Archive of Our Own

The first drink comes after Arpéchéle had all but crumbled.

After decades serving as its unseen conductor, Dahut finally raised his baton and signaled the end of the ugly symphony of his people. Like a fall of dominoes, it stacked slow and tumbled swift. For all their tears and fury, so few even thought to fight against the chains of fate their final king adorned them with.

Amid the tumult of chaos in those last days, Lucas underwent a metamorphosis of his own. His suffering led him to the bitter truth. That truth led him back to suffering—and then to Scien Brofiise. Collapsed on the floor of the Claude estate, shrouded in innocent blood and unanswered prayers, Lucas desperately reached through the haze of madness he had only just become aware of to grasp the second hand ever offered to him.

Theirs was a deal struck under duress. Scien made it to avoid becoming another spatter of viscera in Bourreau's bloody wake, and Lucas accepted because it opened a small window of hope in the marrow of his despair, and what was one more deal with a devil, anyway?

From there, Scien went into hiding and Lucas stumbled through the days, distancing himself from the Society of Exorcists and finding a quiet place to keep anchored through the anguish of unsupervised detox. With time came clarity; as the drugs he'd used daily for nearly a decade waned from his system, he could see himself once more.

The renewed sharpness of mind was a crushing, painful, necessary thing, but with their tiny nation caving in on itself, Lucas couldn't lay pinned by the weight of newfound guilt.

In accordance with the deal they struck, he arrived exactly when and where he was needed.

In those dark tunnels that always stank of medicine, he hardly had time to muse over the absurdity of it all—of willingly serving Scien Brofiise—in the face of the whirlwind disaster that was their mad king. Similarly, he didn't consider the two-way nature of a contract even as Scien caught him and ferried him away from death, leaving the final confrontation to those who remained untouched by the curse.

Ceres, Adolphe, Ankou, Salome, Dahut; no other soul could ever truly understand what happened in the deep heart of Arpéchéle.

Many died before the long night ended. Of those five, three never saw the sun rise.

Ceres had to be rushed away for immediate care, her condition and all information related to it fiercely guarded in those early days. Adolphe remained by her side, supported by Yves and Hugo, both slogging through recovery of a less dire nature. Jean was detained, Mathis fretfully bouncing between him and the others. Capucine vanished, and with the Society dismantled, Nadia found herself in the caring hands of a new medical team.

Scien began ceaseless resuscitation efforts the second he could, keeping a halved population afloat through the painstaking process of staunching the wound inflicted against their home.

As for Lucas? In the wake of it all, he was sentenced to death, as expected for the bloodiest threat to walk through the streets of Arpéchéle until its last and late king.

...Rather, that's what should have happened.

Now, the infamous Bourreau sits in a chair across the desk from their nation's newly-elected president, who flips through paperwork like it's any other day in the office. Lucas' hands clasp tightly together in his lap, his posture rigid beyond what's necessary even for his uncomfortable chair.

"Relax."

Scien doesn't even look up from his papers. The lazy drawl of his voice still grates against Lucas' raw nerves. Detox is just one step in a long journey of deprogramming, after all.

He tries to will his shoulders down and takes a centering breath.

"A bit of trepidation is surely understandable," he murmurs, more for himself than for Scien.

Scien does not deign to respond, instead laying down set after set of papers once they've been looked through to his satisfaction. He points at one.

"Your contract," he begins. "The terms of your employment are written clearly within, so be certain to read it thoroughly before signing."

Lucas barely spares it a glance.

"Whatever terms you've set are surely preferable to the alternative."

Now that he's been snatched from the hangman's noose, the idea of rotting on death row, unable to support Nadia through her recovery, is unpleasant enough that not even the guilt he's been mired in could make him wish for it.

Scien lifts his eyes from the papers for a mere moment, the small look surprisingly cutting.

"You will read it," he repeats, "and not sign yourself away without understanding it in full. Unlike Ortie, I have no desire or need for your unwitting, uninformed agreement."

Descending into a discomforted silence, Lucas hesitates before offering a stilted nod and receiving a simple: "Good."

Scien's hand moves, pointing to the next stack.

"Your basic detox was completed quickly out of necessity, so there are many areas of it that weren't done to standard. We'll begin a secondary treatment to ensure any remainders of that third-rate hack's drugs are out of your system, and that no long-term, unseen damage was caused."

The words crawl coldly up Lucas' spine. He shuts his mind to the image it supplies of syringes filled with a viperous, green liquid as Scien continues.

"Even with your unnatural body, you will need check-ups to ensure that the toxins of the so-called curse have been fully purged. I will also see to that."

With every necessary piece of the puzzle perfectly in place—a miracle in and of itself—Scien had already nearly finalized the antidote that would free the remaining half of the island from their truncated lifespans. True health sat closer than it ever had, for him and the nation alike.

"Alright," Lucas agrees, nodding again.

"And speaking of that monstrous body of yours, I would like to conduct a more thorough examination."

At that, Lucas begins to bristle again, though his hackles never fully fall around Scien. Heedless of the hostility already beginning to seep between them, Scien simply waves a hand as if clearing the air.

"Easy, Bourreau. I have no plans to steal you away for experimentation against your will. You will have the final say in what you choose to participate in."

Another point driven home that he is no longer under the thumb of the Society, no longer chained to the end of Ortie's leash. Scien's eyes flick up from the papers again; Lucas still struggles with the ingrained feelings of disgust brought on by his bright pupils.

"But know that your contributions could potentially help many others."

The silence that follows is terse, but brief.

"In what way?"

"A genetic disorder that strengthens the muscles without adding density could be very helpful in rehabilitation for people like your sister," Scien explains. "If you're interested, we may discuss it further at another time."

Lucas closes his mouth, damming the spill of questions brought up by the invocation of said baby sister. They're both running on tight schedules, anyway, so he lets himself settle with a to-the-point response.

"Understood."

Scien's hand moves to hover over the final set of papers, tapping the center once.

"Last, this is the information that you will need to begin counseling."

"...Counseling?"

"Counseling," Scien repeats. He reaches across the table that separates the two of them, tapping his index finger against the center of Lucas' forehead instead and earning a disgruntled expression.

"Detox alone will not undo the years of conditioning that you have suffered through, as I am sure you're well aware."

Precisely as suspected, even with the mind-inhibiting drugs long gone from his body, Lucas found it much harder to remove the thorny ropes painstakingly grown through the whole of him during his near-decade at Ortie's side. A hand raises reflexively and rests against his chest, over his heart.

"...If you believe that it will help, then I'll attend," he eventually capitulates, soft and quiet.

"I do. Tell me if this counselor does not fit your needs, but it is a place to start. Once a professional has cleared you, you may begin work in the field of education again—though not with children just yet."

Hearing the option placed on the table at all startles Lucas. In signing himself, body and soul, over to Scien that night in the Claude manor, he had not anticipated ever being able to return to the job he thought of as his life's calling, stipulations or not.

It's just another way that Scien has already defied so many of his expectations and assumptions even in just the short sliver of time that he's known the man, compared to the time he'd only known of him through venomous words.

"...Thank you."

It's all he can eventually think to say; a small pittance in exchange for the miracles that Scien creates. It's so much more than he was granted by any god he'd ever served, placed into his cradled palms in a fraction of that time.

Scien just waves his hand again, dismissive.

"When you've given the entirety of yourself to me, it would be pathetic if I could not give you this much in return."

Lucas bites his tongue, keeps the lashing of reflexive irritation latched deep within himself, and thinks of Nadia's future under the bright blue sky.

After the meeting, as Lucas makes his way out of the Institute, a member of the research team stops him to hand him a bottle of wine and a pitying look.

"Congratulations, but more importantly, good luck. You're about to have your hands full like never before, Monsieur."

Once returned to his home in Chedis, he drinks it down in minutes.

-

Lucas receives another glass at the Institute weeks later. From it comes a splash of isopropyl alcohol, the fumes of which sting his eyes even though he closes them well before the liquid hits his face.

It would have been simple work to block it. In fact, it takes effort to keep his arms still. The ever-present itch at the back of his mind remains hard to ignore. Even knowing that these desires and emotions are implanted impostors, that doesn't make it easier to deny the way his heart still seems to feel about Relivers. Spending every workday surrounded by them is no easy feat, and that's before any hurl violence his way.

