damned_institute | Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

Hitsugaya left the chapel no less frustrated than before. The head doctor once again had chosen not to hide his face, yet promised he would be making an appearance at some time in the near future. He didn't like being patient, but there wasn't much choice. Either the head doctor would show his face, or he wouldn't. Renji had already seen him, and knew how to find him. That was enough.

The thought of eating made him slightly nauseous as usual, but he knew he needed to get his strength up. He could either be weak and try to force his way through brunch without eating anything, or he could be smart and actually give himself something to eat. And there was rice. Rice and fruit. He took a heaping pile of rice, and grabbed as much watermelon as he could fit on his plate, then proceeded to an empty table. He scanned the room, watching for Momo. He wasn't exactly looking forward to their conversation, knowing how she'd acted yesterday; however, he knew he had to speak to her, and there was a good chance that she would show more restraint now that the drugs were out of her system.

Thoughtfully he consumed his rice and waited.

[free at the moment, pester if you wish]

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Unlike everyone else, Lust decided to forgo a large breakfast. She wasn't in the mood for food. Her nerves were still raw from the previous night, and she found the more anxious and irritated she was, the less food interested her. Human bodies were ridiculously illogical.

With nothing but a bit of fruit on her plate, Lust took a seat across from Edward. He was better company than most, she supposed. Though she was beginning to wonder where Scar had gotten himself to this time.

She didn't bother with pleasantries, only nodded to the alchemist as she sat down.

Plenty of sugar. He went through it at a ridiculous rate, the automail leeching energy and heat from his body to keep it working. One of the sacrifices that had to be made in exchange for its strength.

He'd eaten about half of the plate of food before Lust joined him and he looked up at her with a smile, glad to see that she was still okay, although he wasn't quite sure when he'd come to consider her a sort-of friend. "Hey. How are you? Eh, other than the general being here part."

"No better or worse than usual, I suppose." Lust shrugged, stabbing at a piece of fruit with one of the ridiculous plastic utensils that were offered. "Visiting day once more."

The previous visiting day was still fresh in her mind, and her expression turned closed and unreadable at the mention of it. Would he come again? And would he remember her? Would that small spark of the Ishabalan alchemist he had been remain, or had it already been crushed by whatever powers altered their memories?

Ed visibly winced at the mention of the visitors, the memory of last time still vivid in his memory. He set aside his fork for now, his appetite suddenly vanishing as he thought about it. His mother... they'd taken his mother and made her believe this lie. He hated it, hated them all.

"I wish I knew if it was really them, or just some... I dunno... illusion or something." It had seemed so real though, if it were an illusion.

"It's them."

There was no doubt in Lust's mind. Not after how he had looked at her, the name he'd called her by in that instant when she'd shaken him and shouted at him to remember. He had.

"He knew my true name. My first name."

That... that made it infinitely worse. Ed swallowed thickly as Lust explained and stared down at his automail hand on the table. It was really them. "I thought it was," he said quietly. "No-one else could be exactly like her." She'd known everything about him, touched him in the same way. Everything. How though had they brought her back when Ed had failed?

His eyes widened slightly when she mentioned her true name. "From before...?" he asked warily. "They really do know everything."

"There are only three people in this institute who know the name I carried when I was first human," Lust confirmed. "Myself, our Ishbalan friend, and the girl with the ability to look into minds who pulled it from my memories. And the man who came to see me last week knew. It was at the end. But he remembered, if only for a moment. They are still in there, Edward. Their memories of who they were before this place remain. They simply need to be unearthed." She pushed her food around on her plate, the sick feeling in her stomach growing.

"It's strange. I remember him, from when I was first made. And I remember him from when I was human - when I was dying in that human body. He screamed for me not to leave him, and I told him I loved him. But I feel nothing for him now. I should - he loved me, he sacrificed his flesh and his mind to give me life, and I loved him before. And I feel nothing for him."

She didn't know why she was speaking to Edward about this - perhaps because she had spoken to his brother on these subjects, and his brother was gone, so Edward served as a substitute. He could still understand, perhaps. In a way.

