John POV: John heard it again and again, the repetition of harsh words and good riddance. The word delinquent was used most often by the staff, a tone of relief followed by a breath of thankfulness. The delinquent is gone, they would say upon staring at Victor's empty chair. Gone for good. John didn't see it with such a positive light, in fact he happened to be sitting next to that chair when it was last occupied, and he planned to stay in his chair long after it had been abandoned. What choice did he have but to relish in the memory of his best friend, now when faced with the opportunity of complete loneliness? Victor was his other half, a wound that would be gashed through his social life for the remainder of his junior year and beyond. How could he so easily forget, chalk the boy down as toxic and move on to make other acquaintances? Certainly he could sit with his friends from the soccer team, those who only allowed a passing wave on his way through the hallway. Would that be an insult to Victor's memory, his lingering ghost which still lingered in the hard plastic chair? John slumped forward in the desk, figuring he would stay put for a while longer. Perhaps until the end of the year, when he could use the summer to decide.
It would be easier to say that Victor was dead, though the truth was much more convoluted. With the look John was wearing as he descended upon a chair, empty on either side, one might have mistaken Victor's departure from the country as a departure from the world itself. As if his father had gotten a job in Heaven, rather than England. Perhaps then John wouldn't be worried about tarnishing his friend's reputation, as there was a slim chance he may still return to take his seat.
Their childhood stretched back as far as John could remember; in fact they shared the same delivery room, one curtain apart from each other. The first thing John heard was probably Victor screaming, his first neighbor might have been his lifelong friend on the other side of a glass divider, swaddled in identical blankets and beet red from their newborn anguish. They always joked about this coincidence, as if their friendship had been planned by the Gods, arranged in such a way to ensure their cooperation. It seemed too fanciful, though now, sitting alone, John wondered if their futures were only intertwined as far as high school. Perhaps now was the great divide, the moment in which he had to wave goodbye to his best friend for good.
The airport was the most challenging moment of John's young life, though such a loss was unrivaled by any other strong negative emotion. Save the loss of a family goldfish, or perhaps the defeat at a championship soccer game, John had never had to face something so terrible as grief. He was never forced to uproot one part of his life and replace it with nothingness, forced to acknowledge that a significant part of himself had been lost, never to be recovered in the same meaningful way. John hadn't been able to get past the ticket desk, though he followed the Trevor family all the way through the double sliding doors. Victor had been feigning excitement the entire way, forcing a smile for the crowd while his private, unseen glances reflected a deep worry. His smile had always been reassuring, and even when in the back of the rental car, squished between the family's luggage, John might have convinced himself that nothing substantial was happening. Not while Victor was smiling, when his blue eyes were alight with falsified humor, telling stories of melting a plastic bowl in the microwave that morning in a hurried and disastrous breakfast.
No matter how much the boy laughed, John could tell that Victor was afraid. His hands were fidgeting across his carry on, his fingers wrapping and unwrapping across the handle of his travel mug. They moved the way they might before a math test, in which he had studied his notes three times over but still seemed to assume he would get a failing grade. Victor's eyes darted this way and that, looking out the window, glancing at his friend, staring at his feet. He squirmed like a child, constantly readjusting himself in the sticking leather seats. He smiled again, but his eyes grew cold. The Trevor parents were silent, appreciating that their son could get at least a couple of words of storytelling in before they ripped him from the world he knew. In some ways John imagined he was suffering the worst case scenario. In other ways he appreciated Victor's own struggle. It was one thing to have something taken from your world, another for the world to be taken from you.
They were never very fond of hugs, in fact both John and Victor avoided touching each other entirely. It wasn't a rule, per say, nor even a stigma. They had never made the conscious decision to stay apart, whether that be ensuring their shoulders never brushed when sitting close together, or their feet never kicked together underneath the kitchen table. It seemed as though society had set upon certain standards for friendships between boys, and the two were following along as they saw fit. They didn't dare fall under a certain reputation, already teetering dangerously close to a rumored relationship. Best not to add fuel to the fire, best to stay the necessary distance apart. Though today was different, today it seemed that they had to make up for all of the missed touches, as well as prepare for the lack of contact for the rest of their young lives. In some ways the two needed to at least make sure the other was real; they needed to confirm the solid body of their friend before parting.
