Luka Kovač [ER] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cuttypie) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
apocalypsehowcomm2022-06-04 12:11 pm
cuttypie) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2022-06-04 12:11 pm
[Open] And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills - Log
Who: Luka Kovač and you!
When: June
Where: Wolf Pen still
Summary: Player plot begin, gets aligned to the Stranger
Warnings: Addiction and related themes, blood, injections, body horror, blood-borne/sexually transmitted illness, body dysmorphia, panic attacks and visceral descriptions of them, medical themes, terminology, injections, and procedures, PTSD, trauma, potential talk of war, violence, family/child death, self harm references, suicidal ideation
[Note: This begins the following player plot where Luka and Ade have been trying to use Ade's blood for healing secretly. Luka will swear anyone to secrecy if they discover what they're doing here because they can't let ADI find out. Luka will be getting 2 new powers and you can opt in here.]
a. Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? - OTA
Their plans had been working.
It was such a good plan, wasn't it? A way to get back at the Entities, to finally have some agency, to be able to use this fear against them. Sedate a patient while giving them a dose of Ade's blood with c'nataat to heal them, taking on a dose himself and the fear for himself when Ade donates to 'pay' the price of fear for the Entities. Trying to hide it, trying not to make too big of a fuss because he knows ADI would not be happy with this. And for a little, while, it was going great. Nobody knew what they were doing, and it was helping people.
Until it stopped working. Until they found out they needed more fear for more healing, which meant more fear for him.
But it's fine. He can deal with the fallout, he can deal with the fear--he's felt plenty of fear before, been through horrific things, and this--this isn't anywhere near with what he's already experienced. But he has a funny feeling the Entities might take issue with that.
So there are more doses. The mutations get worse, but it's temporary so it's fine. He can deal with the fear.
It's a different kind of fear than what he's used to, though. He's used to threats against his person, against people around him, death and destruction and injury. This wasn't like that, though. This is something on a different level. The awareness that there's an alien lifeform in him shouldn't bother him that much, because he understand what's going on scientifically--it's no different from a unique treatment. But it does. It feels like it's changing him in a terrible way, in a way that takes away his humanity and won't give it back.
What it looks like isn't helping, either. He'd undone his shirt when small dots of bio-luminescence became visible underneath. The skin on his chest was a different...texture, almost as if it was fading away in spots, until, horrifically but also fascinatingly, he could start to...see things. Like it was becoming transparent, the organs underneath toiling away, bright spots of luminescence trailing up on each side. It was actually really cool if it wasn't so scary.
He's had a lot of doses today. He really should just stay in the room for the day, and pretend he's sick. He's not sure how long the mutations will last--it shouldn't be too long, the first time it was only for a few minutes, but he knows the longer this lasts, the more doses he takes, it'll fuel the fear price and then he won't have to worry about this until next month.
Except he forgot to grab enough food to last for the day so he's just going to sneak downstairs to run to the nearest convenience store. The mutations aren't visible under the long jacket, and he's wearing sunglasses. A little warm for the weather, but these were the mountains, after all. Surely it's fine?
b. But time makes you bolder - OTA
It's funny how much you plan things and yet they still go so terribly wrong.
He knows he ought to be used to that by now, as an ER doctor. But still, after all the hard work he'd put in, he thought that maybe, maybe this was the once chance they could stick it to the Entities, that they could finally have a little good in a world where there were things trying to actively snuff it out.
Maybe that's what happened here. Maybe one of them noticed.
He didn't have time to give the sedative to the patient and they would have to suffer the effects of a c'nataat dose. As much as he hated to do it, it was a small price to pay. Except the patient seemed...fine. They didn't react, recoil in horror, except--Luka did. It was like getting hit with a hammer made out of fear chemicals, his adrenaline shot up, and that same sensation he gets when he pays the price for the doses echoes in his head like he's been thoroughly replaced by an alien. It's so sudden and so ridiculous he doesn't know what to do for a moment except sit there and take it, trying to breathe through the horror until it fades.
...what was that?
Until it happens again. And then again, in a completely different situation--where he realized that what was happening was completely artificial. It was simple--the patient was terrified of doctors to the point that their blood pressure was always high whenever they needed to see one, except that around him, they were calm. The patient seemed pleased, because this had never happened before but there was a brief moment, when Luka had gone to grab something out of a cabinet, they screamed and said they saw a ghost. And that it was right where he'd been, and they'd ran away--and the same time, fear was pressing down on him in a strange way--adrenaline spiking, anxiety, as if he was terrified about what he would say about their condition. For a moment he wondered if maybe the mutations had come back, somehow, on their own--but he hadn't been on any doses in awhile and still looked perfectly human. Didn't he?
