Yes. While cursed. Though it did make him more agreeable to some pertinent suggestions I made. I also took the opportunity to catch him up to speed on some of what was done to him. He's probably going to need the next few months to grapple with it.
[oh. okay. we will circle back to thursday, and the minute nod from her is all the agreement she thinks he needs.
instead, she just frowns tiredly because...lucas why. on the one hand, being as calm as he was (or cheerful, stressfree, whatever you'd call it) would in fact make it easier for him to listen to scien. on the other hand, she can't entirely imagine how well that went after he came back to himself. still...]
You mean the traumas from the last several years? It probably came as something of a shock to him. [they really do not have time for that, but she asks simply to get a gauge of what, if anything, she should try to look for in her conversations with him.]
[there's a sigh of relief to that. she doesn't disagree is the thing. scien knows lucas better than all of them, so it would make sense for him to actually deliver the news in a way that would make sense. was it unfortunate lucas was very out of his mind in a whole other way? perhaps. but the important thing is the fantasy heroin's gone.]
Good. I knew he still had it, and I was hoping there'd be a way to separate him from it. [...] I only really got the chance to speak with him yesterday since your conversation with him, but I did see him when he returned from the fire. I think...he had entered the phase of thinking he was a burden for struggling to deal with his feelings on everything and wanted to put distance between himself and people like me and Ichiban. But since then, he seems to have slowly come around to the idea of existing in public spaces with everyone else and trying to work his way back out. It's the Lucas I originally met. The one who wanted to do what he could to help.
It's evident enough that he's a good liar. Just as you can sometimes be.
I don't believe I need to say much more on the topic. But you're right that he'd never do anything to get in the way of everyone's safety That's always been true, regardless of how much he would be in the company of others.
At heart, he's probably what you would call 'a good person', or someone striving for that.
At heart is what I'm interested in right now, if only to help try to draw that person out. But in practice...I'm not convinced Ichiban won't stop trying to beat the hell out of him. Especially now that Tomizawa's arriving soon, too.
Am I the weird one for really not holding a grudge against him even a little? [rhetorical question, but also...but also. she gets why this happened but also we are all dead my guys. all of us.]
For that idiot supposedly being such a 'good person', he sure is an unreasonable asshole. Shouldn't heroes be more willing to die for the sake of a sickly little girl?
[ no scien you're just biased as hell ]
I do think that it would make sense to hold a slight grudge against him, even from a self-preservationist standpoint. But I also don't think anyone can have a vague understanding of what he's been through in his life and decide that he's some heartless monster.
[there's a little half-smile because...well. yeah.]
Scien, I think you might be viewing this just a little differently than other people would. [biased. but.] It's difficult though. Everyone wants to live, so I get why he'd be upset this happened and he'd feel conflicted. I don't get what he gets out of trying to hurt him and holding that grudge here while we're all in the same situation. He doesn't have to forgive him, but...just try to keep peace for now.
[it is not that hard! she promises!! anyway, yeah, there's that too.]
You're not wrong though. Sorta felt that way even before he killed me in the first place. [...] Having seen how people treated him and turned him away when he was just trying to save Nadia...you understand the desperation a little better. It was really the minister's fault of taking advantage of a child who didn't have another option. It all kinda goes back to "how much blame can you really assign", I think. I wouldn't say he's blameless, but there are still a lot of ways he's more of a victim than anything.
[ aerith is soooo sweet and so right to think about ichiban's feelings as the murder victim but scien is just going to be so direct: ]
I don't care about that oaf's feelings, I care about him apparently repeatedly punching someone who'll allow it without defending himself. Keep them separated or get something through the moron's thick skull that he needs to get it together.
[ or else.
he huffs out an annoyed breath afterward, irritated. ]
Proust will be beating himself up for the rest of his life. He doesn't need anyone else to do it for him. But he was around the age of that redhead child [ karma ] when this all started.
Someone just twisted his sincere love and loyalty into something ruinous.
