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
cw: toxic parents/upbringing
Somehow, it just makes him angrier.
It reminds him of his mother and the way she'd tear up when you called her out on things she didn't like to hear. Rationally he knows this situation is very different but it makes him resentful, feeling like he's not supposed to feel his anger, like he's not supposed to upset him because he meant well, because he was sorry.
He turns away with a growl, rubbing at his face, taking a couple of deep breaths.
This isn't helping. This isn't getting them anywhere. Even though there's so much more he wants to say, Carter tries to calm himself, trying to remember how they got to this point in the first place. Things were spiraling out of control, Luka was scaring people and he needed help.
"Okay."
Okay, he has to think. Somehow in all this craziness he has to think, come up with a solution, fix this.
"No more experiments. Whatever is happening to you must be linked to what you've been doing. We'll do a check-up and I'll do another full examination once we're back at the headquarters."
no subject
Maybe not stop completely but just...stop for now. At least until they figured out what was going on with his condition. He still has plenty of doses left, he can hide them away and they should last awhile.
"You can't let it be on public record," he says, a bit adamant. "If they think I've been affected by an Entity...you saw what they were trying to do to Katie Dunn."
Of course, it's not an if they think situation, he knows that he's absolutely been affected by an Entity.
"There were mutations, alien traits that show up for a short period of time after a dose. If anything still lingers that'll show up on record and who knows what ADI would do about that."
no subject
Carter scoffs, and again when Luka brings up Dunn of all people.
"What I saw was them containing a dangerous threat. Someone who terrorized and maimed innocent people."
He shoots him a sidelong glance.
"More than once."
cw: mention of torture
He can't believe he's hearing this.
Don't you give him that sidelong glance.
"Yeah, but they locked her up, imprisoned her, blinded her and tortured her, and now they're possibly going to kill her. If I've been affected by an Entity, they might lock me up, or worse! Is that what you want?"
Of course, it was Katie herself who told him about what they did to her, so he can't be entirely sure that it was all of that, but he knows that she was locked up and they were trying to kill her, so.
cw: alcoholism
He's going to scream. Scream or punch him, not necessarily in that order.
"This isn't about you! What about the people you're scaring right now, that you might end up hurting? What about the ones you put in danger? Me, Addie, the whole team! Drawing attention to us all?"
He hasn't been this enraged at Luka's boneheadedness in years. Not since that day he saw him casually having a couple of beers with Abby, enabling her drinking without even pretending to give it a second thought.
"No, I don't want you ending up like Dunn! Which is why you need to stop and be honest with me! Tell me exactly what you've been doing and who you've been working with. How else am I supposed to protect you from this?"
no subject
This isn't about you!
What about the ones you put in danger? Me, Addie, the whole team! Drawing attention to us all?
How else am I supposed to protect you from this?
He doesn't say anything for a moment.
He can't.
He tries, a couple times, but the words don't exist, he can't get them out.
"I don't want to hurt anybody. I don't want to put anyone in danger."
Scaring them...as much as he hates it, at least it doesn't hurt them. That's a thought that occurs to him, that sits uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach and refuses to let go.
But he also doesn't want to lie to Carter anymore, and the hurt in his voice is killing him.
He ducks his head, his voice quiet.
"Ade Bennett. The c'nataat is an alien symbiote, that's what we've been drawing from his blood."
no subject
He will remember that name. And seek its owner out as soon as possible.
But for now it seems like he's finally gotten through to him. It helps mitigating his anger and Carter exhales, then moves to grab his field kit and sets it down next to Luka.
"All right, let's take a look."
no subject
He feels bone-weary, wondering if there was any point to even trying to stop them, wondering if all they could do was mitigate the damage that was always going to happen.
"It was my idea," he says quietly, taking off his jacket. "All of this. Don't blame him."
no subject
"Who is this guy anyway? How do you know him? Does he work at ADI? What if he's an Avatar?"
Powerful healing symbiont at least screams Avatar to him.
"Tell me about this stuff you've been using."
no subject
"No, I just ran into him at the medical labs. He's not a bad person, Carter. He was even worried about what this stuff was doing to me. The mutations. He's not an Avatar, come on. If that was the case don't you think I'd be in worse shape?"
He rolls his eyes.
"The c'nataat in his blood, it's literally a miracle. It can heal anything, but the price of using it is the person with the dose has to go through a terrible fear." He's speaking from experience here. "Like you're...being overwritten, like you know that there's an alien inside you, changing you...so I thought that we could sedate the patient for a short period after a dose to avoid these feelings. But the c'nataat won't work without the magic of this world fueling it, which means it needs some kind of fear associated with it. The fear that powers this now comes from me, when I dose the same time Ade donates blood to make the doses. Or at least, that was the plan."
no subject
It's strange and almost... frightening. That he can just casually throw out words like overwritten and alien in you and still see it as this grand thing. It's like he's saying the words but hearing something completely different from what Carter is hearing.
"You sedate your patients, people in your care, people who trust you and put a mutating, fear-inducing, alien pathogen into them, without their consent, without their knowledge. That's assault, Luka. That's assault on so many levels I don't even know where to start with this. You could lose your license over that."
Carter glares up at him. Don't you roll your eyes.
