Chapter Text
Good Night
Class didn’t start until Tuesday.
But the moment the first day of September came around, Victor had the perfect excuse to get out of his house and move into his college-issued apartment again. Not that he needed one. It was as promising as it was necessary, seeing that he did not possessed the privilege of a rightfully self-made single room anymore. Although he had already shared the big room sized place with Eli for almost the entire last year of school, Victor feared he would never get used to share a living space with someone. It had taken him little time as a child to get used to —to crave, later on— loneliness, and he didn’t see how he could ever get rid of that trait.
So those six days he would have of solitude in hi— their painfully small apartment were his well deserved right after spending the summer inside of the four god forsaken walls that constitute his childhood room.
And so Victor allowed himself to enjoy that week without people, occupations, or other kinds of limitations. Every day was spent doing all he wanted in the apartment, only eating when necessary, going on late night walks and fixing his parents new upcoming collection. The second book was the funniest at the moment. A book called They Care: A Guide to a Child’s Emotional World had no reason to be so comical. Maybe his parents were a bit like Eli in that sense, they could put an ungodly believable mask for the outside world and he just hadn’t had the opportunity to witness it. Maybe it was for the best. Victor couldn’t say he was interested in his progenitors. He couldn’t say he was interested in people at all, actually. Well, in most people.
Everything was running smoothly, everything quite and tranquil and lonely except for Victor’s brain. It was not perfect, but nothing was, and this was as close as it would get for him.
Victor felt something akin to pleasure.
He still had two days to enjoy on his own. That morning, after crossing out whole paragraphs with his black sharpie for half an hour, he went to the most solitary café around campus. All of the cafés surrounding the place were quite empty, only some elders and teachers passing by at certain time intervals of the day, but this one was his favorite. It was one of the places he and Angie had gone to the most in freshman year, right before Eli appeared and ruined their relationship. Angie and Victor were still friends, but it was not the same.
Nothing was the same with Eli there. Not even fucking coffee. Victor mentally scowled himself at that, he was determined not to let Eli —or the mere thought of him— ruin the short time he had left.
He ordered a Long black and didn't even bother to look for the best table. He already knew where it was without having to tear his gaze away from his plastic cup, but he suddenly did not feel like staying there any longer than necessary. Victor thought about it during the rest of the day, while he followed his new, temporary routine.
At night, while he returned from his walk he started feeling weird. Not weird, different. A kind of pressure he didn't yet understood but could almost recognise. Victor was sure he had felt this before. He had gotten lost in thought by the moment he made it back to the dormitory. The feeling was heavier there. When he turned around he saw the side of Eli’s body perched on one of the chairs of the kitchen table.
Victor froze. He hadn’t even heard the, now too loud in the silence of the pint-size living room-kitchen-studio sound of Eli’s marker scraping furiously on the pages of Eli’s textbook currently resting on the table.
This had to be a joke.
Eli’s beloved god had to be playing a huge fucking joke on Victor.
That had been his problem today. He wasn’t feeling weird for thinking about Eli when there was no reason to. He was feeling Eli when there was no reason to.
Victor stared at the other boy for what felt like too long and too short at the same time, and he nearly missed the deliberate seconds Eli waited to turn towards him while he was caught up scanning the other’s appearance searching for changes over the summer. Looking for clues to what had his roommate been doing the months they were away for summer. When Victor forced himself to come back to real time he stared blankly at Eli.
“Good night,” said Eli, casually, almost playfully. “Didn’t expected the summer to turn you into an outdoorsy.”
Victor took a deep breath, not knowing if he was frustrated or relieved. He was sure he could be both. And he was even more certain that he was. Eli was messing with him. He was wearing an open smile, big enough to show his pearly white teeth. But it didn’t reach his eyes. It rarely did, really. But when he faked smiles for other people, his eyes turned soft and docile. That was the closest thing, Victor mussed, Eli could achieve to feign a real smile and everyone ate it up, so it must mean he was doing something right. With Victor, though, he had a whole different fake smile. It was still fake, which irked Victor to no end. But with him, Eli didn't bother to hide his eyes. Didn’t bother or couldn’t. Victor’s brain, a faithless, plush muscle, still had some faith in the latter.
