What The House Forgot

Secrets Ripe for The Picking

It was a strange but lovely occurrence for the four of them to join together, especially after the tensions were beginning to run high. Even more unlikely was their meeting spot being somewhere more practical than the house, which offered more uneasiness than was necessary for a teenaged gathering. It was a hot summer's day, the sort of midweek calmness that was provided only when their parents were all at work and the back roads were devoid of anything but a wandering animal, a rustle in the leaves that would cause the party to look casually aside, though they never recognized their mortality, never cared much about anything lingering just out of sight.
Today the gang assembled on an old railroad bridge, the sort of crumbling infrastructure that provided the perfect daredevil spot for smoking weed and staring into the abysmal waters below. In reality the drop couldn't be more than ten feet, and there was a bubbling stream at the bottom filled with gravel, not rock. A fall would not be fatal, perhaps more of an inconvenience than anything, though when sitting upon the rickety structure (so obviously bowed with the accumulation of their weight in the middle) Victor wondered just how many bones he could afford to break at this time in his life. A wrist would be alright, an ankle. But an arm would be detrimental to his studies, and a leg would make him virtually immobile for the rest of his last proper summer. And a back...well that might kill him instantly. Best not fall of the bridge, though that was easier said than done. Much easier, especially after Rosie produced a large bottle of cheap vodka from her bag.
"Only one rule for you boys today," Rosie began, swishing around the bottle as she passed it along to the end of the line. John was sitting at the end, next to Victor and bookending the two lovers with Rosie on the opposite side. Victor could feel John's arms as he reached for the bottle, and he could hear the soft clicking of his excited tongue as he began to unscrew the cap. John had never been a heavy drinker in America, but here with the drinking age so close (only eighteen, compared to America's twenty one!) he seemed a lot more enthusiastic about the idea. Perhaps the brain development that is warned against in the United States doesn't apply to developing English brains. If Victor still hated England he'd have a fair amount to say about this inconsistency, but now as he began to favor his new home he decided not to bring up the possible side effects of becoming a heavy drinker so early.
"And what's that, no falling?" Victor wondered.
"No talking about that house," Rosie clarified. Sherlock laughed deeply, his voice bouncing beautifully off of the emptiness which surrounded them. The boy leaned back against the bridge, his feet kicking a couple of times in the air before he shook his head in exasperation.
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Sherlock determined at last. Victor chuckled, feeling for Sherlock's hand next to him on the rusted metal. As predicted, Sherlock's palm was pressed into the bridge, his fingers splayed and vulnerable to another loving grasp. Victor trapped Sherlock's fingers into his own, feeling them squirm for a moment in pure shock before at last settling momentarily into his grasp.
"Victor, if you're holding my hand how am I supposed to steady myself?" Sherlock reminded him softly, a voice which seemed to drop low enough to attempt privacy, but when they were all sitting within arm's reach of each other it seemed as even the softest whisper could be incriminating.
"Balance, idiot," Victor pointed out. Sherlock chuckled again, a rather forceful show of humor, though he squeezed Victor's hand tightly before releasing it just as quickly.
"Sorry dear, but some PDA is not worth my life. Don't you feel this bridge shaking?" Sherlock pointed out. Victor's face sagged for a brief moment, his lips down turning into a small frown before he recuperated, bringing himself back into the present moment and remembering that all eyes were on him. If he made a bigger deal of this then surely Rosie or John would suspect something was amiss in the relationship. He had to play this off as normal, even if it was deeply hurtful.
"Yes, I suppose I'd rather you alive than dead anyway," Victor mumbled, tucking his hands onto his lap if only to demonstrate how one did not need any hands on the bridge to ensure they stayed upright. John passed the bottle along to Victor, who passed it between both hands and took a sniff from the neck. It was a foul scent, rather like rubbing alcohol, the sort of stuff his mother would douse onto an open wound with the insistence that the pain was making it better. It repulsed the boy, and so he passed it along to Sherlock who immediately took a large and generous swig. Victor noticed, of course, that Sherlock did not do this with telekinesis. He was able to hold one hand onto the bottle just fine, and surprisingly he didn't fall to his death as predicted. What a hypocrite. Frankly, what a jerk.
"Tell me about America, John," Rosie insisted. "Is it much different than England?"
"Only in the worst ways," John grumbled from the other side of the bridge. His shoulders slouched, though in a moment of imbalance he straightened up and heaved a large breath of panic. "At this point in my life it looks like I'll just stay here forever."
"You'll come to University?" Sherlock presumed. "In our town perhaps?"
"What a closed loop that would be," Rosie chuckled.
