Upside-down

Chapter 1

I decided to create a fanfic out of the prompts for the Kreidefamily week! So I hope you'll enjoy this :)

Day 1: Modern AU - Snowmen

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As far as he could remember, Dorian never had a good relationship with his brother. Or with his mother, for that matter.

Perfect little Albedo, showered with attention as soon as he was born, barely a few years after Dorian. While the older had been treated like a spare, like a test subject that could be replaced if the result of his mother's upbringing were not satisfying enough, Albedo was seen as the one who would one day inherit mother's research facility. Albedo was the one who mother looked at with pride shining in her eyes while she never even deigned to pay attention to Dorian.

The only times she would look at him where when he had something she expected, when she needed him to do something for her, or when he was supposed to help poor little Albedo in something the child couldn't do.

Mother would give him orders, tasks to follow, but she never pronounced his name after Dorian's brother was born.

Never, not once. Not even when she was screaming at him. Not even when she wanted to call him and he wasn't near her. Not even when he left the family home for college and never came back.

Dorian was sure, if she could, she would pretend like he never existed. She would remove him from existence, undo his birth, erase him completely from the world.

If she had magic, Dorian didn't doubt for a single moment she would have done exactly that. He wouldn't put it past her.

So when she died, he did not cry. He did not even feel an ounce of pain, of regret for never having been close to her.

Not that he tried to get closer. He did try. He tried again and again and again, only to be met with more and more disappointment.

So, at some point in his life, he stopped trying.

Oh, he wanted to say she stopped caring around the same time, but it would be a big fat lie.

She didn't stop caring. No, for that, she had to have cared in the first place. She never did.

Dorian went away, let college take all his time. After all, if he was too busy, he wouldn't have time to feel the sting of abandonment. He wouldn't have time to wonder if she would ever talk to him. He wouldn't have time to think about how lonely he had become.

If he was too busy, he wouldn't have time to think about his perfect brother.

If he was too busy, he wouldn't have to worry about how much of a disappointment he was to his mother.

And, as if this wasn't enough, he decided to study botany.

And oh, Dorian, why the hell would you lower yourself to such a job? Look at your brother, a soon to be medicine student!

This was always what it came down to; what Albedo did that Dorian didn't, made that much worse by the fact that Albedo was the youngest of the two, achieving things Dorian never did at a younger age.

What did it matter that his mother refused to send him college funds? What did it matter that Dorian had to drown himself in work so he wouldn't end up drowning under debts that he would never see the end of? What did it matter if his life was just too much to handle sometimes?

No one cared, no one ever did and no one ever would.

Dorian had been all alone before he even realized not a single soul was willing to stay besides him, and he would always be. He had given up hope of ever befriending someone long, long ago.