This is almost my first fanfic. ever. I dunno what to say up here besides what I wrote in the summary. Almost all of the dialogue, save for a line or so, comes from the in-game text on Tanetane Island. That's why it sounds sorta screwy at times. Enjoy, I guess. I'm so confident right now. *sarcasm*
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With a dull sense of relief, Lucas stared at the boy in front of him. The world pulsed in shades of pink around the two of them; the ground at their feet tinged with unnatural colors and the sky a drugged backdrop of purple. He was vaguely aware of Boney's low growling in the distance, of his friends standing nearby, of doubt lingering just beneath his thoughts, but the image of the other boy drew his attention beyond anything else.
Claus smiled a little, and Lucas felt his mouth shift to mirror the expression.
"Let's switch places," said Claus, his voice quiet but pleading. The words, though spoken by someone so painfully familiar, were strangely foreign to Lucas. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to meet the expectant gaze of the boy, as if he was afraid to see something there that he would regret looking at later. Instead all he could do was watch in silent confusion while Claus spoke the phrase again. "Let's switch places."
"Lucas." His name, blunt and monosyllabic, was punctuated with the hint of a question. But the boy with the blond hair found himself unable to speak as ragged memories of loss, disorientation, and hope were stitched back together in a way that left Claus' place in his head more distorted than before. He didn't know this version of him; despite the stripes on his favorite shirt, the freckles that flecked his nose, this Claus was different. The relief felt wrong.
"Lucas. Lucas," came his name again. The world grew brighter, a more intense spectrum of trees, grass, clouds that still failed to hold his attention. Something inside his mind, inside his body, inside his being changed, and Lucas felt a network of nerves, just like circuitry, stir beneath his skin. Slowly, Claus's smile grew to become wider, a large grin, and the eyes of the two brothers met. "Let's switch places."
---
The voices were indistinguishable, though they were perfecting his senses. The light was intolerable, though they'd mechanized one of his eyes. Scrambled thoughts filled Lucas's head, though he wasn't supposed to be conscious. He was half blind, his human eye shut tight, but he stared at nothing in particular through the device where his other eye was meant to be. His vision through this one wasn't what he was used to, but it felt right somehow. Life signs scrolled across the white light of the room, fixed over his sight so that he couldn't help but stare at his own heart rhythm, at tiny numbers flickering in front of him. It almost scared him that he knew what they meant.
Gradually he began to make sense of his surroundings, and Lucas realized that he had no true concept of time. He watched the numbers of what he knew to be a small clock in the corner of his eye-what replaced his eye-and disregarded them. It didn't matter how long he'd been here, and it didn't matter how he would continue to be. The slurred noises around him started to form words, sentences, and he recognized his own name among the phrases.
"Lucas." A shadow fell over his face, and the new eye sharpened the image, slowly at first, to reveal something, someone, in a pink suit staring down at him through a some type of mask. He tried to raise his head to get a better look at him, but his muscles refused to obey any sort of neurological command. Pigmask, read the single word that scrolled across his vision. It was such a simple description, no real information to go with it, but just that sole title explained a large part of who he was for reasons that he didn't consciously understand. "That's his name," said the voice, and it was evident that this 'Pigmask' wasn't referring to him, but to someone else in the room. "Lucas. Lucas..."
"Everyone is waiting for you," another voice announced in the distance, and Lucas saw the frequency of the sentence rebound off the bottom of his limited view of the place in sharp spikes. Something else was spoken, more words that he couldn't quite catch, and the first Pigmask let out an annoyed grunt, followed by a sarcastic, "Who's 'everyone'?"
He noticed movement at his arm, a forceful pulling and then the sound of metal on metal, and he felt as if it should've hurt. But there was nothing to feel but the absence of sensation itself. Synch in process. Please wait. Lucas had no choice whether or not to wait; he stared up at what he assumed was the ceiling with his biological eye glazed and darkened, his mechanical one consumed by status messages and empty commands. Reconnecting.... reconnecting....
The second Pigmask's words were layered. "Everyone you-"
Any emotions that remained in Lucas were forced from his head, and both of his eyes widened. He regained control over his body. Connection established.
---
"You're more than human."
Lucas didn't say anything. The person before him-an overweight man with the psychological patterns of a boy-smiled in a way that wasn't meant to convey happiness. His hair was swept over his eyes so that their stares couldn't possibly meet, but he knew to keep his gaze down anyway. In the seconds that followed, text partially filled his sight, overlaid on whatever he looked at. Porky Minch. King P. Lord, Master, Creator, the one whom you will obey forever and ever and ever- Lucas blinked hard.
"But you are also more than simply a machine," mused Porky more to himself than to the chimera standing in front of him. He let out a laugh, slight at first, but one that became a loud burst of bitter amusement. "You're more..."
---
All he could see was the smile on Claus' face once he found somewhere else to look besides the green eyes he no longer recognized. Lucas, though his grasp on reality was slipping, knew that his brother-his twin-wasn't the same person he'd sat beside, shivering, next to the fire as they'd accepted the death of their mother. He hadn't shared the blanket thrown over their shoulders that evening with this boy, he hadn't cried when this Claus had gone missing. The grin became the only thing he truly saw; everything else went steadily out of focus while his teeth and his lips stretched wide seemed to consume Lucas' world.
Fragments of a past that wasn't his still clouded his mind, but he couldn't figure out what to make of them. He tore his gaze from the smile and looked down at his arm, brought two fingers gently to his eye. Lucas found that he was human, but the memory of wires beneath skin wouldn't go away. He couldn't stop himself from staring at the redhead once again, this time with slight suspicion. Was that Claus' place? Lucas tried to push away the thoughts that weren't his; he already knew what his place was. He was the younger twin, he was the one left behind, he was the quiet one, but he was also-
The grin changed as Claus spoke. "You're more...."