"Hey! You're breaking your own rule," Sherlock warned, waving an accusing finger (once more, with a hand that was not on the bridge) towards his counterpart. The girl chuckled, shaking her head in defense and smiling softly to herself. Rosie truly was a beautiful girl, with the sort of soft features that clashed so surprisingly with her personality. When she was calm in moments like this it made the connection between her and John more believable. They had the same relaxed face, the same soft smile, the same wide eyes. Like father like daughter, presumably. Victor cast his eyes down towards the water, forcing himself to divert his mind. Forcing himself to follow the rule even if he was only breaking it within his head.
"I suppose I might have to. I guess it depends on where you three are going," John admitted.
"Well I have free scholarship from our university, considering my father worked there. Perhaps you could get a discount as well!" Rosie teased.
"I'm not going to university, who do you think I am? Some sort of...intelligent person?" Sherlock scoffed.
"Oh don't throw yourself away so easily," Victor taunted. "You're the most intelligent boy I know."
"Any brains he used to have had been smoked away. It would be wasted money," Rosie agreed in a chuckle, prodding Sherlock with her elbow so that the boy gave a quick cry of fear, as if he was fully expecting someone to send him into the depths below.
"Oh who cares what the future holds? Hasn't it already been predetermined? Aren't I supposed to be dead before the summer's end?" Sherlock pointed out. Victor's eyes turned immediately to John, in what was undoubtedly the staring contest of the century. From the way John reacted, with an expression rather similar to a porcupine thrusting out its quills, he jumped about as far as a boy could into defensive mode. It would seem as though with any mention of death, the whole gang looked to John. Victor couldn't tell exactly what the other two were looking at, but he had a feeling that everyone looked to their historical killer for more information about their oncoming demise.
"Don't you look at me!" John defended, kicking his legs defensively before building up too much momentum and stopping abruptly. "I'm not about to go killing anyone!"
"If there's anyone who's going to deny his role in all this, it's John Watson," Sherlock sighed.
"That's because my role is the worst one!" John wailed.
"Not all parts," Sherlock pointed out.
"Wait, wait..." Victor held up his hands for attention, looking towards John and then back again at Sherlock, his eyes narrowing as he tried to decide what exactly they thought they were talking about.
"Wait what?" John snarled, perhaps too agressivley than he intended to.
"You two are talking about...about roles, and about futures, as if you know them already?" Victor clarified, posing this more as a yes or no question rather than a request for elaboration.
"Well...well it's complicated. Obviously we don't know exactly..."
"Yes of course," Sherlock interrupted, forcing John's mouth to shut like a bear trap. Victor pursed his lips, looking now exclusively to his boyfriend, wondering what they had all been hiding from each other in the meantime.
"So you know about, about the special problem we all share?" Victor clarified.
"Victor, being gay is not a problem anymore," Rosie pointed out with a wagging finger.
"Now shut it! That's not what I meant!" Victor snarled.
"I would say we are the experts. But I wonder, Victor, what you think you know," Sherlock pointed out. John leaned forward as well, his weight now pushing extensively into Victor's shoulder. Victor glanced between them again, feeling his heart recede farther and farther into his rib cage. He noticed the excessive use of 'we'. He wondered what exactly that meant, and whether the two of them were keeping more secrets than they ought to. Had they been acting as confidants to each other exclusively?
"Reincarnation," Victor guessed. Rosie chuckled, though not in disbelief. In mockery, almost. As if she was sick of hearing such a word posed like it was some sort of mystery, and not a set belief.
"Yes," Sherlock sighed.
"You knew?"
"Yes of course," Sherlock chuckled.
"Here I was thinking I was some sort of secret keeper..." Victor whispered. "John, you knew?"
"I uh...I was given some help," John agreed. "I got this diary from the house. It had the chronological events of my original visit to the house. Two hundred years ago."
"So wait a moment, you are both acting as if this is old news!" Victor whined.
"It is old news, Victor! Why doesn't anyone just listen to my mother anymore?" Rosie insisted, taking a long swig of vodka before burping loudly and aggressively, as if that was her last laugh.
"How long were you going to keep this from me?" Victor demanded, his face growing red in disgust as he drew his eyes towards Sherlock, towards the boyfriend that was rather obligated to keep him updated on events in his life.
"We didn't want to scare you, of course," Sherlock defended. Only now, when he was in any sort of trouble, did he bother to stroke Victor's hand. Though this time Victor wasn't having it. He was the one to yank his hand away, the one to deny any sort of apologetic intimacy.
"Well how on earth do you know? Some sort of angelic message, a choir sent from the clouds?" Victor demanded, steering his jeering face towards his boyfriend so that Sherlock could comprehend just upset he was beginning to be. The boy laughed, taking a sigh before thrusting his hand out towards Rosie, grasping for the bottle that would make this situation a little easier. Already the boy was wobbly, as if he had already drunk too much to ensure his safety, but at the moment Victor wouldn't all together mind if Sherlock took a tumble. This might not be cheating exactly, but was secret sharing something a bit too close to the line? Why would Sherlock confide in John and not Victor?
