Notes: Written for Calvindile on tumblr, who gave me the prompts The Count/Albert and "Don't trust me". Set at some unspecific point during the events of Gankutsuou. I'm sorry if this isn't entirely accurate, it's been a long while since I've watched this series through.
There isn't a single person in all of Paris who understands the value of trust more than the Count of Monte Cristo does.
Not because he himself puts a great deal of trust in other people, at least not that he's consciously aware of. But because every thread in his beautiful web hangs by the trust of those who surround him. That trust so fragile that with a single mistake the web could be batted into ruin by a clumsy hand. But the same trust that was also so strong that it could hold the weight of the Count himself, balanced on the beliefs of those he had deceived.
He knew that not everyone trusted him. It was clear to see in many of their faces. His whole life had been spent assessing whether other people trusted him or not and the minds of these simple Parisian aristocrats were not even child's play for him to read.
The fact that some of them did not trust him was not important. In many ways this even worked in his favour. And during the times that it didn't he could weave his thread to make it so, an artist in human relationships that he was.
But most people, even if they let themselves be swayed by him entirely, had a little part in their hearts where they didn't full feel they could trust him.
The exception to that rule was Albert de Morcerf.
Unfortunate young Albert, ever so tangled in the web through no fault of his own. His existence was the celebration of the deceitful union that had brought tragic Edmond to his end all those years ago. With that in mind, the Count should either love or hate Albert. But neither of those notions could exist as long as the Count knew Albert as a person and not a concept.
Albert as a person was so loving, so intoxicated by the Count and his strange world, that he was the one single who trusted him with the whole of his being. Well, there was also Haydée of course, but she was another matter entirely...
Every word that came out of his mouth Albert accepted with complete certainty.
Because of this, Albert should have been the person who the Count found the easiest to manipulate. But this was not the case. For his blind trust, what Albert was granted from the Count was almost total honesty.
Which did not mean that Albert was removed from the Count's web. In many ways he was the most important thread within it. Instead it meant that the Count treated Albert with slightly different tactics to the others. If honesty could indeed be considered a tactic.
Sometimes the amount he disclosed to the young man was so close to revealing everything that the Count himself became the one who was intoxicated by it. The knowledge that he lingered so close to destroying all that he worked for felt like his hand was hovering above the dancing flame of a candle.
And through it all he wished he could scream to Albert, scream to himself, 'do not trust me!'
...But the Count did not scream while he had guests.