"You damn murderer—!"

A furious researcher stands before him, empty beaker in hand. With the amount of time Lucas has spent tailing Scien like a shadow over the last few weeks, he recognizes the man. He can recall his name, position, the lab he normally works in; things Lucas rarely knew about the Relivers whose lives he'd stolen in the past.

Perhaps he, too, had a loved one—a family member, a friend, a partner—snatched away by the merciless fall of Bourreau's halberd.

The room falls silent, and many of the researchers direct their trepidation his way rather than toward their fellow scientist, whom they mostly regard with concern.

Lucas' identity is no longer a secret, but his crimes came to light alongside the Society's, and more specifically Ortie's. It led to a strange environment in which some forgive, some condemn, and tension punctuates the air everywhere he goes within the Institute.

As its employees decide how to feel about the director hiring a serial killer known to specifically target them, Lucas holds close the daily reminder of the ways in which simply wanting to be good to others cannot erase the damage done to them in the past.

(Who could blame them? Lucas certainly does not forgive himself.)

After a few moments pass, Lucas finally lifts a hand with the intention of wiping his face clean. The way the room tenses as if readying for an attack makes him feel even more monstrous.

But before Lucas can make any further move, a shadow falls upon the room. The slow and sure footfalls aren't unmistakable to him alone, given the way every researcher stands straighter, as if a divine puppeteer plucked the strings above their heads.

"I see you have time for idiocy despite all of the work that needs to be done. It seems that I have been too generous with your breaks."

Several of the researchers who had previously peeled away from their stations hop back in seconds, like Scien's very words are electric. Lucas merely feels offense at his perceived inclusion in the statement.

The man holding the empty beaker flusters but remains defiant in his anger.

"How are we supposed to keep working like everything's normal when Bourreau is right here? It's insanity! Isn't this supposed to be one of the safest places in the nation? If he snaps, we're all dead—!"

Lucas' expression remains placid. There is the tiniest of flinches, though, to be spoken of like a rabid dog, some beast that needs minding. Scien's gaze slides his way for just a moment, and then he steps forward.

That defiance and anger wavers slightly as their nation's resident god heads his way. The researcher very nearly takes a step back, only managing to steel himself again at the last second.

"And yet," Scien drawls, "it seems to me that he is in much greater control of himself than you are."

The researcher sputters a half-formed protest, but doesn't resist when Scien takes the beaker from his hand. As Lucas wipes the remainder of the drying alcohol away from his eyes, Scien's stay anchored on the researcher, though he addresses the room at large.

"I will make myself clear for those who need help understanding. Each of your colleagues have been personally interviewed and hired at my discretion. To disapprove of anyone's standing is to voice your dissent against me directly."

A declaration against the director is not beyond the opportunistic members of the Institute's staff, but it is not a challenge many, if any, would make so boldly.

Scien sets the beaker down on a nearby table.

"I did not hire you to pass your judgment upon others here, and for good reason, clearly."

"But—"

"I did not ask your rebuttal or opinion, either."

The man snaps his mouth shut again, looking surly. It seems to spark some sort of amusement in Scien.

("Despite being bold enough to assault Bourreau, his spine crumbles quickly," he later remarks with mild mirth when Lucas asks about it.)

For now, he waves the researcher off.

"Return to your station. Consider yourself fired if you raise a hand against my bodyguard again."

Lucas locks eyes only momentarily with the researcher, who shoots him a scathing look before stalking off to continue whatever he'd been working on before Lucas entered the room. It's a look he's grown used to. Even with the population halved, his attacks touched many people directly or indirectly. His is a reputation he expects to never fully shirk, nor would he want to.

But his attention draws back to Scien, who stops beside him on the way to the front of the room. For a second, all he does is stare.

Then, lacking any sort of napkin or handkerchief, he unceremoniously wipes away the remainder of the liquid on Lucas' nose, lips, and chin with the back of a gloved hand. With that done, he takes up his position and wordlessly begins his work.

It leaves Lucas—and anyone still watching, frankly—surprised and baffled, but at least from that day forward, he never tastes isopropyl alcohol again.

-

The third drink is a glass of wine, shared.

Over the weeks and then months of his employment, Lucas noticed that Scien spent nearly all of his time in his personal lab or office, and was rarely asleep or eating anytime he poked his head in to check. He'd taken to bringing bread and water occasionally, like tending to a classroom pet—but today, he decides to go a step beyond.

"What is this?"

The good thing about Scien being such a creature of habit is that it's easy for Lucas to track his typical day, so he knows exactly when to pester his employer for the highest yield.

In this case, the high yield he aims for is simply getting Scien to eat something a little more nutritious than bread. He's no cook, but the marché is close by, and he can carry a decent amount of food back with him.

"Lunch," he replies, digging into his bags and ignoring the flat and irritated look cast his way. "You just finished up the last of your project, yes? Surely you can eat before starting on a new one."

"That is not an invitation for you to set up a buffet table in my office, Proust," Scien grouses, annoyed enough to push himself into an upright position from his slouch on the sofa, but not making any move to kick Lucas out just yet.

"Sitting down for five minutes to eat soup instead of bread can't possibly be enough to set a genius back," Lucas retorts, continuing to soundly ignore Scien while setting out containers. "So at the very least, see what I have before you shoo me off."

He unveils soups, stews, fried doughs, grilled meats, and bread just to have something familiar on hand. Lucas realized while shopping that for all he's learned (and un-learned) about Scien Brofiise, he still doesn't know basic, simple things, like his preference for flavors.

He also realized that he's a rather terrible judge when it comes to deciding how much food a person needs to satiate their hunger, but considering he'd mostly just dealt with his own abnormally large appetite and Nadia's sickly small one, he figures that's excusable.

Scien, on the other hand, looks at the spread with exasperation. It's an expression that's still relatively tepid, as most of his are. Another thing Lucas has noted over time.

"Why did you bring enough food to feed an army of your own clones?"

Lucas just pulls out a bottle of wine and pours himself a glass; a small, reserved amount, so he doesn't end up scolded for being a day-drinking lush.

"If it's too much for you, I'll have what you don't finish." Food never goes to waste when he's involved, at least. "So please have your fill of whatever you might like, first."

Scien eyes the glass like he is, in fact, considering calling Lucas a day-drinking lush, but small drinks aren't unusual companions for midday meals in their nation.

"You find the most irritating and unnecessary ways to meddle in my schedule," he eventually remarks, his hand drifting to the bread basket and grabbing a warm slice of bread from within. After he finishes it and reaches for a second, Lucas pulls the basket away with his free hand.

"Something with substance, please. Why not the stew?"

"Meats cooked in that style are too greasy."

"How about the hand pie? The meat is chicken; it should be quite light."

"It will be some time before it cools, and I won't humor you for that long."

"...This fish, then?"

"I can see the pepper seeds from here. Only a masochist would enjoy searing their tongue with spice."

Lucas finds out Scien is something of a picky eater, not because he cares about the taste of the food (the exact opposite, really), but because his stomach and mouth are shockingly fragile.

Eventually, Scien settles on a soup of vegetables and shrimp with only a bit more grumbling, which is as good a win as any. They sit in silence for a while, Scien eating his small serving and Lucas taking very reserved sips of his wine. As he moves to set the glass down, Scien holds a hand out.

Lucas blinks, perplexed, and places a napkin in his waiting palm. Scien gives him the look he sometimes does, like his monstrous bodyguard is the biggest idiot he's ever witnessed breathing, and sets the napkin down.

"The wine," he says, gesturing toward the bottle.

"Oh... I wasn't aware you drank, so I didn't bring a second glass."

For some reason, this seems enough to amuse his employer despite his cranky mood.

"While it may be true that you are the only lush in this room, I don't dislike the occasional drink."

Before Lucas can so much as give an indignant rebuttal, Scien gestures for the glass in his hand.

"Yours is fine."

The deprogramming he's undergoing is slowly picking apart every harsh and poisonous notion sewn into him over the years, but Lucas finds Scien uniquely annoying even without any outside influence most days.

Still, he holds the glass out. He watches as Scien takes it, sips barely a mouthful from the opposite side of the rim, and hands it back. No please, no thank you.

