Fracture 2

Viktor knew he was never going to get anywhere in this matter without being drunk, but sometimes, that could make matters worse. Besides, it's indeed late and he has an important meeting tomorrow.

So, bringing simply tea, he knocked on the royal tutor's door and was not surprised when it promptly opened, showing a candle-wielding, very much awake Heine.

"Hi there, Heine, mind letting me in?"

"Your Majesty?" Heine said in mild surprise, but stepped aside to let his old friend in. Viktor set the tea on the nearest available surface, and turned to look into the room.

"Your room is quite a mess, Heine... You have been busy?"

"Of course, your majesty, I take my post quite seriously after all."

Viktor nodded, suppressing a sigh. Your majesty, was it? Even when they are here alone, just the two of them. Something might indeed be up with the red-haired teacher.

"Would you want the service of a maid, to tidy your room? The palace can of course afford to accommodate such an important personnel as the royal tutor, please request anything you wish."

"Your kindness touches my heart, your majesty." Said Heine, bowing so his face was hid in the shadows.

Viktor looked at the silhouette of his friend against the window, still stuck in a bow, and sighed for real this time.

"What is it, Heine? You don't call me just Viktor anymore, even now when we're entirely alone. Is something bothering you? Can I... can I do anything?"

Heine's finger twitched just a little, but he said, "Everything is in order, your majesty, please do not concern yourself with the earthly worries of civilians such as me."

"Why, you are the one to talk, Heine, when it was you who taught me to be a better king, by concerning myself over the lives of civilians such as yourself." Viktor stepped forward into the pool of light from the window, and took Heine's right arm by the wrist.

Really, he should be drunk for this.

Heine grasped, just a little too violently to pass off as nothing, he pulled back, but Viktor didn't release his grip, even though his eyes widened in surprise.

Heine's hand was trembling slightly, and it was gripping the pocket watch so tight, Viktor could see the veins stand out.

"Wh— What's wrong, Heine? Why are you shaking?"

Heine's eyes looked wild for just a slight moment, but then he took a long, deep breath of air, and relaxed just slightly.

"Nothing is wrong, your majesty. Please release my wrist?"

"In exchange for telling me the problem?" Viktor offered.

"There is no problem, your majesty."

"Viktor." The king said authoritatively. "There is no problem, Viktor."

"...Viktor." Heine repeated, and the king took it for a permission, of a kind. He moved closer, still holding Heine's right wrist up almost above his head, and put his other hand around Heine's waist.

The redhead panicked then, shaking the gentle touch off violently, dropping the pocket watch, his other hand still gripping the candle holder. He stumbled backward out of the pool of glistening silver moonlight and fell onto the floor, his horrified eyes locked onto the pocket watch that hit the ground, bounced once, and rolled off somewhere.

"Heine, the candle!" The king whisper-shouted. The candle had fell beside him and the surrounding papers were starting to catch fire.

Snapping out of the trance, Heine quickly got up and beat the fire out, Viktor also on his knees and helping.

When the last if the fire was out, plunging the room into an eerie darkness, Heine found himself shaking uncontrollably. He wrapped his arms around himself, curling up into a ball.

"Viktor." The sound that came out of Heine's mouth was almost pleading. "Viktor, I don't know why I'm shaking." Said Heine, softly. "Viktor. Viktor, you must get out of my room. Don't spend the night here. There'll be rumors. Please, I don't want to cause you any more trouble."

Viktor was taken aback... then he was going to protest, but a wave of sadness overcame him when he saw again the slight, trembling figure, hugging himself.

"But..." he tried, but his attempt died there.

He looked at Heine's eyes, and he thought he saw the sadness reflected right back at him.

"Don't make it harder for me, okay?" Heine said with a hint of self-mocking.

"Alright." He said, standing and stepping back hesitantly, not wanting to leave.

But who is he to say anything, when it was him who had married off and have six children, all the while leaving Heine alone?

"Alright, Heine, I'm leaving." He took two more steps back, still facing Heine, "But come see me tomorrow evening. After classes. Urgent discussions on the... the princes' curriculum. I'll tell my servants to expect you."

Then he finally turned and left the room.

There was a collective silence in the hall as Heine got on one knee and apologized for burning the princes' assignments.

"I knocked over a candle and the papers caught fire, highnesses. I wasn't able to put them out fast enough to save some of the documents, I'm afraid. My deepest apologies."

Bruno was the first to recover from the stunned silence.

"It's fine, right, everyone?"

Kai nodded. Licht knelt down beside their petit teacher and said, "Yeah, everyone makes mistakes, Heine."

Leonhard nodded vigorously. "Yesterday I dropped my teacup and caused a huge mess too! Ah— I apologized to the maids of course." piped in Leonhard, ever the quickest one to sympathize.

"But… is everything all right, sensei? This doesn't seem like the kind of mistake you would normally make." Asked Kai with a worried expression.

"I am well, prince Kai, please do not worry yourself. It was a simple accident, and I will be more careful in the future."

"...If Master says so, then I guess there is no point in dwelling on it further."

"Then, let us begin our lesson for today."

Nothing else of interest had happened during the lesson that day. Heine had simply skipped the last assignment without making the princes retake them, claiming rightly that it was his fault the papers had burned and he didn't want to impose his mistake upon his students to fix.

None of the said students could notice anything wrong in Heine's mannerisms or focus. To the most minute details, Heine was his usual formal and stoic self.

Of course, outside of his work, calmness was as far from the truth as could be imagined.

Heine would find a secluded spot unlikely to be seen by anyone, then sat there gripping his pocket watch for hours on end, running his finger over the fault in the smooth glass, over and over and over, feeling something build in his chest that he doesn't want to acknowledge, slowly suffocating him from the inside.

This level of severity is of course not a sudden occurence.

It had taken Heine months at the palace to reach this critical state, but before that this same feeling had been following him around since that fateful Harvest Festival.

It had built and built up on itself that Heine was about to break, and because the only friend he could confide in is more than partly the cause of his problem, he felt like he was left entirely alone in solving this.

At first he turned to books. Those sometimes cheesy books that he didn't dare take to the register to borrow from the library. He would sometimes spend an entire afternoon researching, reading about examples of things like forbidden love and how to get over your teenage crush.

And each time he would emerge having hammered in a little more deeply his very first conclusion: He must not let an affair happen.

Such a thing would only bring problems to Viktor and especially the royal family. Even to the country itself. And Heine could not let that happen, especially on his own account.

And Viktor has always been the one who would take stupid risks like sneaking out of a castle to learn from a commoner. He has always been attached to Heine for some reason, and if it was up to him, he knew Viktor would risk everything to try to make it work.

But it wouldn't work, and the risk is way too high. So Heine know it was up to him to prevent it from happening in the first place.

There is a fracture, a glass wall he must bot break, a canyon he must not cross, no matter how much he wanted to.

He has to do everything in his power to destroy the bridge trying to span that canyon. He has to do anything he could to keep that glass from breaking.

And Heine thought he could almost heard something in himself breaking every time he did it.

Sometimes, it felt as if it wasn't the pocket watch that had broken that day Viktor got shot.

It felt like it was Heine himself that broke...

And the cracks are getting too large to hold his own pieces together anymore.

Coming to the palace only made it worse. Like holding food just out of reach of a starving animal, seeing Viktor just... there wasn't helping matters at all.

Catching glimpses of him in the palace, seeing his reflection in his son's mannerisms, knowing he could arrange to meet with a few words in no time at all...

Knowing that if he reach, Viktor would reach back, and then not do it.

But it was fine.

It was fine.

He was fine.

He wasn't.