John kicked his heels into the ground, Victor leaned upon his luggage. Mr. Trevor was struggling with the ticket booth, printing out three one way tickets that did not specify or include a return date. These would be stuck onto their luggage and promptly lost, stored in a hall closet, unnoticed and neglected until they fell off in the mildew and darkness. No need to replace the stickers with a fresh return ticket. There would be no travel for a long while. John managed a small smile, trying to force his lips to curl upwards instead of lean into gravity and the growing pressures of his grief. His lips wanted to downturn, they wanted to collapse into his cheeks, give into the pull of the grieving muscles, betray himself and his emotions for the world to see. He forced a smile, seeing no other way to maintain himself. If he allowed a frown he might let a tear slide, and with a tear would come rushing the rest of the emotions he so desperately wanted to hide. At his age, boys were not allowed to cry.
"I don't think you can come with me through security," Victor muttered, fumbling with the strap of his backpack to bide his time. John pursed his lips, shaking his head and turning his gaze towards the floor. He didn't like studying his friend so closely; he didn't like the idea of those features traveling across the ocean. Some part of John had prepared for Victor to leave, he knew that Victor as a whole would vanish from this country and leave him behind. Though he wasn't prepared to say goodbye to that shirt, Victor's favorite shirt, the one he must have chosen to ensure a fashionable arrival to his new home. John wasn't prepared to say goodbye to that water bottle, the one which had accompanied them in the cup holder of John's rusted out car, the one which sat upon the aluminum bleachers as Victor joined the fans of a weekend soccer game. It wouldn't be enough to bid the boy goodbye. John felt that he needed an entire day to bid farewell to each of Victor's possessions, the small things he would never see again. The things he would miss with almost as much intensity.
"You be careful over there, okay? Don't burn your tongue with tea, or get speared by some royal guard," John insisted, jabbing an accusing finger towards Victor, attempting to mask whatever hesitation he felt behind a layer of humor. Was he expected, in this moment, to spill his heart onto the floor? Was he expected to start gushing about their time together, or lamenting about its abrupt end?
"Ah, you know me. I'll get into my fair share of trouble. Though this time I won't have a cherub by my side to take all the blame," Victor chuckled.
"You do look suspicious alone. Always up to no good."
"I guess I'll have to cause mayhem by myself."
"I guess so." John sighed heavily, swinging his empty arms and feeling quite useless. Victor was laden with bags, his laptop dangling from one shoulder and his backpack weighing his down from behind. His neck was wrapped in a purple neck pillow, a present from his mother to ease the pains of the long flight.
"Well, I guess goodbye," Victor offered at last, that word stinging across the air as it traveled from his tongue. John sneered at it, the sound waves that neatly stopped short of such an unreceptive ear. Goodbye. What a foul thing to say. John nodded, looking up towards Victor's reluctant blue eyes, the boy hiding behind the swoop of his brown hair, trying to use it as a barrier to hide what sort of pains really flourished.
"Should we hug?" John wondered, figuring it best to be transparent about his intentions.
"I suppose," Victor agreed, his voice quite small as he eased his laptop case to the ground. John nodded, scuffling forward and seeing that his efforts were matched by Victor's single step in his direction, the converse sneakers sliding across the tiles and stopping short. It would seem as though John was being forced to do all the work. Victor raised his arms rather awkwardly, standing like a scarecrow in careful anticipation. John trembled as he raised his own hands, hovering them around Victor's neck and hesitating as he shuffled closer, unsure if he would be allowed to settle them upon the boy's shoulders or not. John jolted to feel Victor's arms tighten across his chest, a movement so natural that John instinctively settled his own weight across his taller friend. As if with a magnetic pull their bodies collided, and as the proximity closed their grips only tightened, suddenly desperate to pull themselves together, desperate to make their bodies as inseparable as their souls.
John had never been able to confirm that his best friend was solid. He had never been able to say with certainty, considering he never had firsthand experience with touching him. Though today he could feel not only Victor's physical form, but what lay underneath as well. He could feel the bones as they shifted, the skin as it tugged and pulled with the constricting muscles. He could feel the fabric of Victor's clothes, smell the faint scent of his floral shampoo, and was suddenly hit with the reality of his best friend. The reality of a physical being, a human entity, now so closely wrapped within his own. Now so close to being pulled apart and gone again, escaped from John's grasp just as soon as it became its most tight.
Despite his anxieties, it was John who pulled away first. The hug had gone on for long enough, too long for his comfort levels. Carefully he unraveled himself from his friend, allowing Victor to step back and clear his throat, fighting off tears in the only way he thought possible. Another smile, strained this time. Visibly forced.