Ed's eyes widened at her story. So, they really were the people that they claimed, just... made to not remember the truth, but some twisted version of it instead. His mother... it had all been so similar to what had really happened, enough to make him doubt for a while. "They leave enough to match up with out own memories, enough to make it seem plausible if we were weaker willed." Of course, if that was the truth, it meant that he couldn't leave here until he'd saved her and... and Al. She'd said that he was with her.

It was odd, hearing such private things from Lust, but maybe he could understand a little. "There's a boy here called Alfons," he said, trying to get the right intonation so she didn't think he was talking about Al. "And he knows me from... from sometime in the future I think. He seemed really close to that me, but I can't feel the same because I'm not that person. We're different to the people who were involved with them so we can't feel the same."

"Just enough," Lust agreed. "I remember when they first told me about the life I supposedly live in this world. It was strikingly similar - disarming, even. I don't know how they can possibly know, but they do. They know everything." And they used it as a weapon - which was smart of them. She had to admit that they were good at what they did.

"I've met him," she said, referring to Alfons. "The similarities are striking. I've heard that there are versions of us, in his world and I must admit I'm curious. But the difference is you don't remember this boy. I remember Mattias. I remember the life I had with him, if only in fragments. And I feel as though I should have some feeling for him. Or feel guilt for where my affections lie. Or at the very least feel grateful to him for my existence. But I don't. There's simply nothing. Human emotions are complicated, vexing things. How do you manage to live with them?"

Either they had some way of finding out everything about their lives, or... or... no, he didn't want to think of that possibility. There was too much to back up his own version of events anyway. Would Lust and Mustang and Hughes remember the same things if they'd never happened? Would everyone else acknowledge his alchemy if it weren't actually real? No. It was real. He knew the truth, they all did.

Ed nodded in agreement. "I though that he was a trick at first. Something the Institute created to try and mess things up more. I was pretty nasty to him," he added sheepishly. He felt terrible for it now.

"We just..." He didn't really know. "I just ignored them most of the time, or got angry and removed to source of that anger. I fixed things." He really wasn't the best person to be talking too about this. Things were complicated enough as it was.

"He seems to be a nice enough young man," Lust said, more out of politeness than anything else. "We didn't speak much. But your brother and I were close, when he was here, and I suppose I found myself drawn to the other boy because of it." She shrugged. Alfons seemed a perfectly decent boy, but she had little personal feeling for him.

"The latter tends to do little. I tried it once, the first time I felt for a man. Those feelings went away, but returned eventually. Now I can't stop them. They cloud everything, it's...irritating. And there's nothing to fix. I don't think. I simply don't know how to deal with these illogical decisions I keep making, and this... dependency on other people. And this desire to do things for others."

"Yeah, he does. He's nice. I just can't help but see Al instead of him." It felt terrible to think of him that way, rather than as his own person, but it was so difficult to look at him and see the shadow of the person Ed wanted to see more than anyone.

He listened quietly as Lust spoke, not entirely sure how to react to what she was saying. He was human, had never been anything but, so he wasn't sure what he could say to... to reassure her? That didn't sound right. Finally he shrugged. "People don't know how to deal with them at the best of times," he said honestly. "I know that I don't. We just... stumble through it."

"I believe I can understand that, in a way." She had been on the other side, at least. It was understandable. The boy looked like Alphonse Elric. What else would Edward see?

"Emotions are troubling things." Lust's tone was almost bitterly amused now, as she leaned back and glanced around the room. "Isn't it funny? All I wanted was humanity, and now that I have it..." She gave a small laugh. "I can't stand it. What is that saying? 'Be careful what you wish for, or you may receive it'?"

Ed nodded and thewn scowled as he caught sight of Homura talking to Tamaki. His... his friend didn't look happy. What had that bastard said to him?!

He turned his attention back to Lust because otherwise he'd probably go and storm over there demanding answers. And embarrass Tamaki.

"Be careful what you wish for, huh?" Ed murmured. "Yeah, it seems that way with a lot of things." He'd wished for the Stone so badly and in the end, it had been made from so many lives.

"Edward tell me something." Lust steepled her fingers and fixed the boy with a piercing look. She hadn't entirely changed the subject, though it sounded as she had.

