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Mordred says that Lev is supposed to go off his medications and tell Mordred if he's not feeling well and needs to taper down more slowly.
Obviously, the thing this means is that Lev is supposed to taper down as quickly as possible and hide the tremors and headaches and sweating and light hypersensitivity from Mordred so that he isn't upset by them.
Lev manages to do this for almost two days.
"That's not a -- that's not a knowledge kind of power," he says, his face twisting in a kind of almost-grin. "I was doing that and I don't understand anything."
"Echavarria believed he could cast spells and perform rituals that would give him things he wanted. Alter the weather, or cure the sick, or curse his enemies... Of course I thought they were-- hysteria and hypnosis and expectations. Nothing supernatural. But."
"Who knows. Anemone did catch on fire, no telling what else could be set up. And -- if there's kinds of beings we cannot yet understand, maybe there's kinds of actions and consequences that we can't understand. It's a vast universe, and all that."
"Yeah. Imagine how magical a radio would seem to a hunter gatherer. Or the eldritch rituals you would perform to turn it on..."
"Especially the strange acts you'd need to complete if it was broken. And radios are odd, they'd seem like nothing until there was a broadcast to pick up. A single radio on a planet wouldn't make any sense to them at all." He leans into him. "I wonder what's out there."
He grips it tight. Not so hard it hurts, he trusts some that it's not going to disappear if he lets up, but enough that it feels solid.
"It was -- it felt like my head was on fire. Sort of. I don't know. Maybe like... everything was screaming. And then my head stopped swirling into chaos and I was on the ground and she was there."
"Yeah. It's like that. It feels like-- it's made up. Like a story you read. Except for the parts that are so real you can't stop thinking about them."
"I'm not sure it's really stopped feeling like that. I think -- I think seeing Lacie there was the last time anything felt real."
"Well, nothing horrible has happened since then. If you start drowning it will feel real again. I think that was Dr. Keaton's treatment strategy."
"...Drowning you?" Surely that's a metaphor for something but he can't work out what it could possibly be.
"Hydrotherapy. It's a shock to the system. Resets the psychotic and turns them normal. --It didn't work, obviously."
"I don't... think I... have... that response... to being in danger. Or. Uh. In the moment it's like screaming but I don't remember much afterwards. --Did he throw you in the water and see what would happen???"
"There was, uh, medical equipment. I assume there were precautions taken such that I did not drown."
"I -- I would hope so?" Contrary to what he's just claimed this does seem to be an effective philosophy. For instance this terrible absurdity he's just been presented with has shocked him into turning his brain all the way on.
"It would be a grave setback to Dr. Keaton's research and the reputation of the hospital if I died." It is unclear to what extent he is joking.
"Well from what I'e heard from the others in the end his reputation got awfully set back anyways, so..." he was going somewhere with this but he's not sure he has a non-terrible ending. "...I'm glad you're here now."
"I am also glad I am here. It has been several weeks and no one has tried to drown me or hit me which suggests that this might be much less common in this living situation than in previous ones."
"I don't think anyone's ever tried to drown me, if that tells you anything." ...He reaches out and knocks on wood.
More quietly: "I don't want you to get hurt."
He squeezes his hand tighter, presses his arm against Lev's arm where he can. "This feels real. I think."
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