It was maddening. Madness. What was going on? The only thing he could do was to test it out, see if the conditions were repeatable.
He's out on the town, stuffing his hands in his pockets. How the hell was he going to figure this out? Was it based on fear? If he found someone that was afraid, would he take their fear on, or something? Why was this happening?
...he can only hope that this all hadn't caught up to them. That the Entities hadn't finally taken notice.
He's pretty sure they've taken notice.
c. - For Addie
He's running the medical station today and everything is fine.
He's fine, patients are fine, weather's fine.
It's not like everything is starting to catch up to him and become a disaster in any way, shape or form. But he can't worry about these things, because despite the complications, it's still working. The c'nataat dosing is still working, along with the sedation to avoid them from taking on the fear, and what's so bad about him taking on the fear, anyway? That's what he's been doing all along, paying the price so that they don't have to? So really.
It's fine.
He's set up a small curtain in the back of the table and he doesn't dare offer any doses if anyone from ADI is around. There's an older man sitting in the chair by the curtain, and Luka is quietly consulting with them. It's someone with an awful cough and Luka sounds kind, compassionate.
"Your cough isn't going to get any better. And even without extensive testing I can tell you that your prognosis is very poor. Life-threateningly so. We have a treatment that can help you, and it's a fairly simple one. I'll give you something to calm you and make you sleep for a few minutes, and it's a one-time injection. It's, admittedly, fairly experimental but I can assure you it's very effective."
d. - Wildcard - Want a scenario not listed here or anything specific? Anything goes! Hit me up at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
indymica
When: June
Where: Wolf Pen still
Summary: Player plot begin, gets aligned to the Stranger
Warnings: Addiction and related themes, blood, injections, body horror, blood-borne/sexually transmitted illness, body dysmorphia, panic attacks and visceral descriptions of them, medical themes, terminology, injections, and procedures, PTSD, trauma, potential talk of war, violence, family/child death, self harm references, suicidal ideation
[Note: This begins the following player plot where Luka and Ade have been trying to use Ade's blood for healing secretly. Luka will swear anyone to secrecy if they discover what they're doing here because they can't let ADI find out. Luka will be getting 2 new powers and you can opt in here.]
a. Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? - OTA
Their plans had been working.
It was such a good plan, wasn't it? A way to get back at the Entities, to finally have some agency, to be able to use this fear against them. Sedate a patient while giving them a dose of Ade's blood with c'nataat to heal them, taking on a dose himself and the fear for himself when Ade donates to 'pay' the price of fear for the Entities. Trying to hide it, trying not to make too big of a fuss because he knows ADI would not be happy with this. And for a little, while, it was going great. Nobody knew what they were doing, and it was helping people.
Until it stopped working. Until they found out they needed more fear for more healing, which meant more fear for him.
But it's fine. He can deal with the fallout, he can deal with the fear--he's felt plenty of fear before, been through horrific things, and this--this isn't anywhere near with what he's already experienced. But he has a funny feeling the Entities might take issue with that.
So there are more doses. The mutations get worse, but it's temporary so it's fine. He can deal with the fear.
It's a different kind of fear than what he's used to, though. He's used to threats against his person, against people around him, death and destruction and injury. This wasn't like that, though. This is something on a different level. The awareness that there's an alien lifeform in him shouldn't bother him that much, because he understand what's going on scientifically--it's no different from a unique treatment. But it does. It feels like it's changing him in a terrible way, in a way that takes away his humanity and won't give it back.
What it looks like isn't helping, either. He'd undone his shirt when small dots of bio-luminescence became visible underneath. The skin on his chest was a different...texture, almost as if it was fading away in spots, until, horrifically but also fascinatingly, he could start to...see things. Like it was becoming transparent, the organs underneath toiling away, bright spots of luminescence trailing up on each side. It was actually really cool if it wasn't so scary.
He's had a lot of doses today. He really should just stay in the room for the day, and pretend he's sick. He's not sure how long the mutations will last--it shouldn't be too long, the first time it was only for a few minutes, but he knows the longer this lasts, the more doses he takes, it'll fuel the fear price and then he won't have to worry about this until next month.
Except he forgot to grab enough food to last for the day so he's just going to sneak downstairs to run to the nearest convenience store. The mutations aren't visible under the long jacket, and he's wearing sunglasses. A little warm for the weather, but these were the mountains, after all. Surely it's fine?
b. But time makes you bolder - OTA
It's funny how much you plan things and yet they still go so terribly wrong.
