Work Text:
Clink.
The soft sound rings out, almost entirely masked by the hearth's crackle. Lucas' teacup finds a home on its saucer once more, set there delicately. Dregs of tea leaves and faint red stains are the only indicators that the cup was once full.
For a moment, Lucas' gaze remains anchored on that empty cup. Then, it flicks across the table.
"Are you certain about this?"
His voice holds a hint of doubt, even in the face of his chosen god's obnoxiously divine confidence.
"Have you ever known me to be uncertain?"
Scien's rhetorical question leaves room for nothing, not even the smallest sarcastic quip. He has already laid his arm out across the table, palm up, fingers lax and slightly curled with the lazy ease that often reminds Lucas of a cat. His stare pins Lucas in place, expectant.
Lucas hesitates, then reaches out inch by slow inch until he can settle his hand delicately in the cradle of Scien's waiting palm.
It had all started a few months prior.
-
"Oh! Oh, dear."
The sound of Lucas' comically mild exclamation barely rises over an even more cartoonish shattering noise. Scien doesn't yet look away from his screen. It's only partially because of his infamous laser-focused attention.
Over the months and then years that Lucas stayed in his employ, he'd grown used to this. Normally, his bodyguard was careful about his strength, but it was a care that required constant vigilance. One small lapse in attention and Lucas could easily snap the handle from a cast iron skillet or crush a clipboard to wood pulp.
Scien still remembers, with no small measure of annoyance and amusement both, the time he had flustered his bodyguard so badly that Lucas had accidentally torn his office door straight from its hinges as he tried to flee the room.
(He then proceeded to learn nothing from that incident and continued to tease Lucas for sport, feeling at least fairly certain that he would not end up among the casualties of his bodyguard's monstrous strength.)
Still, it wasn't often that Lucas broke an item without preempt; if not Scien's own meddling, then something to cause a lapse in attention. In fact, the worst damage Scien can recall happened in an incident long before he hired Lucas. The man panicked when a spider crawled across his hand as he helped the others clean his office, and he'd knocked an enormous piece of machinery straight through the floor.
"If that was important, it's coming out of your paycheck," Scien drawls, only looking up when a small, clattering sound answers him.
Lucas stands in a bit of a stupor, a teapot he'd taken a liking to in pieces at his feet. One hand holds the handle of the dust pan. It's normally kept by Lucas' personal desk for the occasions it's needed; mostly for emergency crumb cleaning, sometimes for little lapses like this.
The actual pan part of the dust pan lies in the teapot rubble like a sad flag of defeat.
It's the fact that Lucas himself seems startled by this turn of events that keeps Scien's attention from immediately returning to his project. He raises a brow.
"Surely there weren't any spiders hiding in there to give you a fright."
This time, Lucas looks up and over with a blink, finally registering that he'd been spoken to. He shakes his head after a moment and kneels to carefully pluck the pan from the porcelain shards.
"Oh, no, no...," he murmurs, suppressing a shudder at the mere thought of being touched by a spider before clearing his throat. "No, I must just be a little more tired than I had thought. It was a long night, after all."
Scien thinks back to the previous night's events and snorts.
"An elegant way of referring to a one-sided massacre, Bourreau. I'd go so far as to say that the fools you disarmed are spending their hospital stay in a much more exhausted state."
Lucas purses his lips, sweeping shards of porcelain into the pan. He holds it between two pinched fingers with a delicate care that hides the strength that had easily broken both items in the first place.
"Perhaps they ought to have considered their sleep before attempting to assassinate the president, then," he counters lightly between sweeps.
"They shouldn't. It's more entertaining this way."
"Entertaining for you, maybe."
"You would deny the enjoyment of having a chew toy to keep your work from becoming too dull?"
Lucas pauses. Frowns. Feels unsure of whether he's more displeased to be referred to like a working dog that needs enrichment, or more displeased that it rings true.
Ultimately he decides to leave it unaddressed, as that tends to offer the fewest headaches when dealing with Scien Brofiise.
