Twice that I've been summoned by a cult? I don't recall the first time.
[He wasn't SUMMONED BY A CULT he was SAVED BY AN ANGEL no he's come to realize now that some deeply fucked up things were happening but also he's still religious so he's just like oh! It's my fault for choosing an evil path! But like, cheerful and happy about it in this moment. IT'S A NIGHTMARE OUT HERE.]
[ god!!!! they're back to this and lucas is so cheerful but scien simmply refuses to let himself be moved. immediately: ]
The Society of Exorcists warped into a scam and a nightmare. It was not your fault.
[ simply ]
But Ortie escaping death row did make things harder on you. There is a benefit to it, as it did keep Nadia alive this long and she had the chance to be saved. Do not blame yourself for taking the first hand offered to you, to protect what you love most in the world.
[ especially after scien experienced the memory itself ]
However, it no longer serves you. That cult, and everything associated with it, will only get in your way.
[ he pauses. this is going to be a pain, but he doesn't know if he'll get a more convenient chance where lucas is sitting and listening ]
The Society of Exorcists was first created by a certain woman. However, a freak researcher from the Institute who was arrested for experimenting on children for their genetic makeup escaped death row and killed her—that freak is Ortie. He took over as minister. And, with the stolen Reliver technology that I know you've seen, he remade himself as the minister every time he became close to death. The one who found you, the one who asks you to collect memory banks, the one who called himself... Capu...cino? [ ???? what's his new name???? ] The current Minister.
All the same person. Notice it in his speech patterns, the way he's covered head to toe to hide his Reliver mark, and how his successor always uses you.
[ concretes, if lucas finds himself unable to believe scien specifically at his word. please activate your critical thinking, you dumbass ]
You need to leave the Society. You need to stop taking his medicine. Every time you had your own thought, trying to protect your students instead of obeying orders, he would dull your thinking with it. [ a beat ] With a high enough dosage, he convinced you to attack someone who wasn't a Reliver. You became his puppet. [ ankou also was an immortal monster so like. yes. no. but yves still counts ] You were forced to harm one of your students at Ortie's direction, though you were able to leave him alive.
I am telling you this because you cannot protect Nadia from Ortie if you keep letting him take advantage of you. Both of you can still find happiness, but you cannot keep relying on this broken faith.
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO ABILITY TO PROCESS THIS but at least he is in fact sitting and listening and taking all of this information in, in the sense that it is like, now knowledge that he has. What good will that do in the long term?? Well, it will give him the secondary goal of supermurdering Ortie sooo hard for daring to even look at Nadia with harmful intentions in mind and also give him some additional anger on behalf of this other self who turned against his own students even if that in and of itself is a SIN regardless of the CAUSE.
For now, he's still just smiling like YEAH!! HE'S LEARNING NEW INFORMATION!! HAPPY TO EXPAND HIS MENTAL DATABASE OR SOMETHING. Shocking knowledge? MAYBE SO BUT HE DOESN'T HAVE THE EMOTIONAL CAPACITY FOR THAT RIGHT NOW BAYBEE.]
I see! How surprising! [Cheerfully surprised...] I suppose the best place for an escaped Reliver from death row to hide would be in a group that opposes Reliver technology. It simply won't do if I can't protect Nadia, either, and she deserves to feel an even greater happiness than this.
[Than his own totally normal happiness that maybe is because of a curse but it's fine! Thinking about how curses all end eventually doesn't make him anxious! He's all good vibes all the way down.]
[ . . . he just sighs. he really does hate seeing the endless, cursed smile. ]
You should throw whoever did this to you just once. You won't even forgive yourself for reacting to the information like this, will you? This is going to feel like being hit by a car later.
[ and he is loathe to think about just how bad it's going to get, and what that might drive lucas to. he thinks about the way that ortie's drug was called 'a crutch' on the profiles, how lucas lied and called it a medicine. even subconsciously, is that how he thinks of it? will he be turning to it, after all this mental stress? ]
.... Show me your drug vials. The ones from the Society.
[HIS ENDLESS CURSED SMILE... SOMEONE DID THIS TO HIM.]
Oh, don't be silly. [Is it going to feel like being hit by a car?? Hard to believe when everything is so peachy keen right now.