"I'll see you later, then," Victor offered. Neither knew what later meant, but John nodded is head in agreement. He could still feel the entity of Victor Trevor against his chest, though now, standing a couple feet away, it was a quickly fading memory. As if it had never happened at all.
"See you later," John agreed, sniffling aggressively and turning his head away. He didn't want Victor to see him crying. That would be a terrible last memory to harbor. It was the only goodbye he could manage, and it was the only formality he felt he was obligated to provide. John hadn't given Victor the opportunity to say anything more, he didn't allow any sort of formalities. John ducked away, he nodded his head, gritted his teeth, and somehow ended back where he started. In this desk chair. Slumped into his own form. Staring at the plastic desk, carved with gratified initials, and holding back the tears that had yet to come. He wouldn't allow them, not yet. Not here. Delinquent, they often said. No, something worse than that. Absent.  

John knew that he had should wait to call; he knew that three days was not nearly enough to cook up a good enough story. Things hadn't happened on his end of the world, nothing to report except the continuation of school projects, the gossip of the popular crowd relationships, and of course the baseball team's agonizing defeat (which he knew Victor would enjoy). But was three days enough for Victor to tell his tales? Was he sitting bored in a London apartment, or was he still roaming the streets, working on his new accent? John hesitated with his finger on his phone, scrolling through various apps but not seeing anything. He wanted to call; in fact he found it impossible not to try. International phone service was expensive, though at this point he didn't expect his parents to care. At this point it was worth the money.
The dial tone was agonizing, forcing John to count the hours on his fingers, trying to gauge what time Victor might be living through. John was pretty sure that the days of the week still matched, and so his Friday night would probably be the same on that side of the ocean. In America Victor had taken to staying up late, usually he was reachable until at least three o'clock in the morning, though in England who knows what he chose to fix? The boy was riddled with issues, common complications, and when offered a blank slate he may decide to correct them. He could be anyone he wanted in that world, why not be someone with a healthy sleep schedule? Thankfully John was still the only rational one in this friendship.
"Hello?" Victor's voice muttered, tired and quick, as if he was only answering the phone during the brief intermission between online rounds in Call of Duty. John breathed a sigh of relief. In that time of dialing he feared the worst; he feared he had missed something. Perhaps the news hadn't reported a tragedy, though his first and most irrational thought was a commercial airliner bobbling and sinking into the Atlantic.
"What's that tone of voice for?" John snarled, unable to hide his relief at hearing Victor's octaves, however rude they were. "It's been three days and you don't seem to recognize my voice."
"Not your voice, the number. My contacts got screwed up with the international plan," Victor complained. John could hear the tapping of his gaming control, followed by the telltale signs of a quit game. That was probably the extreme lengths of Victor's empathy, quitting a game for your behalf. In any other context, that was like a marriage proposal.
"Good to hear it. You better put my name back as usual, then," John warned.
"Cabbage Patch?" Victor clarified. John hesitated, sneering on his end of the phone.
"I thought I was twin."
"I told you that. You're actually Cabbage Patch, because of the time that horse tried to eat your head on that field trip," Victor sighed. He sounded bored, but John had to chalk that down to exhaustion. He did the math now; there was a five hour time gap. What was a charming eight thirty for John was somewhere past midnight for Victor, an everlasting excuse for the lack of enthusiasm on his end. In all reality the conversation felt no different to John, either. There was nothing remarkably stimulating about it. They had seen each other just three days ago, the distance of an extended weekend with one of the United State's boring, controversial holidays taking Monday off of the school week. They've maintained this distance before.
"How's England?" John wondered at last, figuring he ought to address the elephant in the phone line. Better to speak of the most interesting things before settling back into the mundane.
"Boring. Unbelievably boring. I'm not living in any sort of city, not even a place with grass on the roves. I'm in some da*n suburb, a college town. I don't start school until Monday, and so I've had nothing to do but unpack and be miserable."
"You? Miserable? I thought you were a ray of everlasting sunshine?" John taunted.
"Only to blind the eyes of my enemies," Victor clarified. John couldn't help but smile at the everlasting humor, that crude rudeness that Victor wore as effectively as a mask. He wasn't a fighter, he wasn't hostile. Though if you weren't close enough to realize this, his talk might indeed sound intimidating.
"Is it nice there?"