He moves to discard the teapot shards into Scien's concerning unofficial sharps bin, so no hapless staff member can accidentally cut their fingers.
"I'm going to make a second pot," he says, swerving the question bluntly and without finesse.
Scien only gives him that infuriatingly amused and knowing look that often makes Lucas want to defenstrate him. He waves a dismissive hand.
"Be on your way, then."
-
Several weeks later, the victim of Lucas' clumsiness is something a good deal more precious to him.
Scien hears a small snap! and what sounds like brief rainfall; the pitter-patter of tiny objects hitting the floor. There's a sharp intake of breath. His eyes drift to the source.
Lucas sits perched by the window - a seat he often takes when there's nothing pressing to be done beyond watching over his charge. More than once, Scien has observed him as he observed the daily goings-on of people passing by far below. Sometimes Lucas would take out his rosary to pray. Other times, he merely worried the beads between his fingers. Some form of stress relief, perhaps.
He can only surmise that something similar had been happening here and now, considering the source of the noise is immediately apparent: small, red beads, now scattered and rolling across the floor. They glint like pomegranate seeds in the light from the windows.
Scien's gaze rises back up to Lucas, a single brow arching. Lucas, a master of masking, only wears a distraught expression for a fraction of a second before it shifts seamlessly into quiet sheepishness. After all, this isn't a teapot or beaker. He has no theatrics or teasing declarations of woe to give.
Instead, Lucas just clears his throat and kneels gracefully, his skirts brushing against the ground. He begins to collect the beads.
"I suppose I've been easier to distract than usual."
"Oh? And what enthralled you to the point that you would forget the rosary in your hand?"
"I saw a lovely bird just now," Lucas lies smoothly despite the clumsiness of the lie's contents. "But it came quite close to the window and startled me."
Scien only hums, not bothering to grant his time or attention to the non-answer to his non-question.
Silence stretches between them for a few moments, punctuated only by the soft sound of beads being gathered. Lucas' rosary wasn't exactly small. Still, it's easy clean-up compared to the usual messes he's tasked with. Once finished, he straightens, stands, and slips the beads into a pocket.
"It's a good thing I've been more diligent about your carpets lately," he says. "Otherwise, I fear I'd have to leave these in sanitizer for some time."
"Considering the amount of blood they've been covered in before, a few chemicals wouldn't make much of a difference."
Now it's Lucas' turn to hum in the face of something he simply refuses to acknowledge. At least perpetual exasperation makes a good veil for stress. Quiet, he returns to his perch.
"I'll need to go to the marché later for more thread to string this with," he muses aloud.
"Why not find a new one? You struggle to thread even the widest sewing needles."
Lucas' attachment to the rosary is a puzzle to Scien, considering it's the same one he'd kept during his tenure as both the island's most beloved teacher and most feared killer. Any time he'd asked about the rosary's seemingly permanent place at Lucas' side - ("What need is there for a rosary at all? You've chosen your god already.") - Lucas would deftly change the topic.
This time, to Scien's mild surprise, he answers in a fairly straightforward way. As he speaks, his voice is soft. Something melancholic touches its edges.
"I would rather not part with this one, if possible. ...Fraught as our ties ended up being, it was a gift from my mother."
The mother whose footsteps he once longed to follow in, whose life he had ended alongside his father's.
Ah.
"Suitably emotional for someone so attached to even the most senseless of emotions," Scien remarks, simple and inoffensive.
Lucas still clicks his tongue like he's offended anyway and turns his attention back to the window.
For the next few days, Scien became the sole weary witness to his bodyguard's clumsy attempts at stringing his rosary back together. It was more of a failure in progress than a work in progress. He failed quite spectacularly, managing to pulverize several beads into sparkling glass dust that quickly joined the various biohazards of Scien's office.
("It's not uncommon for members of my family to be able to crush rocks with their bare hands," Lucas had once said, just a casual aside.
