Chapter Text
Luca isn’t necessarily a heavy sleeper, but it still takes quite a bit for him to be woken up when he finally manages to really sleep on a rare occasion. Like, a deep enough sleep that has you drooling so much that you wake up to the entire side of your pillow soaked. That kind of deep sleep. Good luck pulling him from that if you’re ever trying to intentionally wake him up.
Which is the case right now, though he is not in bed and is instead asleep with his head on his kitchen table, some tools next to various engine parts—a belt, a few valves and springs, a rod—and silverware all over the table, along with a bowl with milk and cereal in it, a cup that has a wrench and now a disgustingly colored liquid in it (it might have been more milk, he couldn’t tell you why he poured a cup of it on top of having some in his cereal bowl), and some cereal flakes—sometimes dinner can be some cereal that’s absolutely coated in a dangerous amount of sugar. His hat had slipped off as well, showing messy dark brown hair that had been hastily tied back.
What can easily wake him up, however, is the sound of what resembles that of a building collapsing. And, once awake and realized it came from his garage, where his client’s car is, he’s scrambling to get up from the chair, whispering ‘ shit shit shit shit ’ under his breath, knocking his chair over as he goes and nearly falling down with it. He grabs his flashlight on his way out, jammed into a convenient hole in his wall—he couldn’t tell you how that got there—right near the door, and then he’s running, leaving the door open in his haste.
The hole in the roof allows for moonlight to pour into the stillness of his garage workshop, though not bright enough to illuminate anything. He scans the area with his flashlight, taking note of the disarray within the workshop—which is nothing new, the tools in the shop are always everywhere, except now there are collapsed shelves, and debris everywhere from the roof collapsing. He also notes that there is glass all over the floor near the car he was currently working on, and he clicks his tongue in mild irritation as he blindly reaches for the light switch, missing it a few times before finally switching it on.
The lights flicker, slowly coming to life as he shuts his flashlight, and he tucks it away into the pocket of his overalls. He walks over to the car and notices there is now a decently sized dent on the hood of the car in his shop, and the windshield is shattered, along with the right side-mirror having been completely taken off, now also on the ground somewhere, possibly under the car. He lets out a whistle as he walks around the front, halting as soon as he rounds it.
At first, Luca thought maybe the roof collapsing caused the dent in the car. It makes sense. There’s pieces of roof everywhere, including on and in the car. What he didn’t expect to find was an unconscious person face down on the ground, on the other side of the car. And, of course, Luca, having no self-preservation instincts whatsoever, hesitates for maybe two seconds before crouching down next to the man’s prone form.
Immediately noted is that, on his back, there was a kind of jetpack. It looked a little makeshift, seeming to be missing a canister, seeing there was an empty holder, and the other canister certainly wouldn’t help with any lift now, the tubing having been completely torn in two. Whatever was holding it to him also seemed to have come undone, Luca notes as hands take hold and pull, the lower half easily giving way. After feeling around a moment, he finds the sole clasp still holding on, and undoes it, allowing him to pull the ruined jetpack away and placing it to the side.
Rolling the person over, Luca takes note of injury. There are several rips in his bomber jacket, a few stained red with blood, and his left sleeve was completely torn off. The way his arm is grossly miscolored by a bruise led Luca to believe it may be sprained, but he’ll get to that later. He’s no medical expert, but he’s dealt with a few sprains in his time.
He will, however, be giving that jetpack some much needed TLC once he’s done here. Mostly because he’s curious and wants to tinker.
Carefully, Luca lifts the goggles and aviator hat off of the man’s head, placing it to the side. Normally, this would call for jokes. An angel fell from heaven , he would say when seeing the man’s face. Normally. First, at least, he just wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead before he started flirting.
Rugged, with a big, arched nose and some small scarring at each edge of his mouth. Sharp cheeks and a strong jaw. Thick eyebrows. His nose was bleeding, as well as there being a deep gash on his forehead. Luckily, his hair was pulled back into a ponytail, so it’s not soaked with blood save for a few small clumps of strands that didn’t quite reach far back enough, and Luca does make note of the undercut as he carefully cradles the man’s head, trying to decide what to do next.
