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ollie-draws-things · 6 days

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Hugs full of static (2.6k)

(in which Luca and Alva reconcile. In a way.)

Alva Lorenz’s death had, ultimately, been caused by a misunderstanding.

The issue was with the manuscripts Alva kept in his room. Those manuscripts had belonged to his former colleague, Herman Balsa.

They had both worked on a perpetual motion machine for quite some time before arguments arose on whether they should continue.

The arguments lasted until Herman's death. A freak accident, an explosion, had killed him. So Alva locked up the machine for years, wanting to stop any other lives being taken by its grasp.

The one time he decided to reveal it again, he found himself with an apprentice. Luca Balsa.

The tabloids that liked to deface his former friend said Luca was a runaway. So Alva took him in.

And even though Alva knew Luca was his colleague's son, for all those years he never once thought to tell Luca about Herman's manuscripts.

Not even when Luca started acting strange.

Alva had foolishly assumed the worst at Luca's shiftiness. Watching him work on the invention alone, being cold and distant to his mentor, the seeds of doubt and hatred were planted in Alva's mind.

Just like how they must have been planted in Luca's.

Oh, how stupid they both were.

There was an argument, the day of Alva's death. Both were convinced the other was stealing, and neither told the other why. It had ended when Luca had stormed out of the room to try and calm down away from him.

Alva had found him again, in the middle of the night. He was in the workshop with their machine, alone, mumbling to himself.

It really did look like he was stealing, in that moment before Alva made his presence known.

If only Alva hadn't startled him. If only he hadn't moved so fast without paying attention. If only he'd realised what Luca had been doing.

But before he could understand, Luca had wheeled around, electrical equipment in hand…

And killed him.

It was, surprisingly to Alva, not a permanent death he found himself in. Some strange twisted fate had led a deity to his doorstep, and soon he was mostly alive again, though not in the same way he was before.

But still he thought time and time again about the incident that had caused him to leave life for what felt like only a fleeting moment but was likely much longer.

He'd always wondered how Luca was doing since the accident, assuming he was alive at all. He'd hoped he was doing well, but could never be sure.

That was until the day he got his answer, when the letter inviting him to a strange manor arrived, promising that it would be beneficial to his research. Luca was mentioned by name. It appeared he'd found his apprentice.

-----

While Alva had been missing from this life, Luca Balsa had been in prison. He'd been arrested the morning after the accident that killed his mentor.

Or maybe that attack had been intentional. He wasn't certain anymore.

Life in prison was much harsher than he'd ever heard about before being arrested. Monotonous tasks that went round and round and round again, deafening silence broken only by the rattling of chains and the angry screaming of guards, and the many tools those guards had to torment him all grated at his brain.

He wasn't sure when he started forgetting things. Some things were easy to realise he'd forgotten, like mealtimes and when to sleep.

But other things were chipped away, little by little, soldiered on in blissful ignorance before catching one problem and realising how many more he had.

Some days he couldn't remember his own name. Or where he was. Or what he was doing. And even as that scared him, what scared him more was the bits he could never remember again.

There was an invention. He loved it. He knew he'd never come to love anything else. But he couldn't remember how it worked. Or what it was, exactly. Or… what it did at all.

Just like the now useless machine, the cogs in his brain spin with no purpose, with no end goal. But he tries to remember what happened, needs to remember what happened, before it slips away like sand.

But still, he thinks he can piece together what happened when he killed his own mentor.

If every guard he asks tells him he murdered Alva in cold blood, then that must simply be what he did. There's no other explanation.

Through a mind addled with guilt, a simple misunderstanding that led to a fatal set of dominoes could become much more sinister.

Alva's death must have been a crime of passion. He must have slammed the equipment into Alva for some kind of twisted revenge. After all, what idiot would just throw around high voltages like that? Even if he was so very tired that night.

Maybe those manuscripts weren't his father's at all. The name “Herman Zeeman” was used in every one of them, after all. Was the argument over nothing? Even though he had seen that name on the manuscripts inside his childhood home so many times.

Surely they must have hated each other when Alva was alive. Such a lovely man didn't deserve an apprentice as stupid and impulsive as he is. No wonder Alva’s life ended in a huge fight. He must have always been like this, there's no other explanation. Even though every tabloid around called them a genius duo.

The guilt tore into him. It's all his fault. It's always been his fault, he's sure of it.

