Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vincent might have missed it entirely, had he not glanced out the window by chance. 

A black-haired figure, dutifully loading boxes into a car. 

He could have run down and caught Albert, before he left. He had ample time to sprint down the stairs and into the courtyard, ample time to demand an explanation straight from the man himself. 

But he didn’t — only sat and watched as Albert picked up the last of his boxes.

Only sat and watched as Albert drove away. 

He shouldn’t be upset about it. They weren’t friends — rivals, barely more than acquaintances. 

Except they were, said a voice at the back of his mind. Sitting together in classes, ribbing each other over lunch, spending hours debating the most inane topics. They weren’t friends, but they had been close, anyway. They weren’t friends, but they were so much more than rivals, so much more than acquaintances.

He shouldn’t be upset over this. 

But he was. 

Albert was gone, Albert was leaving, and he hadn’t even had the audacity to say goodbye. 

He snapped his book shut, tossed it onto the couch, bolted out of his room. Albert’s dorm room stared back at him from across the hall, the name plate blank. 

The door was unlocked. 

He pushed it open. 

He already knew what he would find inside. It would be empty — it was empty, bare of everything but the furniture that RMU had provided them. He moved forward anyway, headed straight for Albert’s bedroom door. 

Empty again, save for the bed and the nightstand, and the mirror hanging on the wall. 

The mirror, reflecting his own face, pale and stricken and entirely too familiar for comfort. 

The two of them looked similar enough. Would look almost identical if they changed their hair parts, if Vincent ever smiled, if Albert ever frowned. 

He’d never hated his face more than in this moment. 

What was the purpose of this constant reminder? Albert hadn’t cared enough to say goodbye — why should Vincent grant him the honour of a memory? 

They weren’t friends. Albert had no obligation to tell him anything at all, but— 

He’d thought that Albert had cared, even just a little. Enough to say goodbye when he left, enough to tell Vincent where he was going. 

He was angry, and he was hurt, and he hated and hated and hated . 

He slammed a fist into the mirror. It shattered on impact, the shards embedding themselves into his skin, falling to the floor in a cascade of glass. The shards would prove hazardous, hidden amongst the carpet, but Vincent couldn’t bring himself to care. What did it matter? 

They’d charge Albert for the damages. 

It was better like this. The mirror cracked, his reflection broken. It was better without the evidence of his attachment staring back at him. 

They weren’t friends. 

Perhaps they could have been, if Albert had been a little less proud, if Vincent had been a little less abrasive, if they had been different people entirely. They were too similar to coexist peacefully, always fighting for the same space — each a warped reflection of the other. 

They were rivals. Arch-nemeses, always clashing and feuding and striving for more and better . 

Albert had been the goal Vincent had aspired to reach, the highest bar. 

And now he was gone. 

Vincent had no physical evidence of his existence. No photos, no keepsakes — all his fault , the voice said. He was the one who had refused it, who had deleted and thrown out as much as he could in a misguided attempt at apathy. 

Albert had left as if he’d never existed in the first place, and Vincent had nothing to remember him by but his memory. 

Nothing to remember him by but his memory, and the little scars that would form on his hands.

He shouldn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to remember, wanted to forget Albert’s face and Albert’s voice, the easy smirks, the little quirk of his brows that said can you keep up?  

He’d known this was coming. Should have known this was coming — the separation was inevitable, with the end of their schooling. They had met here. They would have no reason to keep in contact, outside of RMU. No classes to share, no scores to compare. 

Except he’d cared, and he’d thought that Albert had cared, and— 

If this was how things would be, then he’d show Albert the same courtesy. 

Victor asked no questions when Vincent returned to their room, blood dripping down his hands. He helped clean Vincent’s wounds, plucked out all the glass that remained, wrapped his fingers in bandages when they were done. 

He had seen the car drive away, the same as Vincent. He had watched Vincent go still, had seen his knuckles go white and his face go ever-so-carefully blank. He had never been as close to Albert as Vincent had, had never really understood their relationship, but he could understand this fallout, a little. If it had been him and Vincent instead, then— 

Then he would be feeling the same as Vincent was now. 

For now, he’d give Vincent silence. Space — it looked as if he needed it. And in the meantime, he had some things to set to rights. 

Chapter Text

It started with a phone call. 

He’d been hesitant in answering it after reading the caller ID, a strange sort of dread settling into his stomach. And then he’d heard the first few words, and knew what he was going to have to do. 

“Your father is sick.” 

Krueger Corporation specialised in medical services — she wouldn’t be calling if his sickness was anything that could be treated. 

“The graduation ceremony—” 

“As soon as it ends.” 

“I— yes, mother.” 

“Come home.” 

“Of course, mother.” 

She’d hung up with a click, and Albert had been left with a predicament in his hands. 

He’d packed his belongings in the leadup to the graduation ceremony. His room was now bare, stripped of everything but the furniture that had been here to begin with. 

There was no point in any more delays. Even now, his phone was chiming with message notifications, and a glance was all it took to see that they were all from his mother. He had to leave. 

He pocketed his phone with a sigh. For all his bravado, he had never quite mustered up the courage to speak back to his parents. 

There were only three people with this level of power over him, and he’d only ever willingly surrendered it to a single one of them. 