He's not really following Scien's train of logic at the moment though, specifically because those drugs are where his mind wanders when he's feeling low, low, low. Capucine had said it once, about a him that isn't him but still is - this one is his favorite. But right now he's feeling anything but low! The idea of needing to blunt pain is so far from his mind.]
They're in my room. [AERITH DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR ANY HE HAS ALL 3.] Shall I fetch them?
[UP HE GOES to toddle off except it takes him a while to come back because he gets distracted by more bullshit along the way. HELP. But he comes back!! With the vials.]
I did. [ and then, simply: ] If you seek to be in control of your own mind again, you should break them.
[ a suggestion, but framed as a choice. it's a wicked move when lucas is currently cursed to hell and back, but at the same time, scien can't help but feel that leaving the temptation would be worse. a foggy mind that destroys his ability to heal, and would make all further rehabilitation that much more difficult.
last time, he left lucas alone in a ditch somewhere because the rest of the country was exploding. he didn't think too hard about it. 'maybe he's dead,' he'd told everyone else, even as he stowed away an extra antidote for the toxins in his own belongings. scien knows he can get past this, if only by sheer necessity. ]
If you choose to do so, then you can take the medicine I gave you instead. I'll take my medicine too.
[ his fucking vitamins so his body doesn't fall apart from malnutrition ]
[It's framed as a choice and it's one he doesn't even have to think about too hard, because when he's not bogged down by a thousand metric tonnes of Catholic Guilt, there's no temptation to use a drug that helps his mind be quiet.]
Ah, well. I hardly need them now. [OOOO THIS IS GOING TO HAUNT HIM SO SOON but it's fine. For now everything's fine! He doesn't want to leave glass in the basement for someone else to cut themselves on if he misses a piece, so he'll just go through each syringe one by one, removing the rubber safety stopper from the needles and emptying the contents. HE LOOKS SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS. THIS WILL BE THE LAST HAPPINESS HE FEELS.
Though, curiously (cheerful), while he's doing that:] What are you taking medicine for? You've already treated the curse, haven't you?
scien will watch this, making sure every last drop is gone. that will be painful later. lucas has already been going through detox, but the emotional strain will probably be more difficult than the physical one now. maybe he'll accept it as his catholic punishment, which would be the only halfway decent thing religion has ever done for him. ]
Treatment to heal could not have begun while you were still relying on those drugs. Remember that. If you want to live a long life alongside Nadia, this is a necessary, painful step.
[ will lucas remember that later.... scien fucking hopes so. anyway the image of him rummages around to find his own vials.... ]
That's right. My body isn't affected by the so-called curse. However I still don't always get enough nutrients after all the experiments I've done on myself, so I take supplements. I also haven't fixed my lungs, so I need pain medication.
[HE'LL HARDLY NEED THEM NOW!! It's fine, it's fine. There's a little puddle of horrible drugs on the floor that will soon evaporate and leave him without a crutch, and three empty syringes lined up neatly in front of him. His smile doesn't waver.]
There's nothing that I want more.
[This is true even though he is so cursed right now... But!! He just watches Scien fetch his own vials with that same placid curiosity.]
Oh. Experiments? [SELF-EXPERIMENTS.] Why weren't you taking your medication already? It's bad practice to lecture patients when you aren't heeding your own advice.
[This would normally be a huffy fussy SCOLD but at the moment it's just a happy gentle tease.]
[ if there's nothing he wants more then let that be his guiding light through his suffering later.... ]
I don't give Nadia or any of the other people I'm treating anything that I don't test on myself first. So I do have to alter my own body at times.
[ SELF-EXPERIMENTATION HOURS CONTINUES. SOMETIMES YOUR BODY IS JUST ANOTHER TOOL FOR THE EXPANSION OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH. but it's funny because scien truly will take the arrow long before he lets innocent people suffer
For now, there's the cheery surprise again! Wow! He's learning so many new things about Scien and he is not inclined to immediately disbelieve everything because of the ingrained intense and insane hatred within him! Wowee the devil tests out Nadia's treatments on himself first, what a time to be alive!]
That sounds like a taxing endeavor! [TO SAY THE LEAST. But since Scien is currently dealing with him instead of working (he's probably still working) maybe so--] Will you take it, then?
