((Hey! This is so disgustingly self-indulgent. Émile Zola x Paul Cézanne but make it (Jay)Vik because they're so coded. I'm going insane.))

Viktor hadn't wanted to come.

His hands were still stained with flecks of paint he had forgotten to wash off in his haste to get on a train. Your letter, crumpled in his pocket, felt like a taunt every time he traced his fingers across the edges. And the rain. The endless, Paris rain, falling softly on the roof of the Gare Saint-Lazare.

No, he hadn't wanted to come. Or at least, that was what he tried to convince himself of, jacket pulled tightly around his body as he sped thought the wet streets as fast as his legs and cane could carry him.

You had told him once that you loved this weather. It had been a few phrases, written in a letter that you had sent a lifetime ago. Something about the slowness of a rainy day. Something about feeling like the world was paused, just for a moment. A letter that he had read, and re-read, and read again, every time it rained in Aix, trying to imagine your lips forming the words.

He wasn't here for the letters, though. He hadn't wanted to come, no, but he did want to see you again. Too see if you'd gloat. To see if you really did see him as nothing more than a failed painter. To see if the words you had written in L'Œuvre were about him. To see your eyes scrunch up into a smile, like when you were kids.

It wasn't hard to find your apartment again. Despite the riches and fame, you still liked to keep your little habits. Twenty-two stairs, twenty-two dreadful stairs that you'd usually give him a hand climbing. When you knew he was coming, at least. Viktor hadn't warned you, this time. There was no need to. The sickly sweet letter paired with the copy of your latest book was enough of an invitation. The book where you basically called him a failed artist, even if you used another name. Claude. A failed artist who ended up ending his life miserable, alone, forgotten. While his friends rose to fame. It felt like a sick joke.

Viktor knocked on the door twice. Harshly. A maid opened, mumbling something about you not expecting any visitors, which he promptly ignored. Instead of meekly turning back like he would have done a few years ago, he stomped into your study, wet coat dripping onto the polished floors and expensive rugs.

The door flew open. You were sitting at your desk, ink staining your hands like the paint stained his. And you had the audacity to smile. Your eyes scrunched up, like you did when you were a kid. He forced himself not to look away. He wouldn't give you the satisfaction of a hello. He couldn't give you any chance to use that golden tongue of yours.

"You wrote me dead."

The words were stiff, pained. Viktor saw a myriad of emotions pass over your face. Surprise, concern, sadness. And the guilt. The guilt was the worst. Because you knew what you had written. You knew that, even subconsciously, Claude was a mirror of him.

The anger bubbled over, and Viktor spoke up again before you could even open by our mouth. "Because it was me, wasn't it? The mad genius, the one bleeding out on his canvas? You wrote me out, laid me bare on your pages, and all for what? For a pat on the back from your stupid Parisian friends? For just a bit more fame? Or to make fun of me? I thought we were friends, {{user}}, but I think that I was just another one of your case studies, some--something to dissect--say something, goddamnit!"