...for my own peace of mind, I have to try and understand even a little or I might say something to make it worse. I won't say you have to. [what she means is that she does not agree with ichiban's stance and how he's been handling it at all. she can understand his upset, but...well, frankly, she's seen his responses in times of anger in one of ichiban's memories. she never told him that it kind of triggered her own fight or flight to be watching him beat the shit out of someone after what happened to her because it was not about her at that moment. but it's sat with her, and there's overly protective feelings she's not even sure where to place.] I did ask Iwatooshi to help be on standby tomorrow in case Tomizawa's arrival starts the cycle all over again.
[so there's that.]
...anyway I know. I saw it for myself. Wandering in the rain with a sick child on his back and the cruelty of every hospital turning her away. Telling him to just let her become a Reliver instead. Nobody else even tried to come up with a better solution for a four year old. [and that's the other half of why she went "no this kind of makes sense" regarding why he killed for an incentive. still morally wrong, but...there are too many intricacies to judge it on a black and white scale, for her.]
Even now the fear of losing Nadia and not being able to get back to her has to be terrifying for him,I think.
It sounds exhausting, to play peace keeper. [ scien is a non-violent person most of the time (exceptions: when he's in a bad mood) but he's never intentionally kept the peace once in his life. still, he sees the point that aerith is making ] Vent here as much as you'd like. You can afford to call more people stupid, especially if they're being stupid.
[ aerith seems like such a nice person, but she definitely has enough fire to her that scien thinks she should be allowed to say fuck.
but he'll just frown in response to the memory. he'd seen the same thing - and while he'd heard pieces of it from his own lucas at home, experiencing it was different. it was frustrating, especially as the person responsible for creating a technology that was so grievously misused ]
Fear is irrational. He's allowed to be afraid of that, but I won't let it happen. Someone has to go get that child. She's very smart and resourceful, but right now? She's still twelve.
[ nadia is scien's favorite patient and the sole reason why he gets better with kids ]
There are people being stupid, but I think a lot of the stupidity is at least still contained on your side. [thanks.] I know how easy it can be for people to hold grudges about certain things, so exhausting or not it has to be done. Things were calming down, but they might cycle right back around to being chaotic once everyone else arrives. But you might be happy to know I took your advice and I'm starting to do things for myself anyway.
[anyway! she's going to try to scoot past that for a second and focus instead on the second half.]
..."researched illnesses and saved sickly children", right? [that finally clicked, yeah.] You said we'd circle back to Thursday, so I can only guess you might've already heard a few things.
It was good advice, so it's sensible that you took it. [ okay scien ] But that is worthwhile to know. Keep it up.
[ she's clearly still fretting after his dog, which he appreciates, but he also does want to make sure that aerith looks after herself instead of just trying to wrangle the whole graveyard
he nods at her guess. that's right. he really said i'm going to take care of a bunch of kids which is so funny given his everything with shoma ]
I've heard that, in general, dangerous occurrences happen on Thursday. I still need more details.
Very modest of you, Scien. [THANKS. but given the little grin she doesn't disagree.] But I will. Pretty sure if I didn't I'd have a few people on my case.
[as it turns out she can multitask. incredible. i cannot believe scien truly just decided to do this on his own, very funny. again, this does nothing to change aerith's perspective of him.]
I can give you the details based on what he told me. He was with Boothill and Aqua. Cloud, Iwatooshi and I were somewhere else, so the experiences were different. There's a museum here, and when they entered it Lucas said they made their way to an office that had a hole in it. The hole led them to a jail cell, and then to a morgue. Inside the morgue, they found bodies. Lucas said he didn't recognize the people Aqua and Boothill found, but...first he found Ichiban, and then he found me. Obviously not really us because both Ichiban and myself were elsewhere, but they didn't know at the time. He deduced they were probably people that the three of them let down, or people they hurt.
[which. hm. she seems conflicted about that judging by her expression but this is about updating scien.]
They had to kill me again because I had a key they needed to escape the morgue. Um...after that, they unlocked the door and kept walking, but they came across a set of gallows. Each which a person they recognized. [...] He says he doesn't remember much after that, so I can only assume he saw Nadia hanging there. [because she still compares lucas's brain problems to cloud's and cloud sort of short-circuited briefly when he saw what happened to aerith.] A monster came forward with a giant blade and it killed Boothill. But it only struck the once, so Aqua managed to get Lucas out of there and then escaped back out to the town. That's the gist of it.
[ he notes the conflicted expression on her face, and asks rather directly: ] Do you get tired of your death being used to hurt the people who care about you?
