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shinonCharacters: Luke, Jade
Word count: ~700
Warnings: None
Notes: Post-canon; assumes that the guy who returns at the end of the game is Luke, and that Asch is perma-dead. Gift for
“Well,” said Jade, with the usual air of detachment, “some of Dist's work with isofons did suggest the possibility. Between you and Asch, there could have been just enough seventh fonons circulating to support one life. Through the luck of the draw – or some more complex process we don't yet understand – that life was yours. Congratulations.”
“Oh.” Luke stared down at his hands. “So I'm just... alive. And that's it? No catch?”
When he'd showed up again, last night, no one had been quite tactless enough to ask “which one are you” - although he could tell Anise was biting her tongue. And no one had wanted to be the first to suggest hustling him off to the nearest doctor to check whether he was in any danger of disintegrating again.
(Dr. Shu in Belkend had been contacted, but he was days of travel away, with the weakened state of fontech. Luke thought of how much trouble everyone must've gone to, to coordinate everyone being here on this day. For him. Then he thought about the gentlest way to let Natalia down – but she already knew. If he'd been Asch she wouldn't have squeezed his hand like that. He wondered if he should apologize.)
Jade made a show of reading over the medical report one last time. “No catch.” His tone turned a shade mocking: “I didn't know you'd be so unhappy about it.”
“But... you knew this could happen?” He looked up again, feeling a slow stirring of anger – that familiar old feeling of why doesn't anyone tell me anything? “We could've saved Asch. You could've said something.”
Jade stared back at him in silence, eyebrows raised, just long enough to make it clear he was killing that line of conversation stone dead. Finally he said, “Your fonons seem to be stable – do with that information what you will. I'm afraid we no longer have the technology for any more detailed testing as to your condition. You'll have to live in suspense like the rest of us.”
“Because of Asch. Because... why, because he died first? You know –” Luke said, and shook his head, with a miserable little half laugh. “I'm kinda tired of other people dying for my personal development. Maybe if I was better at learning my lesson, they'd stay alive.”
It was an ugly thing to think, much less say out loud. If he'd said it to anyone else they'd get mad, or tell him he was a bad person. But Jade mostly didn't care about good or bad, and somehow that made him less scary to talk to about heavy stuff, even though he was a giant unsympathetic jerk. It made you feel less like a monster, to air out your most cynical thoughts and have a guy roll his eyes at you, like it wasn't such a big deal. Like you were very young and stupid and you were starting to bore him.
But – it wasn't working this time. Jade's expression was unexpectedly chilly. “Is that what you think happened?” he said, as if this was serious.
A serious Jade was the last person Luke wanted to talk to about anything. “Never mind,” he said. “That was wrong. I shouldn't have said... I know everything's not about me.”
But Jade said, “No one has ever died to teach someone else a lesson. No one's ever died for any reason at all. People die because of entropy.”
One of these days, Luke thought, I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. “Sorry.”
“What for?” said Jade, and it sounded like a real question. Like he hadn't even noticed that he was ticked off, or he'd somehow forgotten that he was the Necromancer.
“I mean, it's – probably weird for you.” Fomicry had finally resurrected someone. Just once, thirty years late. And now fontech was failing, and it could never happen again. “It's weird that I came back. Isn't it?”
Jade looked surprised, and then thoughtful. “I suppose there is a certain irony, isn't there.” A pause. A shrug. “Well, don't let me keep you. Your friends are waiting outside.”
It was almost funny, in a sad way. Luke almost thought, if Jade was the kind of person who ever got uncomfortable... “Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Jade.”
“It was nothing. And... welcome back.”