But despite his crimes, he was acquitted one day. Some mysterious benefactor had smiled upon him, and had given him a deal.

An envelope invited him to a manor, saying that it'd give him the opportunity to continue work on the machine he and Alva were once famous for. With any funds given away to Alva's grieving wife years ago, and a broken brain that couldn't get anyone else to help him, he took it.

----

Alva meets lots of people at Oletus Manor. As it turns out, all of the people inside are trapped here for the foreseeable future and far beyond. That letter was a trap. What a joy.

But Alva doesn't particularly care right now. What he cares about much more is Luca.

The manor is divided into sections, which contain “the survivors” and “the hunters”. Thankfully, you are allowed to mingle.

It took less time than Alva anticipated it would to find Luca.

Alva didn't recognise him at first. The man was scrawny and pale and bruised, with dark shadows under at least one of his eyes. The space around the other was injured so badly it was hard to tell.

There was a network of scars across his face, too, that matched Alva's own burns. The current that took his life hadn't spared Luca, then.

Alva is suddenly aware of how much he himself has changed, as Luca clearly doesn't recognise him anymore. He's babbling on with that same grin that he's always had. Alva chuckles. Some things never change, after everything.

It's only then that Luca asks his name. Even when he hears Alva's voice, he doesn't seem to remember it at all. Alva thinks a little. He badly wants to reconcile, to reunite with Luca again, but he hesitates.

It might be best to wait a while and see what Luca's reaction might be to Alva's return, rather than suddenly giving him the knowledge that the man he once killed was now very much alive in front of him.

So Alva calls himself “The Hermit”. He wasn't the only one here to simply go by a title, so he decides it's fine. Luca seems to decide it's fine too. And so, for now, they are friends.

---

Alva was allowed into Luca's room after a while. It looks surprisingly close to how it did before everything happened.

Messy bed, desk full of half-made gadgets, formulas and sketches drawn madly on notebooks scattered around, it's the perfect home for an inventor, even if it's very disorganised. Curious, Alva looks closer at some notes. They worry him a little.

Luca's handwriting has always been nearly unreadable, but what Alva can make out doesn't make much sense. Words are written over each other, and scribbled drawings seem to be jotted down hastily, nearly incomprehensibly. This looks… weird. Especially compared to what he remembers.

Luca's nervous laughter informs Alva that disapproval must have come through on his face.

“Ah, don't worry about those- I just need to get things down before I forget, is all. I-i have other notes somewhere, I swear!!-”

Alva is silent for a moment. But he has an idea.

“Do you need some guidance on all of this? But it has a price.”

“What kind of price?” Luca asks. Alva can see a protective glint in his eye. Alva knows exactly what that means. Alva's about to say that he would never dream of stealing anything, before coming back to his senses and realising that Luca likely wouldn't trust that.

“Nothing much at all, I would just like you to answer my questions. I like listening to you talk, and I'm… curious about your past.” Alva tells himself this is for information. To find out what Luca thinks happened before his death. To find out what happened after. But none of it is necessarily a lie.

He does truly just want to hear Luca chatter about anything he wants to. To pretend that accident never happened, and that everything is okay. To have Luca back.

But he can never have that. He knows.

So he asks questions.

---

Luca doesn't know why it's so easy to talk to The Hermit. As most hunters are, they're much more intimidating than the average person.

But there's something about them that slots into some groove in his brain and makes him babble senselessly to them like he's known them for years.

Is it the way their voice feels? The way they speak? The way they sit and listen so patiently? The way they look at him? The way they phrase things? The way they tell him that he's okay to not tell them things if he doesn't want to, even though he always does it anyway?

Maybe it's all of those and more. They feel like a father, somehow. Luca had always hated his father, but the feeling is nice. It's soothing to talk to this stranger.

It's still weird to him, though. because the things they ask are personal and scary to think about. And yet he can't help but talk on autopilot.

So over weeks of gentle prodding, Luca slowly tells them everything.

He's asked about prison. How he never knew what time it was, how it was always too quiet or loud, how they'd wake him up with electric shocks, how he did the same thing from morning to night to morning, how they got mad at him for every little thing and they hit him and yelled and jeered and—

Luca's tirade comes to a screeching halt when he glances up to see the Hermit looking towards him with a determined, stormy-eyed anger. Seemingly in shock, they apologise profusely, saying that they were merely lost in thought.