[ as for the rest of it.... there is the slight twitch in his brow at the mention of nadia hanging. yes. that would probably absolutely wreck lucas beyond any reasonable measure. also scien is annoyed because that's his patient, what the fuck ]
... how did it go for your excursion with the other two?
Yup! [almost a false, light tone because goddamn is she tired! stop that!] We figured these things are designed specifically for the things that will hurt the most, but I don't...I saw him the next day and that probably helped, but I don't want to be used to remind him further of things he feels guilty for.
[meanwhile, it does not get better either because she's thinking about what they went through and it's probably going to be really clear really soon why she was even more unhappy to hear what happened to lucas.]
...the three of us were at the bar. The fog showed up to kind of block us in, and there was writing on the wall outside. "The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares." The door to the bar itself was locked, so Cloud tried to get in through the window. Iwatooshi used his weapon to knock the doorknob off, but Cloud got stuck. So I went inside first. I don't know what Cloud saw but he ran in really fast after that and Iwatooshi followed. At first everything seemed kind of okay? We heard someone singing, but nobody was in the bar with us. Iwatooshi recognized it as his partner, Imanotsurugi. The boys were exploring the bar, and I checked the stage before these...holes? Portals? The bar started falling apart, black tar and peeling and the holes opened. This...Mikazuki is someone Iwatooshi knows from home, and he appeared and held me back with his sword. Sephiroth appeared behind Cloud to prevent him from running ahead, grabbing him in place and stabbing his leg.
[and she pauses because she's thinking of what to say.]
"Altering history? We are with the spider-lilies for only a moment, and then we watch them wither away. Would you keep the dead from dying?" That's what Mikazuki said before the sword came down. [a hand drifts to her stomach.] At least this time it didn't go through. But Mikazuki started...bleeding and changing, weird yellow and black glitches. He and Sephiroth switched places so that Mikazuki was holding Cloud back, and Sephiroth's sword was in me. [a frown.] You can imagine the response.
[from. from both of them.]
Cloud and Iwatooshi slashed through Sephiroth and he disappeared. Mikazuki was nowhere to be found, but Imanotsurugi appeared instead...rotting and stumbling until he stabbed Iwatooshi, too. Cloud slashed through him and he disappeared like the others. And...everything was quiet then. It smelled awful, and the bar was still decomposing but there was a fog began to pour out of the stage as it cracked and it knocked all of us out. When we woke up, everything was normal. Even our injuries were closed...just scarred over. We left after that.
So it seems. [anna really said grandpa's too powerful but it's okay, she did try to brain him with her staff and she's only slightly grudgy at the moon. but yeah, they do!]
Well...the chills and absolutely crushing hopelessness only lasted a day. The wound's closed and the soreness'll probably fade after another couple of days. [and?] And...tired, I think. I'm tired of these things being used against people. Iwatooshi's only cared about taking care of Imanotsurugi and the things he wasn't able to do for him, and...even after whatever had gripped Cloud wore off, he still blamed himself for what happened. [...] A few days before we died here, he promised he wouldn't let anything hurt me. So I think having it happen twice started getting to him, especially since I know he's trying to remember the fact he couldn't stop Sephiroth from killing me the first time even if his mind won't let him think about it. It's...really stupid to say it's not fair because death isn't, sometimes, but it's not fair to anybody
You are right that fairness does not exist in the realm of life and death. It never has. But that doesn't mean that you lose your ability to complain about it. If it's terrible, you might as well mention it.
[ frowns ]
Is he still blaming himself? Your companion. And you worry over him, unsure if the words you have to offer can make any of it better?
[this is the worst tag to come back to after cloud returns from cyoa :ben:]
A lot of things are terrible, I think. But it's only worth mentioning a few of them. [she will be honest about that much, but...yeah. there's that.]
Something like that. Cloud gets in his own head a lot and it's always hit or miss if I can get in there with him. He won't necessarily say he's still blaming himself, but I can tell he's bothered by it. Even with circumstances being what they are, he thinks he should be capable enough to keep me safe, and like he failed me because he didn't. I've told him I don't blame him and won't blame him and he said it's not entirely about that, so...I just have to do my best to try and make the guilt less.