"Your manners are sorely lacking," he mumbles, even as he takes the glass back and has another sip, himself.

"A man who would invite himself to an unwanted lunch hardly has room to lecture about manners, Professeur."

Scien finishes his soup and returns to work, and Lucas returns to standing guard. He makes a point to interrupt Scien's schedule at least twice a month with his bad manners to force a lunch upon him from then on.

-

Lucas hardly tastes the fourth drink.

"You manage to find trouble with so little effort, don't you?"

The soft barb comes from him through clenched teeth. One hand dutifully presses down against the small hole now decorating his employer's abdomen, the other kept free in case the felled assassin has more comrades waiting in the shadows.

"This has been a remarkably long streak without any assassination attempts," Scien corrects in a way that nearly seems like a jest. "It is about time you earn your keep."

He appears unfazed by the blood he'd lost before Lucas could staunch the flow more thoroughly, still speaking in his usual unhurried drawl.

The two are tucked to the side of an alley for some mild shelter, Scien having been targeted on his return trip to Cerneauval after a house call for Ceres. To Scien's left rests a lovely basket that Yves made sure he took, if only to share with his bodyguard. It holds a bottle of wine, some vegetables from Adolphe, and a questionable dish or two from Yves himself that would eventually find their way to the bio-hazard bin, potentially after extensive testing as scientific anomalies.

Several feet beyond that lies the body of the aspiring god-killer, head all but pulverized into an unrecognizable mash.

No assassin has tried their luck with Scien since he reemerged from his pseudo-death with a nightmarish new guard dog. This one held the briefest of upper hands thanks to Lucas' initial absence—a request by Scien to leave first and arrange security preparations for an upcoming meeting—and a strange, spring-loaded bow that fired an arrow so quickly even Lucas may have had the slightest struggle parrying it.

Unfortunately for them, Lucas' paranoia and veritable sixth sense as a bodyguard ensured that he barely got halfway out of Coene before doubling back. Though he wasn't close enough to shield Scien directly by the time the assailant loosed the arrow, it was a simple matter to launch himself up the wall and to the roof where they hid, killing them before they could do further damage.

"I'm not taking my eyes off of you for the rest of the week," Lucas mumbles. The initial burst of adrenaline begins to ebb, though it hardly shows. The guilt for being just a little too slow will linger, but he struggles with guilt every day regardless. What's a bit more?

"I hired you to guard my life," Scien reminds him, speaking plainly, "and you do. You become obnoxious in your over-vigilance, even if it happened to work in my favor this time."

The genius loved by God works quickly to patch himself up while talking. The only signs of the distress his body endures come in the form of a rapidly worsening pallor and the beads of sweat that gather and drip from his forehead and down his temple.

Lucas reaches forward somewhat reflexively to wipe his brow with the back of his free hand, earning the smallest of glances that still manages to carry an observational air.

"—Needle, suture thread, antiseptic," Scien lists off, his gaze dropping to the hand against his abdomen. "They're in my left pocket. Keep applying pressure until I tell you otherwise."

"Understood."

When given direct orders, it's like flipping a switch. Lucas responds not as a teacher, but as a soldier, a weapon, a spear of God—a man made of traits that ease him through even the bloodiest scenario and allow him to remain levelheaded no matter what's asked of him. It's reflexive; something he doesn't need to think about.

But another reflexive response vies for his attention as he fishes the items out of Scien's pocket and hands them over.

Therapy isn't a panacea. Lucas works hard every day to undo the damage years of indoctrination wrought, but the impulses settled deeply in the seat of him aren't easy things to shake.

As he sits with a hand against Scien's abdomen, that soft, dying, bitter voice in the back of his head whispers: it would take nothing to kill Scien Brofiise. He is vulnerable. The life of the genius who saved their island, the life of the god whom so many still worship, could end here, today, in this dark and unknown alley.

He watches with cutting focus as Scien threads the needle and bathes it in alcohol from a small flask.

"Move your hand," Scien says. The words have the ring of a command to them.

For a second, just a breath, Lucas doesn't.

His palm itches to exert the full force of his terrible strength and crush the life out of Scien like he'd done to so many others before him.

This is no man. This is a demon. This is the worst demon of them all.

The last vestiges of intense brainwashing linger like ghosts on the shore, tempting Lucas every time his guard slips even slightly.

But while not a panacea, therapy is a steady companion.

The temptation may have once been a wicked one, sapping all of Lucas' willpower to fend off. Now, the pull of it isn't quite so magnetic.

He thinks of the demon known as Scien Brofiise. He weighs it against Scien Brofiise, the man who saved the nation, who saved Nadia, who saved him, even when he hadn't asked for his own salvation. He lets the breath of appealing venom pass.

Lucas eases his blood-slick hand away. His pinky slides against the side of Scien's hand as it brushes him off and gets to work driving needle through flesh, sewing himself shut like he's done countless times before.

Lucas grabs the bottle of wine from the basket by its elegant neck as Scien works. He pops the cork and washes away the taste of violence that lingers on the back of his tongue.

-

The fifth drink sits like nostalgia and soft, unspoken regrets.

Over the last year and a half of his employment, Lucas has learned what it means when Scien sets out to Coene alone with a bottle of wine in hand.

He followed along the first few times, all the way until Scien reached the familiar, small orphanage where an unmarked grave surrounded by flowers and dappled in the sunlight bid him greeting. He still accompanies Scien like a shadow in periods of upheaval where his life may be at risk if the wrong eyes spot him by unguarded. Even now, Lucas will often take himself out on a well-timed stroll through Coene just to be nearby in case anything happens.

But he understands well that these are moments of privacy between Scien and the only two people that he would call friends. A promising successor; a comrade who shared his ideals.

In these quiet exchanges, there is a rawness that Lucas can only assume Scien would not wish to share. There is tenderness in the way he opens up more candidly to the ghosts of those he would turn the world over to save, had they not acted just beyond his expansive reach.

Lucas, as a rather private person himself, remains divided between wanting to grant Scien privacy and continuing to excel at keeping Scien alive.

He's seated outside one of his favorite cafes in Coene by the time Scien begins the trip back to Cerneauval, bottle half-empty and tread a touch heavier. Scien merely sighs and moves to take a seat across from him, setting the bottle on the table.

"I see your busybody nature won again," he remarks, no biting edge to it.

"I'll remind you that vigilance is part of why I do so well at my job," Lucas replies, mild in return, and slides a cup of tea across the table.

Scien takes it and lifts it to his mouth without so much as glancing at the contents. He's lucky that Lucas has long-since memorized every small detail of his picky preferences. No oil, no spice, nothing strong that could upset his delicate stomach. Tea over coffee, cream over sugar.

He's also quite lucky that Lucas no longer feels so many compulsive urges to kill him, and that he was never one to use poison to begin with.

Scien sets the cup down in its saucer and pushes it back, leveling Lucas a look. Lucas' equally sharp eye takes in just a little heaviness in turn.

"You have successfully thwarted thirteen assassination attempts since coming into my employ," Scien finally concedes. "Even if most of them weren't skilled enough to be worth noting, I can humor your fussing to an extent."

Though Scien doesn't smile, there's something about the turn of phrase that Lucas can now recognize as a jest. No longer struggling quite so terribly with the rotting dregs of his conditioning, he can even laugh and joke back some days.

"I'd still not call it fussing, really. It's being thorough as a guard."

"If that is what you wish to tell yourself," Scien hums, reaching for the bread basket with furtive fingers like he's stealing a piece, as though Lucas didn't order it specifically for him.

They sit in silence for a stretch after that, questions flitting through Lucas' mind but never quite falling from his tongue.

He wonders about it, every now and then; Scien's past, the people he held close, the ways in which their lives intersected, their stories before the tragic end. With counseling steadily clearing the brambles of falsehood from his mind and eyes, it's easier to see Scien for who he is now, and he wonders who he may have been before, in his truest shape.

But Lucas still keeps much of himself hidden—more than many expect, with how pleasant and friendly he is. He rarely delves into deep conversations out of both respect and a refusal to invite such inquisitiveness into his own life.

Even now, nearly two years later, he's more inclined to sit and ponder rather than to ask, to dig deep, to really start untangling every bit of Scien Brofiise that he manages to get his hands on.

Someday, maybe. Over months and years more, when they might settle into one another's lives like sediment in a river.