They tell Luca that he shouldn't have ever been treated like that. It's a nice thought, really, but he's a murderer. Murderers go to prison.

Another day, he's asked about what his life before was like. His memory is spotty, but he has a go at it.

He brings up Alva the most out of everything he says. Alva, the shining genius. Alva, the kind mentor despite almost certainly disliking him. Alva, who was his father when his real father wasn't there for him.

Alva… who was there until everything fell apart. Luca doesn't elaborate that day.

The Hermit is intrigued. Apparently they'd never heard of Alva being that kind. Or fatherly. Luca says that The Hermit reminds him of Alva too. But less scary.

“Less scary? How come?”

“Well, it's… I don't need to be popular like you, but I needed to be popular like him. You know?”

“I understand. That must have been hard for you.”

It was, but Luca doesn't want to admit it. It was his own fault for being stupid.

A few days after, The Hermit asks about the machine. Not for blueprints, or anything like that. They're not looking to steal. They just want to know what it is he's working on.

Luca doesn't want to say that he doesn't know what he's doing. Because he does! He just needs time.

That's what he desperately wants to believe. That his memories aren't slipping away like sand every time he tries to think of it. That he knows what the machine is. That he knows what to do in any way. That he knows anything at all.

He doesn't know at what point he started crying, but The Hermit has their arms around him. The hug is loose, but comforting nonetheless. He finds himself slipping up when apologising. He calls them Alva.

Do they really remind him of Alva that much? Luca only had a quiet feeling before, but now…

It's nice, at least. He can pretend.

---

The Hermit's biggest question comes with finality. If Luca can tell him exactly what happened on the night of Alva's death, they won't ask any more questions.

They understand it's scary, and they'll help him work through it. But they need to know. Luca's silent for a moment.

Luca, despite knowing that this can't be a good idea, talks anyway.

Start slow. Repeat what you've already said. Stall for time to get your brain in gear. Everything was okay. Then the problem happened.

The manuscripts. You thought they were your father's. They probably weren't. [They definitely were.]

The argument. You were too harsh. Hothead. You went to the invention to calm down. [You did other things before that. Did you forget?]

The incident. You were angry. You hit him. He's dead. You killed him. [You were scared. Not angry. You didn't mean to hit me with it.]

It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. [That's-] n-no. NO. [What-?] It wasn't an accident at all, was it? [I- Luca?] It couldn't have been. I'm sorry. [Luca??] God, I'm so sorry— [Can you hear me? Luca??]

He cries like the stupid man he is.

He doesn't realise that he's crumpled to the floor until arms are around him. Then he's gasping for air, trying to stay above water in a murky ocean of memories.

He apologises. Again. And again. For Alva. To Alva. He hears the other man's voice echo through his head.

“I'm here. It's me. It's okay. It's okay. We're okay.”

…Oh. That's why their voice was familiar.

And all at once, he understands.

He bawls harder.

Fighting to stay above the tide is a losing battle. And so he slips under, and his brain is whisked away to black.

---

Alva doesn't let go of Luca after he passes out. He promises to himself that he'll get Luca a gift when he wakes up. After all, that's the least Luca deserves after everything he had to say.

Saying that Alva feels guilty is an understatement. He feels sick. Luca's retelling wasn't right at all, and it bugs him. Luca can't be remembering what happened correctly.

But explaining comes later. Right now, Alva is picking Luca up to bury him under the mismatched blankets of the bed. He deserves a rest after tonight.

Alva can only hope that Luca won't have to dream about it.

#Ollie writes

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ollie-draws-things · 8 days

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Andrew Kreiss redesign to match my other ones!

† His coat was white, once. It belonged to his mother. But just like him, it degraded over time.

While he can very accurately be described as "strange", he really does care about the people who love him. He's one of the kindest people there behind his melancholy religious demeanor. †

#identity v #andrew kreiss #identity v gravekeeper #idv gravekeeper #idv #idv redesigns #Ollie's art

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ollie-draws-things · 9 days

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Wowie I wrote another fic :3 (I like my men delirious can you tell <3)

(This fic is about Andrew but the pov is on Norton and Luca! Not intended as a ship fic but could be seen that way)

The otherwise-silent manor hall was filled with the sound of clicking boots. The boots in question belonged to a certain Norton Campbell, who had chosen this hall specifically to wander down because he needed to have a talk with someone.

