It's not something that's really been of interest, until college and until Reed. He can already feel his life being cut neatly into two halves -- one of before and a mythical back home in... and the other here, with him. Not even a real rival, which would make this dogged interest understandable, but an irritation. They rarely see each other outside of class, but Richards' smug face is there in memory, sharper and clearer for the remembering--

But yes. The subject to hand, as it were. If his scant information on the behavior of the adolescent human male is accurate, it seems common to have a fantasy -- a magazine pinup or the pretty girl who snubbed you at a party, some half-remembered beauty queen from an adult film. A point on which to fixate. Victor has nothing of that sort, but his body answers well enough, his hand working in sharp, short, businesslike strokes.

(The fact that right now, in the back of his mind, he's more occupied with thoughts of Richards than ever, and who it is that haunts Reed’s puerile fantasies, should concern him more than it does. )

And he allows his thoughts to wander -- from scornful thoughts of the only pornography he's seen since coming here, to questions of technique (he's using his right hand, note-taking having exhausted his left) to acute awareness of the pages of calculations that litter his bed, and crumple under him when he shifts his hips a little. Then to his experiments, the only thing he actively has to push from his mind; they're not the kind of thing he wants in his head while he's jerking off. It feels disrespectful. (The old Viennese fraud would certainly have had something to say about a man thinking of his mother.) And from there, quite naturally, his thoughts turn to his classmates, and the movement of his hand slows, his grip tightens on slickness.

Reed, the insufferable. It's Saturday night, and the things Reed said during Monday morning lab spring to mind readily, his clear-eyed and confidently pronounced statements on the nature of reality that are nevertheless idiotic in their presumption. He’s so sure of himself, and perhaps in the faraway kingdom of Richards’ own delusion these things he’s so confident of are actually true, but someone needs to shut his mouth. Reed the student, carefree and brilliant; Reed the citizen, square-jawed and proud of his own cultural achievements. Reed the thinker -- it’d actually be less infuriating if he were an idiot, a beautiful idiot. He’s merely a fool instead, too much of an asset to exile from the classroom and too heavy an intellectual burden to be bearable. He’s mocking Victor simply by existing on the same continent, by breathing air and by being born of a man and a woman.

(Victor’s grip has tightened considerably.)

His suits, which ooze expense from every seam and lining and look exactly like Victor’s own, only better. Or the stupid sweaters that he wears when he’s in the library and won’t make eye contact with Victor, not that he would want him to anyway. The line of his jaw and throat, which someone ought to bite, hard.

How had that gotten in there? Dear God.

His voice. His self-assured handshake -- no one’s shaken Victor’s hand who hasn’t wanted something out of him. Victor wants to snub him, to insult him, to spit in his face and break those fingers. He wants to grind him beneath his heel. Reed’s presence at ESU is an insult to those who sacrificed to get there, and no one knows sacrifice better than Victor does --

His teeth are gritted and only when his throat begins to spasm with tightness does Victor realize he's been holding his breath.