For now, he breaks the silence by tapping the side of the bottle.

"Why don't we have a glass, ourselves?"

Scien arches a brow.

"Oh? It seems your thirst is never quenched, Professeur."

Lucas—who is very much not a lush, thank you—simply rolls his eyes and takes the lack of refusal as permission. He uncorks the bottle, pouring some wine into his empty water glass and then adding a splash into the tea, which he once again pushes back to Scien's side.

The look that Scien gives him screams the audacity of you, though not in any way that makes him feel cowed.

"You would take my wine and leave me with a mere sip?"

"I'd rather not have to carry you all the way back to Cerneauval from here," Lucas replies lightly, only a partial tease, and adds: "You've only blocked out about an hour for your visit today anyway, haven't you?"

"For as skilled a bodyguard as you are, you could easily be mistaken for a secretary," Scien muses, picking up the cup.

Lucas chooses to ignore the remark and lifts his own glass, tilting it forward. He's met with a curious look.

"A toast."

"For what?"

The sentiment that he wants to toast to sits shapeless in his heart, and it takes Lucas a few long seconds to mold it into words.

"For those who can no longer toast with us."

It's what he eventually settles on, imperfect though the shape may be.

There's a pause, though not one of hesitation. Lucas tries to read every unreadable thing that barely shows in Scien's expression. He wonders about the thoughts flickering through his busy mind, the feelings sparking through the circuitry of his self-made heart.

Eventually, Scien extends his hand, lightly tapping the edge of his tea cup against the side of Lucas' water glass.

"A sentimental toast befitting of a person prone to fussing."

"Perhaps I'm simply thorough with toasting too, then."

The two have their drinks, eat their bread, and walk back through the streets with dying sunlight at their backs.

-

From the sixth drink on, a schedule is set.

"You spend far too much time inside," Lucas chides, his fussing more present as the sharp edges of the weapon he once was begin to dull—though never fully. "As your bodyguard, it's my duty to keep you hale and whole, yes?"

"And in what way does dragging me from my work accomplish either of these things, Proust?"

Scien, to his credit, is not as sharp as Lucas has seen him when interrupted from his work in the past. His timing in this instance appears fortuitous, which lends itself to his asking for more than he'd normally think to.

"Exercise, sunlight, fresh air—are these not all things that you've prescribed to Nadia to aid in her recovery? Things good for both the body and mind?"

"For a previously gravely ailing patient learning to navigate the world with a healing body from the ground up, in particular. I will remind you that I am not that."

"And yet," Lucas continues, standing with his hands folded neatly together, "you still have a body and mind that are just as human as any other."

Step after careful step has led Lucas this far, to this point where he can freely admit that Scien is no monster, no ghoul any greater than Bourreau, no demon. A god, yes; his own, chosen. A man all the same.

Scien swipes at a few of the hologram screens hovering around his desk, sparing Lucas only a fleeting glance.

"Your argument is lacking," he responds, clinical as ever. "If I have lived for so long rarely having to add malnutrition to the long list of ways in which I have met my end, then accompanying you to dinner will not make any notable difference beyond setting my schedule back."

Lucas ignores the mental itch caused by the reminder of a Reliver's ability to step around death and smiles peaceably.

"Then I will add that Nadia wishes for you to join us."

Scien's hands pause in their perpetual motion.

Lucas plays a bit dirty, perhaps, having noted long ago that Scien seemed to hold a soft spot for the youngest of his current inpatients. As it should be, really.

"She's been asking after you for a while, and it would be a very good opportunity for you to see how well she's managing her meals outside of the hospital setting."

Nadia is not yet well enough to go traipsing through the markets, beaches, or woods, though that day is approaching much faster than Lucas would have ever dared to hope, once upon a time. Even so, there are plenty of outdoor spaces to take a meal. Benches, small tables, little pockets of respite that Lucas has seen many a researcher collapsed at to catch a breath from the rigors of their daily lives.

Scien simply sighs, swiping his hand to the side and closing whatever files and screens he was observing. Lucas is learning his way around Scien's logic. He knows that his argument is not the strongest, but it's strong enough, between the lack of pressing projects and the mood he caught his employer in.

"Sixty minutes," Scien says, tapping his watch and rising from his seat. "That will likely be the limit of outdoor exposure your sister can manage today before she needs rest."

A generous gift of minutes for Nadia, who couldn't even sit up on her own just years ago.

A phenomenal amount of minutes for Scien, given how few he takes for his own meals or breaks.

It's something Lucas has begun to notice as he scrubs away the film clouding the glass of his mind bit by bit—this selfless way in which Scien always gives more of himself to others than what he keeps, or what he accepts from anyone else.

The small smile that rarely ever leaves Lucas' face remains, ever-present. The edge of it holds some softness.

"Sixty minutes it is, then."

A sixty-minute lunch on the veranda, where the three share a light meal for the sake of both Nadia and Scien's matching weak stomachs. Bread and soup, and a little sip of tea for Scien from Lucas' cup, which then becomes Scien's cup on Lucas' insistence.

When Nadia asks if they can dine together again at least once more in the coming week (and asks the same that week, and the week after, and after that), who between them would say no?

-

The thirty-first drink is another toast: two champagne flutes clinking together, this time in celebration.

"Congratulations," says Scien, indulging in a small sip before he continues. "Your hard work has paid off."

The two sit side by side on the couch in Scien's office, which doubles as his bed, given he rarely leaves the place despite Lucas' nagging insistence. The hour is late, the table before them buried below paperwork.

Tonight marks Lucas' third year in therapy, and more importantly, it marks finally being given permission to teach again. Though still unable to teach the civilian population—that would come with more time, more counseling—Lucas turned his focus to the incarcerated cleared for rehabilitation. Together with Scien, they created a set of teaching plans and blueprints, building out a path toward education. After all, to truly move a society into a brighter future, he believed it prudent to make efforts not to leave any member of their severely dwindled population behind.

After the cheers, Lucas downs half of his glass in one go. Though he somehow manages to do so elegantly, it still earns a raised brow from Scien that he meets with a pleasant smile.

"A celebration is a time to indulge, is it not?"

"I would agree, but it seems you find reason to indulge nearly every dinner," Scien replies, having a second, pointedly normal-sized sip.

"Less than a bottle is hardly an indulgence, Scien..."

It's been a good year or so since Lucas shed the formalities—the Directeur Brofiise, the Monsieur Scien—though he throws in a Monsieur Directeur now and then when he feels like being obnoxious.

Likewise, he's listened to his own name evolve. Professeur, Bourreau, Proust; he's still called all three, but 'Lucas' landed in the rotation around a year ago, too.

(Or exactly one year and three months ago. Lucas believes he pays the exact right amount of attention to the god he chose, and that means taking care to record notable things.)

Scien does not seem inclined to further muse on the overindulgent drinking habits of his bodyguard. He glances at the array of papers; ones that he drafted, ones that he looked through. Ones that he approved and signed, furthering the path to a brilliant future for this once-broken man who handed over his entirety in exchange for his sister's salvation.

Nadia, too, is well on her way to recovery, strong enough these days to walk around the marché for nearly an hour with her cane. That's one promise on its way to fulfillment.

Scien's eyes then fall upon Lucas. Lucas, whose health had never once been in peril after being freed from the chains of the curse, but whose mind had fractured so badly that it was in as dire a state as Nadia's body.

"Are you feeling prepared?"

A simple question that still draws forth a contemplative silence from Lucas. It's in his nature even now to doubt himself, to doubt the goodness he receives—at times, to reel away from it. The burden of guilt will never fully leave him in all his days, and while it is no longer so crushing, it is still a heavy weight.

"...I don't know that I'll ever feel prepared, really," he starts, thoughtful. "But if I intend to return to teaching as I've wished to, a first step must be taken sooner or later."

There's a soft hum from Scien, who has a third sip from his glass, nearly catching up with Lucas' first one.

"You will have plenty of time to work out whatever complicated feelings you may have."

As usual, Scien speaks with the kind of certainty that Lucas himself often lacks. At times, it's arrogant and grating beyond belief (especially since, for better or for worse, Scien is usually right). Other times, like now, it feels like a buoy keeping him afloat when his doubts and guilt threaten to drag him away from all he struggles to keep.