Now, saying that, he probably shouldn't be walking towards said someone's door with a blood-stained monocle clasped in his hand. But by the time he'd thought about that he was already halfway to the door, and he figured he might as well continue.

The monocle used to (and technically still does) belong to Orpheus. Oh how he hated Orpheus right now. But he'd already gotten his revenge in, so his internal fire happened to just be hot coals at the moment.

“Room 3-0-1” was written on one of two plaques on the door in front of him. The other read “Andrew Kreiss”. This was the right room, certainly, though Norton still hesitates.

Andrew's been locked inside his room since… Well, it was Orpheus who started it.

That damned man had always been a gossiper. A (very annoying) storyteller by nature, he liked to spin tales about the other manor residents. Everyone knew these rumours were most likely false, and yet they still spread like wildfire.

Sometimes you could tell that people's hearts weren't in it. That they just wanted a fun story to talk about, even at the expense of others. Norton understood that.

But Orpheus decided to go after Andrew one day. God knows how he thought that was a good idea. Andrew worries if you look at him with even a pinprick of hate. People whispering things about him being some kind of monster or changeling when they think he can't hear was clearly torture to him, given how almost immediately after Norton noticed this was happening he'd found Andrew silently crying his eyes out.

The “demon” comments were the worst. Andrew was quite clearly some flavour of religious, and even without understanding what he actually prays to, Norton could tell that phrasing was doing a lot of the damage to his psyche. Norton had tried to do damage control as much as he could. So what if he yanks on their heart and tells them exactly how much Andrew cries at night because of what they said? It's their damn fault for saying it in the first place.

If that wasn't bad enough, Orpheus had happened to make a comment towards Luca. Luca was one of Andrew's closest, if not only friends. He was one of the only things Andrew would go out of his way to defend.

As far as Norton heard, Andrew had seemingly been building up discreet anger all day, but whatever Orpheus said in that moment was enough for him to snap. Before anyone knew what was happening, the normally meek gravekeeper had stood up to shout at Orpheus because how dare he try to taint the name of such a blessed man—

Andrew's never liked conflict. And from how he reacted in hindsight, it's pretty clear that he just thinks the manor hates him much more now. Which is why Norton's standing in front of his door, hesitating and lost in thought. Has it been a week now? A bit more?

The exact day doesn't matter. What matters is trying to get through to him that no, he will not be instantly crucified if he steps out of his room.

Better late than never, Norton knocks the door. There's movement. Then nothing.

“Andrew?” He calls through the cracks in the doorframe. There's no keyhole or letterbox, so it'll have to do.

Movement again. Andrew's steps are accented by the scraping tin sound of his shovel hitting the floor. Norton has no time to dwell on if he's really trying to walk with it or just dig through the floorboards before there's a thud. It sounds very close to him, despite being separated by the door.

Scrambling hands seem to fidget with the door lock, before stopping.

“...door's open-” Comes a rasp from Andrew. Norton winces. His voice always sounds sickly, but not like… that.

Norton decides not to waste any more time. He pushes open the door.

It's much, much worse than he thought.

-------

Luca Balsa was in the middle of watching his friend and sort-of-roommate, Emil, try to twist two particularly shiny strands of metal wire together into a flower shape, when a thud from somewhere on the floor made him flinch.

Looking around the room, he doesn't see anything that could have potentially fallen down. So he assumes that it was from someone else's room, and ignores it. There's voices down the hall, though. Or one voice speaking very strongly.

He can't quite place who they are, or what room the noise is coming from, but it's clearly grabbed Emil's attention alongside his own.

“Is that Mr Campbell?” Asks Emil.

“Probably.” Luca’s pretty sure it is, but it'd be rude to eavesdrop. And the conversation seems to have moved into one of the rooms anyway. So Emil continues to make his flower, and Luca continues to watch.

It's about ten minutes (or from what Luca could tell, it was about ten minutes. He keeps forgetting to put a clock in here.) before there are more sounds. A rather loud set of sounds. That of boots running very fast towards the door. They stop directly in front of it and leave him to stew in concern for a moment before the door is pushed open by a very stressed looking Norton Campbell.

“Hh- hello” He starts, still trying to catch his breath. “We've got a problem. An Andrew problem.”

Oh. Oh no.

“Is he alright?” Luca asks dumbly. He's definitely not, in fact, alright, given the look on Norton's face, but it's probably good to ask. Maybe he'll explain?