He knows he ought to be used to that by now, as an ER doctor. But still, after all the hard work he'd put in, he thought that maybe, maybe this was the once chance they could stick it to the Entities, that they could finally have a little good in a world where there were things trying to actively snuff it out.
Maybe that's what happened here. Maybe one of them noticed.
He didn't have time to give the sedative to the patient and they would have to suffer the effects of a c'nataat dose. As much as he hated to do it, it was a small price to pay. Except the patient seemed...fine. They didn't react, recoil in horror, except--Luka did. It was like getting hit with a hammer made out of fear chemicals, his adrenaline shot up, and that same sensation he gets when he pays the price for the doses echoes in his head like he's been thoroughly replaced by an alien. It's so sudden and so ridiculous he doesn't know what to do for a moment except sit there and take it, trying to breathe through the horror until it fades.
...what was that?
Until it happens again. And then again, in a completely different situation--where he realized that what was happening was completely artificial. It was simple--the patient was terrified of doctors to the point that their blood pressure was always high whenever they needed to see one, except that around him, they were calm. The patient seemed pleased, because this had never happened before but there was a brief moment, when Luka had gone to grab something out of a cabinet, they screamed and said they saw a ghost. And that it was right where he'd been, and they'd ran away--and the same time, fear was pressing down on him in a strange way--adrenaline spiking, anxiety, as if he was terrified about what he would say about their condition. For a moment he wondered if maybe the mutations had come back, somehow, on their own--but he hadn't been on any doses in awhile and still looked perfectly human. Didn't he?
It was maddening. Madness. What was going on? The only thing he could do was to test it out, see if the conditions were repeatable.
He's out on the town, stuffing his hands in his pockets. How the hell was he going to figure this out? Was it based on fear? If he found someone that was afraid, would he take their fear on, or something? Why was this happening?
...he can only hope that this all hadn't caught up to them. That the Entities hadn't finally taken notice.
He's pretty sure they've taken notice.
c. - For Addie
He's running the medical station today and everything is fine.
He's fine, patients are fine, weather's fine.
It's not like everything is starting to catch up to him and become a disaster in any way, shape or form. But he can't worry about these things, because despite the complications, it's still working. The c'nataat dosing is still working, along with the sedation to avoid them from taking on the fear, and what's so bad about him taking on the fear, anyway? That's what he's been doing all along, paying the price so that they don't have to? So really.
It's fine.
He's set up a small curtain in the back of the table and he doesn't dare offer any doses if anyone from ADI is around. There's an older man sitting in the chair by the curtain, and Luka is quietly consulting with them. It's someone with an awful cough and Luka sounds kind, compassionate.
"Your cough isn't going to get any better. And even without extensive testing I can tell you that your prognosis is very poor. Life-threateningly so. We have a treatment that can help you, and it's a fairly simple one. I'll give you something to calm you and make you sleep for a few minutes, and it's a one-time injection. It's, admittedly, fairly experimental but I can assure you it's very effective."
d. - Wildcard - Want a scenario not listed here or anything specific? Anything goes! Hit me up at
d. Wildcard - For Ade
He's even good at pretending it's not terrifying, if he really tries to just...not think about it. But he knows that's the point, that it's supposed to be, and that the terrifying feelings were what they needed.
He had to pay the price, that fear. He had to think about it, had to experience it.
And now he had to pay more of the price.
Maybe if he pretends that it's cool. Admittedly, from a completely scientific standpoint and ignoring all the terror that came with it, it's actually really cool. Being able to see through one's skin, completely?
Every biologist and doctor in the world would be trying to break his door down to have a look. If it wasn't personally happening to him, he'd be just as excited. But right now it's taking everything he's got to calm down, to just deal with the distress, the feeling like he's being...rewritten.
And right now he's all covered up even though it's hot, trying to hide what's happening, a long jacket covering up to his neck, and a pair of sunglasses over his eyes.
He probably shouldn't have dosed this early in the day, but he wanted to get it over with, so.
"Ade?"
He knocks on the door of his hotel room, hopefully he's in...
no subject
He opens the door, his expression changing from trepidation to relief to confusion when he sees Luka standing there. There's the way he's dressed, for one thing, covered head-to-toe in a long coat and sunglasses. And then, even more potently, is the way he smells. On one level, Luka carries the scent of a distressed human—but there's something more, something stranger than that, as well. Several somethings.