"I suppose that's true."

He concedes, if only because factually, it is. With the curse stripped from their bodies and soil, he and every citizen have an entire normal lifespan to look forward to. Still an inconceivable thing to a person who often lacks foresight, even three years into this new life.

When Lucas glances up from his glass, he meets a look he's grown accustomed to over the years. Sharp and calculating, sometimes toeing the edge of invasive. It's a look that once stirred the violence within him in the same way that staring at Scien's inhuman eyes for just a moment too long did.

These days, it just makes him feel a little exasperated, a little weighted in his guilt.

"What are you thinking about?"

"You," Scien responds without pause. It's enough to make a religious man blush. Lucas does not.

"For how unassuming you are at first glance," Scien continues, "you are undoubtedly abnormally strong in both body and in the force of your emotions. As a Reliver, it might have taken even more memory banks to accurately capture your heart."

It's a statement that Lucas can easily read Scien's strange brand of humor in, now. Something that, again, would have triggered a violent response in the not-so-distant past.

Still, it sends the faintest tremor of disgust down his spine to consider a distant reality in which he was made into a Reliver, taking the process one step past his vacant physical doppelgangers. Eight years of indoctrination is a tough stain to scrub out, and he'd been opposed to Reliver technology well before falling into Capucine's hands.

Rather than voicing any of these lingering and half-formed sentiments that are and aren't his, he finishes the other half of his glass and pours himself a second one.

"A fortunate thing for you that I didn't have to eat into your resources, then, isn't it?"

"You just eat into them with your drinking habits, instead."

Lucas finishes his second glass in one go just to indulge in his petulance, though it only earns a wryly amused look.

That, too, is something that he will make a note of later.

What he keeps to himself, unrecorded, is the flutter of his heart when Scien takes the bottle from his hand on the third pour, and the warm way that their fingers meet.

-

The sixtieth drink sees their fingers meeting again and again over a glass passed from one hand to the other and back.

"You should get your own drink," Lucas says, even as he slips the glass into Scien's waiting hand once more.

"Yours is enough," Scien replies, taking a sip and handing it back.

They sit together at the window-side table in Lucas' home. Not far away, Nadia rests tucked in bed, sleeping after her big day.

After four years, and eight long years before that, she finally received clearance for leave from the hospital. It's a temporary thing, her health still needing careful monitoring, but even a few weeks away to test her recovery felt like a blessing to a girl who has known nothing but hospitals all her remembered life.

With every ounce of that gratitude and excitement, she took her cane and walked all the way through Cerneauval and to Chedis with her doctor and elder brother by her side. Lucas cried more than Nadia, who was busy taking in the sights, sounds, and tastes of a world previously known to her only through the pages of Lucas' diary.

The expenditure of energy led to her inevitably falling asleep within moments of reaching home, though. After making sure she would be comfortable, Lucas rejoined Scien, who was caught between projects but keen on making sure his patient's physical exertion had no unanticipated side effects. He deigning to give himself precisely thirty minutes to monitor her condition. So, here they are.

Sharing another drink.

Indulging in a bit of company.

Watching as the sun sinks further below the horizon.

Lucas, well aware of Scien's busy schedule and how difficult it often is to pry him from his work, ruminates over the way it's become a touch easier of late. He thinks about how easily Nadia and Scien interact; such a far cry from what his past self could ever expect from the so-called father of demons.

"What is it?"

Hm.

Lucas could have sworn that he was watching the sun slowly set, but finds that his gaze had drifted to the side of Scien's face at some point.

"Nothing, really."

A fairly neutral statement that ignores the brief fluttering kick resonating within Lucas' chest. He averts his eyes again toward the deep reds and oranges of a sky in its dying hour.

Silence; and then, a touch of honesty.

"...Rather, I was thinking about how we've arrived here."

All of the twists, turns, dips. The way that fate led him by the hand to a cold god, whom he clung to out of desperation for his sister's life, out of fear for the ugly truth beneath a divine and lovely lie. The way that god inadvertently led him to Scien Brofiise, not as the target he was raised to view him as, but as the savior he thought he already had.

He can feel Scien's eyes on him instead, now, and offers a faint smile as he looks back over.

"Tell me what is on your mind."

A question framed as a statement. Scien gave him time and space in earlier years, but became more assertive and insistent in knowing him as Lucas grew further apart from his brainwashing and more inquisitive in turn.

"It's just remarkable, I suppose...," Lucas muses. "Though I've always held the belief that things would be better for Nadia someday, that day did admittedly seem far off any time I thought of it."

For himself, too. In his heart, he also longed for salvation, however selfish it may have sometimes felt. He never asked for it, but received it anyway.

Upon reflection, Lucas doesn't know if he could precisely pinpoint when his gratitude began to fight down and triumph over the sharp teeth of his conditioning. He doesn't know when the softness of his awe changed to camaraderie, to fondness. He doesn't know when that fondness began to thread through him, taking root in the gaps and hollows where Ortie's teachings once resided.

(He doesn't know when that fondness began to blossom into affection, into the fragile flowers of something that could someday be love. It had taken him time to sort his ridiculous emotions out; a thorny, unpleasant process, even with the help of a therapist.)

But here Lucas is now, his sister's health on its way to total restoration. Here he is working for a man he once viewed as the devil, but has since seen in so many softer shades. Lucas endured Scien's often grating personality, and Scien endured Lucas' quick and often unearned temper. For every time that Lucas would try to reach out and understand, he was met with equal understanding and perhaps even greater effort and kindness.

Undoubtedly, Scien had shown himself in all his truest ways over the years. A fully formed, fallible human of a god that Lucas found himself unable to look away from.

Even now, golden sunlight catching in his rosy hair, he's an enthralling presence.

But Lucas takes care to keep his heart close, refusing to allow those feelings to escape into the air between them. He needs no further indulgence than this; to allow his gaze an extra lingering second, and to enjoy the warmth where their hands connect over the chill of the glass.

Scien continues to meet his stare head-on, unflinching, unwavering, as he always ever is.

"Those days are here now," he says. "And with those dreams of yours no longer such distant things, perhaps it is time for you to think of a new one."

It's a consideration that would have riled his guilt something horrible years ago. Still does, a bit. But the small, selfish core that Scien encourages in big and small ways to want for more... It does have another dream, he thinks.

Rather than giving it a voice just yet, he takes a last sip from the cup and hands it back.

"I believe your thirty minutes are up."

-

The seventy-first drink becomes the seventy-second and seventy-third very quickly.

Scien, for all his genius intellect, cannot seem to understand the fact that he is unarguably a lightweight. He rises to the challenge (or bait) once he's had a glass and feels that his tolerance (or thorough lack thereof) has been questioned, as it so often is when sharing a dinner table with familiar faces.

Yves, Hugo, and Adolphe often get swept up in the moment, encouraged by one another to outdo the last drink. With Lucas standing above and apart from everyone else, Mathis preferring to keep his intake low even now that he can join in, and Ceres still not quite well enough for it, it frequently leads to Scien partaking a bit more vigorously than he ought to.

It's how Lucas ends up walking Scien back to his office supporting almost the entirety of his weight, one arm firmly looped around his side. He moves completely uninhibited despite Scien's clumsy stumbling.

"Really, Monsieur," he sighs as the toe of Scien's shoe catches on nothing but air, adding another tally to the number of times he'd have tripped if left to his own devices. "When will you learn?"

Scien's responding grumble is drawn out in the way only drunk people manage. Whatever twists and tangles of words he speaks are pressed against Lucas' shoulder and lost.

Once they're back within the Institute, returned to the peace and quiet (and fortunate cleanliness, thanks to Lucas' occasional tidying) of Scien's office, Lucas scoops him up into his arms just long enough to be able to deposit him on the couch instead.

"I'll fetch water and your vitamins," he says, well used to caring for Scien's fussy stomach. "And some bread, of course."

But as he turns to leave, his wrist is caught. It would take far more strength than a single drunk man could muster to actually keep Lucas in place, but he humors his captor, peering at him with curiosity.

"Sit."

It's all Scien says at first, hand fumbling to pat a space on the couch that Lucas could feasibly perch on. With a raised brow, he elegantly takes a seat.

"Yes?"

