Day 0: Discoveries are Made

[merge_state]

Characters: Luke/'Blade', Jade (closed)
Location: on the streets of Grand Chokmah
Time: late evening, day 0
Warnings: none yet

Comments

[red_under_glass]

What, no Anise? You're missing one of your love interests, Luke. Quite frankly, if Jade's not on *that* list, he doesn't mind in the slightest. That said, even the infamously cold-hearted Necromancer had come to care about Luke, so if they went to a Malkuthian laboratory, it wouldn't be so that Jade could cut him up

[merge_state]

"Well, it's just--" Jade was always so damn cool; it was aggravating on every possible level. Luke hunched his shoulders to avoid the urge to blow his top at him -- whatever else, Jade was a friend, and he was trying to help, and Luke needed that help right now.

He hadn't told the girls and the others about... his state. It was too weird to look Tear and Natalia in the eye and tell them that he was both Asch and Luke (could he even call himself Luke, really? was that fair? he'd been wondering that for years now and he still didn't have an answer) and part of him kept hoping that he could still avoid that reaction.

But he couldn't very well not tell Jade. That would negate the whole point of this check-up.

"I don't really feel fine." Luke glanced around, suspiciously, as if afraid that Guy (or Mieu, damnit) would have somehow overheard. "There's-- something you should know before we split up."

[red_under_glass]

If he seems cool, he's sorry. Jade truly is glad to see Luke, even if it's in this state. Considering what the big bang theory had end up to the replica...

But if nothing else, it's easy to see how agitated "Luke" is over this. That's what ultimately convinces Jade that he should be direct to him about it. If he's right (and Jade is 99.9% certain that he is), then this person must be deeply confused about who and what he is--Luke knew nothing about the big bang effect, and Asch had information he ultimately misunderstood.

And so Jade gazes over his shoulder at Luke for a long moment, an odd look on his face that on anyone else Luke might identify as 'concern,' before finally he turns his red eyes back out at the night sky over Grand Chokmah. "I suppose you wouldn't," he agrees. "It's not just you in there, is it, 'Luke'?"

The Necromancer doesn't respond to 'what he should know'. He's just made it clear that he already does. Instead, he pauses, then breathes a bit of a sigh and pushes up his glasses. "I suppose I owe you an

[merge_state]

Luke stopped still, for a brief moment shocked to have the words essentially stolen out of his mouth, and stared at Jade. If it were anyone else, he might sputter something like, How did you know? but since it was Jade-- He just let the tension ease out of him, and muttered sourly, "I don't know why I'm surprised."

In a way it was kind of a relief. He lunged forward a little, a quick stride to come up to the older man's side, and then said desperately, "Did I trap him inside me? I don't really know what I did, but I thought, maybe-- Can you get him out, somehow?"

Maybe it was a question he should've asked a year ago -- two years ago -- but it hadn't occurred to him that Jade would already know about this, and he'd been so busy struggling to accept it he hadn't even thought there might be another way.

[red_under_glass]

A quiet, "I'm sorry," was the only thing that Jade could say. It would probably be little comfort to him, but it was at least heartfelt. Jade didn't let his own expression betray anything, but the gradient of surprise, to incomprehension, to denial, to anger, and finally to a desperate clinging to what he knew to be his truth were all expected. It's how human beings normally react to a shock like this.

If Luke had voiced those unspoken words...well, they might have hurt a little, maybe, but even for a man in denial, it wouldn't be wrong of him to make that assumption. Jade liked to think he wasn't that twisted, but he knew himself well, and considering how he acted sometimes, it wasn't unreasonable

[merge_state]

Jade didn't waver or flinch before the accusations, just maintained the sort of stoic not-quite-compassion (not from him) that most made Luke worry that there was some truth to this absurdity. Usually, with Jade, you could sense at least peripherally that you were being mocked, but this...

It felt like his head was going to split. Ion. On his seventeenth birthday Luke had sent him a carven owl he'd picked up in Engeve while he was traveling through. He couldn't have been more than fifteen when he-- No, he didn't die. Some other Ion had died.

"Of course we did," Luke said numbly, although he didn't really know who he was talking about with we. "I mean, we never went to Belkend, but Spinoza was doing research there about the miasma, and he risked his life to bring that information to Baticul. Uncle was able to put him under his protection, so the Oracle Knights couldn't..."

Wait, he thought, he's saying that this isn't-- really? He stared at Jade hard, as if trying to determine if he was actually a subtly different color than Luke

[red_under_glass]

"I see," Jade said, even though--truth be told--he didn't, really. This went beyond his experience, went beyond his expectations. Although he spoke as if he accepted his own alternate world hypothesis easily, that was, frankly, a front. He simply didn't know what to make of all this.

But he would. He already had ideas to test. Jade was nothing if not adaptable.

"I think," he stated once it became clear Luke, or Blade, was not going to speak further, "that we should run that check-up on you as soon as possible." The middle-aged colonel turned his gaze to the road, and picked up his pace back to the Imperial Palace. "Let's go."

[merge_state]

Luke continued to stare, not following him for a beat-- So this apparently wasn't... "his" Auldrant. The people here weren't really the people he knew. He had gone to Tattaroo Valley and they had been waiting for some other Luke there.

I guess this time I'm the one who stole someone's life, he thought, and then, well, again, and shook his head to clear it.

He said sourly, "Does that mean I don't get to sleep?" and finally sighed and made himself start moving again.