"Between the various members of your family, it's a wonder you even have your weak understanding of what normal strength looks like," Scien had replied.)
It's only when Lucas crushes his tenth rosary bead and seems very near tears that Scien sighs, stands from his desk, and ambles over. He holds his hand out, wordless. It earns a baffled look from his bodyguard.
"Give it to me."
There's barely a pause before Lucas holds out the thread and beads both, far past the distrust once carved into him through years of brainwashing. He'd already left what's most precious to him in Scien's hands, after all. Nadia's health spoke to that being a good decision.
Scien takes the items and sits beside him heavily, rummaging in his lab coat pocket and withdrawing a suture kit. With the nimble fingers of a skilled surgeon, he begins. Lucas watches with quiet but rapt attention.
Scien returns the completed rosary within minutes.
"You work quickly," Lucas marvels, tone a bit absent. He turns the repaired rosary over in his hand, trying not to think about the stark difference between their respective attempts at fixing it.
"Speed is the one thing separating a surgeon from death when they operate on themselves," Scien responds. His words hold the type of misplaced casualness that often makes Lucas want to gnash his teeth.
Instead, he simply gives his thanks. Scien just hums in response, standing back up. Somehow, despite only sitting on the ground for a few moments, several joints pop. He grumbles something under his breath about the ills of aging and returns to his desk to continue his work.
Lucas inspects the rosary, meanwhile. It's now held together by the medical-grade thread used in stitches instead of the soft-spun silk that stained so easily, but at least it rests good as new in his hands.
And from his hands to his pocket it goes, where it remains for weeks as Lucas fights off the worry of losing any more beads.
-
When Lucas almost sends Scien to the hospital, that's when the issue becomes impossible to ignore.
"Are your shoulders stiff again?"
Scien looks over from the couch, where he'd been rolling his neck and shoulders. Despite the inherent youth of his body, it's like the geriatric energy of his soul simply leaks through the seams, plaguing him with stiff muscles and creaky, aching bones befitting of the many decades he's actually lived.
Lucas clicks his tongue, coming over to him.
"How many times have I told you to move around at least a little? Standing up and stretching even once per hour isn't difficult."
His chiding is familiar by now; not quite dissimilar to Dahut's, but unique to Lucas all the same. It's enough to make Scien feel a touch nostalgic at times, though that nostalgia often includes a measure of agitation. Always surrounded by people who nose into his business, griping about everything he does.
"Your busybody nature is showing," Scien points out. Still, he shifts forward automatically as Lucas settles on the couch behind him.
This, too, has become something of a routine between them. When Scien's muscles ache too persistently, to the point that he'd normally reach for pain medication, Lucas would take it upon himself to step in.
Over time, he dialed in the exact amount of strength needed in certain situations. A stiff neck demanded more delicate finesse than the upper shoulders, though Lucas found that Scien held his tension in both. His shoulders always needed a little movement before they loosened. His wrists required warming up or they would pop. And then, there were some knots that Lucas simply wouldn't touch out of concern for how much strength he'd need to even begin handling them.
All in all, Lucas could normally take one look at Scien's posture, do a few test presses with his palms, and work out a majority of the points of soreness without either of them thinking anything of it. Scien wastes no time picking his papers back up in anticipation of exactly that, keen on returning to his work.
But today, Lucas reaches out. He rests a hand on Scien's shoulder. A loud CRACK! strikes through the air between them.
"Ah."
This sole, small exclamation overlaps between the both of them. A quiet note of pure surprise.
Fortunately, Scien is stoic about pain, even if he's quick to complain about about nausea and the milder ills that torment his mortal flesh. That is the only sound he makes as he looks toward his shoulder, now in a much worse state than when it was merely tense.
Unfortunately, Lucas is already prone to anxious reactionary behavior. He nearly breaks another one of Scien's bones as he reaches forward to grab hold of him in reflexive panic.
"Scien—! Your shoulder!"