Scien looks at him, or at least seems like he's trying to look at him, and Lucas silently wonders how many of him he's seeing.

"Stay still. I'm testing a hypothesis."

Scien loosens his already mild hold on Lucas' wrist. The curiosity Lucas feels ripples first with surprise, then a breath of fluster as Scien lets his fingers clumsily slide up and over until their hands are pressed palm to palm. From there, Scien slips his fingers into the gaps between Lucas', lacing them together neatly.

There is a flicker of idle desire to curl his fingers and crush every bone in Scien's hand, now little more than a ghost haunting the corridors of a castle long emptied. There is a flicker of remembrance, too; the mental flash of so many other instances in which Lucas found himself wanting to reach out and touch Scien's hand, to hold it, to let their fingers slot together like the pieces in those puzzles he was so enamored with.

Now that he's thinking about it—rather, now that it's been set before him in a way that he can't look away from—he realizes exactly how many times thoughts like those have crossed his mind.

When he blinks out of his reverie, Scien's eyes are still anchored on him. Even through the haze of intoxication, there is something meticulous and calculating in his stare that makes Lucas feel peeled apart and vulnerable. He moves on reflex to pull his hand away, but Scien just tightens his grip, and again, that alone is enough to bring him to stillness.

He swallows, mouth suddenly a bit dry, nerves suddenly a bit raw, eyes suddenly a bit incapable of looking at Scien directly.

"What hypothesis are you testing?"

He leaves his hand still, and Scien doesn't seem inclined to do anything else with it just yet. The warmth between their palms must be catching; Lucas' face begins to feel warm to match.

"You are not the only person with an observant eye, Lucas."

His straightforward answer is surprisingly bereft of slurring, though the edge of intoxication still softens his speech. The use of his first name, while no longer a rarity, somehow sits with more poignant weight.

"I would hardly claim to be," Lucas lightly quips, keeping his distance both in physicality and with word.

Scien frowns, seemingly not a fan of that, and struggles to sit back upright with such clumsiness that it has Lucas leaning forward without pause in an attempt to support him.

Poor planning. Despite his monstrous strength, Lucas is surprisingly easy to move, and that's all Scien needs to pull him off balance.

He's tugged down and forward and ends up with his face hovering just inches from Scien's; a cliche he's well familiar with in the pages of the soft, romantic novels he so enjoys. His face feels even warmer than where his palm rests against Scien's now, and he's quick to duck his head to the side, as if that will obscure him from his god's ever-watchful eye.

"You should rest. You've clearly had too much to drink."

"And you should not interfere with the scientific process."

It really is written so plainly in everything set before Scien's eyes; a documented account of all Lucas won't share of his own accord. The flush of Lucas' cheeks that are neither a trick of the light nor a result of the many drinks he'd had over the course of the night. The way in which he doesn't try to reestablish his distance, and in fact seems to lean in like a bending reed. When Scien's hand shifts so his thumb can slide over Lucas' inner wrist to rest against the soft skin there, his pulse thuds brightly, contrasting his outward silence.

Scien is not always an overly-observant person in regard to those he chooses to keep by his side, especially when his eyes are fixated on a wider goal. Dahut took advantage of that to weave catastrophic webs behind his back, chokeholding a nation into submission.

Lucas merely uses it to obfuscate dozens upon dozens of little, unremarkable instances showcasing the ways in which his tolerance began shifting into camaraderie, companionship; rosy-hued, a lotus breaking free from silt. His fondness show in his gaze, in the softness of his expressions, in the remembrance of every quirk and detail that he'd come to know about Scien. Tea over coffee, cream over sugar. Blankets to ward off the chill, heat-sensitive hands and tongue, a grease-sensitive stomach. Messy hair that surprises him with its softness any time he gathers it back into its braid.

Lucas thought himself rather good at concealing it, but if he's correct in assuming that his affections are the current target of Scien's dissecting hand and analytical mind, perhaps he'd grown too complacent.

In the seconds he's lost in thought, Scien lifts his free hand, the gloved pad of a thumb swiping over his lower lip. Lucas' eyes flick back. It takes all that's in him not to drop his stare right away. Scien leans closer, and Lucas can smell the sweetness of wine on him. Closer, closer, and closer still—

And then his forehead crashes against Lucas' shoulder, a hand flying up to his mouth.

Holding back his employer's hair while he's violently ill is not written in his contract, but it isn't the first time he's gone above and beyond the call of duty, and it certainly won't be the last.

-

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the seventy-fourth drink comes a fair while after the seventy-third.

It's a night like many others: Scien at his desk, Lucas on the couch, both working on the projects currently holding their attention. For Scien, it's a unique genetic disorder found in a traveler who heard that heading to the former country of Death, now opened to the outside world, may ironically lead to a cure. For Lucas, it's structuring basic plans for a new school with the sole purpose of teaching future educators, so their island can continue to progress and grow in its new stride.

Since that almost-kiss, Lucas took to evasion. It's not out of dismay, but rather the simple fact that his emotions have always been complex little beasts, especially in relation to the creator of Reliver technology. Even now, far from the shackles of manufactured hatred and having come to see, understand, and accept his affections for what they are, mentally processing all that had happened is not an attractive notion.

Scien, disliking these indirect methods of not at all handling matters, tried to corner him about it more than once—mostly metaphoric, sometimes literal. But Scien is also a busy man with an entire nation demanding his time and attention, and Lucas always finds the opportunity to slip away.

It's only moments like this, when he knows Scien is safely enveloped in his research, that he feels fine returning to a shadow of routine.

They sit, they work, and rarely, they speak.

Every so often, Lucas will rise to stretch or take small walks around the grounds. He might return with water, with fresh bread, with soup depending on his mood or how far he wanders. They might exchange a few simple words, Scien's concentration remaining a nigh-unbroken fortress.

Tonight, Lucas comes back with a hot drink that smells of sugar and alcohol. Arpéchéle has mild winters—and a good thing, or the lycoris would fail to grow—but Lucas is no fan of the cold, however faint. He stops by Scien's desk long enough to deposit a basket of fresh, warm bread, knowing that it will be long cold by the time it's eaten, and returns to his own seat to continue his work.

That was the plan, at least.

Lucas, attuned as he is to the god he so dutifully guards, glances up the second he hears Scien's chair creak. An unusual sound, given his propensity for staying very sedentary when in the depths of his concentration.

More unusual still: the chair creaks because Scien is standing, after which he makes his way around the edge of the desk and heads to the couch.

"Scien?"

Lucas blinks, sitting up a little straighter. His thoughts, it seems, are easily read by the vexing man who settles beside him, sinking into the cushion like a tired cat that doesn't pay rent.

"I was working on my final report for the case today, and with it finished, I have a few minutes to spare. It would seem you've made a miscalculation, Professeur," he says, and the ring of amusement makes Lucas press his lips together in a thin, mildly annoyed line.

"I'm not certain what you mean...?"

Lucas lies as easy as he breathes, but Scien is used to that, too, and summarily ignores it. Instead, he holds his hand out wordlessly for the cup in Lucas'. Lucas frowns.

"I don't believe that's a wise idea. This is made with the new, imported drink—the very strong one."

"Then I will only have a taste."

"A taste is often enough to derail your evening..."

Despite the mumble, Lucas still hands it over, and Scien brings it to his mouth for a sip. A second passes; his head tilts to the side as he considers, and he hands the cup back.

"It isn't terrible. I can see why it became popular so quickly."

"It's tempered with honey, spices, and juice. On its own, it would likely be a drink far fewer enjoyed."

Scien hums, disinterested in the intricacies of bourbon, and wastes not a second more before diving into the exact conversation Lucas spent so much time carefully stepping his way around.

"Enough of your delay tactics. The amusement of it has long since run its course, and I tire of playing this game with you. Do not lie and say that you don't understand, either."

Lucas' mouth, having opened, snaps shut again. His expression settles on something sour and unamused, though he can't quite bring himself to meet Scien's eyes when he eventually, inevitably speaks.

"Is it so unusual to give someone a measure of distance to recover after they embarrass themselves?"

"Perhaps," Scien acquiesces. "But that is not the case here."

It's true in both ways he could interpret the statement. Scien simply doesn't feel embarrassment, and that is not at all the reason why Lucas has kept to himself. He's still displeased to be called out so thoroughly, and his jaw sets at a stubborn angle as he looks back.

