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[selfconcept]

Congratulations! You survived the first week of Personal Enrichment Class! Or at least, your body did if you feel like astral projecting. It's time to mingle with your fellow students after the Saturday lesson. Maybe get revenge. Or maybe you're going to your room right away. Either way, it's free time! Let loose. Go wild.

Comments

[pr159]

[ Immediately after the day's events, Rideaux is heading to the nearest bathroom to try to get all this glitter and confetti out of his long hair. Thanks, he hates it.

After that, he's headed to the health room to stock back up on pain medicine, looking through the shelves again just in case something better than basic acetaminophen and ibuprofen magically showed up since the last time he checked.

...Otherwise he'll just be wandering around campus for a while, and stopping by the cafeteria for some coffee and a croissant or something, still looking annoyed by how that whole bomb disaster ended up. ]

bathroom. I'm sorry.

[totalcatastrophe]

[ Luci, perched on the sink is already leaning against the glass with a lit cigarette in his hand. Have a snicker. ]

Hey, what do you call loser glitter-- litter?

[pr159]

[ Who even let this monster into college. ]

I don't know, what do you call a broken clock that you try to pass off as an invention? Oh, right, a piece of shit.

[totalcatastrophe]

We turned a loud piece of shit into a quiet one.

[ Almost comically after a drag, Luci sounds more excited for this antagonism than anything. Finally, someone that reacts. ]

So how'd you manage that bag but fail so hard at a kid's game?

[pr159]

My lovely "partner" decided to have a hand spasm right as I was cutting the wires.

[ And... then he wasted like another 30 seconds himself by being mad about it, and there went about a third of their time. ]

And then the kid who was punching the buttons for the last part stopped to ask an irrelevant question right at the end before putting in the answer and missed the cutoff.

[ None of this was Bennett's fault but thanks to the timing he's getting the blame for it anyway. ]

[totalcatastrophe]

Good 'ole blaming the team, huh? Classic.

[ Luci puff puffs, then he stubs it and tosses it into the sink as he sits on the edge. Because of his size, it actually looks more like a tub for his feet to rest in. Completely innocently, he asks-- ]

Buut aren't Directors supposed to be good leaders or something?

[pr159]

[ Sometimes the team sucks!! ]

Contrary to popular belief, leadership skills actually don't help that much with involuntary muscle movements.

[totalcatastrophe]

Why'd you do the cutting if your pain buddy's got dumb spasms?

[ Too bad he doesn't have an eyebrow to raise. ]

[pr159]

I'm a surgeon and it was a quick job. How was I supposed to know his stupid hand would ignore the odds and pick that precise moment to act up?

[ Also they never actually spoke about the pain-sharing thing... at all... ]

[totalcatastrophe]

Oh, a surgeon. That's the kinda doc that gets to do all the fun stuff, right? Let me guess, you don't use leeches either?

[pr159]

I'm familiar with most aspects of medicine, "fun" and otherwise; surgery is just one of them. ...But no. I don't use leeches.

[ He's not some backwater Rieze Maxian doctor. ]

[totalcatastrophe]

Still sounds like a fancy excuse to stab people and get paid for it.

[ I'm... sorry. ]

Ever treat gout?

[pr159]

[ I mean, he does love stabbing people, so I can't say shit. ]

Not something Spirius agents tend to get, and outside of the company, I deal with medical technology and emergency situations. I don't do primary care.

õwõ

[superstructure]

...

[ Julius adjusts his glasses as he comes in, assumedly with the same idea to restock. This week hasn't really made the constant pain any easier to deal with, especially after today.

So if Rideaux's looking for something else, he'll go for what's readily available instead. There may or may not be some glitter cross-contamination if they bump into each other. It never ends. ]

[pr159]

[ Rideaux knows the sound of Julius's footsteps in those stupid white shoes well enough that he doesn't even have to turn around to see who it is. And he doesn't, keeping his attention solidly fixed on the shelves in front of him. ]

You know, rather than ignoring me, you could thank me for my winning presentation that saved us from being complete laughingstocks.

[superstructure]

[ He gives Rideaux a quick side-glance, before looking back. ]

I could.

[ But he doesn't right away, opting instead to go through the other cabinets, grabbing a thing of gauze just in case. ]

It was a decent team effort, all things considered. It came together pretty well.

[ Is he avoiding saying the presentation specifically just to be a dick? Maybe. ]

[pr159]

[ Of course he is. Rideaux rolls his eyes. ]

You're welcome.

[ And as expected, there's nothing helpful in this cabinet, because why would there be. He shuts its door — not quite a slam, but certainly not gently either — and sighs. ]

Having those flare-ups at the most inopportune moments is probably what you deserve for being enough of an idiot to let it progress that far, but I really don't appreciate being dragged into it.

[superstructure]

[ He chuckles quietly at that, closing the cabinet he's in. But it's gone pretty quickly, and Julius pauses where he is, adjusting his glasses. ]

I think that's better brought up with one of our instructors if it's that much of a bother.

[ But that's obviously not a productive comment, so he turns and looks at him. ]

It's better for it to happen now when the stakes are low than later when that's not guaranteed.

[ Especially since Lorelei said as much at the end there. ]

[pr159]

[ Well, now that he's not the first to cave, Rideaux turns too, crossing his arms. ]

I'm sorry, does it happening now somehow preclude it from also happening later? I didn't realize we were talking about chickenpox.

Maybe this is hard for you to understand, but everything I do requires precision.

[superstructure]

No, but now you know what to expect for when it happens again.

[ Because it's obviously going to. ]

I would just be grateful it doesn't seem to be getting worse.

[pr159]

Because you've been doing such a great job of not letting it catch you off guard these past few years.

[ Clearly knowing what to expect does fuck all. His fingers tap against his arm, and he looks at whatever Julius just got out of that cabinet.


... ]

It goes both ways, right? That's why you're in here?

[superstructure]

[ The most Rideaux gets in reply to that dig is a flash of his lenses, but that's about it. ]

Seems that way. It's been going on since we arrived here last week.

[ There's a bit of tiredness in his tone if you squint, but none of it is really directed in his partner's direction. ]

Call it payback for all the times you're going to have to deal with the arm.

[pr159]

[ He'd figured as much, but he's not sure how he feels about having the confirmation. On one hand, he does love making Julius suffer, and maybe this will make him better appreciate just how impressive his accomplishments have been when he's felt like absolute shit for the entire seventeen years that they've known each other.

But on the other hand, there's a reason he's always kept quiet about his own medical history; his unwillingness to show his weaknesses to anyone — especially Julius — has always been a matter of both pride and survival. ]

Whatever.

[ There's a little less bite than usual in his tone after that, though it's still decidedly acerbic. He's tired too. ]

Unfortunately for you, I can't make the custom medicines I was working on before as long as we're here, so you're going to be enjoying that for the foreseeable future.

[superstructure]

[ He nods in response. He was kind of wondering if that was the case, but if Rideaux is able to at least manage without it, then it probably shouldn't be surprising that it's not available here. No pain sharing without the pain. ]

I'll manage.

[ Just like usual. He holds up the pill bottles he grabbed, before throwing them at Rideaux. ]

You'll probably need these more than me. No sense in me hanging onto them if they're not going to help.

[pr159]

[ Rideaux catches the flying medicine bottles without much trouble, though honestly, couldn't he have just slid these down the counter? ]

...That seems like the most reasonable plan, yes.

[ Which is factually true, so he's not going to thank Julius for using logic or for giving him something he could have easily walked five feet over and gotten for himself. ]