inbox. ( savrou )

[procedures]

I N B O X

ALAN VARREN ALVA 34 / MALE / KERNS-NORMAN TYPE 1 MORO #029 / MEDBAY PHYSICIAN / RANK NAUTA "Alva. Leave a message."

Comments

[abide]

[ It's a comment he brushes over, something that doesn't need to be elaborated on. Some people think they know him just from his name and others from the way he looks; that's never changed, even before the serum, and anyway, Steve doesn't want to talk about himself. The more he hears about this world, the less he likes it and the more he wants to go there and take it apart from its center.

Steve doesn't laugh, but his mouth curls just a little like he might smile. ]

Sounds like something he would do. [ Unfortunately? He doesn't know, but it isn't the absolute worst way to meet someone. And all that information is tucked away to be thought on later, crossing his arms as he regards Alva. Some of the similarities between them are still strange to him, but most of them end at the physical. Steve's never given his own reflection as much consideration as he does the man standing in the room. ] And your House? Is it like Hapsburg?

[ Because he knows a decent amount about what it is they do there. Or, at least, what they've done to Andyr, though he's sure none of them were probably ever known for being kind. ]

[procedures]

[ Like a switch being flipped - Alva shutters down his body language, evening them out to a near-flatline as he pulls himself up a chair.

He's taking the scenic route for this one. ]

When I first held my little girl, she was— [ he holds out roughly two hand-spans and a half's width between his palms. ] Fit neatly into the crook of one arm, you know. Her head would be right here, over my heart. The nurses let me hold her while Nora was sleeping off the anaesthesia.

They were the most perfect, beautiful, happiest five hours of my life. Just looking at this little human being in my arms.

Then all of... that. All of that happened and I had to—

[ He misses her. Every damned day, he misses his little girl. ]

Gloriana's compound, you know the first thing you see when you come into the labs? After the foyer and the elevators, past the doors, there's this long hallway, practically laser-straight. Entire walls made of glass. On either side of you's a nursery. Boys on the left, girls on the right. You could see right through each one of them.

The first kid I worked with, they didn't even want to save her. They just wanted for us to pull her apart, see if there was anything worth breeding into her next life.

Did he tell you that? The memories? How they get passed on every iteration?

She came back to my table two months later and she didn't recognize the men who had cut into her over a hundred times, but she remembered butterflies. That she loved the ones we had in the garden, but she knew she'd never seen them before in her short, five-day life.

Every House is different.

[ Every House is a different kind of evil. ]

[abide]

[ Scenic isn't exactly what Steve would call it, but it paints a picture he'd rather not have to imagine. Those are the differences that separate them beyond different worlds, what family is and what it means. The way he shifts in his seat reads uncomfortable, but it has nothing to do with Alva's story or what it means to be too deep in something that prides itself on that sort of experimentation. Hadn't that been the start of things back home for him, a personal nerve that's struck each and every time someone mentions it? Eventually, quietly, Steve's shaking his head. ]

We don't talk about it much. [ Not since that first moment they'd met, and Andyr had wanted to break his neck when he thought he'd been Alva's iteration. ] I don't know if it'd be something to bring up with Andyr, and I'm sorry I asked you. [ But he figures Alva's level of honesty wouldn't have been the same as Andyr's, and he wants to keep the conversation as level as possible. ] I wanted to help. If I could.

[ There's a low sigh. ]

Stop them from doing that to more people, to Andyr. Get your daughter back. If there's a way, I wanna find it, and I'm not going to give up until then. [ His expression thins. ] Unless you think it's a bad idea. [ But that still doesn't guarantee he won't try. ]