damned_institute | Day 69: Breakfast

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Day 69: Breakfast

Scar scowled, both relieved and angry that he had woken up once again in his own bed. That lanky man who had become his new roommate on the night of his death was sound asleep one bed over.

This was coming to be the new "normal." It was infuriating.

As always, he begrudgingly followed his nurse into the cafeteria and took a seat. He preferred to file in with the majority of the patients in order to avoid sticking out, but no such luck this morning.

Scar stared at his food rather than starting in on it, despite the newly found appetite that had been lost thanks to that blasted sickness. He had a lot to think about. He hadn't managed to find Frank last night. The damn intercom had beaten him to it. And judging by Tsubaki's reaction to him, he had been out for at least a day's time. How many had noticed? Cared? It couldn't have been many.

But it was the few who did whose detection Scar was desperate to avoid.

[Eddyyyy!]

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"Finish your food," Ed said gently. "That way if you also find you aren't hungry come lunch time, you won't be quite as hungry during supper."

Scar shot a glare at Edward. No, he didn't feel like eating. He didn't feel like doing a damn thing until he could be sure that Frank was okay.

"I'll be fine," he said stiffly.

Ed finished his own food. "Scar, eat. Not eating won't do you any good."

Ed eyed the serving area for a moment, wondering if he could get seconds before turning his attention back to Scar.

Scar resumed eating his pancakes just to shut the boy up. Stubborn brat.

"Any more brilliant words of advice?" His sarcasm wasn't evident in his tone, rather his voice was flat and unamused as it always was.

"Yes. Get used to the fact that I'm a stubborn bastard and that we'll have lots of arguments," Ed said drily.

"Or you could mind your own business and leave me be," he shot back.

Ed gave him a cheerful smile. "Nope! You're stuck having me fuss at you too."

Scar only sat there, staring at Edward with his mouth agape.

"Are you always this aggrivating?" He was nothing like his brother! Brash, and stubborn, and...

Just like Scar.

"Yep. Don't worry, I'm not saving it just for you," he assured him.

Ed remembered the existence of his juice and drank some, making a face. "I wish they had coffee. I wake up better in the mornings with it."

Scar was silently brooding for several minutes, still occasionally poking at his breakfast.

"Is there anything else that I ought to know?" He looked up to Edward. "About what happened at home."

"Um." Ed thinks for a moment. "We found out that Bradley's a homunculus. I told Mustang after he hunted me down in the forest outside Resembool. I'm pretty sure he's planning to do something about him."

Ed eyed Scar carefully. "Please don't explode or someone may come to stab you with a needle." And possibly stab him with one for being the cause.

"The Fuhrer?" Scar's jaw dropped. "You mean he was with those others you talked about?" Another matter he would be taking up with the Institute's resident homunculus.

"So he was behind the Ishbal extermination? And Liore?" His hands clinched to fists, fury returning to his expression.

"More like whoever's behind the homunculii are behind it," Ed corrected. "But you're otherwise right."

Ed's lips thinned. "He'd also be behind the death of someone I knew, I'm betting, because I think he knew that Hughes was investigating things after I told him what happened at Lab 5."

"He must have been behind it. Lust and her pet and one other homunculus were there. Which means that the military should have known about it from the start..." This was giving Scar a headache. "Goddammit." He slammed his fist against the table again.

"Everything was a goddamn hoax. All for the..." Scar stopped, his heart skipping a beat. Homunculi were after the Stone, were they not? So was that the goal the entire time? To arrange a perfect opportunity for the Stone?

"All they ever wanted was the Philosopher's Stone," he finally murmured.

"Yes," Ed confirmed with a nod. "At least Lust was told that use of it could make her human. But she was lied to. If it was possible, she and the others would have been in the first place. Yes, the body can be recreated, but the soul can't, because there's nothing that could be paid that's worth one."

Ed started to run his right hand through his hair, remembered just in time about no gloves and switched to his left. "I don't know who was behind them or what it was really intended for."

"I know how that works," he said shortly. But this place's affects did raise the question of what, exactly, was a homunculus. Lust could not heal as she could, before. Though she still had some semblance of her weapons intact.

"What's behind their memories, then?" It was an honest question, one almost painful to ask, and one that had plagued him since Lust had mentioned their existence several days ago. It threw a wrench in everything. Memories cannot simply be created and tied to a creature, could they? And Scar knew that his brother had never attempted to create a replica, so why would he have attached fake memories to Lust's being?

It bothered him far more than he let on.

And that did leave the question: why have pawns create a Stone to begin with? What use could a person have for it? A person who was somehow more important than the Fuhrer of Amestris?

"I don't know," Ed admitted. "I think I'm going to be asking Lust stuff sometime during the next few days to help try to figure shit out. Maybe it's because when made, the only thing missing is the soul and that they otherwise would have been the same if it wasn't for whoever getting their hands on them. After all, they were made to be the person the alchemist making them wanted back."

Meaning, if it weren't for Dante, Scar and his brother would have had the woman Lust originally was back.

Scar's eyes narrowed. He wasn't exactly certain of what Edward was getting on about, but...

"You mean brain washing?"

Ed nodded grimly. "I think so. One of the things Sloth said was something to the effect that she hated me because she couldn't hate me and maybe getting rid of me would help stop whatever conflict was going on in her head."

That touch of pity had returned to Scar's gaze. His own brother's sin had become one of the first people in a very long time to actually care about him.

He wasn't sure which outcome was worse.

"So does that mean that emotions are left over as well?"

Ed nodded again, trying to ignore the pity so he wouldn't become snappish. "I think so."

Scar went back to staring at his plate.

"Then what makes a homunculus different from a human?" A soul was the source of emotions and memory. It was what made humans human, as far as Scar was concerned.

Yet he was desperate to find some discrepancy. He wasn't asking for the sake of devil's advocate, or defending homunculi. No, he was trying to find the flaw.

Ed sighed. "Honestly, it would probably be best to pick Lust's brain on this. I would guess it's the lack of soul."

If Ed could read Scar's mind he'd pick out the flaws in his thinking.

Scar grumbled at that.

"I already have enough to take up with her."

There was too much going on at once. He was worried about Frank, and by effect many others. And Edward had just told him about the Fuhrer, which opened doors and closed them and drew connections Scar never could have made on his own. And he still had to deal with the fact that he had somehow survived, as well as others finding out that he had somehow survived.

Ed scratched at the back of his neck. "Did I overload you with too much information?"

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