Day 71: Patient Library (Third Shift)

[freewill]

It wasn't often that Castiel was left to his own devices here, but during the meal shift he actually sat alone for the entirety of it. He didn't necessarily enjoy the solitude, but this place had forced him into more interaction with strangers and more specifically with humans than he had ever been prepared for. He had been managing because there were at least a few others here like him -- not angels (save for one), but other non-humans who struggled to understand the strange species. People like Lust, for instance.

Given a choice of where to go, the library was almost always Castiel's choice, but in this case he had even more reason for it. He and Kratos had gone there last night and found the switch to the hidden passage with little trouble, but he would still be interested to see it all by the light of day -- and also to see what would happen if that book was grabbed for when it wasn't nightshift.

His nurse sighed at his decision, but didn't argue with him beyond that, allowing him to step into the quiet space of the library. "Well, go ahead," she said, waving him off even as her sharp eyes watched his back retreat into the aisles.

It had been the middle one, and a quick glance around proved that there was no sign of the creature they'd pinned under the shelves. Like always, any sign of their nighttime activities was gone by morning. Castiel started down the middle aisle, keeping a lookout for The Oxford Book of English Verse.

[For Soushi.]

Comments

[armoredsoul]

Such was always the problem with a country beset with war--everyone on the other side became 'other', inhuman. Al remembered how the men of the village would talk about 'the barbarian Ishballans' and their animal-like ignorance. It wasn't until Al met Scar that he himself was able to see completely past that lie.

"I doubt it. Something like that, just...it wouldn't be sustainable, for one thing. The population would run out of control after a few years, as people kept having kids and the old didn't die to make room for them." Nevermind that the moral implications made him shudder. If death--even violent ones--meant nothing, then murder would surely increase as the concept solidified in the mind of the populace. What would it matter if the man you shot and killed would be walking around again the next day?

[envy_the_sinners]

"My thought exactly." Bringing the dead to life... The thought still made Scar uneasy and angry, even though it had happened to him twice. How could he do it? How had he cracked the secret to bringing a human to life when so many brilliant alchemists had tried and failed? He was not driven by loss or love... only madness.

Unless that was the key all along. That he did not care the pain he caused his victims, the disorienting mess that was dying and waking again.

"Maybe he can do it because he simply does not care." Because humans were playthings. Humans... But he hadn't taken exclusively humans, had he? And still, there was the connection between the four of them that nobody alive should have known of. Of all the people in their world, they had been the ones to show up here.

And it didn't matter how much Scar thought about it. The answers weren't going to magically come to him.

[armoredsoul]

"...it could be. That was why the men at the Fifth Lab were able to achieve what they did." Marta, Dorchette, Roa...even that false Nina. All of them had suffered at the hands of those deranged scientists, all for the sake of 'progress'. "If you don't care what happens to your failures, there's no reason to not try."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar remained silent at Al's words. Taboos just because they could? The flash of the memory was inevitable- his brother, bleeding and pale, shuffling out of his house like he had just failed a math exam. Had that been why? An excuse to give it a try? It made Scar feel sick to his stomach.

Part of him was convinced that the notion was ridiculous. That his brother had been delusional, obsessed... That his sanity had been breaking long before he had begun to develop the Stone. And even though Scar had come to terms with the fact that he did not, could not hate his brother, he couldn't push all bitterness away. That he had let himself become something so much less...

But what of the Elric brothers? Why could he see their sin as more of a tragedy than something for which they needed to be punished? The reasons, he supposed, he had been through in his mind all before.

Finally, he nodded with one small addition-

"Depending on the circumstance."

[armoredsoul]

Al blinked, glancing over to Scar before he realized what the older man meant. Looking away quickly, he nodded with an acute sense of embarrassment and shame. He could still remember Tucker's taunts, claiming that he and Edward weren't any different from him...much as he wanted to deny it, there might be a shred of objective truth to that. "...yeah."

[envy_the_sinners]

Scar was silent for another long moment before closing the book and putting it back on the shelf. The intercom soon went off, and he glanced to the door as the nurses approached.

"Come on." Scar placed a hand on Al's back, urging him gently toward the door. He wasn't about to vocalize what he was thinking, even if it was Alphonse. He hardly needed to explain what was on his mind, anyway. The boy already knew.

[armoredsoul]

Al looked up at the other man, offering a small smile after a moment. It wasn't much, but it was a comfort that someone else knew, understood the pain. "Yeah."

He closed and shelved his book as well, following along with Scar.