"And honestly? With the attitude you're giving me here, you probably should."
no subject
He bristles, tensing, growing more and more agitated at Carter's words.
"Is that what you think? That I'm assaulting patients? It doesn't hurt them, and it only lasts minutes, before becoming inert. What difference does it make that it's alien? This is a new world, Carter, with things that we never would have dreamed of. It's no different than a new chemical compound, a new drug, a new therapy or treatment!"
no subject
He rips the stethoscope out of his ears, incredulous.
"We don't know anything about this world! We don't know anything about magic or aliens or... or Entities! This isn't a game, Luka! You have no idea what you're doing! You don't know what this is doing to you! What the long-term effects on your patients may be! And the shape you're in right now is proof of that!"
He hates this conversation. He hates that they're having this conversation.
"You think I want you to end up like you did in Africa? You think I want to lose you to this place?!"
cw: self harm references, suicidal ideation
But he doesn't want to say it out loud, Carter's already articulated it and the guilt is eating away at him.
What if it had been harming patients? What if it was doing something to them that they couldn't anticipate?
You think I want you to end up like you did in Africa? You think I want to lose you to this place?!
He looks up at Carter in alarm, almost. He wasn't exactly expecting him to say that.
"I'm...I'm all right," he says in a quieter voice, one that's a lot less combative and a lot more contrite, as if he's just realized the depth of the horrors that he's been dealing with on a daily basis, of how wild and impossible things have gotten.
Or maybe he was just so used to not...caring about himself, not taking care of himself, not caring how sick he got, not caring what happens to him as long as he saved a few lives, that it was so easy to fall back into that pattern.
"These Entities, they won't win. They can't win. That's what this is all about. If there's some way we can beat them at their own game..."
no subject
He's still angry but at least he isn't yelling anymore.
Maybe because a part of him understands. Knows where he's coming from, at least, knows exactly what he means. He's been feeling so helpless himself, wondering what to do, how to survive this, how to fight back.
"Don't help them. You're better than that."
no subject
Don't help them. You're better than that.
"I thought we could trick them."
Maybe he is stupid for trying.
Or maybe there is another way he hasn't quite figured out yet.
He rubs the side of his face, sighing.
"The mutations from the last dose should be all gone by now, I've checked," he mutters, but still a part of him is worried that it had lasting effects.
Ade told him at that point he didn't even smell human anymore. He hopes that hasn't stuck around.
"It's probably a good thing you didn't see that."
no subject
"When we're back we're gonna make sure. A full check-up. Scans, blood work, everything. You will give me all the data you have on this thing and if there's anything left we're gonna flush it out."
There's a steely, no-nonsense quality to his voice that just dares him to contradict him.
"I can probably cover it up as follow-up work on your Dunn influence."
no subject
It was such a hopeful thing and now it's only been a disaster.
"That's...that's fine."
His voice is quiet, just as contrite as he looks.
no subject
"Good."
He exhales, running his hand over his face, feeling the exhaustion of the day crashing back down with double the vengeance.
"... I'm not going to rat you out. But I'm not going to lie for you again and I won't let you endanger anyone else. Is that clear?"
no subject
His shoulders slump, just as exhausted. Maybe things will be easier now that Carter knows about it, that he's not trying to hide it, but it's just such a shame that they're going to have to stop, after what happened with Ade, after this...was it really endangering them? If the net balance was them being healed...
Maybe Carter's right, maybe he's in too deep, maybe all of this was affecting him.
"I didn't want to put you in this awkward place." Is that the right word for it? He can't remember. "I mean, put you in a place where you could get in trouble."
no subject
Or is he? It's so hard to keep track of all the things that wear him down right now. There's hardly any time worrying about ADI when he's already trying to come up with ways how he can keep Luka out of trouble, how he can make sure this gets fixed...
"I'm worried about you. About what this is doing to you."
no subject
This is such a mess, he thinks, rubbing the side of his face and feeling like the world was unraveling around him again.
I'm worried about you. About what this is doing to you.
"I'll be all right." He doesn't know if he wants to smile or push him away, but the fact that he cares and hasn't given up on him is almost too much. "I've been through much worse."
no subject
"What does that even mean? It doesn't matter? Nothing matters? You'll just keep pushing and I have to keep pulling your chestnuts out of the fire?"
He rubs his face again.
"Do you have any idea how insulting that is, Luka?"
no subject
This is going all wrong, he's saying the wrong thing, isn't he?
"I mean I don't want you to worry about me."
no subject
He throws his hand up, frustrated.
"I worry! I care! And I don't know what it is that makes you think I shouldn't, maybe you think it doesn't matter? Maybe you don't want it? I don't know. But I'm sick of you ignoring that it's there. I can't--"
His voice falters when something painful wells up inside him, a feeling past anger.
A hut full of dead bodies, a smell that has etched itself into the deepest parts of his memory. A body wrecked by fever into a fragility that makes him worry he might break him if he's not careful. Darkness and stones that hit his shoulder, his head, his leg. Delirious insults and stabbed hands, angry eyes under blinding lights that don't recognize him.
A hand on his neck, a kiss on his cheek.
"I can't have you ignoring that it's there."
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