"Luka? What happened?" Ade doesn't have to ask if something happened. It's clear that something isn't right. He opens the door wider for Luka to come in and shuts it behind him once he enters. He's all too aware that whatever is going on might not be something they want ADI knowing about. In the closer space, he manages to place one of the odd scents coming from the doctor. His face falls as he draws the connection. It's one of the many quirks of the wess'har's social olfactory system—you can smell it when someone shares DNA with you.
"Christ, how much did you take?"
no subject
"I..."
Yeah, there's no hiding it around Ade, is there? He almost wants to laugh, it's so absurd. Or maybe cry. Or scream. Maybe all of the above, right now.
"Probably more than I should have?"
Which was certainly an understatement.
"I was trying to get more fear juice going, you know? I just didn't expect it to be...this bad."
He takes off his sunglasses, his eyes are no longer green but amber, the pupils dilating into four lobes instead of being round. There's a slight biolumiescence coming from the direction of his jacket collar, a hint of his skin texture different, almost...transparent.
no subject
And then Luka takes off his sunglasses and Ade knows exactly what that means. He jerks back in shock, suddenly staring wide-eyed into the four-lobed pupils of a wess'har.
"Jesus Christ," Ade whispers, mind racing as he tries to comprehend what he's seeing. Wess'har eyes in a human face, but it's not just the eyes. Once Ade finally tears his gaze away from Luka's, he sees, too, the hints of bioluminescence under the man's collar, the glassy texture of the skin. Ade finally places another of the scents he'd picked up: bezeri. Like the bodies at Ouzhari. Ade feels sick.
What the hell is c'nataat doing to him?
"Shit. You walked here like this?" It's a stupid thing to focus on, but he needs to start somewhere. Ade herds Luka away from the door, then strides towards the windows, lowering the blinds. The citrus scent of agitation radiates from him. "It shouldn't be that bad. Hell, I've been full-blooded c'nataat for months and it's never done anything like that before. Then you dose up and it goes haywire?"
It doesn't make sense. It had taken Aras centuries of living among humans to start looking like them. Why would c'nataat suddenly start changing Luka to look more wess'har? Or bezeri?
Standing at one of the now-covered windows, Ade takes a deep breath to steady himself, then turns slowly back towards Luka. He motions at his jacket. "Come on. No point hiding it now."
no subject
It just sucks when he says it shouldn't be that bad and then, well. It is. There's a moment where he's pretty sure he smells citrus and that it's coming from Ade, too, which is interesting to note.
"If it helps, I did dose up a lot." Or well, helps probably isn't the best way of putting it, but it was somewhat of an explanation. "And by it being a lot, I mean, a lot. It was like the smaller doses weren't having the same effect anymore. Maybe the price has changed."
He doesn't want to say the word Entities but he's pretty sure that's what's behind all this.
Luka nods, taking a moment to steel himself up before removing the jacket. The full extent of what's happened is visible, but he undoes a few buttons of his shirt to show how far the translucent skin has gotten. It's to the point where one can see his heart, his lungs, and lines of luminescent spots and specks trailing up and around him, glowing faintly under the fabric.
"Yeah. It's bad." He sounds more than rattled.
no subject
"It shouldn't matter how much you took. C'nataat isn't supposed to work like that." But then, c'nataat hasn't worked like it's supposed to ever since he arrived here. They'd thought the only change was that it was no longer a lifelong infection for anyone but Ade, but what if there's more to it than that? Ade drags a hand through his hair, trying to slow his own racing thoughts.
"It wants to keep you alive. Healthy. It does weird shit, but unless your life's in danger, it's supposed to do it slowly. Not like—" He gestures at Luka. Why would c'nataat give him those adaptations? What did Luka stand to gain from having transparent skin or wess'har eyes? If anything, such visible changes only place a target on Luka's back, especially now that they're supposed to be hiding their little project from ADI.
"Look, just don't take any more, alright?" Ade says, coming to a standstill to lock eyes with Luka. "If c'nataat isn't playing by its own rules anymore or if... if the Entities have corrupted it somehow, then it's not safe to keep using it—on you or on others."
no subject
That's certainly not what he wants to hear and is terrifying in and of itself.
"What? It's--it's not?"
So that means it's almost entirely the Entities that is probably doing this, unless the c'nataat just...does this here.
Unless it's just here to scare him. Which in that case, it's working.
"Whoa, let's not jump to conclusions now," he says, holding his hands up. "It's not that bad, and it's only just happening to me so far? So--so all I have to is just lie low for a little while when I take it. That's not a problem!"
What Ade is saying is actually the smart thing to do. They don't have the equipment or the time or the resources to really test what's happening here, so the safest thing to do would be to stop their little operation. But to give all of that up because he has to go through a little more fear? Nah. He's fine, really.
no subject
A slow, suffocating, deathless apocalypse. A world where no one can die only sounds utopian until you put even a minute of thought into it.