"It's nothing I haven't dealt with before, I just need--"
"Is it broken?! It looks like it might be broken! I'll call a doctor, just give me a moment--"
"You're still holding on to my shoulder, don't move--"
Several minutes (and the reminder that there is no better doctor than himself) later, and Scien is patching up his own broken shoulder. Lucas sits on the couch beside him with his face in his hands. Scien leaves him to his mental hamster wheel for the time being, though he can feel those nervous, guilty eyes on him every time Lucas looks up.
Finally, he punctures the silence.
"Scien," Lucas starts, stops, and starts again. "I think something is wrong with me."
"So this isn't your means of rebellion?"
Even now, Lucas looks at him with the faintest energy of a man who wants nothing more than to throw him from the window. At least this lets Scien know that he'll be fine, even in the face of this new, additional guilt. He continues speaking before Lucas can gripe.
"Nothing is wrong with you," he first corrects, then continues. "In the same way that any healthy, young person grows stronger over time, you're also still in that period of growth."
Lucas blinks.
"...I'm still growing?"
"Not in height, no. Your brain is at its limit, too."
Lucas resists the urge to throw the pillow beside him at Scien, allowing him to escape with his life intact, if only because his arm wasn't so lucky.
"—But in terms of strength. And this is... normal?"
"Yes, it is. Though as usual, your bizarre body takes it to an extreme that would be difficult to find in the average populace."
Even though this exact type of normalcy was restored to Arpéchéle years ago, it's not like everyone adjusted overnight to a new reality. Especially people like Lucas. The idea that growth was a normal part of making it past twenty-three had clearly never once occurred to him.
Rather, it was a miracle that he clung to the vitality and strength he had well into his twenty-second year already. He'd never thought to hope for more.
He looks down at his hands as Scien finishes securing his injured arm expertly to ensure the best recovery.
"...I'll need to do something about this."
Clearly his usual levels of caution and the tricks he relied on for years no longer cut it, and now the very person he protects has suffered for it. It just won't do at all.
Scien arches a brow.
"You make it sound like you already have something in mind."
"I have an idea or two, yes."
-
Naturally, training is the first option that comes to Lucas' mind.
It's undeniable that his relationship with his father was... complex, at best. It's also undeniable that he loathed enduring the training of his youth. He hated every minute in which he felt like metal being bent, twisted, forged into something lethal.
But it was only through careful training that he mastered his strength in the first place.
The sun rises on the sleepy island of Arpéchéle. Two men stand near the edge of a field dotted with white and red lycoris flowers.
"Haha, this already feels nostalgic...! It takes me right back to training days with the Corps. Waking up early and going through practice with everyone was always so much fun, and sharing meals after was even better!"
Yves turns to face Lucas with a wide and sunny smile, and Lucas can't help the tide of fondness that sweeps through him. Even years later, even with teaching no longer his primary employment, his former students hold such a large part of his heart. For his own sake, he simply refuses to think about what those meals may have looked like with Yves on kitchen duty.
"I imagine that you still train often now that patrols are more organized," Lucas muses. He circles around to an opening between the flowers. Rather than avoiding them for fear of death, he now cherishes them for the beautiful symbol of healing they've become.
"Mm, that's true," Yves replies, bouncing on his toes. "But now that I'm thinking about it, we never really got around to training properly together, did we? It was just fighting. That's not the same at all!"
Lucas laughs, the sharpness of his cuspids showing.
"My dear, I believe you're one of very, very few who would meet me in battle and still agree to train with me after."
There is a faint pull, some ghost of guilt, but it doesn't hang nearly so heavily over Lucas' shoulders these days as it once had. He's able to brush it aside, keeping the mood light.
Yves seems dauntless. His hand drops down to his side and he withdraws a rapier made specifically for training. Lucas, likewise, moves into an offensive posture with his own. It's made of wood to ensure no lethal harm - ignoring the fact that even a feather could be lethal in the hands of Bourreau.
"Well, then, Monsieur Proust," Yves lightly teases before dropping into a mirroring stance. "En garde!"