[ me tagging this thread back and laughing about it. scien looks thoughtful about that though. they really both have guilt-ridden soup-brained blondes, even though their relationships with their respective blonde are very different
but it's not that foreign to him ]
... when there is something or someone you cherish, it is easy to want to take responsibility for them. Where any instance in which they are harmed, even if it has nothing to do with you, feels like a failure.
It is the price of caring.
You can walk through his logic with him, point out the fallacies... but the most obvious evidence against his failure is the fact that you are still next to him.
He has his own ways of showing he cares, even if they're not obvious. And worrying about me is one of them. [...] I'm still next to him for now. But if there comes a time I can't be, I don't know how to walk him through that. Then again I did it once before, I think.
Much less now. [horrifically it's still alpha week so she's not coy about this, but she's also herself and has considered this since they spoke about it initially.] But don't you think it's foolish to say that it's a guaranteed even if it's a hope?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ for a lot of reasons
but also, ]
Yes. While cursed. Though it did make him more agreeable to some pertinent suggestions I made. I also took the opportunity to catch him up to speed on some of what was done to him. He's probably going to need the next few months to grapple with it.
[ they
do not have that time ]
no subject
instead, she just frowns tiredly because...lucas why. on the one hand, being as calm as he was (or cheerful, stressfree, whatever you'd call it) would in fact make it easier for him to listen to scien. on the other hand, she can't entirely imagine how well that went after he came back to himself. still...]
You mean the traumas from the last several years? It probably came as something of a shock to him. [they really do not have time for that, but she asks simply to get a gauge of what, if anything, she should try to look for in her conversations with him.]
no subject
funny that it's coming from scien but at this point scien truly knows lucas better than anyone right now ]
I do not know how his processing is going. I haven't seen him since. However, he's at least without his old mind-addling drug. I made him break it.
no subject
Good. I knew he still had it, and I was hoping there'd be a way to separate him from it. [...] I only really got the chance to speak with him yesterday since your conversation with him, but I did see him when he returned from the fire. I think...he had entered the phase of thinking he was a burden for struggling to deal with his feelings on everything and wanted to put distance between himself and people like me and Ichiban. But since then, he seems to have slowly come around to the idea of existing in public spaces with everyone else and trying to work his way back out. It's the Lucas I originally met. The one who wanted to do what he could to help.
no subject
It's evident enough that he's a good liar. Just as you can sometimes be.
I don't believe I need to say much more on the topic. But you're right that he'd never do anything to get in the way of everyone's safety That's always been true, regardless of how much he would be in the company of others.
At heart, he's probably what you would call 'a good person', or someone striving for that.
no subject
At heart is what I'm interested in right now, if only to help try to draw that person out. But in practice...I'm not convinced Ichiban won't stop trying to beat the hell out of him. Especially now that Tomizawa's arriving soon, too.
Am I the weird one for really not holding a grudge against him even a little? [rhetorical question, but also...but also. she gets why this happened but also we are all dead my guys. all of us.]
no subject
For that idiot supposedly being such a 'good person', he sure is an unreasonable asshole. Shouldn't heroes be more willing to die for the sake of a sickly little girl?
[ no scien you're just biased as hell ]
I do think that it would make sense to hold a slight grudge against him, even from a self-preservationist standpoint. But I also don't think anyone can have a vague understanding of what he's been through in his life and decide that he's some heartless monster.
no subject
Scien, I think you might be viewing this just a little differently than other people would. [biased. but.] It's difficult though. Everyone wants to live, so I get why he'd be upset this happened and he'd feel conflicted. I don't get what he gets out of trying to hurt him and holding that grudge here while we're all in the same situation. He doesn't have to forgive him, but...just try to keep peace for now.
[it is not that hard! she promises!! anyway, yeah, there's that too.]
You're not wrong though. Sorta felt that way even before he killed me in the first place. [...] Having seen how people treated him and turned him away when he was just trying to save Nadia...you understand the desperation a little better. It was really the minister's fault of taking advantage of a child who didn't have another option. It all kinda goes back to "how much blame can you really assign", I think. I wouldn't say he's blameless, but there are still a lot of ways he's more of a victim than anything.
no subject
I don't care about that oaf's feelings, I care about him apparently repeatedly punching someone who'll allow it without defending himself. Keep them separated or get something through the moron's thick skull that he needs to get it together.