Eli’s eyes where screaming many different things right now. And Victor was no doubt eating it up.
But he was still mad. He had to show Eli he was still angry.
“Care to explain what are you doing here?” Victor asked as he walked stiffly to their room, where two identical beds were. He had thought of going to heir shared bedroom, that had a bathtub bigger than the rest of the space all together, instead, in case Eli followed him.
“I could ask you the same thing” Eli turned his head from were it had been looking at the Victor in the door to look at the Victor standing in the entrance of their room , giving his back to him by the open door of the room.
Victor wasn't sure what the other boy was trying to do, so he didn’t respond. He had seen Eli’s playful side before, it showed sometimes when they were with Angie. It usually made Victor want to pull his eyeballs out of their sockets and stab his ears so he couldn’t witness those moments, but he always decided against it in the end. As an excuse to watch his two friends more or as a punishment for having introduced Eli to her.
He finally went deeper into the room and started grabbing his night clothes when he heard the chair Eli was in 7 feet awat in the kitchen rotate. Eli sighed.
“I’ve decided to come a few days ahead to get familiar with the study material” he mumbled clear enough.
Oh, so he wasn't joking about the grade competition, though Victor. He felt his lips stretch lightly despite himself.
“Looks like someone was faster” he said as he walked towards the bathroom. He heard Eli give an unadulterated chuckle before the door closed.
All the time he was in the bathroom was spent in his head. While he showered he thought about telling Angie. Maybe she could come tomorrow instead of the day after tomorrow and take one of them away. Victor would prefer if it was him, but he would contempt with having Eli away for two days more. Even if that meant Angie spending her precious time with Eli and, therefore, not with him; even if that bothered him. He discarded the idea rather quickly. The campus was still nearly empty and, if the Eli’s plan was to stay in their dorm reading all day, Victor would willingly go somewhere else. He did not need to trouble her.
While he dried and changed, his cognitive processes wandered towards his rather newly (but old enough) relationship with Eli, and where did he fit in their lives.
He had met Eli first, as his latest inconvenient roommate, but, had it not been for Angie’s warmth and social tendencies, Victor and Eli wouldn’t have broken the ice. Not because they disliked each other, but because there was no apparent cause to do it. Angie had been that cause, that motive. At least for Victor, because the only motive Eli needed to socialize was to get something out of someone, but Victor couldn’t see what anyone had to offer good enough to require social interaction. Nevertheless, albeit having made a cordial start with Eli, they were still more roommates than friends. They got along, yet the amenities hadn’t disappeared. Victor only called Eli “Eli” because the latter didn’t go by Eliot and had given the impression many times that he disapproved of it. They were both polite and superficial when humoring each other at first. And, although it didn’t feel like humoring Eli and more like just spending time with him now, it still felt superficial —even though it probably was the most profound, real interactions he had seen the brunette have.
That annoyed Victor, because there was nothing superficial about him and every superfluous thing about Eli was fake. A big fat lie.
There had been a few moments, sure, when he had thought to see his roommate’s mask slip, but the moments have been so fleeting he might as well just’ve dreamt them. Imagined them only out of pure want to see what monster laid behind that politician, Boy Scout smile. To see beyond the perfect student and the perfect friend and the perfect faithful boy and the perfect flirt.
At the end, Victor came around the situation and managed to focus on some other thoughts. He had been thinking about his expectations for the imminent school year. Everyone had already decided the courses they will be taking, and Victor couldn’t wait to learn.
He could wait more than his roommate, apparently.
He went out of the bathroom and into their room and saw Eli in some boxer shorts lying in his bed. He hadn’t remember that pesky habit of his.
Victor didn’t mind how others decided to cover their bodies with clothes, but the fact that Eli, a southerner being used to way more heated climates, chose to sleep in just boxer shorts in a shared apartment the size of a small living room meant that he was comfortable. Too comfortable. And Victor wasn’t.
Another thing Eli had and he didn’t to the list.
