Something like vindication might have flashed, however briefly, over Albus's eyes. This cold, Albus knew. This void of emotion, Albus had seen before. With someone who set every one of Albus's senses off balance, to know something with any measure of certainty was grounding. Steadying, even if it weighed him down.
But that resentment flared again, his awareness of it threadding through his consciousness and back to the instant he'd opened that luggage. He did not wish for an altercation with Gellert. He didn't wish to feel anything strongly around Gellert, but he could not stamp this out. Since his arrival, he'd been unable to truly stem the torrent of his thoughts, or to rein in and subdue the emotions that coursed through him all too powerfully.
"Shall I lie to you, then?" he pressed, standing a little straighter, abandoning his retreating posture. What did Gellert want from him-- he asked for the truth of the circumstances, only to insist that Albus avoid the issue. "Shall I construct and colour my every word and glance to best manipulate your desires?" Only after the word was out of his mouth did it properly register how close they were, how familiar this was, how many applications the word could find. But there was nothing for it now, nothing but to plow ahead. "You'll find, no doubt, as you did before, how wholly my sense and reason can be dominated by the sway of my emotions," he said, his tone turning sharp and biting. "If I could eradicate my every feeling for you, I would. If I could compel myself to hate you, I would. Forgive me; in the meanwhile, you'll simply have to suffer through it."
Had he not, after all, endured quite enough at Gellert's hands already? It mattered less and less that this Gellert hadn't done any of it, because more and more, this Gellert seemed all too capable. If Albus's respect for Gellert's mind had broken along with the rest of him, it might have been easier to absolve Gellert's younger self, but as it was, Albus's eyes were bright with the simmer of his temper, practically glaring down at Gellert.