"What do you think is beyond these walls? Do you imagine all of this world is like the part we glimpsed yesterday?"

"Hm?" Ed said, looking back at Lust and tearing his thoughts away from Tamaki. "What is it?" He'd definitely try to answer.

He listened to the question and thought about it for several moments, giving it the consideration that it deserved. "It's difficult to tell," he said honestly. "That town... it might be that we can trust the man on the radio who said that it didn't have a connection to this place, but it was still weird. They had nothing about the history or geography of this world." It had given him the creeps. "But... Just from what I've heard, I don't think it's a world that I want to explore further. I don't trust it."

"Do you really think so?" Lust rested her chin on her hand, thoughtful. "Let us be honest - it is doubtful we will leave this world. This place, perhaps. But this world?"

She had thought on it, a great deal. Attempted to discuss it with Scar, but as any man, he had shied away from discussing the future.

That... that was a horrible thought and Ed's face fell upon hearing it. "Maybe," he said quietly, because as a scientist he couldn't afford to think over all of the options, no matter how unpalatable they might have been. "But it doesn't mean I have to like it." He wasn't even attached to his own home, but there was Al there so Ed had to be there too. And the thought of being without alchemy like this forever was terrible!

"I'm stubborn. I can't settle anywhere until I'm with Al."

"Can you not take comfort in the fact he is in a far friendlier and hospitable place?" Lust wasn't one to shy away from difficult truths or possibilities. And it was something that weighed on her mind. Edward was as good a person as any to discuss it with - volatile and stubborn as he was, he was bright enough.

"I have no liking for this place, but the truth remains: what chance do we have of returning home? And what of us who are... no longer among the living? In the truest sense. How are we to return, hmm? You said yourself I was killed. And how many other of our number met with the same fate?"

Well, there was that. But he shook his head anyway. "Last thing I remember before here, we weren't exactly in a friendly and hospitable place. He was about to get eaten." And even if people assured him that things worked out alright, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe it.

"I wish I knew," he said quietly, his hands clenching on the edge of the table. How many people had died before he met them again here? Hughes was the obvious one, but there was Lust too, he hadn't wanted to see her dead. Even Scar. Not to mention the people from other worlds. "Too many. And even if I could go home... it hurts to think about not seeing some of my... my friends again. I'm not supposed to need anyone except Al. I guess this is what you meant by stupid emotions, huh?" he added dryly.

"From what I understand, your brother was fine." Lust shrugged. She wasn't skilled in comforting others. "The two of you have an uncanny knack for survival."

She tilted her head, thinking over what he added. "Yes. Attachments are weaknesses. And yet... to be without them is a weakness as well. And here... I suppose there are those I, too, would feel the loss of. Though look at the situation in this manner: remain here, and you have your mother. Alive and well and human. Is that not a tempting prospect?"

He supposed that was true. From what he'd heard, even dying couldn't keep them down. "I know," he replied. "It still sucks that everyone knows more about what happens than I do, but it's difficult to believe it when I haven't seen it myself."

The thought of having his mother back... ah, there was something that he'd dreamed about for so long. But it wasn't something that would happen. It couldn't. "It's tempting," he admitted. "But she doesn't remember me, she remembers the person this place wants me to be. I got over thinking she'd come back a long time ago."

"I've found it best to simply accept it. Worrying over events you didn't experience and cannot change is pointless." She understood that, at least. She didn't remember her death, though she possessed knowledge of the details.

"And it is an easy enough thing to combat the mind altering of this place," Lust pointed out. "Her memories of you are there, buried beneath the fake. If I have learned one thing in my lives, it is this: memories never truly are lost. They simply become buried beneath others."

"I suppose," Ed agreed. He couldn't do anything about it while he was here anyway. And either he was dead when he got back, or he wasn't. There wasn't much room to change things either way.

"That..." Ed began, and then gulped, meeting Lust's eyes with a slightly scared expression. "That makes it very difficult to think about going back home."

"I'm not telling you these things to upset you," Lust clarified. "But it is something that deserves attention, doesn't it? They have us coming and going, as I believe the saying goes. And so I cannot help but wonder if the world beyond these walls is truly so horrible."

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