He sighs.
“Well, you put a hole in my roof, trashed my client’s car right as I finished repairing it, and now you’re bleeding on my floor. This is concrete, mister. It’s going to be hard scrubbing this stain out. What do you have to say for yourself, huh?” Luca chides, reaching for his phone in one of the back pockets of his overalls, mumbling a half-hearted ‘ I should make you clean it ’, and squinting at the time. Just after three in the morning. His scolding is answered with only silence. “Sheesh, no need for the cold shoulder. At least the cause for my roof caving in is cute, or I would be angry. Livid, as my ma woulda said.”
He shuffles back, moving the man around in his arms so his shoulders are across Luca’s arm, and his other is placed beneath the bend in his knees. He stands with a grunt. “Shit, you might be small, but you sure aren’t a purse dog!” Luca jostles the man around in his arms, making sure his grip is strong, and slowly makes his way back out of his shop. “Come on, E.T., let’s get you somewhere warm.”
He sort of regrets buying a space in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere, his small home a short winding dirt path off the shop and out of the way of the nearby city. But, then again, he never anticipated having someone drop in through the roof of his shop, and only ever expected to be fixing up cars that needed to evade the city. Or the occasional rich idiot that somehow heard of Luca’s immaculate handy work. Whatever puts money in the bank.
The weather was damp and cold, it has been for a few days now, and those are two surefire ways to irritate the previous injuries on Luca’s legs. He’s close to just dumping the man on his couch, but decides he can handle taking another 30 or so steps to make it to his room. He belatedly thinks that maybe it’s not smart to put a man covered in cuts, grime, and blood on his sheets, but it’s fine. He’ll just toss them and get new ones later. It’s not the end of the world.
Then comes the clumsy process of wrapping him up, a lot of undressing and awkwardly lifting the man’s limp body to wrap around him properly and securely. He was tempted to run a bath to clean him off, but decided that, ultimately, it was too much work, and just brought in a pot full of water and a few washcloths and just awkwardly wiped the man down like that, at least cleaning off any blood staining his skin. He was polite about it. But that wound up being a lot of work too, more than he thought through, and now he needs a new pot, because the inside of the one he just used is no doubt ruined. He just tosses it out his front door in the general area of where his scrap pile is outside. He could probably use it for something.
It’s close to 5 in the morning by the time all is said and done. Luca successfully mummified the man’s left arm, as well as having fastened a makeshift brace along his forearm. He managed to wrap a section of his torso and his forehead as well. The wounds were already finished bleeding before he’d been done wrapping the man up, but it doesn’t hurt to cover them regardless. He also still isn’t sure if his arm is sprained or not, it could just be a really nasty bruise, but they’re too far from town and it’s too late to run and find a doctor, so he’s just being careful.
Luca decides to throw himself across his couch and simply pass out there. Whatever is left to be dealt with can be taken care of tomorrow. His client would be coming by for the car, but Luca will have to explain the cave-in of his roof, and explain repairs will need an extra few days (no charge, of course). He almost decides against taking off his braces, but finds the motivation to lazily take them off, dropping them on the floor in front of the couch and just leaving them there.
His brain allows him to rest for three more hours before he finds himself awake again and back on his feet, though he forgoes putting his braces back on just yet, the support missed when he finds his ankles weak and he needs to lean on walls and various furniture objects for help in the first few moments of waking. Had it been the usual sunny and warm weather, given it wasn’t one of his occasional bad days, he would be able to move around just fine without them for the most part, limp willing. However, just like everything else in life that liked to spite him, the weather lately hasn’t been kind to him, bringing nothing but miserable rain.
Luckily for him, it wasn’t raining today, though there was a thick overhang of clouds that threatened rain regardless. The fog and slight chill to the air would indicate he needs to put them on at some point. Though, for now, he’s okay enough to walk around without them.
Besides, even if he did need them on immediately, his brain decided the level of importance in regards to putting on his braces was below that of getting his morning cereal. Which, coincidentally, was also the cereal he had for dinner last night.
