AN: Can't thank you guys enough for the lovely reviews, I'm psyched people are still interested in this story! Alexbeoulve, coolest mofo around, drew a sexy sexy gif and picture, link on my profile. Go love her, but not too much coz I'm the jealous type. Hope you all like the chapter!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sebastian had never experienced first hand what it was like to be led to the electric chair. An obvious statement, considering he was still breathing. Yet he fancied he knew the same anxiety, the pressure of the dread pulsing against his skin with every step he took that brought him closer to the door of Ward V. Flanked by Doctor and Ash, one rolling along in front and the other dogging his steps behind, they were like sentinels. Running away was a dramatic and not entirely tempting thought, but even if Sebastian were considering it, being surrounded such as he was would have made it impossible.
Ten steps away and he imagined he could already feel the heat of the room. Sweltering within, worse than a crowded subway train, the air stale. The way the patients moved around, staggering in circles inside their cages and pacing restlessly, the sweat clinging to them like a second skin.
Eight steps away and he could smell them. Their rank scent, weeks and months of built up filth, the dirt so congealed it may well have been part of their flesh now. Everything they touched was tainted by the stank, like a hand-print of waste. They left their mark upon the floors, upon their glass confines, upon Sebastian himself. A mark he scrubbed himself red raw trying to wash away.
Six steps and the claustrophobia was settling in already. The sound proof walls, that single door with its mechanical click that sounded so final every time he walked through it, the heat and the smell and the noise so dizzying and impossible to escape.
Breathe.
Sebastian had to remind himself to do so frequently these days, a once thoughtless action now more and more deliberate. Breathe deep and breathe slowly, the only way to keep himself from letting the panic take over. If the panic ever did take over, he dreaded to think what he would do. Like a cornered animal, he would lash out because he couldn't run, not with Ash at his heels and a locked door in his way. But who would he lash out at? Doctor, Ash, or the acceptable targets?
Breathe.
Four steps away and one of Sebastian's hands came up to hold the other, feeling the stiff cotton of the bandage. The adhesive pulled at the fine hairs there, a sharp pinch every now and then. His left hand throbbed dully, two days after Ciel's bite but no less painful just yet, and he focused on that stingingly hot pulsing. The skin was torn in a morse code crescent, stuttering marks a scabbing red, and framed by mottled purples and blues.
No masochist, the violent bite should have angered him, but Sebastian took comfort in the physical evidence of an ally. This was what Ciel had been after himself, Sebastian was certain now, when he had clumsily propositioned him all those months ago. He hadn't understood then but now it was clear, made absolute sense to him. The bite was an anchor in the tumultuous waters of Ward V.
Two steps away and Sebastian's head was clearing now. Focusing on the feel of the bandage's cotton threads catching on his overly long nails, he was able to step into the ward without the sudden wall of smell knocking him sick. The screams were an abrupt assault, no longer muted by the walls and door, and he clenched his hand tighter around the bandage. Tight enough to amp up the throb into a sharp pain, strong enough to claw his attention back and keep him cool headed as he was fully submerged into Ward V.
"I think we'll have Patient V6 today," Doctor decided cheerily, smiling up at Ash as he passed. The more Sebastian was exposed to this man, the more he grew to loathe him, to a greater degree than the rest of the staff. He was starting to beat out even Faustus. With his perpetually sunny disposition contrasting disarmingly with his brutal actions and the enjoyment he found in the pain he inflicted, Doctor was easily the most disturbing of the staff thus far. His smile was a wicked thing, a Pavlov's trigger for Sebastian to fear what would come next.
Ash, as he always did when made to come onto the ward, was struggling to maintain a level of cleanliness despite his surroundings. He touched nothing if he could help it, and if he couldn't, only with latex gloves protecting his hands from the muck. He wore a white medical mask strung across his face, much the same as the one he had worn when Sebastian had played sick all that time ago, must have had a healthy stock of them tucked away in that sterile office of his. It was with a look of disgust that he clamped V6 around the throat with one gloved hand, pulling her out of the corner she was huddled in, and flung her onto the floor at their feet.