"It's cloudy," was Victor's best response. "Everyone talks weird."
"Soon you'll be talking weird," John reminded him. Victor scoffed on the other end, as if he'd already heard those accusations.
"They say we have an American accent. I say it's just because we learned how to talk properly. And because we have a dentist. No wonder they slur everything, these people have teeth jutting in so many directions their forks have to go through a maze!"
"You sound bitter."
"I'm not bitter," Victor said, bitterly. "I'm just bored."
"I'm sure it'll get better with school. You'll make a couple friends, none as good as me though, and things will start getting back to normal," John promised.
"None as good as you? The heck you think you are, some high standard? I can get a million of you, John Watson, so long as people lend me their cardboard."
"Try not to hold England to American standards. Try to adapt to it, and find the good in it," John suggested, his words struggling to maintain their octave of optimism. He wanted Victor to be happy, but in some horrible way he was also hoping that England proved to be unbearable. He hoped that Victor would turn around and leave, unable to cope, and come live with John in his parent's house until they were old enough to go to college. That would be, in John's opinion, the best case scenario.
"I'll do my best. So far the only thing I like out here is my neighbor's dogs."
"Any cute girls out there?" John wondered, of course his only youthful priority. Victor heaved a heavy sigh, followed by some interruption on the line, as if he had reclined back into his chair and brushed the phone heavily against his ear.
"I didn't really pay attention to that," Victor admitted lazily. John nodded, mostly to his own reflection, as if confirming something between himself and his innermost thoughts. From the way their lives were progressing, it really wasn't a surprise that Victor didn't prioritize the search for an attractive lady.
"The baseball team lost yesterday," John added, feeling the need to change the subject away from things that made Victor ever more depressed. He needed some positivity in his life.
"Ha! About time. I'm never satisfied until they're squashed in at least two of their home games. I love to see those parents shutter. Two innings away from disowning their sons and their chewing tobacco."
"They got crushed, honestly. Double digits."
"I wish I was there to see it. I wish I could have sat in those bleachers and cheered for the other team," Victor lamented, to which John chuckled sadistically.
"It wasn't the same without you," he admitted.
"I'll be back soon, don't you worry," Victor sighed. John blinked, holding the phone to his ear to better confirm.
"What do you mean by that? You dad hasn't been fired yet, has he?"
"No of course not. I'm just going to run away. I've already got the money for a plane ticket; I just need to find enough to manage an extra carry on. Can't leave the PlayStation behind."
"You can just use mine," was John's only logical response. He wasn't going to be the one to talk sense into Victor, not when his ridiculous plan was quite similar to John's own priorities. He would love it if Victor ruined his whole life on America's behalf.
"I'm not meant to be English. I'm sick of it already."
"It might get better. But if not, you can stay in the guest bedroom."
"And share a wall with you? Disgusting. I'll get a motel room."
"You and what money?"
"I'll beg on the street. I'm pretty enough for it," Victor assured. John scoffed, rolling his eyes once more at his own reflection.
"Best of luck with that. Perhaps you'll be better off in England then. It'll probably be a bit warmer over there."
"Ya right! The sun never comes out; I'll be pale as a vampire by the time I'm done here. No wonder Dracula was written in this dump."
"Oh come on then, stay positive," John insisted.
"I'm positive," Victor lied. John sighed heavily, checking his watch to see that Victor had just passed into the second hour of his new day.
"It'll get better when you get to school. Tell me all about it, alright?"
"Of course," Victor agreed, the closest thing to sentimentality he could manage at this hour of morning. John appreciated the snap in his voice, as it was there to cover the obviousness of it all. Of course Victor would update him. Who else was there to talk to around there? Of course John would be the first one he would call.
"No responsible friend would keep you up this late, so I'll let you go," John decided.
"Who are you, my mother?"
"No, I just know you enough to remember your knack for being nocturnal. Put that game away and go to bed," John snapped.
"And you stop pining and do the same," Victor snapped. John chuckled, though he had no good counter argument. He smiled softly, despite himself.
"It was good talking to you."
"You too," Victor sighed, though he sounded honest.
"Bye." John muttered. Victor didn't offer the same departure, he merely hung up. Too emotional to offer the word, or too lazy. Perhaps a mixture of both, tied up in a great ball of denial in his chest. Victor did like to get hostile when things weren't going his way. He mistook the world for the real enemy. John just happened to be part of that world, the one Victor so despised.