The Eternal Sleep

Don't thank me, I still hate you

            Luca tiredly pulled himself out of bed at the break of dawn the next day, dramatically cursing his faith under his breath as he took a bath and dressed for the long day ahead of him. He chose not to check on Sean just yet, certain that the older man was still sleeping.

            He logged into the online chat of the gaming world, hailing his friends. Luca grinned as he was met with sleepy protests, typing in his short greeting and a few morning symbols to tease them. While his rag-tag team had their fair share of chores and lives to organize, they insisted that they wanted to be a part of the job, keeping themselves near a device if he called for help.

            Armando and Rena would be logging in the game to take another look at the books in the library while Jay and Olivia went to school. Luca shut his laptop off and picked up a small one shoulder bag filled with a couple notes on the game that the others insisted would be a good idea to carry with him as proof of his avatar in the game.

            As he sighed in the silence surrounding him, his mood dropped significantly, the stress wearing him in. He thought of the letters resting on the shelf above his desk, like a dark shadow threatening to consume him, the pressure the game imposed, Naijal’s letter in the library… was this something he should really get himself involved in?

Luca shook his head to clear the dark thoughts, pulling his bag over his shoulder and walking out the door. He trotted down the stairs and grabbed a couple cookies from the jar, blinking in surprise at Sean sitting by the kitchen table with a cup of coffee.

The older man looked tired, his hair slightly wet and standing on end. Luca raised his eyebrow at the white shirt then glanced at his own black graphic t-shirt, feeling slightly under-dressed. Sean finally noticed his entrance and forced a smile, highlighting the bags under his eyes, “I…uh, wasn’t sure when to wake you up.”

“Uh-huh… did I happen to miss the invitation to some wedding we have to attend after or…” Luca bit his tongue at Sean’s wince, this was both not the time for his deadpanned humor and one of the worst jokes he’d made in his short life. “Ignore that, I’m just gonna sit all the way over here… is there anymore coffee?”

 Sean waved at the half full coffee pot lethargically, running his hand through his hair and inadvertently make it stick up more. Luca said nothing, resting his bag on the table and fixing himself a cup of caffeine. It was clear that Sean had barely slept, and while he wasn’t sure why, he didn’t want to pressure him into driving if he was feeling lousy. He opened his mouth to change plans, to claim that he could just catch a bus if anything, but Sean beat him to it.

“So… what time do you want to go?”

“Uh, I was now going to say…” Luca scrunched his nose as he properly looked at Sean again, “You look like cra… like you haven’t slept properly. I was thinking I could take the bus if anything.”

“No, no, no. I’m good.” Sean shook his head, clearing his throat at Luca’s flat stare around his cup of coffee and cookie, “I promised, plus, I drank so much coffee that I wouldn’t be able to sleep for the rest of the day even if I stayed home.”

“That does not raise me confidence levels in any way.” Luca muttered loud enough for Sean to hear, sipping on his cup loudly. “Look, you didn’t promise me anything, take the day off, I can catch a bus easy.”

“No, I said I’m taking you, and I will.” Luca could help sneering slightly at Sean firm tone instinctively, keeping his eyes on the chair that his stepfather just vacated. He hated that tone; his father had used it all the time to get him to listen, it irritated him to no end how it conditioned him to feel a strike of fear whenever he heard it.

Luca shoved the rest of the cookie in his mouth to hide the look, but Sean caught it and softened his look immediately, looking chastened despite not knowing that the look was not aimed at him or his choice of words. Luca sighed , grabbing his bag, and walking out the kitchen, not waiting for Sean to catch up. “Okay, smart guy, the place opens at nine on a Monday, it’s half seven right now and from the map, it looks like it should take us about two hours to get there.”

A half-finished cup of coffee sat on the kitchen table, forgotten.

They sat in the car, an awkward silence floating between them. Luca paid no attention to it, sifting thought the pictures of the code he’d finally uploaded from the game. Sean tapped a restless beat on the steering wheel, his head twitching a few times in Luca’s direction as if building up a reasonable excuse to talk.

It was barely half an hour into their journey and Luca was ready to stop the car and walk the rest of the way. His mother would probably blame his ‘impossible behavior’ on his teenage mood swings, and while that was possibly true, he couldn’t understand why adults forget how hard it is to be a teenager. As far as he felt, it’s perfectly natural to want to pitch a fit at the most random of times.

While his bad mood didn’t actually have anything to do with his ‘teenage mood swings’, he wasn’t about to tell Sean that. The last thing he wanted to talk about was his boring back story. He couldn’t, however, handle the elephant in the car, “You okay, Sean?” He asked nonchalantly, placing his phone in his pocket, and staring out the window.

“No… so, uh, what’s B.C.I games like?”