[ or else.
he huffs out an annoyed breath afterward, irritated. ]
Proust will be beating himself up for the rest of his life. He doesn't need anyone else to do it for him. But he was around the age of that redhead child [ karma ] when this all started.
Someone just twisted his sincere love and loyalty into something ruinous.
no subject
[so there's that.]
...anyway I know. I saw it for myself. Wandering in the rain with a sick child on his back and the cruelty of every hospital turning her away. Telling him to just let her become a Reliver instead. Nobody else even tried to come up with a better solution for a four year old. [and that's the other half of why she went "no this kind of makes sense" regarding why he killed for an incentive. still morally wrong, but...there are too many intricacies to judge it on a black and white scale, for her.]
Even now the fear of losing Nadia and not being able to get back to her has to be terrifying for him,I think.
no subject
[ aerith seems like such a nice person, but she definitely has enough fire to her that scien thinks she should be allowed to say fuck.
but he'll just frown in response to the memory. he'd seen the same thing - and while he'd heard pieces of it from his own lucas at home, experiencing it was different. it was frustrating, especially as the person responsible for creating a technology that was so grievously misused ]
Fear is irrational. He's allowed to be afraid of that, but I won't let it happen. Someone has to go get that child. She's very smart and resourceful, but right now? She's still twelve.
[ nadia is scien's favorite patient and the sole reason why he gets better with kids ]
no subject
There are people being stupid, but I think a lot of the stupidity is at least still contained on your side. [thanks.] I know how easy it can be for people to hold grudges about certain things, so exhausting or not it has to be done. Things were calming down, but they might cycle right back around to being chaotic once everyone else arrives. But you might be happy to know I took your advice and I'm starting to do things for myself anyway.
[anyway! she's going to try to scoot past that for a second and focus instead on the second half.]
..."researched illnesses and saved sickly children", right? [that finally clicked, yeah.] You said we'd circle back to Thursday, so I can only guess you might've already heard a few things.
no subject
[ she's clearly still fretting after his dog, which he appreciates, but he also does want to make sure that aerith looks after herself instead of just trying to wrangle the whole graveyard
he nods at her guess. that's right. he really said i'm going to take care of a bunch of kids which is so funny given his everything with shoma ]
I've heard that, in general, dangerous occurrences happen on Thursday. I still need more details.
no subject
[as it turns out she can multitask. incredible. i cannot believe scien truly just decided to do this on his own, very funny. again, this does nothing to change aerith's perspective of him.]
I can give you the details based on what he told me. He was with Boothill and Aqua. Cloud, Iwatooshi and I were somewhere else, so the experiences were different. There's a museum here, and when they entered it Lucas said they made their way to an office that had a hole in it. The hole led them to a jail cell, and then to a morgue. Inside the morgue, they found bodies. Lucas said he didn't recognize the people Aqua and Boothill found, but...first he found Ichiban, and then he found me. Obviously not really us because both Ichiban and myself were elsewhere, but they didn't know at the time. He deduced they were probably people that the three of them let down, or people they hurt.
[which. hm. she seems conflicted about that judging by her expression but this is about updating scien.]
They had to kill me again because I had a key they needed to escape the morgue. Um...after that, they unlocked the door and kept walking, but they came across a set of gallows. Each which a person they recognized. [...] He says he doesn't remember much after that, so I can only assume he saw Nadia hanging there. [because she still compares lucas's brain problems to cloud's and cloud sort of short-circuited briefly when he saw what happened to aerith.] A monster came forward with a giant blade and it killed Boothill. But it only struck the once, so Aqua managed to get Lucas out of there and then escaped back out to the town. That's the gist of it.
no subject
[ as for the rest of it.... there is the slight twitch in his brow at the mention of nadia hanging. yes. that would probably absolutely wreck lucas beyond any reasonable measure. also scien is annoyed because that's his patient, what the fuck ]
... how did it go for your excursion with the other two?
no subject
[meanwhile, it does not get better either because she's thinking about what they went through and it's probably going to be really clear really soon why she was even more unhappy to hear what happened to lucas.]
