2023-10-11: What Sustains the Soul
- Log: 2023-10-11: What Sustains the Soul
- Cast: Kaworu Nagisa, Spike Spiegel
- Where: Alba City, Mars
- OOC - IC Date: 2023-10-11
- Summary: After learning of Mao Yenrai's death, Spike Spiegel is on the prowl. He finds Kaworu Nagisa once again in Alba City.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
The Gutsy Galaxy Guard's space train has taken the Jupiter expedition to Mars. Along the way, they passed the Moon, and a certain champagne-colored Evangelion unit deployed from a base there and hitched a ride. This was planned; the pilot of that unit was assigned to the Jupiter expedition the day before it was to leave Earth, after all.
That pilot has remained within his Evangelion. No need to eat; no need to drink; no need to sleep; and so he remained where he was for some time.
But it isn't possible to remain in that womb-like darkness forever. Quietly, Kaworu had let himself out. The NERV crew that had boarded to help with Evangelion maintenance will need to filter the LCL, run checks, so on and so forth anyway.
From there, he showers. From there, he dons a replacement plug suit, his usual black-gray marked with an 06 at the collar despite the fact that his Evangelion is Unit Beta. From there, he walks off the train and onto the Martian city of Alba. His pace is a stroll, but his lips don't show his usual faint, lopsided smile. There is a certain melancholy there instead, though he will smile all the same for those who catch his eye. Eventually, he'll come to a stop outside of one of the jazz clubs in town and lean on the wall outside to listen from afar.
A black plug suit in the "White" City on the Red Planet. How appropriate. And yet, this place is only a brief stop in the overall journey.
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
Spike didn't realize, in truth, that Kaworu Nagisa is on this trip.
On the ride here, he stayed on the Bebop a lot -- he and Jet are contractors, and while they have the information they need, they aren't privy to details about some things affecting NERV and GGG. Spike is an old hand, though.
He has sensed tension.
But there is always a tension in Alba City. He has stopped on the narrow street of a hilly part of town; he has his usual blue suit coat on, but a trench coat over it, for the weather. A cigarette is in his mouth. He had been checking an old Red Dragon dead drop.
But then he stopped at a certain street corner, where he waited and waited. The red roses are long gone, now; there isn't anyone waiting for him. But, there wasn't then, either.
Spike waits for a long moment. Then he turns -- and when he does, he spots Kaworu, leaning against a nearby jazz club. Spike blinks once, before he starts over, hands in his coat's pockets.
"Yo," he says.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
That's fine. Most people don't. At this point, probably only Guy and a small handful of others do.
Kaworu meanwhile does know that Spike and the Bebop are with the Jupiter expedition. He'd been the one to suggest to Guy that he reach out to them, after all. And Mars is Spike's homeworld... It's thus no surprise, even though Kaworu hadn't come here for him, when Spike turns away from his street corner where the red roses have long since withered to face Kaworu. Spike blinks; Kaworu tilts his head his way. Their eyes meet, and Spike ambles over.
"We meet again," he replies in his soft voice. There's something about it that's a touch more mournful now, though. Kaworu isn't one to express his sorrow openly, but... Spike would know better than most the heartache of being far separated from someone you love.
"What brings you here?" Kaworu adds. He means here, specifically, to this spot; he knows well why he's on this planet in the first place.
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
"Of all the gin joints, huh?" Spike says, cracking a smile and tilting his head to the side for a moment.
Kaworu asks a question, and he considers.
"I'm here with GGG. They needed someone to be a local guide for their stop by Mars," Spike says. And, as it happens, he is going past Mars. He is quiet for a moment. "But I hear I've got you to thank. So... thanks."
Then, the cowboy looks around the city -- it's a grey day, which highlights the near-monotone of the grey stones and grey roads here. He looks back at Kaworu. He spots that sadness; that forlorn look, that goes unspoken. He knows that.
And he knows to not point it out.
"We got word of a problem. An old friend of mine is dead." Spike's brow furrows. "So, I'm seeing if it's going to be a problem."
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"Hmm?" The joke about gin joints is beyond Kaworu; he's here to listen to music, not to drink. That confusion reflects, however palely, in his expression. But then, Kaworu is a teenager, isn't he? Perhaps it's only natural that he knows little about alcohol and where to drink it.
But Spike goes on, and Kaworu smiles, faint but broad and reaching his crimson eyes however momentarily. "You're welcome."
It fades when Spike tells him the things he didn't know. An old friend of Spike's, dead... Though this is not a part of the universes that Kaworu is deeply acquainted with, he is familiar enough with the shape of it to be able to read the stars.
And so: "I see." He too looks out towards the gray city. "I expect it won't end well."
I expect, he says, as though it's only a guess. But there's something in the way he says it that implies a level of certainty.
It's similar to when they met on the Orbital Ring. Spike of course knows Kaworu's knowledge isn't perfect... but he does still know more than is normal for a boy his age, doesn't he?
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
"Oh, an old movie," Spike says. (Nevermind that Casablanca is likely quite different here.) He doesn't dwell on it, though; nothing makes a joke worse than explainig in detail.
He watches Kaworu, carefully, as he explains. 'I expect,' Kaworu says, and Kaworu has a way of understanding him -- and understanding what is to come.
Some would worry over the source of that knowledge. Where did Kaworu acquire it? Is it infallile? Spike accepts it, but that's a truth about Spike: he tends to accept a lot of things.
