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The Ripper’s sharp blades reap down upon him, raking easily into the skin of his back as he jolts forward in an instinctive attempt at getting away only to catch his side on the hard corner of the cipher machine. It says possibly too much about him that, as he hurtles gracelessly to the arid dirt, Luca’s most pressing concern is that he may have damaged it.
However, as the wounds on his back tear as he claws at the ground trying to get his bearings and he can’t spit out enough dirt to get the taste out of his mouth, his concern for the machine is somewhat diluted by the gnawing, instinctual desire to survive crawls up his throat.
It’s a silly concern— this is all a game and he knows grievous the injuries he sustains are, he will recover from them. At least, enough to play it again.
But with the moments spared to him by the Ripper leaning down to crush yet another of his small current carrying devices, Luca is pushing himself back on his feet despite the burning in his back and the angry creak of his knees. He reasons that he is just playing along, and not that the adrenalin he feels as he pushes himself through a broken window without regard for the glass digging into his palm is some kind of desperate will to survive.
It can’t be that, in the back of his mind, he has decided this is his freedom— as much as he’ll ever get again.
At the end of the day he will still probably be alive regardless of the outcome of the match, but he still has agency inside the structure of the game. He can still tinker with machines, come close to bleeding out, and he can still win or lose. It may be limited and it may not really matter in the end, but he has had far less.
And that subtle ache, that painful desire to survive ? He hasn’t felt it in so long.
He hopes he has put enough distance between himself and his hunter as he presses his back against the cold wall of the upper surgery room, biting his lip hard enough to bleed to stifle a gasp of the pain of throwing his injured back against it. Luca has never been good at staying still but he does his best, fingers twitching restlessly against the dirty material of his pants as he listens to the click of dress shoe heels against linoleum.
The footsteps echo up the stairs and draw closer still until they come to a pause at the doorway of the surgery. Luca holds a long breath until he hears a quiet noise of disappointment and the footsteps draw further away until all Luca can hear is his own beating heart.
Alone in the now deafening silence, he drops to his knees without regard for their condition and plants his palms firmly against the dirty ground as he struggles to breath evenly. Before every match he tells himself it will be easier this time, that he’s gotten used to it by now. He’s not even the mansion rookie anymore, but that isn’t enough to convince his burning lungs that yes, he is in fact getting enough air and the suffocation he feels is all in his head. He has always had better luck with machines.
He hears footsteps again and rationally understands that the lighter, faster foot falls do not belong to his assailant— the noise still trips that anxious corner of his brain that moderates trivial things like acute stress responses. Finding the thought of fleeing again an unbearable task, Luca rises to his knees and balls his fists.
“And what’re ya gonna do with those?”
Luca is staring at knees. Regular knees, average knees, person knees. It might be sweet to say he knew the knees, but they could have been anyones. His neck aches as he looks up, meeting the almost-amused expression Norton wears looking down at him. The wry smile is there, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
There are things Luca wants to say— something funny, something charming. A thank you, at the very least. The bare minimum remains out of his grasp as his jaw tenses but his mouth doesn’t move. He hates this feeling of relief looking up at Norton almost as much as he hates the never ending fear of the game, the way the other man’s presence gives his brain the okay to start breaking down. It still isn’t the time for it. Luca digs the tips of his fingers into his thighs and does not give in to the anguish welling in his throat and behind his eyes.
Receiving no response, Norton crouches down and grips Luca by the shoulders before running his hands down the lengths of his arms, tender enough to make his chest hurt but with all the purpose of a man trying to prove to himself Luca is still there. All Luca wants to do is lean forward until his vision is completely obscured by Norton’s shoulder, but he can’t even pretend it’s the right time. When he arrives at Luca’s hands, Norton turns them over and stares so intently at the glass that Luca thinks he may have forgotten those hands are attached to anything.
“Sorry.”
Norton hasn’t yet started pulling glass from his hand let alone so much as looking at his back, so Luca is at a loss for what he’s on about now. “Ha?” he manages, little more than a harsh exhale but serviceable as a response nonetheless.
“If I was more on the ball ya shouldn’t have had to worry about the hunter at all,” Norton says, voice dripping in enough self pity to drown a man. Luca would smack him if his arms would move.
“You’re ‘n idiot,” Luca mumbles. His lips are still numb, but he can feel the rest of his face again so he’s making good progress. “... wasn’t paying attention again, ‘s my fault.”
Norton laughs weakly. “But ya never pay attention, and I know that.” He should be scolding him— he might even be trying to, but his voice is uncomfortably fond beneath his words. “Someone’s gotta look out for ya.”
It certainly doesn’t help with the idea that Luca is dragging the other survivors down, even if it couldn’t be farther from Norton’s intention. The reassurance, though, makes him feel very warm. Luca hasn’t had someone like this in… long enough. He can’t even say he fully trusts the other man and his quick hands and ever shifting gaze, but it is more than he has had in what feels like a lifetime.
It’s not the place for those kinds of feelings, spoken or otherwise unspoken, and yet…
“Thanks…” Luca wants to call him by his given name, just to see how it feels. It doesn’t come out just like it never does, but he thinks he’s getting closer.
Norton reaches up and wipes a smudge of dirt from Luca’s cheek. His hand is warm even through his glove, and lingers on Luca’s cheek long enough to make his head spin. It is more likely the continued loss of blood from the wounds on his back than from any kind of romantic cliche but he still drops his eyes away from Norton, unable to bear the weight of those eyes on his face.
“Luca, yer…”
It’d too easy to forget who and where he is with Norton reaching up to run his fingers through Luca’s hair like he’s uncovering something very precious, saying his name like he means something by it. There are all sorts of fantastical ideas about the situation that Luca has almost all at once, but all Norton does is pat his head and remove his hand. It’s hardly the time or the place, and Luca is hardly the person.
Norton returns his attention to Luca’s injured hand without finishing his thought, and Luca makes rueful eye contact with the peeling paint on the wall over Norton’s shoulder. As Norton is hesitating to dig the broken glass from Luca’s palm, the shrill wail of the siren lets the pair of them know the final cipher has been decoded.
“Guess that saves ya from my doctoring skills,” Norton chuckles, still cradling Luca’s hand. Luca already knows the man isn’t good with his hands, but still can’t help but wonder. “Dyer’ll do ya a lot better when we get out of here, yeah?”
“Sure.” Whatever you say, Norton.
“Can ya walk?” Norton asks with only the slightest hint of judgement, such a slight hint that Luca isn’t certain he didn’t put it there himself.
Realistically, the answer is no. But that doesn’t stop the uncertain, “obviously,” that Luca huffs before pushing himself to his feet only to immediately waver to the side.
Norton sticks a hand up to catch him, corralling Luca in so that he can’t fall. “Yeah, right. Ya can’t lie for shit, Luca.” Once he’s sure Luca has his balance, or enough of his balance, Norton turns around and pats his shoulder before getting low enough for Luca to manage. “All aboard!”
Luca doesn’t hesitate, if only because of how aware he is that each second they linger is a second they’re more likely to be found. He closes the distance and wraps his arms around Norton's neck before the man grips him by the backs of his thighs and hoists him as he stands.
This close he can hear the uneven beat of Norton’s heart, paired with the labored rise and fall of his chest as he breathes hard. Beast of burden as he may appear to be, Norton is still just man. Next time will be different, and Luca will have his back instead.
As Luca rests his head on Norton’s shoulder, the man makes a content noise. “Let’s get outta here.”