He rushes forward, elegant and powerful from every bit of training he'd also endured over the years.
In an ideal version of events, Lucas raises his rapier to fend off the blow, perhaps struggles to determine how much strength he needs to send Yves back, and counters. The counter might be a touch too strong. Maybe he would knock Yves off balance a little and, laughing and apologizing, he'd right the man and dust him off, and they would try again.
In this version, Lucas parries with just a little too much force and Yves' rapier snaps in two on first contact.
"Woah—?! That was fast! How did that even happen!?"
Yves sounds more startled than anything. Lucas, on the other hand, is rather glad that he insisted against starting with actual weapons. He's no longer scraping by on a teacher's meager salary, but he would certainly feel awful if he broke Yves' real sword, even if he could offer to replace it.
With a sigh, Lucas fetches the fallen half of the rapier from the ground.
"Oh, my... It can't possibly be that I've grown even stronger in the few days since I last tested my swing...?"
And yet, a mere flex had splintered metal. His brow pinches a little as Yves moves to take the rest of his rapier from Lucas' hand. He sets both halves down in a patch of grass, moving to pick up a spare blade. They brought extras just in case, though neither anticipated needing one so early.
"It's fine! Just a little setback, right? We can try again."
So they do.
Again, and again, and again.
After sending another five training rapiers to an early grave regardless of how lightly he struck or how gently he parried, Lucas sits on a fallen log nearby with an air of defeat.
Yves stares at the graveyard of cheap metal for a few sweaty moments before trailing after him, attempting to lift his spirits.
"Well! We can just come back to this idea later, right? Maybe we can start with something else...?"
He feels a bit relieved when Lucas seems to perk up on hearing the suggestion.
"Now that you've mentioned it, there is something else I was considering... Would you mind continuing to lend me a hand, dear?"
"Of course not!"
Surely Yves was imagining the faint twinkle of amusement that catches in his former teacher's eye. Just a trick of the light.
-
"...I'm not sure how I feel about the sense of nostalgia this time..."
In an effort to avoid resigning himself to a lifetime in self-imposed solitary confinement, Lucas next turns to a tried-and-true bit of wisdom that he often implements when dealing with both his younger students and his boss alike.
When in doubt, tucker them out.
Physical exertion and exercise seems the quickest way to do everything he needs, after all. It cuts into stamina reserves, knocks down energy and, most importantly, exhausts strength.
He stands with folded hands and an angelic smile, but for once, Yves feels like he can understand why Bourreau was called a devil.
"I promise it won't be anything like the training that you had to endure at my father's hands. It's just a game, after all," Lucas reassures.
Adolphe and Hugo, who had also been roped in, look even less convinced than Yves.
"A game of catch, right?" Hugo eyes Lucas with particular wariness. Lucas can't hold it against him, given his sordid history with Relivers.
"I think we should have a safe zone or a signal if we need to tap out."
Adolphe, the once-sole keeper of knowledge regarding Lucas' inhuman strength, says this without a trace of irony and no small amount of reluctance to be present in general.
"Oh, you're being so silly," Lucas laughs lightly. "But if you'd like, you may rest with dear Ceres if the need arises."
He gestures over to where Ceres sits on a picnic blanket under the shade of a small copse of trees, waving to her as she waves back. Though still in recovery and unable to join in, she wanted to cheer everyone on (and perhaps ensure there were no accidental fatalities).
"Alright!" Yves nods. "Ceres' tree is the safety zone, then. Any others? Ah, and we should probably set a limit to how long we can be there."
Hugo elbows him in the side for derailing his genius plan of indefinitely camping in the safety zone. Yves lets out a soft oof.
Eventually, they settle on a few rules.
One: everyone would get a full ten minutes for a head start before the game began.
Two: Ceres' blanket would stay the only safety zone, and it could only be visited three times through the course of the game. Each visit must be five minutes or less.
Three: if anyone truly feared for their life, they could use the word "lycoris" to drop out.