V6 didn't make a sound, unlike the rest of the banshees. When she looked up at them, her eyes were vacant, sunken into her dirty face. If he looked closely, Sebastian could almost make out her features – the woman appeared young, couldn't be any older than him, and looked to be Asian – but he cut those thoughts off short. The last thing he needed to start doing was differentiating between the patients, humanizing them in his thoughts. Easier to just think of them as their numbers.
"I am not an unsympathetic man, Sebastian. I know you're thinking of me as some kind of monster, and I can understand why you would think that in your current mind set, but I hope to show you one day how what we are doing in this room is beneficial, not only to those in the ward above but on a global scale," Doctor was saying, as earnest as he always was, having eyes only for Sebastian when speaking to him, "These patients are long past any hope of rehabilitation. No family members to miss them, not enough sense of self to even recognize themselves in the mirror, they're a necessary sacrifice. But! As I said, I am not unsympathetic to your plight. You still see them as people. Our mistake was throwing you into the deep end and expecting you to swim straight away. I see now that we need to ease you in."
V6 didn't cower away from them as all the others did. Nor did she let aggression take over, fling herself at them with mouth torn by a snarl and hands mimicking claws. It was her stillness that Sebastian found most disturbing of all. Vacant eyes stared up at him, not beseechingly or even accusingly, simply empty. The lights were on, but there was no one home. For all that Sebastian hated when the patients fought back, still having enough will buried within them to do so despite what Doctor believed, it was much better than V6 and her broken apathy.
Had she retreated somewhere within her fractured mind, Sebastian wondered as Ash retrieved a pair of scissors from Doctor's bag, somewhere she was safe from the likes of them?
"It's all about baby steps. So first thing is first; we need to correct your mistake. Ash?"
Ash obliged to the unspoken command, offering the scissors to Sebastian as though they were some grand gift. The steel tarnished and the blades crusted with some sort of muck, he dreaded to think of just what origin, it was hardly a present you would write a thank you card for. It was only after pulling on latex gloves to match Ash's that he accepted the scissors. Even through the gloves, his hands tingled, crawled with the filth of what may have been done to people with that instrument. They were heavy in his hands, a guilty weight.
"As you can see, Ward V does not exactly match the main ward in terms of hygiene. It's not as much of a priority down here. But if it would put your conscience at ease, we can make a few changes. Such as this one – I want you to cut Its hair," Doctor instructed, not deigning to so much as glance at V6, slumped on the floor before them and staring.
Sebastian stared back, unable to look away from V6. There was a fear in him then. A groundless certainty that the moment he broke their eye contact, she would lunge for him. With more presence of mind than any of them believed her to have, she would steal the scissors away and plunge them into his throat. To protect herself, to preserve her long dark hair, and to take his life before he could shear her like a goddamn sheep.
"I don't see how that would help cleanliness," Sebastian replied belatedly, voice a pleasant monotone. He had long since mastered the art of talking to his 'superiors' with respect he did not feel. "A bit of a mopping up might."
Ash looked distinctly unamused but Doctor gave a booming laugh, as though Sebastian had told him the funniest joke he had ever heard. It was disconcerting how much he seemed to genuinely like Sebastian, but more troubling was how much Sebastian was sure he would have liked Doctor if the circumstances were different. How could such a monster appear so ordinary?
"True, true! But as you can see, the length is an issue. We can hardly trust them to bathe themselves and it's too risky for us to do it. All sorts of filth gets caught in there." Doctor grimaced, finally glancing at V6, but only for a short moment. Sebastian would have liked to think that it was guilt that made him so reluctant to see her, but from the look on his face, it was more likely due to simple disgust. "Cut it, Sebastian. To the scalp, if you don't mind."
There was no ignoring that it was an order now, not a request, and Sebastian's mind strayed once more to the empty cage in the corner of the room. V6's hair really was long, trailing along the floor where she sat, knotted and clumped, the ends frayed where it looked as though she had chewed on them. Her eyes were still on his, as vacant as ever. Yet Sebastian imagined he saw something in them. A plea to not do it, what appeared on the surface a minor act but that would only trigger increasingly awful things. There was no such thought there, of course, no thought at all left in V6, but in that moment, Sebastian wanted to see it more than anything. To know that there was still a functioning mind in there somewhere.