Victor went to bed with a bad feeling in his mouth. The one he used to get as a kid when he was learning the consequences of arguing with his mother and had to force himself to shut his mouth. He wanted to say something right now. He wanted to scream —Victor did not scream, he would vehemently say in a rather loud manner— many things.
He slipped into his bed and gave his back to the room. To Eli.
“Night,” said Eli again before he turned off the lights.
Victor thought about that word as he stared at the wall. It was uncommon. He didn’t remember any of them giving good nights to each other last year.
He did remember Angie giving them, though.
The next day Victor woke up late. At 10:30, to be exact. Eli was not there, thankfully. Victor did what he had been doing the past 4 days. Fixing books, sketching some anatomy, drinking coffee, being alone and walking.
He had scheduled the same activities for the next day, but the execution was soon cut short when he was waiting for his usual coffee order at the bar and a red head of soft bouncy curls came up to him as if it were freshman year all over again and she was approaching him for the first time. He couldn’t help but smile.
The permanent inconvenience of social contact melted away the moment Angie came in the picture.
“Victor!” She said, exited, and immediately went to hug him. He hugged her back. The miserable summer was suddenly forgotten, as if it had never happened in the first place.
“Angie. Hello.” He exhaled as they pulled away.
She beamed up at him. “Oh my god, Victor I did so many things this summer. We have a lot to talk about.” She said brightly. Victor was content seeing her like this, no worries, still in her summer clothes, smile as bright as the sun. He always liked to see her, but during the school year she barely had time to spare and, when she did, she used it for extracurricular activities and track when the weather allowed it. “Well, we should wait for Eli,” she kept going. Victor’s left eye winced. And she saw, of course she did. Sometimes, he had the impression that she could see him almost as much as he could see Eli. “Wait, is he already here?”
She didn’t need his verbal confirmation. “That is fantastic. Great, so we can meet up later today at Teddy’s” she told Victor, as if she knew asking would be stupid because he wouldn’t say no to her. She was right. “I have to start unpacking first.”
Victor nodded.
She touched his forearm warmly and smiled, her face lighting up. “See you guys later, then!” And went away.
Guys. Plural. Right.
He watched her go, walking with her head high and her smile light.
His phone started vibrating as he left the library. It was Angie. She told her she was with Eli in one of those new phony cafes where all they did was paint the walls with two much color and sell people overpriced, sickly sweat coffees. So no Teddy’s then. He hanged up and walked there. It would probably be awkward to see Eli and Angie together again. They were just friends, but Victor didn’t know if he had overestimated his companions cognitive capacity or if they were acting stupid not to hurt his feelings. But, if that was the case, he thought they were producing the opposite.
Victor reminded himself he should have already gotten used to Eli being in the group.
Because he suspected the problem was not Eli.
It was Eli and Angie being together.
Two opposite sides of his world merging into a nauseating, overpriced coffee.
Victor didn't even had to bother in the slightest to look for his friends, and they were the first thing he saw. Angie and Eli together made Victor’s brain become a little bitch, but they were also a fascinating unnatural phenomenon to observe.
From the outside they were a blazing, blinding shape of light; but, if you got close enough, you could see them as separate entities sharing an obnoxiously close space and, in doing that, you would clearly see the light wasn’t actually a light, but instead a tight current of self absorption reflecting itself in each other's energy. Like mirrors.
Angie was a selfless mirror. Eli a funhouse mirror.
As he approached them, their faces turned up.
“Victor!” Angie was already smiling. “Finally.”
Eli just stared.
He sat down in front of them and Angie went straight to talk about her summer. And then straight to asking questions to them. This was the worst part, because it meant victor had to talk and go around with words to end up saying nothing of significance. Which he did.
Then, Angie, a little dissatisfied, ambushed Eli with questions. This part was more interesting again. Back to listening.
Unfortunately, Eli did the same as Victor himself. But at least he had a smile and pair of eyes that distracted Angie (and everyone else, apparently) enough for her to be as pleased as if he’d just told her the life of his whole genealogical tree.
Victor felt a pang in his stomach. And he suddenly and violently wished it would be just Angie and him again.
But he didn’t wished anything, actually. He didn’t hope or pray, either. So he would have to put up with it or move on.
He was confident in his ability to move on.