Work Text:
Alva watched Luca fiddle with the metal box he often carried in matches, wires protruding from every opening, and tools splayed across the table.
“My life would have been better if we had never met.” Luca spoke absently, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.
The white haired hunter paused, raising his head to look at the man.
“How so?”
“Well, if we had never met then I wouldn't have thrown out my acceptance letter to the university I applied to. If I had never met you then that would mean I never saw that damn machine on display at the exhibition. Maybe I wouldn't have become obsessed with such a never-ending puzzle. Perpetual motion is just a riddle with no true answer and a puzzle that will always be missing the very last piece.” Luca picked up a screwdriver from the work table.
“I see, you are accepting the truth about perpetual motion. That's progress.” Alva sighed.
“I've had a lot of time to think in this damn manor. I have also had a lot of time to forget.”
“Some things are better left to not be remembered.”
“Like you. I like it best when I don't remember you.”
The corners of the hunter’s lips turned down, the comment tightening his stomach.
“... You said ‘we’... Who is ‘we’?” Alva cut in.
“My father and mother. If my father had never met you, maybe he wouldn't have become obsessed with something defunct and he wouldn't have had someone feed into his delusions.”
“You act as if I was not delusionsed too. I know what I have done but you speak as if Herman was innocent on the matter. Did he not feed me adorned delusions and empty promises too?” Alva's eyes narrowed to slits.
“Of course he did, birds of a feather flock together. You two suited one another in that sense…” Luca fell quiet, “If he had never met you then he wouldn't have strayed from my mother. Things would have been okay between them…”
The white haired man dropped his eyes to the floor.
“What do you take me for, Luca? A temptress? A pied piper? Someone who walks and leaves fire and pain in their wake? Is that truly what I look like within your mind?”
“You look like the devil. A silver tongue and fire that laps at your heels when you run. The specificity of ‘run’ is because you are always running, Alva. Running away from the fires you have started.” The brown haired man pried open a panel on his box.
“If I have started fires, then your father was kindling. Balsa men and fire…” Alva murmured.
Luca flinched, his screwdriver clattering to the table.
“Herman and fire.” He spoke punctually.
“I have been through two fires at the hands of Balsa men.”
“You caused the second one. You shoved me as I held live cables!” Luca spat.
“I keep forgetting that is how you remember what had happened.” He paused, standing and moving back to the bookshelf to place his book away, “You wish you had never met me yet I wish that I had died in the first fire.”
“Disgusting of you to admit such a perverted thought- that you wished to have died in the fire that killed my father alongside him-”
Alva whipped around to stare at the brown haired man.
“I wish I was the only casualty. If Herman had lived then perhaps he would be free of the sorrow that tumbled down afterwards. Unfortunately, if I had died that does not grant your wish of never having met me. I knew you long before the fire and I will always remember that tiny little infant that gripped my hair and pulled it as Maria laughed and told me she thought it meant you liked me.”
One look at the white haired hunter caused Luca’s lips to shut tightly, eyes wide.
“Every day I wished it had been me. No child should lose their parents, especially in such a short succession… Herman had a wife, he had a son, he had a life, and every door open to him and yet what did I have? People who looked down on me for having worked tirelessly to earn my prestige, my finances, my home. I had nothing but stained overalls and dirtied hands.”
“Do not cry such a sad song as if you didn't have the opportunity for a wife and children, for rows of open doors. You did this to yourself, Alva!” Luca stood from the work table.
“I will not sing the same song to you who knows why I choose to stay alone. Why I choose to allow myself to be someone's plaything. Love. Love is always painted as a beautiful gift, a miracle, but love is a curse. Love has bound me to an anchor as I watched the ones I love throw it overboard. My love was sharpened to a point and I was left bleeding out at the center of the stage. I love Maria to this day and I see her everywhere. I see her in a summer's day because she adored the cool of the evenings and the lively atmosphere of parks. I hear the soft tempo of a piano floating in the halls here and a part of me wants to rush to the sound in hopes I will see her at the bench- fantastically full of life. I love Herman with every fiber of my being, I carry his promise permanently ingrained in my skin. When I work on manuscripts and research I always catch myself opening my mouth and looking to the side to pose a question. I detest the winter because every time it snows I see him in the windows of buildings looking out at me as fire burns the room he stands in. Above all Luca, I love you. Your eagerness to work will always be infectious, your absurd giggle when you connect ciphers reminds me of when you managed to start up a machine you built from scratch successfully, and every time you'd turn it on afterward you giggled under your breath. You were always so excited to work when you’d get to the lab, you always beat out the other students rushing in in the morning. When you played piano you looked exactly like Maria, the same soft smile as your fingers danced across the ivory keys.”