“Of course he's no— okay look, I… don't think he's eaten or slept since the argument the other day.” Right. The argument. Somehow that had completely slipped Luca's mind. “I don't know how to help. Three confused people are probably more helpful than one guy who I'm not even sure he considers a friend, so…”

Norton trails off into silence. Luca knows even less how to help. Andrew was always the one reminding him to care for himself, why has Andrew suddenly neglected himself, despite everything? And even if he was just scared to go get things, then-

“Oh… should we have helped sooner…?” asks Emil. Luca should have helped sooner, definitely. It was inevitable that Emil would forget, but Luca's trying to be the responsible one, damn it! Why did he have to forget!

“From what he said, he told you to leave him alone. He definitely wouldn't have come and got you. If he was left to his own devices. It's not your fault.” Norton being the voice of reason when Luca can't, as always.

“Why not?”

“You can ask him when we get there, Emil.”

Right. They were going to visit him.

And just like that the conversation was over.

Several pairs of feet step awkwardly into Andrew's room.

The lights are off, with the worn curtains only letting in a dim glow from outside to illuminate the place.

Luca's never been in this room before. It's a bit eerie.

The doorway faces a bed with too-neatly folded sheets. Norton was definitely right about Andrew not sleeping, at least assuming he slept there.

The bed faces a window where the light flickers through onto both sides of the room. One contains a wardrobe and some sort of gallery wall with images he can't make out.

The other side contains a shelf covered in all manner of rosaries, old books, and what appears to be metal. Next to that is some kind of dresser draped in cloth that blocks most of the mirror that he can see.

And next to all of that… is Andrew. He's practically lying on the floor as he kneels, with how close his head and shoulders are to its wooden surface. His eyes are shut.

He's not asleep, though. Luca sees the cross clasped in his tired hands, and hears hushed whispers stop as he notices their entry. He's been praying.

At that, Norton turns to leave. “I'm getting stuff from the kitchens for you all,” he says. “I'll be back in twenty.”

Luca guesses that's a sympathetic way of telling them to go deal with him. He can't blame the man. The door shuts, leaving them alone.

“Andrew?” Emil says into the heaving silence. “Are you alright..?”

Andrew's reaction is quick given how tired he looks, but it's still rather sluggish. He looks surprised to see them. Maybe a bit… fearful.

“'m alright…” is echoed back to them. He sounds horrible, speech broken and slurring, but there's a faint smile in his voice. “why’re you…” He trails off on every word.

“We're here because we want to comfort you.” Luca's tongue unties itself. “You're in pain.”

Andrew blinks at him. Maybe he doesn't realise that fact.

“I’ss alright, angel… ‘ll be okay…”

“But you aren't..” Emil crouches down next to him.

Andrew says something under his breath. Is he still praying? Maybe this is the area where he does it. It's probably best to move him if he keeps slipping back into doing that.

“Can you put the cross down?” Luca asks. It's not quite an order, but it is an instruction. He wants to pick Andrew up and lift him to bed himself, but that'd go disastrously. So he tries to herd him.

Andrew shakes his head. “nneed it to…” Luca cuts in.

“Pray? You've done more than enough of that by now. It's alright.”

He wouldn't be surprised if Andrew had been here for hours.

“M’re than… enough..? I did too much? Ssorry angel..” the man mutters. The cross is out of his hands now, laid on the floor next to him. There's still imprints of where it was. It looks sharp.

“It's alright…” Emil says. “You're not in trouble…” They wrap an arm around Andrew to try and stir him to his feet, only for him to lay his head on their shoulders instead.

Another mumbled sorry from Andrew. But sleeping here on the floor is much better than not sleeping at all.

Andrew lays down, properly this time, and closes his eyes. He can't be feeling well at all, and yet he smiles.

They stay like that for a very long time.

#identity v #yayy i wrote again yayyyy

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ollie-draws-things · 13 days

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Victor Grantz redesign to go with my other ones! His outfit is based on a 1850's postal uniform, as past 1862 the colour changed from red to blue.

Wick is an ashy ghost here, always following the one who attempted to save him but failed, sustaining burns on their hands in the process.

The near-silent victor vows to learn how to have friends, even if he's scared of them. Who knows if he'll be successful.

(also the background text is the script of his background trailer rewritten to make a bit more sense, and that'll be under the cut!)

I am a post man, just like the thousands of postmen running down the streets, delivering different stories and secrets.