Luca does, in fact, take a spoonful of the cereal and milk that was left out overnight and give it a taste to see if he can get away with not pouring a whole new bowl. He does recoil afterwards with a full body shudder, because that was disgusting and a mistake, and he doesn’t know why he thought that would be a good idea. What on earth could have possibly left him to believe the already bad milk would somehow be good, or that the cereal wouldn’t be a complete mess of falling apart slop? So, into the sink that disaster resembling a failed science experiment goes, and a new bowl is grabbed and cereal is poured. His milk went bad so he tossed it last night (only after, of course, having poured some into his dinner and consuming it regardless). He’s not one to eat cereal dry, so he decides to do the next best thing: he pours orange juice into his cereal.
He decides it’s not bad, and this might be his new go-to.
The mess of parts on the table from the night before are still sitting there, and will likely be there for the foreseeable future, until he needs one of them and remembers they’re there. He plucks the wrench out of the cup while he’s eating and decides that, maybe, he should look into getting a new one. Milk is surprisingly corrosive for metals, and while leaving it overnight won’t cause instantaneous corrosion, he would rather just get a new one for the long run. He’ll run out for it later, though, because right now there is a mess in his garage that needs cleaning up.
Before he decides to head out to work on his garage, however, he makes one last detour. Heading down the hall to the back of his house, he slowly opens his bedroom door and peeks his head inside. When he sees the man in his bed is still asleep, he opens the door all the way and steps in.
“Mornin’, handsome. Let’s see if your bandages are holding up.”
He pulls the nightstand next to the bed out further, clearing off a space and seating himself on it, like it’s a chair that’s meant to be sat on and not a small table made for holding lamps and alarm clocks. Luca is careful as he inspects the other, seeing the bandaging in some places falling loose while others are still held tight. He mends the ones that need mending as best as he can, trying to tighten them up, but it only comes out marginally better than how it was before. Regardless, Luca is going to admire his handy work.
“I don’t think I did so bad! First aid ain’t my forte, but I’ve seen enough people get wrapped up at the tracks to know a thing or two, maybe!” His hands are on his hips now as he looks the other over again, triumphant smile on his face. “You’re already lookin’ like you’re in better shape! Your bruises make you look like a rotted apple, sure, but you’re not as pale as you were yesterday. And it actually looks like you’re breathing today and not just a corpse. Guess you’re gonna be okay, E.T.! I mean, why wouldn’t you be, I’m the best nurse around. Clearly!”
He reaches forward to check the makeshift brace on the man’s arm when there’s a knock at his front door. He tilts his head to the side, muttering, “shop’s not open yet, and I know I didn’t schedule anything this early…”
He hefts himself to his feet, stretching his arms out over his head. He makes sure to close the bedroom door behind him, not wanting to disturb the other, as though any noise would wake him. As he walks to the front room, the knock comes again, though not quite sounding impatient yet. He calls out a ‘ one moment! ’ as he picks his braces up off the floor, still not putting them on just yet and instead laying them out on his coffee table. He starts speaking as soon as he opens the door, not even seeing the person on the other side.
“Sorry, but my shop’s not open for another few hours—”
“I apologize for interrupting you so early in the day.” The other person’s voice interrupts, though he is nothing but polite. “Though I had wished to pay you a visit personally.”
It takes Luca a moment to register the figure in front of him, seemingly a black void shaped like a short man with wide shoulders. His right leg is a prosthetic, a simple one made of gold, wrapping around his calf and forming a slim hook at the bottom for a foot. His hands rest atop a gold handle on a slim black cane.
Luca has been employed by Netherwalker before plenty of times, technically. His prized racing champion, Molten Hound, was a regular at Luca’s shop. But he had never, not once, dealt with the politician directly, only Molten Hound. So the fact he came all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere, to pay Luca a visit is a bit surprising, to say the least. And, of course, Luca forgets his manners.
“Ah… Oh! It’s no problem at all, sir! Come on in- sorry about the mess! I would say it’s because my garage roof caved in last night, but I can’t exactly use that as an excuse.” Luca opens the door wider and steps aside, allowing Netherwalker to enter. He doesn’t exactly rush to make sure the sofa is cleaned off. “What can I do for you, sir? It’s rare that you’d visit this area, but I figure even more so that you’d come all the way out here and pay me a visit!”