"Oh? If you already know it so well, then what, pray tell, is the case?"

Scien merely inclines his head forward.

"That is for you to say."

Lucas' patience is vast for many, and had once been nonexistent for Scien. Though the years have added layers upon it, Scien still skates on considerably thin ice comparatively, and the crack! of it rending in two under his indelicate foot is almost audible inside Lucas' mind.

There's a single, short, incredulous laugh.

"For me to say? I have nothing to say at all. In fact, I'm perfectly content to leave things be. If you're waiting for specific words, at least be clear about it."

There's the briefest pause, like he's waiting for Scien to interject. He doesn't; he just watches in his knowing way, and that drives Lucas mad, which he assumes Scien probably knows, which drives Lucas even more mad.

Horrible man. Thorn in his side. A savior with so much intelligence who still manages to be so idiotic.

Lucas continues in spite of the voice of reason in the back of his head kindly and calmly telling him that he is also an idiot.

"What is it that you even expect me to say? That I'm terribly sorry about your appalling tolerance? That I've decided not to let you drink so many glasses in one sitting again?"

That he wishes Scien had kissed him, maybe? That seeing him reminds him of the closeness of that night and the what-ifs he'd rather leave buried, if only for the sake of his own cowardice?

Silence. There's only that obnoxious, expecting, knowing silence that pushes forth his (rare, but never fully absent) snappish irritation.

"Scien Brofiise, you are an infuriating, awful, incorrigible man. Why can't you leave well enough alone? You're insistent in all of the worst ways, for all of the worst things. Do you truly wish to hear 'I might be in love with you' so badly?"

Before Lucas even has a chance to feel regret in the ringing silence that follows, Scien is already smiling like the victor in a war with a foregone conclusion.

"Was it such a difficult thing to say?"

Lucas sputters, indignation and embarrassment rising in his chest along with the redness in his cheeks.

In all his years of hopeless pining for a girl he once called his angel, he allowed himself the occasional indulgence of imagining how he would confess. In these scenarios, he'd speak his heart through a bouquet of fresh flowers, deliver beautiful words on a walk under moonlight, punctuate his adoration with a soft kiss over the worn pages of a book. Each imagining was rose-tinted, filled with the exact sense of delicate romance he always yearned for.

Being baited into a confession over a hot cup of bourbon on a god's messy couch was certainly never among them.

He moves to stand from said couch with his cup in hand, intent on leaving, but Scien is quick to catch his free wrist. Despite everything, he makes no move to break free.

"Sit," he says simply, and draws Lucas by the wrist back toward the couch. Back toward him. His hold remains light enough that anyone could have broken free, and the door is just behind them.

Still, Lucas sits. He sits and he sulks.

"Don't sulk."

"Don't tell me what to do."

Scien sighs like he's very put-upon, which, to his credit, he often is. He lets go of Lucas' wrist, but only to take his hand in its stead.

"Then at least listen before you continue your internal tantrum."

Awful, infuriating man, indeed. And yet, despite his ornery silence, Lucas makes no move to stop Scien from continuing, so continue he does.

"You mistake my aim. I gain no joy from seeing you squirm; though to be clear, you bring most of that discomfort upon yourself. I merely wanted to see the honest side that you keep guarded for no sensible reason. You are obvious when one knows what to watch for."

All true statements, though horrid to hear. Lucas, out of spite, returns the silence he was given earlier. Scien doesn't seem to mind. Rather, he only shifts closer until their knees touch. Lucas leans back just a little, but makes no move to leave.

Scien catches his wavering stare with all the confidence of a god, arching a brow.

"Do you find my attention so unpleasant? Do you find it such a difficult, arduous task to speak of your affections? You are a deeply dishonest person, after all."

He draws in closer still as he continues.

"If that is the case, then allow me to make matters even. I will meet you every step of the way. If you desire to reach for my hands, consider them yours. If you seek more of my attention, I will give all that you can take and then some. For anything you think to wish for, you need only ask—and for all you wouldn't think of for yourself, I will find those wishes and grant them regardless."

The heat of embarrassment already colored Lucas' cheeks pink, but as he sits and listens, the flush spreads to the bridge of his nose, the tips of his ears.

"If you only think that you might be in love with me, then I invite you to test your hypothesis, too. Let us confirm together what lies within that heart of yours. I won't allow you to run from it, or from me."

Lucas is uncertain what expression he's making. What could possibly capture the emotions bleeding through his veins? What could convey the whiplash between such a stupid confession, and receiving these warm, lethal words in return?

Whatever it is, it only seems to amuse and satisfy Scien, who continues without mercy.

"Do not mistake me for a man who acts on flights of whimsy with no intention to follow through. You know better."

With every word spoken, Scien takes it upon himself to weave the gap between them shut, one hand bracing against the arm of the couch that Lucas' back rests against. Once more, he finds himself struggling to meet Scien's eyes. He forces himself to, if only because the moment demands it of him in a way he can't deny.

"...I do."

He does know better. Still, it's madness to even begin considering that for once, the feelings he harbors aren't his to keep alone, unrequited and aching within the cage of his chest.

"You sound uncertain," Scien says. "I will remedy that."

He reaches to take the cup from Lucas' hand and sets it on the table without a second glance, which draws some mild amusement through the mire of anxiety and complicated anticipation buzzing through Lucas' body and mind.

"No second sip this time?"

Scien shakes his head.

"This will become a memory that I cherish, and so it will be a clear one."

He closes the remaining distance before Lucas can recover from the unexpected sweetness of his words, lips tasting of liquor and the warm honey mixed in.

-

At a few drinks past one hundred, Lucas finally stops keeping count.

They share drinks over the departure of Yves and Hugo, and for their safe return. They share drinks for Ceres' full, unhampered recovery. There are drinks to celebrate her engagement to Adolphe, and then to celebrate their marriage. Drinks over birthdays, over successes, over failures, over joys and over sorrows.

They share drinks over the ups and downs of their own trajectory, too. Over the little successes where Lucas can say that he's truly separated himself from the past, and the moors of guilt and despair that sometimes still haunt him. Over the steps Scien takes in righting their island, and the silly woes he's given in return as the man voted into a Parliament leadership position that he never wanted. Over the eventual, inevitable affirmation of love, shared between a man who had never known it before, and one who had never expected to find it again.

They drink together when things go poorly, when the stress takes a wearing toll on the both of them. They drink together when things go well, and Lucas spends easy days chasing his chosen god around the Institute for nothing but the sport of it.

In the land of Arpéchéle, freed from the specter of death, they watch life carry on like this, in ways once little more than a fanciful dream.

Today, too, is the kind of step forward Lucas would have once hated to speak his desire for, lest God decide him too greedy and deign to strike him down for it.

Nadia, whose body slowly mended alongside Arpéchéle itself over the years, had finally become sturdy enough to set off on her own—and set off she did. With adventure in her mind and excitement in her heart, she packed a suitcase and left for the mountains to continue the last leg of recovery in a tranquil place with clean, fresh air.

Naturally, both her brother and her ever-present attending physician saw her off when the carriage came to carry her away to the bordering woods.

("Dear brother, please don't look so sad," she had laughed with a wobble in her words, wrapped up tight in his arms. "It's already such a terribly hard thing to say goodbye..."

To his credit, Lucas had yet to completely dissolve into a sobbing mess, though that was largely because of his self-imposed role as the strong elder brother. He was sniffling just a bit, even so.

"Do forgive me, Nadia, dear. I'll see you off with a smile like I promised."

"And I will ensure he doesn't walk in front of a passing car when he becomes blinded by his tears afterward," Scien added. Nadia had laughed out an, "Oh, you two," with her sweet, watery voice, even as Lucas elbowed him in the side.)

When the carriage itself and the darling baby sister within it are finally out of view, Lucas' shoulders slump and he does allow himself a tear or two, guessing correctly that they will be swept away by Scien before they can drip from his face. It's something he learned fairly early in their relationship—the man becomes ridiculously handsy when he has someone to be handsy with.

He had learned many new things about his god after coming to hold his heart alongside his life. The feel of his hands, the slope of his shoulders, the weight of his body, all added to his ever-growing mental list of every little piece that makes up the real Scien Brofiise.