"It shouldn't struggle but just to be on the safe side, Ash, if you wouldn't mind?" Doctor gestured and Ash followed without question, his gloved hand forcing V6's head to the ground. Bonelessly she followed, letting herself be pressed to the floor, no resistance in her body at all. Prostate before Sebastian now, he found himself inexplicably relieved to no longer have to meet her eyes.
Without that stare into which he projected accusation and a spark of life that he knew wasn't truly there, it was only too easy for Sebastian to kneel down beside her, lift a greasy strand of hair and sever it. Scissors in his right hand and the bandaged bite on his left, he continued to cut away while clenching the injury as tightly as he could, relishing the sore burn of it. Focusing so single-mindedly on the pain, he managed to tune out Doctor's exuberant voice, the happiness that Sebastian had finally followed an order, and his own shame at that same fact.
Nimble fingers slotted the creased and ruined pages back into the grooves of the notebook's spine. With no glue to secure them, they refused to stay in place, threatening to slip beyond the reach of the leather binding with every slight movement. Only a few of the pages had actually been written on, the white now stained with his chicken-scratch handwriting, the words sparse and more illegible as the journal entries went on. Even now, as he held the tip of his pen poised over the first ruined blank page he found, his hand shook with tremors. He didn't notice his shaking, giving the pen a frown as though it were at fault for the scribbled mess his thoughts had become, and continued writing.
Curled up on the bed at Alois' side was Luka, dozing fitfully, snoring louder than anyone his size had any right to. The noise used to keep Alois up at night, but once it was gone, he hadn't been able to sleep through the night for months. With a fond smile, he smoothed Luka's hair away from his face and turned back to the ruined notebook resting on his raised knees.
It had been a gift from Claude and one he had ruined in a fit of anger. He had regretted it immediately, had destroyed nothing of Claude and Ciel's bond but all of his few belongings, and he had been trying to piece the notebook back together ever since. A fruitless effort without glue or sellotape. He knew if he asked Claude for them, Claude would probably acquiesce, but only once he knew what it was for. Letting Claude see what Alois had done to the only gift he had given him was deterrent enough, never mind the chance that he would see the things Alois had written over the past few months.
Most incriminating of all; My dead brother is back.
Just the fact that Alois acknowledged how incriminating it was meant that he wasn't too far gone, he repeated internally, not for the first time since Luka's return. If he still had the mental capability to recognize how dangerous his delusion was then there was certainly enough left of his mind to risk indulging himself for a while. It was only too easy to rationalize it; everyone else lied through their teeth to him, so why couldn't he do it himself? When Luka became common place, something that no longer made him feel wrong down to his bones, only then would he go to Claude and confess the downward spiral he felt himself plummeting upon.
MY BROTHER IS DEAD. THIS IS NOT REAL.
The reminders filled the page, the same sentence printed in capitals again and again, until the ink stained the side of his hand and his index finger was dinted from holding the pen so long. Alois had refused to let himself dwell upon that fact from the moment Luka had disappeared from his side, but now, with that warmth curled up next to him and that annoying snoring encroaching upon the silence, it didn't feel like the end of the world any more. The words were just that, facts he had to keep, even as he let himself believe the opposite.
After all, what was fake about the way Luka smiled for him? There was nothing but honesty in the words they shared, the jokes and laughs. The way Luka hung on every word of Alois' stories was as sincere today as it had been five years ago. Luka was more real than anyone beyond his bedroom door. More real than Ciel and his empty reassurances, more real than Claude and the hollow promises he gave, and certainly more real than Joker and his sudden concern.
Alois' pen paused as the thought evolved, darkened.
