he deliberately failed to point out. For some reason he didn't want John to look too closely at the home, just in case Mrs. Watson was staring out the curtains with the intention of leaping upon passerby. She could be a menace, especially with those eyes that seemed to see straight through.
"How come?"
"Because you share a first name with her father. Her dead father," Victor admitted with a huff.
"Oh my God. That's going to be weird," John pointed out. "Does she know?"
"Of course she knows. I haven't shut up about you since I've got here. But it's...sensitive, I suppose. I don't think she's altogether comfortable with being introduced to her dad," Victor sighed. John chuckled at his side, kicking the soles of his shoes against the sidewalk to catch a stray pebble.
"Can I make dad jokes anyway?" John pleaded.
"I'll ship you back to America in a cargo box!" Victor warned, turning and jabbing John in the neck while the other boy teetered along the edge of the sidewalk, stumbling in the neighbor's preened lawn as a self-defense tactic.
"Is she cute?" John wondered at last.
"Don't you dare," Victor warned, dropping his eyes into a warning squint. John just grinned, thrusting his hands into his pockets and smirking at the sidewalk.
"I wasn't talking about for me. You're the one going and making friends with a girl," he pointed out.
"I don't know if you haven't noticed, but girls aren't only here to be love interests!"
"I'm just saying...it's a big step for you!" John insisted.
"No, I'm not...that's not what she is to me. She's a friend. A good friend." Victor defended automatically, feeling such a truth spawn powerfully in his heart. For as long as he'd known Rosie, he knew that she would be nothing more than a friend to him. It would just be wrong to purse any romantic relationship, some form of incest that he couldn't quite recognize the significance of.
"What about Sherlock then, hm?" John wondered at last. Victor felt his face burst into flames, and for a moment his stride almost stopped, his feet tripping over themselves as he tried and failed to react to that suggestion like a normal human being. What did John know about Sherlock? What did he think he knew?
"He doesn't like her either," Victor offered, choking out the words so inconvincibly that John didn't even look away. The interrogation progressed.
"Well, you seem to talk very highly of him, that's all. I didn't know if...you know," John shrugged.
"I don't know, and I'm not sure I would like to," Victor snapped. He felt as if his breath was being sucked from his throat, as if someone had shoved a vacuum cleaner down his windpipe and refused any oxygen to his brain. The world, in all its glory, was beginning to go black.
"Alright then. But you know it's...well it's all fine with me. I don't care if..."
"Thank you, John," Victor snarled, figuring his explanation need not be said, nor did the two ever need to clarify exactly what was being pronounced acceptable.
"Is that really the snip I get for being a good friend?" John defended.
"You're prying," Victor reminded him.
"It's my best friend right to know everything about your life, Victor. Country lines don't change that," John pointed out. Victor seethed, though he continued to walk at an unnaturally fast pace, his long legs spanning nearly a whole slab of pavement as his body intentionally began to try to leave John behind. Oh, curse those soccer practices! Unfortunately John was athletic enough to keep pace at a slow jog.
"Alright, alright, we'll drop it," John decided at last, obviously responding positively to the silent treatment. Thankfully he kept true to his word. It would seem as if these uncomfortable conversations were just as unbearable for the both of them, and it wouldn't seem as if John was going out of his way to make their first day miserable. Instead he changed the conversation, though he was hopeless to change the shade of Victor's face. The boy totted along these familiar sidewalks with a particular spite, dragging his heels across the cement and sneering towards his shoes. It wasn't the fact that John cared, so much as it was the fact that John noticed. If John noticed, did Sherlock? Did Rosie? Did his parents? If John noticed, was Victor forced to notice as well?