“High tech, lots of moving parts, full of adventure.” Luca wanted to smack himself at the lame answer, he’d always wanted to rant to someone about Sun’s technological advancement that didn’t include his friends, but he wasn’t sure if Sean was asking out of genuine curiosity or out of general politeness. The last thing he wanted to do was bore him to sleep while driving. The silence stretched on for a few more minutes.

“Look Luca, I know you’re probably miffed at me from the kitchen, but I’m genuinely sorry.” Sean started softly, “Don’t get angry at me, but I’m not entirely sure what in particular upset you, was it what I said or…”

“No, it wasn’t you.” Luca cut of his rambling, keeping his eyes pointedly ahead, he really didn’t want to have this conversation while he was alone with Sean and the only possible escape being a jump out of a moving vehicle. “You just sounded like my dad is all.”

“Your dad?” Sean glanced at him in surprise, any talks about his father was generally known as an ‘off-the-table’ conversation. Alyse had enforced that rule the day the man completely walked out of their life and it would probably stay that way to the ends of time if she had her way.

“Yep. The old man had a way with his words.” Luca gave a pained smile, pulling his jacket sleeves over his hands and propping himself on the door.

“You…uh, never talk about your dad.” Sean’s fingers stopped their rhythmless tapping, “I tried asking Alyse about him, but she never told me much.”

            “Yea, ‘cause she’d probably rip him a new one if he ever showed his face again.” Luca sniffed, knowing very well that those were more his thoughts than he mother’s actions.

            “What’s… the story anyway? You don’t have to tell me, it’s just that… Alyse is so iffy about him and I don’t want to be unprepared for something should it come up…”

            “Yea, yea, I know what you mean…” Luca sighed, his mind playing countless memories over in his eyes, “Besides, you’re probably never going to hear it from mom, so it’s better if I gave you an idea at least.

            My dad wasn’t always a bad guy, you know. He was basically a marshmallow, a pushover as far as I saw. He’d do the silliest things to make us smile, buy me the funniest things for me to keep as souvenirs for when I grew older.” Luca smiled slightly, recalling the good memories for Sean. The days when his mother would smile without stress lines and his father would laugh freely.

            “But then he changed, he started talking less, arguing more. I didn’t understand then, to be honest, I don’t fully understand now, mom would never talk about it.” Luca scowled, “He started working more, coming home later. I tried to talk to him, but he always used that tone, like he wanted nothing to do with me.” He explained the arguments he could barely understand, the slamming of doors and fists on tables, fisting his own hands in his jacket. Then eventually, the day his father walked out the door and never returned.

            “I didn’t know, Alyse always made it sound so sudden, like one day he was fine and the next, he upped and left.” Sean gripped the steering wheel tightly.

            “Technically, she wasn’t lying. To anyone not looking, I guess it felt that way.” Luca whisper, “But to me? I watched my family break itself into pieces, not being able to do anything.”

            “Luca… you know you can’t blame yourself for something like this, right?”

            “Yea, but that doesn’t instantly make me feel better.” Luca sighed, pulling out his phone again for his fingers to have something to fiddle with. “Look, I don’t need some kind of pep talk or anything, so if you start one, I will find a way to get out of this car. I just told you this because it’s only fair that you knew the whole story, well at least as much as I know.”

            “Thank you, Luca…” Sean unclenched his hands from the wheel, glancing at the teenager and nodding.

            “Don’t thank me.” Luca sniped, “I still hate you.”

            “And fairly understood and accepted.” Sean snapped his head back to the road with wide eyes and a chastened look. Luca wanted to snort at his stiff posture, knowing that Sean was taking him seriously. He wasn’t going to tell him that he’d long forgiven the man for the night they’d yelled at each other or the months before the wedding where Luca snapped at him more than talked, Sean would figure it out eventually.

            “Would you look at that, should be about a half hour before we get there.” Luca nodded his head to the time displayed on the radio.

            “Speaking of which, what’s this book about exactly?” Sean frowned, “I may have over heard somethings when you were talking to the people at Shutter’s Gamers, but I didn’t want to pry.”

            Right… so you heard the part of how the game went to mess…” Luca wiped his phone screen idly, “So, basically, part of the world quest got sabotaged… and my team’s suspecting that there is actually more to Sun retiring then we thought, so we went to the library in the game but the info was gone… so now we’re checking for a hardcopy that’s supposed to be at the Western Branch.”

            “Wow… should you guys even be involved in that?” Sean raised an eyebrow at him.

            “Honestly, I’ve been asking myself that question whole time,” Luca sighed heavily, “But I’m literally in the middle of it at the moment and I’m not really in the mood to forfeit everything without a fight.”

            “Well, good thing you’re in luck.” Sean pulled his car into the parking lot of Black Crown’s Western Branch of Technological Research, a big grin on his face.