His parents had left him stone, an immaterial failing that remained even after he’d left for G4, manifesting itself in an emotional disconnect that he tried to temper with quick smiles and sharp wit. He was separate from his emotions, observing their happenings while they were locked behind a glass case — a glass case that only ever seemed to conveniently disappear when the three people in question were involved. 

His decision to attend RMU hadn’t been for the school’s prestige, but it's distance — although its prestige did assist in convincing his parents of the merits of attending a college in a different district. 

He’d expected nothing of the college. 

And then he’d arrived, and seen him. 

He had taken one look at Vincent from across the courtyard, seen his face and the steel of his eyes and the set of his shoulders, and decided that this one was his . 

His potential was boundless, if only he decided to use it. Albert spent the next week learning all he could about the man, dropping in in the middle of conversations to offer his own commentary, coincidentally passing through whenever Vincent was in the room, or simply sitting next to him in classes. 

( Research , he told himself. An interest — not an obsession .) 

Vincent had a habit of picking at his nails — always trimmed as short as they could go. (He had long fingers. Perhaps he was a pianist.) Vincent had had his ears pierced at some point. Vincent was particularly attached to his roommate. Vincent fed the stray cats behind the campus in the evenings. Vincent had his coffee black, but added copious amounts of sugar when he thought no one else was looking. 

Their rooms were on the opposite ends of the dorms. 

That wouldn’t do. 

So he’d walked into reception with his name and a smile on his lips, and walked out of his new room in the morning to greet the dumbfounded Vincent across the hall with a wave and a cheery grin.

Vincent had so much potential. And spite, Albert had found, was an excellent motivator. 

He stopped outside Vincent’s room, arm poised to knock. 

And then he hesitated.

Looking back on everything now — had their rivalry been as trivial as he’d always intended it to be? 

There was a point where pretenses became reality. Where jabs went too far, when snide comments hit a little too close to home. They had been toeing that line for all the years they had known each other, but who was to say if he had inadvertently crossed it, at some point in their relationship? That Vincent’s partially feigned annoyance had become outright disdain?

Vincent had deleted Albert’s number off of his phone whenever Albert tried to add it. Vincent had meticulously disposed of every gift Albert had given him. Vincent had tried his damnedest to ignore Albert at every possible opportunity. 

It would not be difficult to assume that Vincent truly hated him, at this point. 

Perhaps he did. 

The lack of reciprocation had always bothered him, but he’d put it down to their game. Now, he couldn’t be sure. 

Albert dropped his arm, lips pursed. The nameplate on the door was staring back at him, mocking him, Vincent’s name written in smooth cursive. He wanted to knock, but what would be the point?

This was his last day in G4, and no matter how much he wanted to see Vincent for the last time, to speak with him for the last time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to muddy his memories with another spat. 

A relationship had to be mutual. As much as he cared for Vincent, as much time as he had invested in him, theirs was, decidedly, not. 

Vincent had had boundless opportunities to express any form of sincerity at all. The fact that he hadn’t meant that— 

He turned away from the door, picked up the last box sitting outside his room, nothing more than an excuse to linger for even just a little while longer. 

The fact that he hadn’t meant that this relationship, whatever it was, didn’t matter. 

Albert had to draw a line somewhere. He wanted this. He always would. But if Vincent didn’t, then it would end here. He was resigned to it — a truth he had internalised for some time now. 

He got into the driver’s seat of his car, ignited the engine. Allowed himself one last look at the college, at the window of Vincent’s room. 

He wanted this. Vincent didn’t. 

And he wasn’t so masochistic as to keep trying, when Vincent so clearly didn’t care enough to keep him. 

His phone buzzed as he rounded the corner, an inconveniently timed incoming call. He didn’t want to think about anything at all, not when all he should be focusing on was leaving before he changed his mind, but he couldn’t simply ignore it. He picked it up almost absentmindedly — the caller would not be Vincent. Vincent was far too proud for it, and if it would not be Vincent, then the identity of the caller didn’t quite matter at all. 

“Hello?” 

The voice on the other end of the phone was hushed. “Albert—” 

He knew immediately why he had been called. But that didn’t necessarily mean that he couldn’t put off the conversation for a few moments longer. 

“Oh, Victor! What is it that brings you to my metaphorical doorstep? If you need me to run an errand, I’m afraid that I am no longer—” 

“Why did you leave?” 

And there went his stalling. “Straight to the point then. Personal reasons, I’m sure you understand.” 

Victor sounded audibly exasperated — a win, in Albert’s book. “Let me rephrase. Why did you leave without telling him?” 

“I thought it best not to bother him,” he answered, much more lightly than he felt. 

“That’s never stopped you before.” 

“What can I say? Circumstances change, Victor.” 

“You could call him—” 

He dropped all pretenses of humour then. “Do you truly believe that he will want to hear from me now?” 

The silence was more telling than any other answer Victor could have provided him. 

Albert smiled — a small, derisive thing, a mockery of his usual grin. “I thought so.” 

“You could have told him before you left.” 

“I could have, yes.” His next words went unspoken. But would he have wanted to hear it?

“Fine. Call him, or don’t. I’ll send you his number either way.” 

Victor hung up, and Albert heard the message notification almost instantly afterwards. He didn’t dare look at it. He wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to call, not when he was still so close, close enough that he could simply turn the car around and see Vincent face to face. 

He wouldn’t look until he was well past the border. Until the feelings had time to cement, until Vincent truly resented him, even if he didn’t before. 

Things were better like this.