Day 69: Breakfast

[envy_the_sinners]

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!]

Comments

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar frowned, stabbing at his pancakes.

"Did it have ghost-like qualities? Or something else...?"

[fullmetalheart]

"We were kinda distracted by--" Ed cut off with a shiver as he felt what seemed to be an extremely cold hand clamp down on his arm. "What the hell?"

Ed looked down at his arm and didn't see anything. That is, nothing beyond the claw-marks that formed in his arm that proceeded to have blood well up.

[envy_the_sinners]

"The hell-" Scar cursed almost in unison with Edward. Those marks hadn't been there only a moment ago.

"Patients have never been attacked in the day time before." He glanced around the cafeteria, but nobody else seemed to be experiencing anything similar. Back to Edward. He looked closely at the new wounds.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed stared down at his arm and watched a trickle of blood make its way to the table. "I don't believe this."

[envy_the_sinners]

"You don't feel as if you've been poisoned, do you?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed gave Scar a confused look. "Why would I?"

[envy_the_sinners]

"I don't know! I am only trying to cover the bases. Injuries can do strange things, here." And nobody had ever been hurt randomly during the day. "The thing you fought last night. Did it ever land a hit near your arm?" It was the best explanation Scar could think of.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed shook his head as he pressed his right hand against the injury to try to make the bleeding stop. "No. But I did destroy the thing's left arm. Right before the bleeding started, it felt like something cold grabbed me."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar's eyes narrowed.

"And you're certain it wasn't a ghost?"

[fullmetalheart]

"It. Might have been?" Ed stared, as he continued to stare down at his arm as if it betrayed him.

[envy_the_sinners]

"Lust and I encountered a spectral creature several nights ago that inflicted wounds merely by touch," he added by means of explaining himself. "Although the delayed effect is strange. You should at least get something to wrap it, for the time being." Scar took a glimpse around, uncertain if they ought to ask a nurse. He opted not to. He didn't trust the bastards.

[fullmetalheart]

"Wonderful. I wonder how many different kinds of monsters there are," Ed said and tossed his head a bit to get his bangs out of his eyes and also looked around.

[envy_the_sinners]

"This place has been keeping people holed up for months. One would think a list of the beasts would have been compiled, by now." But he had never heard of one. Perhaps they were changed and switched out too often for that to be possible?

Or everyone was too busy fighting for their own lives to take the time to make such a list.

"And the library is useless, so I have heard. There is no way to research. No true information anywhere."

[fullmetalheart]

Ed forgot about his arm and stared at Scar. "There's no science books?"

[envy_the_sinners]

"Only fictional nonsense, so I have heard."

[fullmetalheart]

"Damn," Ed grumbled. "Looks like I get to ignore the library unless I'm desperate for reading material."

[envy_the_sinners]

"There are more important things to be done than reading, anyway."

Speaking of research, though...

"What have you heard about this supposed 'cure?'"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm real sure I'm gonna be allowed to do anything worthwhile during the day. Anyway, it's a flower called St. John's Wort."

[envy_the_sinners]

"I am nothing of a botanist... What does it look like?" He ignored the sarcastic comment. Even Scar was learning that he had to step rather lightly around Edward's childishly fiery attitude.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed shrugged. "No idea. If Al was told, he didn't tell me. I'm sure that someone from back home could tell us, but he's not here, and doesn't need to be here. He's got a little brother to take care of."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar nodded.

"I will ask someone else. But has it been used? Does it work?"

With the now slim chance that Frank was still alive, he needed to know.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed chewed on his lip as he tried to remember everything Al told him. "He didn't say."

Then he remembered a bit of his and Lust's conversation. "Lust told me that she found one for you."

[envy_the_sinners]

"Did she?" Scar rolled his eyes, frustrated. It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. Why was she wasting her own time for the damn cure? And if she found one, she should have given it to Frank. He was the one who was actually transforming!

Not that it mattered, now.

"Did she at least give it to someone else?"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed shrugged. "I have no clue."

[envy_the_sinners]

Another look of frustration.

Scar got to finishing his breakfast in silence. Prolonged conversation had never been his strength. Hell, this was probably the longest continuous conversation he had had since arriving!

Instead, Scar's eyes drifted up to Alphonse and lingered there. It was somehow not strange at all to see him like this, whole and human. His kindhearted demeanor had always shown through during his days in the suit of armor. Now it was even stronger. And now that Scar knew what they had been through...

Alphonse was everything Scar could have been, if he had only been stronger. This boy's suffering had shaped him into a compassionate and strong willed young man. Scar had only let it break him. It was a painful reminder of how weak he truly was.

But it was also why he was so fiercely protective of both the Elric boys.