...the three of us were at the bar. The fog showed up to kind of block us in, and there was writing on the wall outside. "The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares." The door to the bar itself was locked, so Cloud tried to get in through the window. Iwatooshi used his weapon to knock the doorknob off, but Cloud got stuck. So I went inside first. I don't know what Cloud saw but he ran in really fast after that and Iwatooshi followed. At first everything seemed kind of okay? We heard someone singing, but nobody was in the bar with us. Iwatooshi recognized it as his partner, Imanotsurugi. The boys were exploring the bar, and I checked the stage before these...holes? Portals? The bar started falling apart, black tar and peeling and the holes opened. This...Mikazuki is someone Iwatooshi knows from home, and he appeared and held me back with his sword. Sephiroth appeared behind Cloud to prevent him from running ahead, grabbing him in place and stabbing his leg.
[and she pauses because she's thinking of what to say.]
"Altering history? We are with the spider-lilies for only a moment, and then we watch them wither away. Would you keep the dead from dying?" That's what Mikazuki said before the sword came down. [a hand drifts to her stomach.] At least this time it didn't go through. But Mikazuki started...bleeding and changing, weird yellow and black glitches. He and Sephiroth switched places so that Mikazuki was holding Cloud back, and Sephiroth's sword was in me. [a frown.] You can imagine the response.
[from. from both of them.]
Cloud and Iwatooshi slashed through Sephiroth and he disappeared. Mikazuki was nowhere to be found, but Imanotsurugi appeared instead...rotting and stumbling until he stabbed Iwatooshi, too. Cloud slashed through him and he disappeared like the others. And...everything was quiet then. It smelled awful, and the bar was still decomposing but there was a fog began to pour out of the stage as it cracked and it knocked all of us out. When we woke up, everything was normal. Even our injuries were closed...just scarred over. We left after that.
no subject
but scien frowns at that, clearly displeased with what he's hearing. ]
... your traumas really keep coming back in the worst way.
[ on god????? ]
And? How are you feeling after all that?
no subject
Well...the chills and absolutely crushing hopelessness only lasted a day. The wound's closed and the soreness'll probably fade after another couple of days. [and?] And...tired, I think. I'm tired of these things being used against people. Iwatooshi's only cared about taking care of Imanotsurugi and the things he wasn't able to do for him, and...even after whatever had gripped Cloud wore off, he still blamed himself for what happened. [...] A few days before we died here, he promised he wouldn't let anything hurt me. So I think having it happen twice started getting to him, especially since I know he's trying to remember the fact he couldn't stop Sephiroth from killing me the first time even if his mind won't let him think about it. It's...really stupid to say it's not fair because death isn't, sometimes, but it's not fair to anybody
no subject
[ frowns ]
Is he still blaming himself? Your companion. And you worry over him, unsure if the words you have to offer can make any of it better?
[ if he's taking guesses ]
no subject
A lot of things are terrible, I think. But it's only worth mentioning a few of them. [she will be honest about that much, but...yeah. there's that.]
Something like that. Cloud gets in his own head a lot and it's always hit or miss if I can get in there with him. He won't necessarily say he's still blaming himself, but I can tell he's bothered by it. Even with circumstances being what they are, he thinks he should be capable enough to keep me safe, and like he failed me because he didn't. I've told him I don't blame him and won't blame him and he said it's not entirely about that, so...I just have to do my best to try and make the guilt less.
no subject
but it's not that foreign to him ]
... when there is something or someone you cherish, it is easy to want to take responsibility for them. Where any instance in which they are harmed, even if it has nothing to do with you, feels like a failure.
It is the price of caring.
You can walk through his logic with him, point out the fallacies... but the most obvious evidence against his failure is the fact that you are still next to him.
no subject
He has his own ways of showing he cares, even if they're not obvious. And worrying about me is one of them. [...] I'm still next to him for now. But if there comes a time I can't be, I don't know how to walk him through that. Then again I did it once before, I think.
[after...she died. very weird, very confusing]
no subject
You are still resigned to leaving him?
no subject
no subject
But the only time it is foolish to be confident is when you possess more doubts than skill.
[ this is coming from the most confident person in the world. this is not alpha week this is just scien ]
Be clear about your limitations, but follow through anyway. That is how progress happens.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)