Title: The Monster's Alphabet
Author: alliterator
Summary: A series of vignettes, from Adam to Zookeeper. Spoilers for all seven seasons.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything belongs to the great and power Whedon.
Adam
Takes place during Season 4's "Goodbye Iowa."
"Aggression is a natural human tendency. Though you and me come by it another way."
- Human Adam in Restless
The demon in Adam wanted food, but the machine in his didn't need it. The machine wanted information, but the man wanted comfort. The man wanted to walk in the light, but the demon was nocturnal.
The three parts of Adam were conflicting. Demon organs were placed side by side with human organs and machine parts. A human liver was next to the demon's second heart, which was next to the uranium power core that made Adam live.
Adam didn't know where the demon stopped and the human began and where the human stopped and the machine began. He was three individuals, three species, without clarity, without purpose.
The little boy gave him clarity, gave him purpose. "You're a monster," the boy had said. Monster.
The demon side told him that monsters were what it was, that what he did to the boy with the bone skewer was the work of a monster. The human side in him said monsters hid under beds, which he didn't do, and attacked little children, which he had done certainly. The machine in him define monster as an imaginary or legendary creature that combines parts from various animal or human forms.
He wasn't imaginary or legendary, but the second part suited him just fine. So his three sides were in agreement. He was a monster.
And he would do what monsters did.