Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

fifteen | the photograph

   Remarkably, I managed to save myself from dropping the coffee mug, catching it in my hands with reflexes that surprised me. Without warning, my mouth opened and words fell out. 'Your wife?' I sounded shaken up, even to myself, when it really wasn't that much of a surprise considering they lived together.

   Still, though – it was a pretty big deal, when only earlier today he had told me explicitly that he was quite convincingly gay, and described his male soulmate to me, as well as the tragic circumstances that had changed their lives forever.

   If you could say 'their lives', when only one of them was still here.

   Adrianna smiled and bowed slightly. 'It is nice to meet you, Archie. You are a friend of Anthony's, yes?' She looked expectant.

   I had almost forgotten she was there.

   Looking at the floor, my voice came out soft and broken. 'I... sort of.' I chose my words carefully, deciding I'd better get to my point before anyone started to ask questions.

   'I, uh— I wanted to ask about George,' I blurted out. I had no idea if this was a subject I should be approaching, or if I'd offended anyone, but both visibly flinched at my soulmate's name. Obviously something had happened with them regarding him, something bad, maybe? I felt a pang of guilt – but I also felt an inexplicable rush at the the idea that they definitely did know him, although under what circumstances I was yet to find out.

   Continuing to stare at my shoes – if you could call them that, as I was still in the slippers I shoved on earlier and suddenly they seemed fascinating to me – I couldn't tell if the atmosphere in the room had changed. Something told me it had.

   After a moment, I looked up to see my Professor walking towards me, very slowly. Suddenly scared I'd said something awful, and that he was going to do something terrible to me, I began to apologise profusely. 'I'm sorry, sir. I shouldn't have asked that. I shouldn't even be here. I'm just—'

   'Archie.' He sounded calm, though the pale pallor of his skin and the eerie tone of his voice said otherwise. He was so much sadder at home than I had ever seen him in class; he must have been a fantastic actor. He'd managed to convince me he was so arrogant, with such a superiority complex, such refined social skills. Here, I saw beneath the shell, something I would never once have expected to see. He was a hollow husk of what once was a man, and now was nothing.

   I pitied him.

   To my surprise, he bent down gracefully at the fireplace and picked up a silver photo frame, holding it so gently I was amazed he didn't drop it; nothing like how he had held on to the wooden frame he had showed me earlier. It occurred to me that this man certainly liked his photographs, but then he was – supposedly – into art. Maybe he specialised in photography.

   He knelt on the floor.

   Silently, he showed it to me, and within the frame's delicate walls I saw a young man, maybe twenty. This boy, too, radiated an aura of sadness, easily readable in the frame of his limp shoulders and the way be held himself – but also in his hollow smile, and his dilated pupils like deep dark oceans of void.

   The photograph looked startlingly familiar to me; then I realised. It was the same one I had found buried in the Professor's desk drawer with a phone number scribbled on the back. I gulped. Of course, he didn't know I'd already seen it. Or that a copy of it was in my pocket as we spoke.

   I looked up into the Professor's face to see him biting his lip viciously, his eyes wet and sparkling. 'This is George,' he whispered, his voice trembling, a single tear rolling slowly down his cheek from pained blue eyes. Suddenly it struck me where I'd seen those eyes before.

  The photograph.

  The professor cleared his throat. 'My son.'