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Ace Galatine was scheduled to have a check-up with Ridill Arondite inside the hospital portion of their shared workplace, OPIA. She wasn't exactly a doctor, per se, but she knew a few things about his specific condition; Ace was dead. He no longer had any flame- what fuelled a person at their core, like a soul- and needed to siphon some off of others in order to keep 'living' until he regained his own. Ridill wasn't a doctor, but she was a scientist who had dedicated herself to studying things like flame, and when everyone else was busy, she didn't mind filling in.
Ridill welcomed Ace into the room. It was white and clinical, as all hospitals were, but she'd grown somewhat used to the feeling. He stepped up and onto the bed, sitting on the parchment paper that overlaid it.
Ace was pale. And tired. He looked kind of sick, but that was just how he was nowadays.
"How's your flame?" Ridill asked, as she began pulling back his sleeves and hooking him up to machinery. While she still had the formal tone of a doctor, some of that was replaced by the casualness of an old friend. "You've been getting some from Lyst recently, right?"
"Yeah," Ace answered. He watched her attach things to his wrists and chest, not fully understanding the purpose of each and every wire like Ridill did. "Flame is fine, I have a decent amount right now. Still feels awkward to have to ask people to bite them like a vampire for it, though."
Ridill stole mere glances to him as she did her work, and with those small looks alone it was difficult to determine what kind of expression was on his face. He looked much more present than he had when he was alive, as cruel as that sounded, but today he'd regained just a bit of that haze. Tubes containing flame were linked up around various spots on his body- this wasn't part of today's procedure, it was what he was usually required to wear- and they softly glowed pink against his sickly skin and red hair.
Ridill turned to her equipment and began to click and press things, looking at medical reports and what the equipment was scanning, information splayed out for her to see across multiple screens. Before she could bring up any of it, Ace interrupted her.
"Ridill, how do you…" He paused. Ridill could tell the expression forming on his face wasn't hesitance or bashfulness; he was struggling to put his feelings into words. She waited for him. "How do you tell what's true and what's not?"
She cocked her head in response, as if asking him to specify.
"Your whole memory thing. It means you can forget entire days of your life, yet you still trust the people around you. They could just be making everything up, couldn't they?"
Ridill thought about that. "Well, I have my journal, first of all," she answered, a bit simply. She took a pause from the computer, turning away from it to give Ace her attention. "I write things down as I experience them. I think if you really feel like you can't trust anything around you, you can at least trust yourself."
"But if someone steals it or whatever, they could easily change what it says," Ace retorted. He was starting to sound… angrier? He often sounded at least a little bit pissed, and it was starting to show through in his voice now. " In general, how do you know what's around you is true?"
Ace, himself, was a lie. Or, he had been, at least for a long time. He was an actor, and he'd been in so many movies, recorded with countless cameras, and every time, he put up something fake that met the demands of the script or the expectations of the viewers. He had probably never once meant it when he told a talk-show host, ‘I’m happy to be here today.’
Ridill turned back to the machines. She sometimes took things with Ace like handling a bear; if she didn't want a fight, she'd back off and stop looking him in the eye. Though, it wasn't often that she didn't feel like fighting Ace Galatine.
She typed something into the keyboard. "Think about your reality critically, then. Think about what's around you using what information you have onhand, and get information from multiple sources. Ground yourself, be aware of what's going on. If you need any tips on grounding techniques, I know some–"
"It could all be fake."
Ridill paused her typing. She was slow to continue speaking. "Ace… why are you asking me all of this, anyway?"
She didn't turn to look at him. She didn't look at the expression on his face, the one that he often wore in situations like this, like he was a cornered animal bearing what defenses he could. There was silence as Ace held his breath, save for the noise of beeping machines. It felt like the walls themselves, as solid and white and clean as they were, were alive and holding its breath with him.
"...ever since I died… I haven't been sure about everything around me."
Ridill's expression hardened ever so slightly. The look accentuated the light wrinkles that had begun forming on her face. She knew, ever since Ace had died, that he had lost one of his abilities; Formless Style. A fighting style giving the user extreme hyper-awareness, among other things, at a cost. For Ace, that cost was his emotions.
But since he had died and been revived, he'd lost Formless. He could feel things more fully, more intensely. He could laugh and smile now, in a genuine sense, and though Ridill could never recall a situation when he actually had, he could cry, too. The cost of regaining that was losing his awareness. She'd watched him bump into doorways, stumble over his own feet. It must feel odd after living most of his life with Formless at his disposal.
Ridill approached Ace. She set her hand on his. He wore gloves, and the fabric felt cold and smooth against her skin. Although it was technically special medical equipment for him, in this situation it just felt like another thing for him to use to distance himself from others.
"It's good to question what's around you, like, think about it critically and everything. Like, look at all those people who consume corporate slop without thinking for even a second," she lightly giggled before continuing. "But it's also good to put trust into what- and who- you can. Do you want to live your whole life thinking, hey, maybe I can't trust any of this? Maybe it's a lie? Maybe it'll crumble down when I least expect it?"
She looked him in the eyes. She wasn't looking to fight him, or piss him off, or tease him. But she wanted to confront him. Confront him with the emotions he'd lacked all those years.
Ridill's expression softened as she smiled. "You're not sure if it's the truth. But you're also not sure it's a lie. So why do you need to treat it like it is?"
She let go of his hand, and turned back to the computer. With self-satisfaction in her voice, she concluded with, "Now, does that answer your questions?" She watched Ace quietly nod in her peripheral vision.
"Let's finish this check-up, then," Ridill said.
As she turned her head, she watched him begin to unhook himself from the wires. "No, it's fine," Ace replied. He seemed less vacant now that he'd gotten whatever answer he was seeking, but that meant more of his idiotic audacity had bubbled to the surface. "This check-up is more of a formality. I feel okay." He wasn't smiling, but his voice was a little teasing, anyway, as he added, "I know you prefer doing medical procedures on hot women, anyway."
Ridill flushed, and she rushed back to his side. "H-Hey…! First of all, if you're not actually doing fine like you say, you'll freaking die (again) and I'll be the one blamed for it in your obituary. Secondly, my feelings towards women stay solidly separated from my work!" She exclaimed, beginning to reattach wires. Ace didn't particularly try to stop her, though he didn't seem happy about it, as if he had somewhere better to be.
"That's a lie and you know it," he answered. This time, he finally smiled. It was a soft look that deepened some of his wrinkles, ones you wouldn't know were there when he held his usual expression. His voice curled at the edges in a way that told of more happiness than was conveyed on his face.
Ridill turned away to hide her look of joy. Ace would have continued his teasing if he saw she was getting all smiley at just having made him grin a little. She headed back to the machines, throwing herself back into her work.