"I'm just smart, that's all. I saw a mystery and I solved it," Sherlock demanded. He took a long swig of vodka, hissing as the alcohol coated his throat, and closed the bottle in one swift motion.
"So you've known this whole time?"
"I told you that part already, I read the documents," Sherlock taunted.
"That's just names, that's not reincarnation. There's a bit of a leap from coincidence to magic there," Victor pointed out.
"It's really not, not when you're high," Sherlock sighed. "But how you laughed at the idea before! How have you set your mind so steadily to the fact?"
"I...I just did," Victor muttered, pursing his lips and realizing that, by interrogating his friends, he was opening himself up to the same treatment.
"Now come on Victor, if you're so insulted by our keeping secrets there's no reason to hide any yourself," John pointed out, jabbing Victor in the ribs in a moment of drunken hostility. Victor winced, though instead of clutching his side to ease the pain he instead clung to the rail on which they sat, worried not for the development of a bruise but instead for his life at such high altitudes.
"I just had a dream, that's all," Victor muttered, his voice dropping in an obvious lie. Sherlock chuckled, though he seemed satisfied.
"Certainly there must be secrets that are not yet ripe for the picking," Sherlock muttered. "John, you really can't blame him. I do remember you deciding not to share that journal with him, so unless you can weasel the answer out in a more deductive manner it's no use prying and guilt tripping."
"Why would you share that journal with Sherlock, and not with me?" Victor snarled, turning his attention now to his best friend, or the boy who supposedly held that title. There was an underlying sense of betrayal here, it was burying deep within his conscious thought. Well of course there was something on the surface, an obvious splash of distrust and secret keeping. But down below, if one would devote any more time to the subject, well certainly he could begin to detect something foul. Something unfaithful.
"Because I thought you'd freak out!" John insisted.
"Good thing we avoided that," Sherlock pointed out.
"Good thing we followed literally the only rule set for the day," Rosie complained. In unison, the trio ignored her.
"Well, Victor overthinks things. And if he gets his mind set on something, well I'm sure he'll work fantasy into reality and jump to the worst case scenarios!" John defended.
"Why are we talking like I'm not here?" Victor whined.
"Certainly Victor likes the beginning of the narrative," Sherlock pointed out.
"Not the end," John reminded him. Victor's heart sunk, this time with more force than he thought possible. It fell so hard through his chest that his rib cage must have splintered; in fact he could almost feel the essential organ falling straight through the beam on which he sat, plummeting to the water below. Surely this conversation was alluding to more knowledge than just the basic foundation of reincarnation. Surely that diary had described everything that happened between their beginning and end. Not only the strange circumstances of their birth and their shared deaths, but the romance in the middle. John didn't share the journal because he didn't want Victor to know of the supposed destiny between he and Sherlock. There was something there, wasn't there? Something written into the narrative, beyond just the house's inclinations. Victor had been hesitant to realize it, but that same betrayal suffered from his eighties counterpart, could it be that such heartbreak was ensured for every repeated lifetime?
"But that's just...that's all from the past." Victor pointed out in a weak, rather pathetic voice. "That's for generations ago; it's not something that we'd...that you two would repeat?"
"Just what are you calling 'generations'? You forget the reason I'm basically an orphan?"
"Rosie, honestly, we could do without," John snarled.
"I'm not stupid; I can catch onto this stuff even if you're hiding behind four lines of innuendo. I've heard all of this stuff from my mother before...this feels like I'm listening to three idiots trying to make up the tale of Hansel and Gretel, or whatever else bedtime story is ingrained into the collective unconsciousness."
"She told this to you as a child?" Sherlock clarified.
"Of course she did! I've been hearing your name very perfectly aligned with the Devil's! Of course that was all coincidence. It's always been a coincidence. Never...never truth. At least not truth like it is now."
"Well, you're one of the lucky ones then," Sherlock grumbled.
"How lucky do I look to you, exactly?" Rosie snarled. Sherlock shrugged, sipping some more vodka before passing the bottle back to Rosie, trying to ease the pain of this conversation for the both of them. Victor watched suspiciously, now having recalled Sherlock having drunk what must have been the equivalent of three shots in the past twenty minutes. Certainly he should be cut off soon, if not immediately. Vodka was not made for sipping lightly, especially not when perched on a railway bridge.
"You're lucky because you're in this but not in this. You get the story, not the consequences. You get to watch us crazy boys run around on puppet strings, while you broke free a long while ago. You're lucky...because the house forgot about you."
