Magic if you squint

One common symptom of PTSD was hypervigilance. Even if Havoc didn't have PTSD--even if some people had tried very hard to diagnose him--he certainly was hypervigilant. It was simply the way he was. He looked for danger because it had been his habit for almost his entire adult life. Even if he knew--or thought he knew--that the school was safe, he still checked around corners subtly. He still walked at an even, measured pace, and let his eyes look absolutely everywhere at once.

For the first time since arriving on the island, it served him well.

A fist shot out, and before Havoc's brain could even process it he'd already reacted. His hand went up, redirecting the incoming fist with his palm. It would lessen the blow, and it would make sure that the fist wasn't going to go anywhere near his head.

There was no follow up, though. There was no second punch. The professors form had been excellent, the kind of form that Havoc associated with the military (largely because he had a slight bias against dojos and those who claimed to teach self defense), but there was also no second punch.

If his teacher was trying to kill him, he was doing a very poor job of it.

Havoc cocked his head, making no move to flee or to run. Professor Creighton had lashed out from simply emotion, rather than in an attempt to cause action harm, he decided.

"You were in the military?" Havoc said, sliding a few pieces of the puzzle into place. Not a lot, but at least a general idea. He knew the idea of PTSD, knew that it could cause fight-or-flight instincts, but none of it explained what it really meant.

You looked like someone I knew didn't normally involve a fist to the jaw.

The man was wound as tight as a spring, a bundle of energy that was obviously searching for an outlet. Havoc didn't give him one, but it didn't seem like he was going to take a swing at him either. Instead he behaved what Havoc would consider oddly, setting his things down and pressing against the wall.

He answered, but Havoc didn't prompt him again at all. Instead he simply stood there, watching as he trembled, and letting him calm down.

He waited until the man's halms stopped trembling quite so much, and it was only then that he continued.

"You had a squadmate who looked like me?" He prompted, even if it was effectively shoving a hot brand into Graeme's wound.

He was the open wound, he realized. Or not him. The professors squad mate, the one he looked like. He at least had enough awareness to realize that, to recognize that his very existence was the problem rather than anything he'd done.

That was a relief, he supposed. It meant he hadn't done anything wrong outside of existing, which was hardly something he could be blamed for.

"I see," he confirmed, although he wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. Someone who looked just like him? That was unusual. He'd been raised an only child, and he looked just like his parents, so the odds of them having adopted him and left him with a twin floating around were unlikely.

"Was he from America? Or Hong Kong," he asked, hoping to clear away any likelihood of him actually having a twin.

For the first time since they'd started talking, something recognizable as an emotion became clear on Havoc's face. His face scrunched ever so slightly, trying to process what he was being told.

Europa. Europa? Not Europe, but Europa.

Havoc felt like he'd been passed some kind of misinformation, and as his face reset back to neutral he did his best to correct it.

"I am not familiar with Europa," he said simply, fully expecting that the professor would simply fill him in.

A few months ago Havoc would have thought that he was talking to someone who was seriously mental ill, with all the talk of other worlds. On Manta Carlos, he frequently saw seven impossible things before he'd finished breakfast, and double that number if he went to the cafeteria. The idea of alternate worlds was alarmingly plausible compared to some of the things he'd seen, so he simply accepted it without question.

"I see," he said simply. That gave him some amount of context, and was a springboards of sorts for further questions. "Would you say I am similar in appearance, or absolutely identical? A common motif in alternate universe media is people who show up in both universes, after all."

It was also a common motif in time travel movies, but that made significantly less sense, so he ignored it.