I am not good with communicating with others, and I don't want to either.

But I am obsessed with all the different kinds of expressions on people's face when receiving letters:

surprise, joy, excitement, or even anger.

Face-to-face conversation is the most hypocritical thing.

People will look at your face, see your reaction and reflect it accordingly.

However, the feelings written between the lines are the most honest ones.

Though I might not be very convincing as I say that, because no one ever sends me letters back.

After all, my only friend , Wick, is just a dog.

But ever since I first received that letter addressed to me, I've never been so sure about the endlessly sincere words inside.

#identity v #idv #victor grantz #idv postman #identity v postman #idv redesigns

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ollie-draws-things · 14 days

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Frederick Kreiburg self-indulgently redesigned to go with my other two! [posted on @olliesneweyes ]

Instead of tagged details you get a little au-ish paragraph :3

♪♬♫ Tales of a melancholic spirit who would wander the streets looking for any instrument in sight spread like wildfire over France. "The Composer", who would never give another name if asked, was seen by many until he vanished one day, out of France and out of life itself. Some say he moved on...

[Frederick had never intended for this to happen, but the more eyes that were upon him because of it, the better. A letter asking him to perform at a certain manor caught his attention, and he obliged as they had pre-paid for any expenses. It was there that he'd stay to perform, again and again and again.]

#Identity v #idv #idv composer #identity v composer #frederick kreiburg #yes i did use phantom sail for the pose base why do you ask #it's a good pose ok and i like it djabsjjajd #idv redesigns

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ollie-draws-things · 16 days

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Got inspired, wrote a fanfic, what if Luca and Alva met up in Oletus (a breakdown that's what)

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The moments that lead to Alva's death were caused by a catastrophic misunderstanding.

Luca found his father's manuscripts the day before. Appalled by the thought Alva was stealing from him, he'd try to work on the invention that he and Alva shared several times without Alva's knowledge, to spite him.

And spite him it did. The two had an argument about it one day. Alva apparently had no idea what Luca meant by "robbing" his father's research, or "blocking" Luca from completing it. Luca simply left to do things away from him.

It was only that night, when Luca was caught working on the machine alone, that Alva knew what it was like to feel robbed. He yelled in anger that Luca was the one stealing, and he charged towards Luca determined to find out what the hell he thought he was doing.

Luca was very startled by this. Panicking, he hit Alva with the parts he was working on in a panic, only realising far too late that those parts were highly electrical. Alva was dead on contact. Luca was somehow spared by the deadliness of the current, only to be arrested the next morning.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

In truth, neither were attempting to steal anything at all. The revived Alva, after many nights spent contemplating the moments leading to his demise, began to wonder if that was the conclusion he should come to.

Luca thought much differently, but not in the way you might imagine.

Prison had taken a harsh toll on Luca's sanity while he was there. Hated by everyone less fortunate than him, and taunted by those who knew what he did, his memories of the events began to twist and warp.

A cacophony of head injuries and the other prisoners' harsh cries of "murderer!" started to make his judgement slip as his memory got more disjointed and fuzzy around the edges. If everyone said he was a murderer, then he had to be one. Simple as that.

Despite how simple it seemed, it was nowhere close to truth. In a mind drenched with guilt, a desperate accident turned into an attack in the heat of the moment. (Luca couldn't have been careless enough with his delicate machinery to hit someone with hundreds of volts on accident, right?)

A misunderstanding between potentially stolen ideas turned into uncertainty if those manuscripts were even his father's at all. (Why would Alva be so confused about what he meant if they were?)

A strong bond between geniuses that turned sour at the last moment turned into the smartest man in the world and his forgetful, impulsive, stupid apprentice. (After all, he can't have been good at all if he can't even remember what they did together properly. What did he do to deserve such a perfect man to mentor him?)

What once was an unfortunate sequence of events was now all his fault. And the guilt suffocated him.

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It was years before he and Alva would meet again, now within the halls of Oletus Manor. Alva could recognise the man in front of him as clear as day. But Luca could not do the same back. He barely even remembered his mentor's face. To him, this man was just the Hermit, as he introduced himself.

Something about the Hermit's words strangely calmed the Prisoner. It was like he recalled it from a distant memory, a life he could never come back to. But he couldn't recognise who it was from. The Hermit only gave a soft smile when Luca brought it up.