[ he tilts his head slightly at the suggestion that it's taxing. is it? ]
It is the obvious course of action. [ IS IT, SCIEN? ] I know you would agree with me that that child is worth every effort. I do not pursue things half-heartedly. I will not break my word to you.
[ nadia WILL be healed. but regardless he nods in lucas' direction ]
Did you take your medicine already? If not, let's have it together.
[IS IT????? IT'S A COURSE OF ACTION THAT WILL HAUNT HIM LATER!! For now, though, he remains jovial. Taking Lavi's hohoho energy.]
I do agree with that! [NADIA IS WORTH THE WHOLE WORLD even with all of his Catholic Guilt he'd still soup this whole camp if it meant saving her life. But now he gets to be happy vibes about it instead of crushed!]
I haven't, yet. [HE DOESN'T EVEN GET TO TAKE NO STEPS FORWARD OR BACK NOW DAMN he did bring the bottle with him this time though since he remembered Scien wanting him to take it when he saw it in his room, so he pulls it from a pocket and starts to uncap it to shake a pill out.]
[ they're in agreement about nadia then, as scien assumed that they would be. truly lucas not loving nadia will singlehandedly prove that he's a crazy pod person.
scien has multiple vials to take, but he'll at least entertain the request. he can't help but laugh faintly—amused, not entirely mockingly for once. ]
Like a cheers if you insist, you lush.
[ says the lightweight... but scien will bring his vial closer to where lucas can see it in their facetime for a clink clink ]
[CAN YOU IMAGINE A REALITY IN WHICH HE DOES NOT LOVE NADIA that's the Reliver AU he feared his whole life honestly.]
I haven't even had a full bottle today, you know!
[SAYS LUCAS WHO FORGOT THAT SCIEN SAID HE DIDN'T MEET HIM UNTIL HE WAS IMPLODING AND INSANE. His five bottles of wine dinner, hidden once more... But he doesn't have any water so he just tippytaps his lil pill-holding hand toward the facetime image of the vial.]
[BOTTOMS UP. Pops this pill that is so much better for him than his horrible syringes full of demon drugs. After he's done:]
You keep saying that?
[STOP GIVING HIM YOUR WORD. Except rather than being confused and enraged he's just still confused and enthused. He caps his pill bottle, sliding it back away.]
I would rather give you action, but it is hard to do so when you are still so distrusting... and I don't want to override your ability to make conscious choices.
[ scien like honestly i could knock you out and force you into detox (which yves route scien was gonna do anyway,,) but right now you're awake and it can't be helped ]
But I will not give up. On you, on her, or your future. That is all there is to it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Though this is twice now for you.
[ just
to be honest ]
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[He wasn't SUMMONED BY A CULT he was SAVED BY AN ANGEL no he's come to realize now that some deeply fucked up things were happening but also he's still religious so he's just like oh! It's my fault for choosing an evil path! But like, cheerful and happy about it in this moment. IT'S A NIGHTMARE OUT HERE.]
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The Society of Exorcists warped into a scam and a nightmare. It was not your fault.
[ simply ]
But Ortie escaping death row did make things harder on you. There is a benefit to it, as it did keep Nadia alive this long and she had the chance to be saved. Do not blame yourself for taking the first hand offered to you, to protect what you love most in the world.
[ especially after scien experienced the memory itself ]
However, it no longer serves you. That cult, and everything associated with it, will only get in your way.
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I'm not certain that I follow? [But it's okay! He doesn't blame himself right now for anything. Life is good. God is also good or something, damn.]
You're telling me to leave the Society...?
[CHEERFULLY CONFUSED ONCE MORE. SCIEN'S CALLING HIM A CULTIST (REAL).]
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I didn't realize we were working in the absolute basics.
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The Society of Exorcists was first created by a certain woman. However, a freak researcher from the Institute who was arrested for experimenting on children for their genetic makeup escaped death row and killed her—that freak is Ortie. He took over as minister. And, with the stolen Reliver technology that I know you've seen, he remade himself as the minister every time he became close to death. The one who found you, the one who asks you to collect memory banks, the one who called himself... Capu...cino? [ ???? what's his new name???? ] The current Minister.
All the same person. Notice it in his speech patterns, the way he's covered head to toe to hide his Reliver mark, and how his successor always uses you.