"We don't even know what it's doing to you internally, either. You don't even smell human anymore."
no subject
What if Ade is right?
These are are terribly uncomfortable questions that Luka has no good answer to and he scowls, for a moment, trying to think of a good retort, and not finding any.
And then he says you don't even smell human anymore and it hits way too close to the thoughts that were screaming quietly in his head. The way that he was feeling like he was being overwritten, becoming someone else...
"...what?"
You don't even smell human anymore and he thinks that quiet screaming might not be so quiet.
"That's...that's just temporary." Because it has to be. "Let's just wait this one out, all right? It's not--it's not as bad as it looks. The potential healing benefits are too great to just let one little roadblock call off the whole thing."
no subject
Already, Ade is regretting his entire deal with Luka. The other man is clearly too invested in c'nataat as some miracle healing agent to see it for what it really is: an alien lifeform, with its own aberrations and agenda. Maybe Ade had forgotten that, too. He'd gotten complacent; he thought they could control it.
More than that, he thought he could control Luka—that he could trust him to be like Shan or Aras, willing to make the tough choices to save the world from an even greater threat. Even if it meant letting someone die. Even if it meant killing them yourself.
Luka clearly doesn't have that kind of resolve. But Ade knows where to find people who do.
"Listen to me," he says, his voice deadly quiet. "All it takes is one call to ADI and this experiment ends for both of us. Wouldn't even be hard for me to keep you here until they arrived." The gentle, good-natured bloke that Luka had met in the ADI labs is gone now. Ade has a way of making people forget that he's a trained killer—but he also knows how to remind them. His voice is cold and utterly self-assured. "So if you've got an actual reason I shouldn't believe letting you walk out of here would do more harm than good, then now's the time to share."
no subject
--then Ade's voice gets deadly quiet and it's almost like he's a different person, and Luka knows full well what that kind of voice means, what that kind of resolve means.
If ADI knew about what they were doing--if ADI saw him like this--well, he knew what happened to Katie Dunn. He'd suspect they would be equally as 'kind' to them as well.
"Okay. Okay, so we need more time, more data." He holds his hands up. "But I also think that we should still have one more round, just in case something happens here. We don't know what's going to happen in this town, and if things go wrong..."
And they always go wrong.
"...one more round, and that's it."
cw: allusion to addiction
Or maybe Ade is making excuses. Maybe he's a coward who's just as scared as Luka of what ADI might do to them if he actually tells them the truth. His gaze breaks away from the other man, lips pursed.
Finally: "One more round," His voice is terse. "And then we're done. I stop donating blood and you go back to doctoring people the old-fashioned way. Understand?"
There will be other rituals in the future. Perhaps, there will even be a time when Ade will have to use c'nataat on another person. But when that time comes, Ade will make that call on his own. This entire disaster with Luka has proven the one lesson he should have learned from the wess'har months ago:
Humans can't be trusted. Not with something like this.
cw: allusion to addiction
And that's it.
Despite the concession, despite breathing a sigh of relief, Luka tenses, already counting down how many doses there are left and how long they will last.
He's not unaware of how addictive it is, and not unaware of his behavior surrounding it, but he just can't...stop. Maybe he'll still have enough doses left to heal people from his own blood, but that won't last forever...
But at least they'll have enough if the ritual goes off, and maybe they'll figure something else out later. Maybe he can convince Ade again later--doubtful, but at this point he'll cling to anything, even false hope.
"Agreed." Luka lets his hands drop, still wary at Ade's tone, but his shoulders slump, a defeat despite the victory. He catches a glimpse of his own eyes, looking inhuman, looking alien, in a nearby reflective surface and has to look away, chills going through him.
It's fine. He's fine. It's worth it.
"And that's it. I get it. I understand."
no subject
Somehow, he doubts it will be that simple. Still, now that he at least has Luka's ostensive agreement, some of his displeasure wanes. He catches Luka glancing at his reflection and sighs.
"They're wess'har. The eyes, I mean. The lights and skin must be from the bezeri. I have a few myself." He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal his shoulder, emblazoned with a tattoo of the Royal Marine's globe-and-laurels. Teal and violet lights fleck the darkened skin, pulsing softly. Ade tugs the sleeve back down.
"There's something wrong with c'nataat here. But the changes it's given you... they're from people. People I know. Not monsters."
He doesn't know if that knowledge will be enough to assuage Luka's fear. But if it takes at least a bit of it away from the Entities after all this, then it's at least worth a try.