Yves and Lucas thought the last rule rather silly, but Adolphe and Hugo had insisted, for some strange reason.
Lucas folds his hands behind his back and smiles peaceably.
"Well, then. Shall we begin on the count of three? One... two... three!"
The three men streak off into the forest like the devil is already hot on their heels. Lucas meanders over to Ceres' side, watching as Hugo and Yves nearly trip over each other. Adolphe hurriedly yells something along the lines of "we can't all go in the same direction!" as they vanish into the brush.
"They're quite cute, aren't they?"
"I don't think I've seen Adolphe run that quickly in ages," Ceres says, a hand held up to politely obscure the amused smile on her face. "And you haven't even begun to chase them yet."
"Well, it's a good thing for me that they're taking this seriously. I wouldn't be able to tire myself out otherwise, would I? And ten minutes ought to be more than enough time for them to get decently far away."
As it turns out, ten minutes was not enough time.
"Mercy, mercy, mercy—!"
"I think I saw him...! Over there! Over th— He's coming closer!!"
"I told you we shouldn't all go in the same direction!! I told you!!"
For a while, any pedestrian walking through the forests on the eastern side of the island would have heard similarly concerning shouts, along with ominous crashes and booms.
Over and over, Lucas would return to the clearing. He would be carrying one, two, or even all three of the men over his shoulders like sacks of potatoes, or tucked under his arms. The head start shifted from ten minutes, to fifteen, to even an entire half-hour.
By midday, a small crowd joined Ceres beneath the tree, drawn by the same intrigue that leads people to attend a circus. Hugo's little sisters came to, according to the eldest, watch him embarrass himself. Mathis joined on his way back from delivering the lunch Jean had forgotten. He stayed out of an abundance of concern for his poor friends, who may very well be living out their last moments any time they disappeared into the foliage.
Even Nadia and Scien stopped by during Nadia's daily walk, having heard of the goings-on through Jean, who had heard it from Mathis via headset.
Together, they watch as Lucas carries the three men back to the starting point again and again. Ceres, Mathis and Nadia offer drinks and a quick rest in the shade. The peanut gallery indulges in some professional heckling.
"Is this the best you can do, Courrune?"
"Come on, growing vegetables can't be the only thing you're good for! Move your legs already!"
"Sh-should we bring the car...? Monsieur Lucas might have a harder time chasing them down if they're driving, don't you think...?"
Five returns become six, then seven. Each time, Adolphe, Yves and Hugo look more haggard, and Lucas looks...
Well. Lucas looks as fine as ever.
On the tenth return, Hugo collapses in front of the picnic blanket and refuses to get up again.
On the twelfth, Adolphe joins Ceres, citing a slight concern for his continued state of existence after witnessing Lucas slip on a patch of moss and accidentally knock an entire tree over when bracing his arm against it to prevent himself from falling.
Finally, after fifteen rounds of tag, even Yves can no longer keep pace.
"Ahaha... I think you've bested us, Monsieur Proust," Yves wheezes, hands on his knees.
Lucas' cheeks are a rosy pink, albeit less from exertion and more from the cold whipping against them. His apologetic smile masks the faint disappointment he feels, directed at his own troublesome body.
"It seems I've pushed you all quite a bit today," he says, surveying Hugo and Adolphe from where they sit beside Ceres, looking pre-deceased. "Thank you for enduring up to now."
Yves shakes his head, looking a little sheepish.
"No need to thank us. It was fun!" He ignores Adolphe's muffled "was it?" from behind him. "But we couldn't really accomplish what you wanted..."
"Oh, it's fine," Lucas waves a hand. "I do actually feel more tired than before, so you've done an excellent job. Thank you, dear."
With careful, careful, careful fingers, he reaches out to fix Yves' wind-toussled fringe and pats him atop his head fondly.
"Now let's go and join the others before the snacks have been eaten up. You must be starving, yes?"