"Badly for me?" he asks. "Or badly for everyone else?"
Or, perhaps, badly for the other two people in this situation -- the two ghosts in his life, always here and never present.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"Ah, I see," Kaworu says again, and he too accepts that. That's something he and Spike have in common.
His smile remains on his lips, but leaves his eyes. "For everyone," he says. Not everyone else. "None of you will attain what you desire." That smile fades entirely now. "I pray I'm wrong. Even being here now with the others means a possibility for everything to be different."
He considers the faint strains of music wafting from within the jazz club, down the stairs into the underground between them, and shuts his eyes. "...But fate is not so easily deterred."
He knows that very well indeed. Even if many details are different this time around... the fate brought about by the Angel known as Bardiel refused to change.
"But then," he adds, almost like an afterthought, "neither are you."
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
"Mm."
Spike is quiet for a moment. None of them will get what they want -- and in truth, if Spike knew what Vicious or Julia wanted, then maybe his life would be easier. (How wrong he is.)
"Fate isn't very kind, either," he says. "But I don't suppose I'll change, just because fate is going one way. If that's where I have to end up..."
He trails off. He is quiet for a moment, as he thinks about what Kaworu said. Maybe he is right. Maybe Spike isn't so easily deterred.
"...I guess I'll have to face whatever fate has in store," he says. "If there's a chance."
A chance to see Julia again. A chance to get his answers about the past. A chance to set things right.
Even if he doesn't know what that means.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"Fate knows nothing of kindness or cruelty, any more than the stars and the planets do. It simply exists as it is and as it must," Kaworu replies. "Anything otherwise is simply a matter of perception. But... that perception still has value."
He looks back over with Spike, and while his faint smile now isn't warm, it isn't unsympathetic, either. "In a place of gravity, water always flows one way, no matter what would block it. You are like water; you will find a way around the boulder and the sand, no matter how sullied you may become."
He shuts his eyes. "...Though I doubt you're bothered by whether you are 'sullied' or 'pure.'"
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
"I wonder. Who is it that decides if something is cruel?" Spike asks. Then, he shrugs. "But I think you're right. About fate. And about perception."
He glances back at Kaworu, away from the grey skies of Mars today. He hesitates a moment, head tilted to the side. Like water, Kaworu says. "You're right about that. I know what I already am."
His brow furrows.
"And water flows where it wants to. Or where it has to, maybe," Spike says. "So I'll flow where I have to. Or where I want to."
If there is a difference.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
"The one who is capable of defining an act as 'kind' or 'cruel,'" Kaworu replies--which is just another way of phrasing what he's already said. Still, ultimately Spike agrees with him. After all, he knows what he is... and he, too, accepts most things that come his way.
It's now that his smile warms, as Spike asserts both his acceptance and defiance of fate. Kaworu doesn't say they're alike, but... they aren't unalike, he thinks. "Over time, water creates its own paths," he remarks. "I hope there will be time enough for you to find the path to your own happiness."
He, too, will continue trying. For Shinji's sake.
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
"No argument from me," Spike says, with that lopsided smile of his.
He is quiet for a moment, as he considers that. Hopefully, there will be enough time -- and yet time is the one thing that never seems to move forward for him. But, maybe, it is; maybe time just needs to catch up with him.
It is better than the alternative.
"There's only one way to find out," Spike says. And, strangely, he feels more at peace with the idea -- or, no, accepting of the idea. Whatever is coming is unlikely to be happy, but it is something that will happen. He can only make of it what he can.
But Spike is perceptive. He caught that forlorn look in Kaworu's eye. So, after a moment, he nods, and he adds: "Hopefully, this time, it's the same for you, too."
BBSYS: Post 1285, 'A Formal Announcement' has been published to IC News/Rumors by Eight Orlodhari.
<Pose Tracker> Kaworu Nagisa has posed.
Spike offers specifically no argument, and Kaworu chuckles a little in that faint, soft way of his. There's little humor to be found there in reality, but there is a sense of unity, and that helps.
He, too, has a trouble relationship with time--but in a very different way from Spike. One day, he'll find or make his path to happiness. He needs only try until it happens, again and again and again and again and again.
...There is no alternative.
"Yes. I'll lend you what aid I can, if I can. But the true confrontation will be yours," Kaworu replies. Not solely Spike's--not with the company he's joined. But, ultimately, his.
And when Spike offers his own well-wishes back, Kaworu pauses--and smiles again, a tinge of comfort in it as he shuts his eyes. "Hope is what sustains the soul," he replies softly. "Yes. I hope so, this time, too."
For now, Kaworu will remain where he is and listen to the music.
<Pose Tracker> Spike Spiegel has posed.
Again and again. That is an alien concept to Spike; for him, there is only one life, only one chance, and it's a matter of grasping and trying to make it right. And, indeed, a matter of always wondering if it has already slipped away from him.
But, in that, they're alike: there is no alternative.
"That's how it has to be," Spike says. "But... thanks." He nods, then; maybe with his eyes, Kaworu won't see it, but Spike suspects he knows.
"I'd say it never hurts to hope... but let's say it beats the alternative," he decides. He tips his fingers to his brow. "Take care of yourself. And enjoy Alba City."
Spike gives a two-fingered wave -- and then his hands slide back into his pockets, and he starts on his way again.