Briefly, as he moves to close the door, he feels it resist and push back, like he hit something. He looks, but sees nothing that could possibly be blocking the door. He wonders if the hinges are jamming and inspects them a moment, but finds when he pushes on the door again it closes with no problem. He chalks it up to the door being old and makes a mental note to oil the hinges later. The mental note will then immediately get misplaced among the dozens of other mental notes he makes, and his attention turns back to the politician as he speaks.
“I wanted to thank you for all the hard work you put into Molten Hound’s car, and also apologize for the task. I understand it is rather gruelling work.” Netherwalker explains himself, and it prompts Luca to think back on just last week, when he was picking remnants of one unfortunate racer out of the engine of Molten Hound’s car, and tries his best to swallow a gag. It doesn’t happen often, most of the racers crashing their own cars, but every once in a while you get that one unfortunate competitor that gets their arm or leg stuck, and their career is over. Or an animal gets hit, though Molten Hound would rather crash his car than accidentally harm an animal of any kind. Which was the cause for the job roughly two months ago.
But, Luca just shrugs it off, because a job is a job, and Netherwalker pays five times the amount when Luca reports there being leftover guts and gore on the receipt when talking about damage repaired and the job done on it. So, while he can do without the emotional scarring and sleepless nights plagued with nightmares, money is money. “It ain’t so big a deal. Molty is always a pleasure when he comes around! Besides, I can’t avoid that sort of thing in this line of work anyway.”
Which is true to an extent. If he were a normal mechanic then, yeah, he could avoid it. But that’s boring, and Luca isn’t one to lead a boring profession.
“His behavior can be a bit… erratic and brash at times, so I’m glad to hear he doesn’t cause you any trouble.” He sets his cane down in front of him, both hands resting atop the handle. “Backtracking a little… you said your garage roof caved in last night?”
Luca nods, leaning against the back of his sofa and crossing his arms. “Yeah, happened around… I think it was three? This mornin’. Quarter after or so. Surprisingly not a whole lotta damage, but I had a client’s car in the shop, so I gotta redo repairs on it. Dunno what I’m gonna do about the hole yet, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Do you know what caused it?”
“Probably just the weather and poor structuring. It’s been raining a lot here lately, and I bought the place cheap. Repairs and renovations were needed from the start, I just put ‘em off for too long.” Luca says, like a liar. Partially a liar. If you took one look at the interior of his house, you’d know it needed repairs, let alone the garage that’s always been in a state of half-collapsing. Luca is just surprised it didn’t go down on its own. “Now it’s comin’ to bite me in the ass. Going to lose some money on this repair for sure, but it can’t be helped.”
“Perhaps I could be of assistance, then. Whatever the cost of repairs for the vehicle are can be billed to Molten Hound, and I will pay them myself. And I’m certain I can find a contractor to fix your garage by the end of the week.”
“Whoa, wait,” Luca puts his hands up, waving them around. “That’s real kind of you, but I could never ask you to do all of that!” Except that he can, because he knows Netherwalker is loaded and paying a few grand for car repairs and a garage renovation won’t even put the smallest of a dent in his funds. He’s just trying to look polite.
“I insist.” Netherwalker presses. “After all, I’m sure the damage previously done to the car that required the original repair was caused by Molten Hound in the first place. While Netherwalker Inc. isn’t responsible for any damage caused to vehicles or racers during the events, I can make an exception this one time. And I imagine it would be rather hard for you to work with your garage the way that it is now. I’ll send someone out here to assess the damage and get a quote back to me, and the repairs will be finished quickly so that you may get back to work and won’t have to worry about business.”
Now Luca can ask him to do all of that. “Well, if you’re insisting so much, then I don’t think I can turn you down! The bill won’t be light, though—”
A crash comes from Luca’s bedroom, sounding as if glass is breaking, and it has him jumping momentarily. Both him and Netherwalker look down the hall towards his room, and he notices his bedroom door is open. Did he leave it open before? He could’ve sworn he closed it… then again, if he didn’t, it’s nothing new. “Maybe I left my window open and a bird flew in or something… s’cuse me one moment, sir.”