Together, they take the chance to share snacks and refreshments among family and friends. The atmosphere is lively and warm despite the Proust-related training trauma hanging over some of the former Corps members.
It's only on the trip back to the Institute that Lucas sighs out his slight frustration.
Nadia walks ahead of both her elder brother and doctor to chat with passersby, social butterfly that she is. Scien tends to pull up the rear with his slow gait, with Lucas sometimes walking beside Nadia and sometimes falling back alongside Scien to give her space to flourish.
Today, he hangs back just to muse aloud.
"I'm afraid I'm already running out of ideas. Even if that had worked, it isn't as though I could do it every time I needed to mind my strength..."
"That much was obvious," Scien remarks. "But it was still entertaining to watch you drive those three into the ground."
Lucas considers driving an elbow into his side instead, but refrains out of an abundance of caution, eyeing the shoulder that had only just been freed from its sling.
"I'm not here to serve as your entertainment," he instead says, curt but not sharp. "But if you're going to gain some satisfaction from it, then I'll ask for your help in exchange."
Words he may come to regret, he feels, as soon as he sees how quickly a smile appears on Scien's face.
"Since you're finally asking for my help, then I do have a suggestion."
-
So here they are.
Face to face across a table, Lucas' hand delicately placed in Scien's, the empty teacup nestled on its saucer beside him. His stare drifts between Scien's hand and face.
Carefully, bare centimeter by centimeter, the position of their hands shift. Lucas takes hold of Scien's, and Scien takes the opportunity to intertwine their fingers together despite the little noise of concerned protest Lucas makes.
"Go on," he says, giving Lucas' fingers a gentle squeeze. Amusement dances in his eyes, but it lives alongside the insatiable hunger of a scientist waiting to see the results of an experiment.
"I'd rather you not look at me like that," Lucas sighs. There's no real bite to the words, and he soon begins to tighten his grip. Just a fraction, first. Barely-there movement.
When Scien's fingers don't immediately explode into a shower of bone and tissue, he releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd taken and looks up at Scien again.
"It's still fine?"
"Enough of your delay tactics, Proust. We'll both know if it isn't."
Scien earns a frown for his true but completely unnecessary words, and Lucas tightens his grip further. Just a little more. A little more. It isn't until Scien makes some remark about how Lucas' shoulders can't possibly raise any higher that he realizes exactly how tense with nerves he is.
But no matter how much his hold tightens, the crunch of bone that he's so afraid to hear never comes.
Eventually, Lucas is holding the hand in his own with a fair amount of force. It's enough that it's likely uncomfortable even for Scien, but said hand remains perfectly intact.
Lucas blinks. He knows the marvel he feels must be showing on his face already, given the smooth smugness that Scien's expression easily slides into.
"Well?"
Scien's fingers flex beneath his, and Lucas's grip loosens to something more lax.
"...It works," Lucas points out the terribly obvious, to which Scien rolls his eyes.
"Feeling astute today, I see. Anything else?"
"I've never been able to do that before," he adds. As though to punctuate his words, he gives Scien's hand another squeeze. Such a small act. So simple, and yet he's only ever been able to exert unchecked strength in situations that demand the most lethal of him.
"I suppose it must be novel for you to squeeze something without splattering the insides all over the outside," Scien remarks with a nod. Then, he continues in his clinical way. "Side effects?"
"None," Lucas shakes his head. "And the taste was surprisingly pleasant."
Scien reaches out with a free hand to tap the edge of the now emptied teacup, tipping it forward slightly in its saucer.
"Courrune was busy, so I had to use the strawberry extract after all."
Despite the flat affect of his tone, Lucas could easily read it as a tease.
This was Scien's solution.
A cup filled with Lucas' favorite herbal tea and a liquid designed to temporarily restrict his ability to exert the full extent of his body's horrendous strength.
Upon returning to the Brofiise manor, Scien vanished into his personal laboratory. A mere six hours later, he ambled back out with a vial in hand. For a god used to dabbling in life-or-death genetic matters, a problem like this could only be considered trivial in scope, if not in emotional weight for his harried bodyguard.