(Who is Scien Brofiise? A question he could once answer with ease, and then wondered if he'd ever be able to answer at all. He finds himself satisfied with the progress he's made so far.)

It's the familiar warmth that he lets himself slump into, no longer needing to uphold his meager attempt at seeming less devastated by the temporary and for-a-good-reason loss of Nadia than he is.

"Come." Scien speaks against his temple after delivering a doting kiss to it. "Or else you may flood the streets."

"Take care, or I'll drown you first," Lucas mumbles before tucking his face away.

Just one moment, one quiet moment, and then he collects himself and returns with Scien into the house he'd been sharing with Nadia since she was permanently released to outpatient care.

Once inside, Scien is the one who guides the way to the small but well-stocked kitchen with its full rack of wine. In another life, Lucas would eat and drink quite heavily on Scien's dime for a small stretch of time in which they all hunted for the violent serial killer in their midst; lavish dining compared to the meals of mostly vegetables he could typically afford. In this life, he's paid more than enough by his loving partner and employer to sate his voracious appetite.

Scien reaches for a bottle and uncorks it, grabbing two glasses from the cupboard with the familiarity of someone who calls a space home. Once poured, he slides one across the table.

"You may share your sorrows, but you will only be annoyed with yourself later if you don't also celebrate this moment."

It's true, and Lucas knows it. So he sighs, picks up the glass by its fragile stem with his careful strength, and taps it against Scien's. It rings, light and bell-like.

"...To Nadia, then. To her health, to her future, and to many more smiles under the blue sky."

An echo of words he spoke in such desperation so many years ago, which kept him buoyed any time his recovery slid into grief-stricken, miserable valleys.

"To Nadia," Scien repeats, a trace of the fondness he'd come to hold for his best patient seeping into his voice before he adds, "whose physically strong and mentally weak elder brother could learn a lesson or two from."

As he's sometimes wont to do, Lucas reacts to truthful words he isn't in the mood to hear by delivering another swift jab to Scien's side and then taking a sip of his drink. In the face of Scien's soft grunt and displeased grumbling, his smile is impeccably placid, despite the slight redness of his nose and still watery eyes.

A breath of silence stretches between them before Lucas says anything else. When he does, he speaks in softness past the fade of his smile.

"...Thank you, Scien. Without you, none of this would have been possible."

From the counseling sessions that welded his fractured mind back together to the antidote that cleared his lungs of blight, from his employment to a successful return to teaching, Scien personally saw him through every step of betterment that he had never thought to ask for.

Ever since the night Lucas desperately reached for that hand of salvation, his life has remained in Scien's palm, tended to with care. And today, Nadia had the blessing of a send-off in good health, her unclouded eyes set forward toward a future of boundless possibilities.

True to Scien's lofty promise, his each and every prayer had indeed found itself thoroughly answered.

Scien replies with the sureness of a man who exists both with and above humanity.

"Could I call myself your god if I could not grant you all you ask for?"

As though each world-shattering, life-changing miracle Lucas clings to so jealously are mere child's play for Scien—and maybe that's the case. His smile reflects only gratitude, familiar in the face of the simple, unobtrusive arrogance with which Scien sometimes speaks.

Lucas' own tone holds a ring of light teasing; not uncommon for him these days, either.

"Will you grant me one more thing, then?"

"Why stop at one?"

Why, indeed. Lucas still tries to keep his greed contained in spite of Scien's constant encouragement of it. It's a good thing, then, that this ask is quite simple.

He leans across the counter to steal a kiss.

"I don't want to cry just yet."

The words are spoken quiet against Scien's mouth, and he feels rather than sees the quirk of his wry smile.

"Save your tears, then. I will catch them for you when they come."

They burn the hours deep into the night like this, sharing kisses and stories and drinks, with Scien's sure hand there to wipe away his tears any time they fall.

-

The final drink spills across marble and soil from the open mouth of a bottle.

Throughout the years, Scien always held the belief that Lucas would outlive him. Infuriatingly, he had been right yet again. Who is Scien Brofiise? An old man who became an even older man, refusing to be wrong a single step of the way.

It is no horrific twist of fate that parts them. It's no tragedy suited to the dark hollows of a theater stage that snatches the genius loved by God from his island. It is merely the creep of years, the slow sneak of age that whittles lives to nothing. Much less violent than the curse, but a thief all the same.

Lucas remained a staunch proponent of the sanctity of life all through his own, never once wavering in his belief that humans should have a single one to cherish from its natural beginning to its natural end. But now, even Lucas can see why those beyond the borders with near-centuries to their name could still want for more time.

Lucas, too, wants for more time.

He wants more time as an educator, helping people grasp a chance at reformation and reintegration into society, raising children to walk the right path. He wants more time with his friends, all of whom remained relatively close despite the divergent routes their lives had taken. It was a painful thing when they began to go, leaving their shared dining table just a little emptier.

He wants more time with Nadia—ten years younger than he, but now so old, herself—having spent the majority of her long, long life smiling under the blue sky exactly as she was promised.

He wants more time with Scien, who had gone from heinous monster to savior he sometimes wanted to choke the life from, to dear friend, confidante, partner, lover (who he still sometimes wanted to choke the life from, but toothless); a man and a god all his own. The years they spent together stretched like oil paint across the widest canvas, each day bright and brilliant through the tallest heights and miserable lows of two lives shared. Despite receiving more than he once would have dared to hope for, his heart is starved.

He always selfishly wants for more.

Lucas leans against the headstone after pouring out the bottle and speaks freely to it, to this heart of his buried deep within the earth.

"I know that you don't care, but I chose a nice vintage tonight. The year we wed. It's fitting for our anniversary, don't you think? Or fitting for an old, fussy, sentimental man, perhaps."

He shares a private laugh with his sleeping beloved, and then softly reminisces on anniversaries that had come and gone before. Some were vibrant with the excitement of the times, some quiet and peaceful, none forgettable or unimportant. Together, each told a story; that of a god who chose to cherish in return for being chosen, and a loyal guard who stood by his side for the remainder of his days.

His head tips as he speaks, coming to rest against cool marble, and he thinks of the sturdy warmth of the shoulder he'd found purchase against so often. When he closes his eyes just briefly, he can feel Scien's fingers brushing the hair from his forehead, skirting along his jaw, tilting his chin up to steal a kiss in the moments between the work that so ceaselessly kept his attention. Ever in perpetual motion, that man, flitting from subject to subject within the vast field of genetics.

As he watches wine pool around the base of the marble, deep red and cloying, he lets his most aching sentiments bleed from him, too, and hopes that they will seep down to the depths of Hades.

"I miss you."

The shadows of his life are filled with specters of his love, few people outlasting the ridiculous strength and health of his abnormal body. His days pass with the rising and setting of the sun, familiar faces fading in and out and gone like flowers blooming across the fields in spring. His bed is cold and empty.

"I love you."

What a blessing to live a full life. What heaviness to reach its end and pay for every measure of closeness through the agony of loss. Even so, he would choose to love and lose every time. It is the crux of his resistance toward Reliver technology, this high value he places upon the human heart. And who would he be without his love for his sister? For his students, for his friends?

Who would he be, if he had never come to know the kindness behind the chill Scien seemed to carry? To have never felt the warmth of his palms or his self-made heart? Who is Lucas Proust who had never fallen in love with Scien Brofiise? He does not know that man, and has no desire to.

Heaven has long since left his mind. He doesn't anticipate arriving there; at least not without ample penance, which he'd accepted long before accepting that he deserved a chance at a happy, healthy life. Frankly, for all the threads of faith he followed in his younger years and the absolute nothing they'd given him, Scien more than made up for every bit already.

His is a love he would chase all the way to damnation.

Turning his head just enough, he lays his lips upon the cold stone, reverent in his adoration, and whispers his goodbyes, at least for this evening.

"I'll see you again soon. Rest well, my dear."

Lucas rises from the ground with a fluidity that would surprise any stranger, his monstrous body still maintaining fair sharpness even after years of weathering. For a moment, his eyes linger upon the white and red lycoris surrounding the graves, on the blue ocean glittering just beyond them.

He caresses the top of the headstone as tenderly as one would hold a lover's hand, and leaves the soil to drink up the wine in his stead.