[ concretes, if lucas finds himself unable to believe scien specifically at his word. please activate your critical thinking, you dumbass ]
You need to leave the Society. You need to stop taking his medicine. Every time you had your own thought, trying to protect your students instead of obeying orders, he would dull your thinking with it. [ a beat ] With a high enough dosage, he convinced you to attack someone who wasn't a Reliver. You became his puppet. [ ankou also was an immortal monster so like. yes. no. but yves still counts ] You were forced to harm one of your students at Ortie's direction, though you were able to leave him alive.
I am telling you this because you cannot protect Nadia from Ortie if you keep letting him take advantage of you. Both of you can still find happiness, but you cannot keep relying on this broken faith.
no subject
HE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO ABILITY TO PROCESS THIS but at least he is in fact sitting and listening and taking all of this information in, in the sense that it is like, now knowledge that he has. What good will that do in the long term?? Well, it will give him the secondary goal of supermurdering Ortie sooo hard for daring to even look at Nadia with harmful intentions in mind and also give him some additional anger on behalf of this other self who turned against his own students even if that in and of itself is a SIN regardless of the CAUSE.
For now, he's still just smiling like YEAH!! HE'S LEARNING NEW INFORMATION!! HAPPY TO EXPAND HIS MENTAL DATABASE OR SOMETHING. Shocking knowledge? MAYBE SO BUT HE DOESN'T HAVE THE EMOTIONAL CAPACITY FOR THAT RIGHT NOW BAYBEE.]
I see! How surprising! [Cheerfully surprised...] I suppose the best place for an escaped Reliver from death row to hide would be in a group that opposes Reliver technology. It simply won't do if I can't protect Nadia, either, and she deserves to feel an even greater happiness than this.
[Than his own totally normal happiness that maybe is because of a curse but it's fine! Thinking about how curses all end eventually doesn't make him anxious! He's all good vibes all the way down.]
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You should throw whoever did this to you just once. You won't even forgive yourself for reacting to the information like this, will you? This is going to feel like being hit by a car later.
[ and he is loathe to think about just how bad it's going to get, and what that might drive lucas to. he thinks about the way that ortie's drug was called 'a crutch' on the profiles, how lucas lied and called it a medicine. even subconsciously, is that how he thinks of it? will he be turning to it, after all this mental stress? ]
.... Show me your drug vials. The ones from the Society.
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Oh, don't be silly. [Is it going to feel like being hit by a car?? Hard to believe when everything is so peachy keen right now.
He's not really following Scien's train of logic at the moment though, specifically because those drugs are where his mind wanders when he's feeling low, low, low. Capucine had said it once, about a him that isn't him but still is - this one is his favorite. But right now he's feeling anything but low! The idea of needing to blunt pain is so far from his mind.]
They're in my room. [AERITH DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR ANY HE HAS ALL 3.] Shall I fetch them?
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Yes. Come back once you've grabbed them. We can keep talking about Nadia and cats.
[ that's incentive for lucas to come back right ]
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Alright, give me one moment.
[UP HE GOES to toddle off except it takes him a while to come back because he gets distracted by more bullshit along the way. HELP. But he comes back!! With the vials.]
You wanted to see them?
[Does he have to scoot real close again, damn.]
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[ a suggestion, but framed as a choice. it's a wicked move when lucas is currently cursed to hell and back, but at the same time, scien can't help but feel that leaving the temptation would be worse. a foggy mind that destroys his ability to heal, and would make all further rehabilitation that much more difficult.
last time, he left lucas alone in a ditch somewhere because the rest of the country was exploding. he didn't think too hard about it. 'maybe he's dead,' he'd told everyone else, even as he stowed away an extra antidote for the toxins in his own belongings. scien knows he can get past this, if only by sheer necessity. ]
If you choose to do so, then you can take the medicine I gave you instead. I'll take my medicine too.
[ his fucking vitamins so his body doesn't fall apart from malnutrition ]
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Ah, well. I hardly need them now. [OOOO THIS IS GOING TO HAUNT HIM SO SOON but it's fine. For now everything's fine! He doesn't want to leave glass in the basement for someone else to cut themselves on if he misses a piece, so he'll just go through each syringe one by one, removing the rubber safety stopper from the needles and emptying the contents. HE LOOKS SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS. THIS WILL BE THE LAST HAPPINESS HE FEELS.