"The house doesn't forget," Rosie snarled. "I'm not important enough to bother with."
"It forgets," Victor assured, casting his eyes down into the water and wondering if his reflection would stare back with especially old eyes. Some part of him was thankful to see that the water was murky and brown, not the sort to produce a thought provoking mirror image.
"Are you saying I'd be dead now, if it had remembered to kill me?" Rosie demanded.
"How are we supposed to know what the house does? Though I suspect it doesn't like leftovers. Nothing that would ruin its plan, or steer its playthings in the wrong directions," Sherlock pointed out.
"She's not leftovers, she's my daughter!" John snarled. Sherlock chuckled, and even Victor had to catch himself before he began to grin. How strange it was, hearing that sentence spoken so definitively. So determinedly.
"Don't think too much into the past, John. Your past life doesn't reflect yourself now," Victor reminded him, speaking primarily with the intention of dissuading John from following the path of admiration that his past lifetimes had taken. Certainly John could be talked out of any romance that had the potential to blossom between himself and Sherlock Holmes.
"How do you know?" John wondered, his voice tinged with playfulness but deep with a strange sort of hostility. Victor glanced over, suddenly aware of his proximity and his potential for danger. John's arm was still touching against his own, their shoulders brushing. "How do you know I don't have that urge to kill?"
"Because you're you." Victor said this as if he was still confident with his friend's character, still so sure about what happened within John Watson's head.
"What if I wasn't? What if I wanted to follow in my ancestor's footsteps, and steal Sherlock from under your nose?" John challenged. Victor tensed, straining to find any hint of humor in his friend's voice. A strange violence seemed to possess John, and in that moment even his docile hazel eyes began to glint with a particular flame.
"You wouldn't do that," Victor reminded him, speaking as if he was directing John to the path of morality. Speaking as if to a dog that was beginning to learn to sit.
"Killing you would be the easiest way to do it. Look at you now, separating us. How easy it would be..." John chuckled, pushing his hand gently against Victor's shoulder and shoving him ever so slightly into Sherlock. It wasn't immediately aggressive, though it was enough to demonstrate strength. John possessed the ability to tip Victor in one direction, so why could he not try for another? If Victor would fall to the side, why not forward?
"John, you're ridiculous. Sherlock's my boyfriend, and if you..."
"Sherlock's begun as yours every single time. And he's been mine at the end of all lifetimes!" John reminded him. Victor pulled his lip over his teeth, barring his jaws like a dog ready to bite. He was taken aback by this new show of hostility, of control. John had never acted in this way before, though today he acted like a man possessed. The boy lunged, looping his arm around Victor's neck and applying a quick and snapping push. It was just enough thrust to send Victor towards the edge of the rail; just enough to push his torso into his legs and force his eyes to stare over his knees into the water below. Victor let loose a scream, certainly this was the only appropriate thing to do, and clutched hold of Sherlock's hand for stabilization. His legs dangled, his eyes were swung over the edge, and the sudden eruption of protests were lost to his ears. The entire world hummed, he could feel nothing but fright, and he could see nothing but the torrents below, the river as it coursed over the gravel, hiding the bed of rock that may very well be his death.
"What are you, crazy?" Rosie's voice demanded above, an accusation that rung clearly to Victor's ears despite the rushing of adrenaline. John's arm was still looped tightly across the back of his neck, pushing Victor into a flattened, uncomfortable position. It was almost like a low bow, a pledge of submission, if you will. A show of weakness against John's everlasting force.
"Yes, he is," Sherlock announced. Victor could feel an ease of the pressure, before at last John's arm slid off of his neck all together. It would seem as if Sherlock's calm yet affirmative condemning had been the last straw. John was fine with putting on a show, but could he slander his name so easily in front of the boy he was perhaps trying to impress?
"Aren't we all, Sherlock?" John demanded. Victor cowered for a moment still, his fingers clutching so tightly upon Sherlock's palm that he may very well be drawing blood. Finally he dared to sit up, to flatten his back against the rail and chance a quick glance upon his old friend. John, through all this panic, began to laugh. He was laughing as if this was all some sort of joke, and the lifelong feud between their two characters was something to mimic, not embody. Nevertheless, Victor's life flashed before his eyes. His trust began to reevaluate. He looked at John, the boy who seemed to have snapped out of his berserker mode and into a normal teenaged shell, and began to see a tint of red about his body. A tint of evil, lingering upon the surface of his skin. A smile on his face, but the potential to kill beginning to rise up from the depths of his personality, until one day it was the only option he thought he had. And when that time came, when that moment arose...perhaps he would go through with it. Perhaps he would fulfill the house's wishes after all.