Once again, Lucas is privy to the proof of god's genius. Six hours to run probabilities and create something with a near 100% chance of success and minimal complications. Six hours to solve all of his problems once again - at least partially.
"It does work well," Lucas continues, brow knitted, "but I can't take this every day. Having an inordinately strong bodyguard that lacks that inordinate strength while on the job is a bit..."
"That you still pretend you wouldn't be formidable even at a fraction of your usual strength says something," Scien says, amused. "But that's where the next part comes in."
"The next part?"
Scien sets his elbow on the table. Though Lucas's grip drops almost completely, their fingers still remain intertwined.
"I already assumed you'd take issue with this as a long-term solution, so think of it as a bandage instead. Something to reach for in the event that you need it. The intent is to keep you from feeling trapped in your own monstrous strength, and for the reprieve to be short enough that you don't feel trapped within that, either."
Lucas frowns primly, but can't argue against the paradoxical notion of feeling trapped in a body he can't control, but being reluctant to permanently part with the destructive strength that's been with him all his life. Scien knows him too well, as ever.
He clears his throat, leaving his agreement unsaid.
"Then you have a separate solution for the long-term?"
"Of course," Scien says. Confident and thorough, as expected. As Lucas waits for him to explain, Scien merely lifts their joined hands.
"You will hold my hand more often."
Lucas is fairly certain that the unnamed emotion he feels reflects back in his blank expression, especially when Scien gives him a familiar look; one that says 'I see I have to explain things to my idiot again'. Which he does.
"Training in a more heavy-handed sense clearly isn't working, and your stamina is too ridiculous for tiring you out to be a reasonable solution, as you've said. Though I can think of a thing or two to test that hypothesis more thoroughly."
Lucas smiles angelically as his grip tightens just enough for Scien's knuckles to pop. Despite the warning, his obnoxious god only laughs.
"Is this another training method, then? A light-handed way of going about things?"
"Exactly."
"And you think it could really be as easy as this?"
"I would say there is hardly anything 'easy' about you holding my hand when you've barely been able to open doors lately without breaking the handles in half, but yes. That's the gist."
Lucas looks down at their hands, turning the idea over in his head. The simple, daily act of adjusting his strength enough to hold someone's hand could be enough. It's how he trained himself to handle more delicate things when he was young, after all. Weaving flowers until fewer stems snapped. Practicing embroidery until he could go an entire session with only one or two broken needles.
Bones, however, are different.
"Surely there are other things I could do instead that would have the same effect? Picking up embroidery again, or cleaning the glass equipment. I would rather not put your hand at risk..."
"Just channel the Bourreau of the past," Scien quips far too lightly. "A few broken fingers would be less annoying than you breaking an entire month's work of beakers in one day. But that is assuming you would fail in the first place."
The phrasing makes it clear. Even if Lucas doubts himself, Scien doesn't doubt Lucas, and who is he to deny the faith of the god that he puts his own faith in?
He presses his lips together.
...Well.
Is it really so terrible to hold the hand of his chosen god more often?
"Very well," he acquiesces. "But you'll allow me to end contact should I feel my strength is particularly unmanageable."
"Fine, as long as I choose when to initiate again."
A couple of stubborn fools, the both of them. Lucas levels Scien a flat look, but eventually sighs and shakes his head. Exasperation and fondness color his heart and expression both.
"It's a deal, then."
"We can begin now."
Scien pulls the hand in his own closer, dusting a lazy kiss against the back of Lucas' knuckles. It's a gesture he'd taken to not that long ago. A small, easy token of affection.
Lucas' cheeks immediately flush, though it's their hands that Scien's eyes are drawn to. In his mild fluster, Lucas' fingers had flexed just a bit.
"...Or after the effects of the tea wears off. It would be setting the both of us up for failure to have you hold my hand in the middle of readjusting to your usual strength."
And on that, they were both in agreement.