“You don’t know me, Alva. You don’t know me at all. You’re just a sad and miserable man who lives in the past!” Luca crossed to be in front of the white haired hunter, ready to scowl and argue, but he could feel his breath catch in his throat as the much taller man loomed over him, eyes burning down at him.
“Luca, I know you. I know you better than you do. You know yourself from when you were born and yet I knew you when you were in your mother’s womb. Luca Zeeman Balsa, light bringer. You had a stuffed rabbit when you were a child that you carried around your home, when you were seven you explained theorems to your teacher who had not even known the fuller explanations of them, and by the next week, Herman had hired a new teacher for you. You liked blueberries so much you had stolen a small box of them from one of the maids in the kitchen and ate yourself sick, and when it snowed you always wanted to go outside and play in it and Maria always placed everything down to join you and even convinced Herman to go out as well.” Alva took a step towards the brown haired man who meekly stepped back, “When you began to work for me you parted your hair to look like mine, in the first few months when you were working for me you would hum the same song Herman would hum, which was Maria’s favorite piano song, and I dropped a glass beaker and it shattered across the lab floor. I should be the one accusing you of not knowing me but I have nothing to compare to as my sharp recollection is because I’m just a sad, miserable man who lives in the past, isn’t that right, Luca?”
“I can recall things just fine, I can!” Luca felt his throat tighten, “I can remember, I can…!”
“What season did you begin working for me in?” Alva spoke, feeling his chest tight, “When is my birthday? What tool did I refuse to use in the lab? When the teachers hosted an after-hours social event, what drink was served and why did I leave early?”
For once Luca felt himself beginning to tremble as his green eyes stared up at Alva’s face.
“I-It was spring-”
“It was fall.”
“Uhm, your birthday is March- No, I think it was February-”
“Good, February. What day?”
“I don’t know.”
Alva watched as Luca lowered his head, his hand gripping the pouch that hung off of his tool belt. The brown haired man tried to recall the date but his mind simply couldn’t pinpoint a day.
“The 11th.” The hunter sighed.
Luca could feel pulses of pain go through his head, but all he did was grit his teeth and try to recall those days long ago.
“The tool… It was the burner…! In the first week we worked in the lab together I had been absent-minded and my glove caught on fire. I was okay but you never touched the burner again.”
“One out of three, can you earn 60% credit at least?” Alva waited.
“Social event, social event…” Luca muttered, hoping that repeating the words would spark his memory.
The brown haired man turned the words over in his mind as he went over each social event the lab had held. It had not been many but each Luca remembered he could not place his blond haired mentor in the small crowd of blurry and streaked faces that had no real distinct characteristic. What had his lab mates looked like? How many teachers shared the lab? Eventually one popped out to him where he could see Alva’s face amongst the crowd. Was this the one? Luca closed his eyes tight, concentrating as the memory warped and threatened to dissipate.
Don’t be so stingy, Professor. You’ve worked tirelessly all this time. You can afford time to relax.
Ah, really, it’s fine. I can sit here and enjoy everyone’s company without a drink.
But we have more than enough glasses! It’s a pricey bottle too. Finest-
“Whiskey…! They served whiskey and you left with a headache shortly after!” Luca gasped.
Alva gave a small nod to the man.
“60%. Hardly a passing mark.”
The brown haired man flinched and looked down. Alva tightened his grip on his cane and began to make his way to the library door.
“Why whiskey… Do you not like whiskey?” Luca called.
The hunter froze, only offering a partial look over his shoulder.
“... I detest it.”
The man could feel his throat burn, his stomach clenching and contracting deep within him, threatening to cause him to dry heave as despite he had not had a single drop, he could taste Herman’s favorite whiskey along his lips and inside his mouth.
“A-Alva, wait…!” Luca called.
The taps of the man’s cane along the wooden flooring rang in the other’s ears. Each slight thud indicating Alva had no intention of waiting.
“What was the point of this? To quiz me like it meant anything- It was all useless facts-”
“Useless facts?” Alva spoke low, quiet enough the brown haired man had nearly missed it.
Ah.
“I thought about what you have told me and I think I have found the correct answer: you and Herman’s life would have been much happier if you both had never met me.” The man stepped towards the large wooden doors, allowing his fingers to trace the brass doorknob, “In that vain… I wish I had never been born at all. I am quite lucky I am dead, I would have died from heartbreak a hundred times over before age or sickness would do me in. Apostle should have never brought me back.” Alva could feel his nails digging into the metal of his cane.
Luca jolted, eyes wide and brows tight knit as he instinctively moved forward to try and grab the back of the man’s cloak.
“I…” Luca’s voice died in his throat, the tips of his fingers brushing the edge of the white haired man’s cloak.
The other gave a shrug and pulled the door open with enough force it nearly swung out of his hand and slammed into the library’s wall.
“Have a good evening, Luca… Rest well, little, lost rabbit.”