Netherwalker offers a nod as Luca stands, removing himself from the conversation and heading to his room.
It startles him when he finds his bed empty, the sheets having been thrown back and dragged half off the bed. It’s how he would normally leave it, sure, but there was a person in his bed not even 10 minutes ago. An entire person. How do you lose an entire person? Luca misplaces a lot of things, but this certainly is a new level of misplacement.
He puts one hand on his hip and scratches at the back of his head with the other. As it would turn out, his window is open, the curtains flowing about. He takes notice that one of the picture frames on his dresser was now on the ground, glass shards around it. He groans tongue and walks over, carefully taking the photograph out of the mess of glass and broken frame. He sets it down on his dresser, inching the corner of another picture frame on top of it so it doesn’t get blown around. He’ll clean up the mess later.
When he returns, Netherwalker looks as though he’s ready to leave. Which is kind of rude, but it’s not like Luca has exactly been rushing to make sure he’s as hospitable for the politician as he can be, nor does he expect Netherwalker to want to stick around much. “Ah, sorry for keeping you. I guess you’ve got to get going?”
“Regrettably, I have meetings I must get to shortly, but I did not want to just leave without finalizing details with you.”
“Finalizing details?”
“Yes. I had one last thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Netherwalker reaches into the inside pocket of his vest, pulling out a small card and handing it towards Luca, who takes it carefully.
“... I’m listening.” Luca says, when Netherwalker doesn’t continue.
“I want to invite you to officially work under Netherwalker Inc. as a mechanic. I know it is quite a bit to consider—”
“I don’t really think,” Luca interrupts, before Netherwalker can even finish offering, “that I would be a good match workin’ under your company, sir. With all due respect, I ain’t the kind of person that does well working under someone else. I like being my own boss and doing my own thing. Besides, I would lose more than half my revenue working for you, I’m sure. My shop is for everyone, not just those that work for for your company, and I don’t want to lose that.”
Netherwalker just nods slowly, as though in understanding. “Very well. It’s regrettable, but I will not press you on the matter.” He says, though he looks displeased. He turns to leave. “If you did accept the offer, I could have wiped your record clean.”
Luca tenses at that, and he’s sure Netherwalker knows that got a reaction. But, he turns and smiles at Luca pleasantly as he opens the door. He reaches into a pocket over his breast and pulls out a small card, which Luca takes hesitantly. “I will leave my card with you, should you change your mind. I bid you a good day, Balsa.” There is a slow movement of a bow as Netherwalker leaves, and he can’t close the door fast enough before Luca lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. There is a small burst of irritation that flashes through him, and he rips up the card in his hands, walking to the kitchen to toss it in the trash.
He winds up removing the bag out of the bin entirely, as well as grabbing a broom and dustpan from the cleaning storage that’s towards the back of his kitchen. He moves to walk away, but hesitates. He closes the closet door and heads over to the back door, pushing the curtains over the glass aside to peer out into the yard.
It’s fenced in, but the fencing has long since either rotted down to nothing, or simply collapsed in areas. He’s looked out and seen some kind of wildlife far too many times to count at this rate. Beyond the fence is a vast forest area, and when he finds himself too lazy to walk the actual path that his customers drive to get to his humble abode in the middle of nowhere for their repairs, he usually cuts straight back through the forest to get to town. About a 30 minute walk, as opposed to the path’s hour walk. Luca has cut through so many times he’s cleared his own little path, clear of foliage.
He’s seen his fair share of snakes and other critters that way, and it’s a nice little walk. Sometimes he meanders just to clear his head. As much of it as he can, at least.
Plus, when the weather is nicer, he likes to work outside. Luca would be lying if he said the bad weather lately wasn’t making him cranky. He just wants the sun back so he can work outside again; friends usually stopped by and stuck around for a while when he did. Maybe he’ll clean up his yard and fix his fence this year so he can have a nice backyard party, or something. Maybe he’ll even get a pool. That could be fun.
Luca double checks the locks on the door before heading back to his room. The broken glass isn’t going to clean itself.