Work Text:
It was love, they told him.
Love. A miracle. A last wish for his survival, a last sacrifice to give him life, a last selfless act of love that tore his parents away from him. He’d heard each of those words dozens of times, hundreds, every repetition a quiet crackling heat that slowly burnt away at him too.
He hadn’t been at the orphanage long, by then. Hadn’t needed to be, before he knew exactly what those stories told over and over meant.
It was confusing at first, certainly; even at such a young age, not even a teenager yet, Florian already understood that things like this do not simply happen. That was what made the story so regretful, so pitiable– every orphan was a tragedy, but how many had lost their fathers to war and mothers to childbirth? How many had their families taken from them by illness? How many by simple bad luck?
And, in comparison, how many could say their parents had sacrificed their lives for a miracle?
So it was confusing. It was confusing, why the orphanage’s director would tell that same story over and over whenever anyone came to look at him, when all of them should have already heard it by then. It was on every newspaper stand and in the mouth of every stranger.
But the first time he saw that slip of a check from visitor to director, Florian understood.
Love made for a very good story.
And that story made people look at him differently, didn’t it?
(It did not feel like love, when he woke up screaming the first time.)
(The orphanage workers tended to him then, and told him all about how brave his parents had been, how much they must have loved him to save him from such a fire. How he should remember them fondly, and shouldn’t cry, and should think of those final moments as a fond embrace.)
(He remembered the embrace. Of course he did. But he remembered his mother’s nails digging into his skin then, too.)
Again and again, the director told those stories, and again and again and again.
The arrival of checks slowed.
It did not change how Florian was treated at the orphanage, of course. He still was fed three meals a day, was still allowed his bed and the roof over his head. But the director no longer looked at him now that the arrival of checks had slowed.
Florian did not like the feeling of no longer being looked at.
The looking had been… something. Something he could not put words to, but something important– something he had gotten in spades, when his parents were alive, in a different sort of way. The pity had come close; the sympathy had come closer.
The way the donors had looked at him and sighed had come closest.
(It still did not feel like love, when he woke up screaming the tenth time.)
(But the workers told him to go back to sleep.)
The first time had been an accident.
He’d woken in tears again the night before. The feeling of nails against skin had not left him alone for as long as he’d been awake. The darkness of the room had not let him see anything but his father’s half-melted face. There would be no more sleep that night.
But in the morning– oh, in the morning–
A donor had asked him why he looked so tired. He thought nothing of telling her; he dreamt of his family every night.
The look on her face brought everything into place.
–But he had to be certain. He’d learned in his years at the orphanage so far that some donors were just impressionable; some waved a flash of green to the most solemn looking orphan at the bunch, while others dropped pennies into the hands of the little ones with the biggest, teariest eyes.
He had to know for certain.
So the second time was on purpose.
A stiff-looking gentleman had come to visit the orphanage, and Florian tried again. The words tasted like ash in his mouth; it still did not feel like love to recount how his parents had held him in their final moments. But the effect was just as distinct as with the previous woman; the gentleman’s eyes softened, and he patted Florian’s head gently, and passed the now-familiar slip of paper to the director as he left.
The director looked at him again after that.
The third time was what truly made it all click.
It was an elderly woman, this time. She was old, and bitter, and had been dragged along by– someone else that Florian did not care about, not when his attention was so arrested by the words spilling out of her mouth, words her companion tried to stop.
She had rolled her eyes, when he’d said he was grateful to his parents for their sacrifice. It was not enough to be grateful, she’d said.
He should adore his parents for that.
(Now that Florian understood, as he dreamt. Now he could see why they had done such a thing for him. Why they had torn themselves away from him, made his life miserable by leaving him, by staying in that fire that scorched his heart every night. It was love, after all.)
(It was love after all.)
(For the first time, Florian woke smiling.)
How the fire started did not matter. Florian wouldn’t be able to answer when asked, anyway.
What did matter was how it felt; the burning of his lungs, the aching of his limbs, the pounding of his steps as he dragged another body towards the exit. What mattered was the hammering of his heart in his chest. What mattered was the echo ringing in his ears. What mattered was the fingernails in his skin.
(Love, love, love, love.)
What mattered was the after.
His face on the paper, a decade after the first time. His story in the letters on the page.
The eyes of everyone on him.
This was the best it had ever felt. Pity could not compare. Sympathy did not come close. Even those sighs had never brought the same heady rush through his chest that this did.
If this was how his parents had felt– if this truly was love–
Florian could not get enough.
It would be love, then. It would be adoration.
(Matches strike oh so easily.)