Though, curiously (cheerful), while he's doing that:] What are you taking medicine for? You've already treated the curse, haven't you?
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scien will watch this, making sure every last drop is gone. that will be painful later. lucas has already been going through detox, but the emotional strain will probably be more difficult than the physical one now. maybe he'll accept it as his catholic punishment, which would be the only halfway decent thing religion has ever done for him. ]
Treatment to heal could not have begun while you were still relying on those drugs. Remember that. If you want to live a long life alongside Nadia, this is a necessary, painful step.
[ will lucas remember that later.... scien fucking hopes so. anyway the image of him rummages around to find his own vials.... ]
That's right. My body isn't affected by the so-called curse. However I still don't always get enough nutrients after all the experiments I've done on myself, so I take supplements. I also haven't fixed my lungs, so I need pain medication.
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There's nothing that I want more.
[This is true even though he is so cursed right now... But!! He just watches Scien fetch his own vials with that same placid curiosity.]
Oh. Experiments? [SELF-EXPERIMENTS.] Why weren't you taking your medication already? It's bad practice to lecture patients when you aren't heeding your own advice.
[This would normally be a huffy fussy SCOLD but at the moment it's just a happy gentle tease.]
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I don't give Nadia or any of the other people I'm treating anything that I don't test on myself first. So I do have to alter my own body at times.
[ SELF-EXPERIMENTATION HOURS CONTINUES. SOMETIMES YOUR BODY IS JUST ANOTHER TOOL FOR THE EXPANSION OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH. but it's funny because scien truly will take the arrow long before he lets innocent people suffer
anyway, ]
I just haven't taken today's dose. I was working.
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For now, there's the cheery surprise again! Wow! He's learning so many new things about Scien and he is not inclined to immediately disbelieve everything because of the ingrained intense and insane hatred within him! Wowee the devil tests out Nadia's treatments on himself first, what a time to be alive!]
That sounds like a taxing endeavor! [TO SAY THE LEAST. But since Scien is currently dealing with him instead of working (he's probably still working) maybe so--] Will you take it, then?
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It is the obvious course of action. [ IS IT, SCIEN? ] I know you would agree with me that that child is worth every effort. I do not pursue things half-heartedly. I will not break my word to you.
[ nadia WILL be healed. but regardless he nods in lucas' direction ]
Did you take your medicine already? If not, let's have it together.
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I do agree with that! [NADIA IS WORTH THE WHOLE WORLD even with all of his Catholic Guilt he'd still soup this whole camp if it meant saving her life. But now he gets to be happy vibes about it instead of crushed!]
I haven't, yet. [HE DOESN'T EVEN GET TO TAKE NO STEPS FORWARD OR BACK NOW DAMN he did bring the bottle with him this time though since he remembered Scien wanting him to take it when he saw it in his room, so he pulls it from a pocket and starts to uncap it to shake a pill out.]
Like a cheers?
[Stop drinking.]
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scien has multiple vials to take, but he'll at least entertain the request. he can't help but laugh faintly—amused, not entirely mockingly for once. ]
Like a cheers if you insist, you lush.
[ says the lightweight... but scien will bring his vial closer to where lucas can see it in their facetime for a clink clink ]
You decide what we are cheers-ing to.
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I haven't even had a full bottle today, you know!
[SAYS LUCAS WHO FORGOT THAT SCIEN SAID HE DIDN'T MEET HIM UNTIL HE WAS IMPLODING AND INSANE. His five bottles of wine dinner, hidden once more... But he doesn't have any water so he just tippytaps his lil pill-holding hand toward the facetime image of the vial.]
Hm... To not being dead yet, I suppose?
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[ that's plenty for scien. scien is some people. but he'll get as close to a clink clink to the pill as he can ]
Mm. It's not over yet.
I will return you to her. You have my word.
[ and he'll knock back his vial afterward. bottoms up ]
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You keep saying that?
[STOP GIVING HIM YOUR WORD. Except rather than being confused and enraged he's just still confused and enthused. He caps his pill bottle, sliding it back away.]
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[ scien like honestly i could knock you out and force you into detox (which yves route scien was gonna do anyway,,) but right now you're awake and it can't be helped ]
But I will not give up. On you, on her, or your future. That is all there is to it.
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