After a while, The Hermit was allowed into Luca's room. They were surprised to find the sheer amount of devices and gadgets strewn across wall floor and table. The Hermit offered help with Luca's mechanical problems, (since he clearly had a lot of them) with only one type of meagre compensation. To listen to him talk.

And Luca found it strangely easy to talk to this stranger, who felt soothingly familiar in the way they helped him. Almost like a father. Or a teacher. Or a... Mentor? He wasn't sure. But he kept talking, even if the stranger never said their name.

Alva wanted to know what Luca's side of the story was. That was his main goal, after all. But he didn't need it yet. It was enough to see his former apprentice ramble on about anything he wanted. Just so he could pretend things were still alright, for a while. He found himself smiling, several times. Luca smiled back.

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It was in those meetings that Alva began to prod. He would never force Luca to tell him what happened, but he asked. And Luca answered. Vaguely at first, but sometimes it'd spiral into a whole rant.

First the Hermit asked about prison, and Luca blabbered about how much he hated when fellow prisoners would treat him like dirt and kick him and yell at him and hit him and— he stopped as he noticed the Hermit quite clearly boiling over with rage, even as they promised that they were angry at how he was treated, not him. The scars that couldn't have been from normal inventing suddenly started to make more sense.

Another day, the Hermit asked about his life before that, and he rattled on about how his mentor and him had been friends despite Luca's struggles, until an "incident" happened and everything fell apart. The man didn't seem surprised when Luca said how much he thought his mentor hated him, but was quite a bit more surprised when he started explaining how great of a man that mentor was. The Hermit joked about not expecting compliments, only to get "you remind me of him! Just... Less intimidating?" Thrown his way. They'd never thought about how much pressure Luca must have been in underneath them.

The day he tried asking about the Invention was the first time Luca cried in front of him. Luca had frozen up when asked to explain, and the words flooded out like a waterfall as he broke down, saying how he couldn't even remember the what damn thing, or how it worked, or what to do, or anything. The Hermit held him, then. Not close, but enough to comfort. They pretended not to hear Luca's quiet cries for his mentor.

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One night, after preparing for this moment the whole week before, the Hermit came into Luca's room with a single request. "Tell me everything you remember about what happened between you and your mentor when he died, and I'll never ask for anything from you again. I promise."

And Luca stares in disbelief for a while, until he bolsters himself enough to speak. He starts slow, reiterating things he's said before. Invention, Mentor, everything was okay, then a problem arose.

He found manuscripts that he believed belonged to his father. He'd never seen them, so he thought Alva had been hiding them intentionally to steal from them.

[Alva didn't even think of that at the time, though he's wondered about it many times after he died, of course. But Luca should know they belonged to his father. His name was plastered everywhere on them.]

After he found them, he explains there was an argument where he was harsh, too harsh, and ran off to where the invention lay in order to calm down.

[The argument part was correct, but he wasn't harsh. He was just confusing, and didn't explain. The entire last part was wrong, however. He'd done several other things before that.]

He tells about how his mentor had walked in, and in a seething fit of rage for what had happened he'd picked up the tools he was using and— it was an accident. He swears it was an accident.

[Alva had barged in, not walked. And the replay of that fateful moment that's forever stuck on loop in his brain shows Luca startled, not angry. But whether or not it was an accident doesn't matter right now.

Because the man he took under his wing for all these years is crumpled on the floor under the weight of his breathless confessions.]

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⫘⫘ Luca clings to the man at the first offer, feeling himself shatter into tiny pieces. This man should hate him for all he's done. Do what the others did back then, hurt him, condemn him, kill him too! But the man doesn't. Luca doesn't realise he's not the only one crying as he begs. For forgiveness, for pain, for hatred, for this to stop, for— for Alva.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Luca knows, somewhere, that his mentor is here to hold him. But that somewhere likely isn't part of his conscious mind. But Alva hears his name, over and over again, as Luca collapses into him. He doesn't know if Luca can even recognise his response, but he calls back anyway

"Luca, it's me. I'm here. You're okay. You're okay..."

Even as Luca tries to fight against a sea of emotions, that voice he now recognises makes him fracture more. He doesn't let go, even as he drowns in it. Even when he passes out.

Alva doesn't know what to do. But it'll start with an apology. His own apology, not Luca's broken one. Maybe it'll be like old times. Maybe it'll be better.

They'll be okay. He promises.

#actually it's art anyway so you guys also get subjected to this

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