It was only too easy to pretend that that was the end all of it, but his mind had always been his greatest antagonist, and it refused to leave the loose thread unpulled. For all that the personality and attitude was a perfect replica of the Luka he remembered, there were discrepancies that crept upon him. Clothes that never changed or became dirtied, not wrinkling or creasing as they should have done when Luka sat a certain way or they hugged. A boyish face untouched by time, the years he had been gone leaving no mark upon him, but having changed Alois in a contrast that couldn't easily be ignored. The most disconcerting of all, the one that knocked Alois sick from the sheer reality of it, was the uncharacteristic snarls and sudden bursts of rage that would possess the boy. Of the brothers, it had never been Luka who had been prone to anger.
MY BROTHER IS DEAD. THIS IS NOT REAL.
MY BROTHER IS DEAD. THIS IS NOT REAL.
MY BROTHER IS DEAD. THIS IS NOT RE -
Alois' eyelids drooped as he continued to scribble the same words on a clean page. A good two hours had passed since he had been doing this for the sake of the reminder. Now the monotonous action of writing was simply to chase away much needed sleep. For all the genuine concerns there were over Luka, the one that worried Alois the most was the irrational fear of falling asleep beside him and awaking alone, Luka gone once more.
One could only fight sleep for so long, however, and a short while later found the pen stilled and Alois falling into a doze. When he awoke a few hours later, the high noon sun reaching in through the curtainless window, it was with an immediate spike of alarm that made him feel nauseas. He was alone in the bed, the sheets cold beside him, no one else in the room.
"Luka?"
Rising from bed, the notebook fell from his lap carelessly, the papers scattering once more. At least four pages were covered with the reminder, front and back, a written confession that could be the noose around his neck if it fell into the wrong hands. Alois didn't give it a second thought, stepping over the papers with disregard as he darted over to the bathroom, the only place Luka could be hiding.
"Luka!"
The bathroom light was blinding. The bathroom was empty.
Just as the panic began to surge, a small voice called from the bedroom, "Jim?" Luka was there. Peering blearily over the edge of the bedsheet, his hair a rat's nest and his face still slack with sleep, Luka was there where he had not been a moment before. Alois could have cried from relief.
"What's wrong?" Luka asked as Alois pulled him into a hug, chin quivering even as he told himself actually crying would be a silly thing to do. There was nothing to cry over in that moment.
"I thought you'd gone," Alois admitted, words shaky with a self-deprecating laugh.
Luka shared the laughter, not unkindly, and hugged him back just as hard.
"I won't leave you again, Jim, I promise."
The skin on Sebastian's hands still itched with a persistent crawl even after he left Ward V. The skin chalky from the powder inside the gloves, it took more self-control than it should have to resist the urge to scratch away at them. There was no blood spilt, Sebastian reminded himself against, and no screams either. He had not hurt V6 at all. He had even helped her, in a way. Without such long hair, she would be much cleaner. No damage done at all, and Doctor off his back, at least for a little while. Win, win.
The excuses rang hollow.
Sebastian's time on Ward V had been much shorter than usual. Unsurprising since the hours of refusing orders and arguing with Ash, or whoever else was assigned to monitor him, had been omitted. It left him plenty of time to go to the main ward and see Ciel, but first, he decided to make a detour to the Infirmary. Absently he wondered if he would see Hannah there. She had not been a presence at the Institute for months. In fact, the last time he could remember seeing her for sure had been in the infirmary itself, having taken her there after Alois attacked her. Had she been taken to a real hospital? Knowing St. Victoria's, her absence was nothing so innocent.
The triplets were the only staff in the infirmary when Sebastian arrived. Sorting through the patient's evening doses, none of them paid him any mind when he walked in. He ignored them too, making a beeline for the one occupied bed.
Drocell gave a wet and rattling cough, a sharp and raw sound. Eyes sunken and hair hanging in greasy tendrils around his face, lips chapped and nose red, he was whiter than the walls of the infirmary itself. Go and see if he really is ill, Ciel had told him the night before, and seeing him now, there was no doubt as to the genuineness of his illness. Sebastian would be able to report back with relief. What Ciel would have done if Drocell hadn't been ill, he could only speculate, but any other rescue missions were the furthest thing from safe. Ward V had been punishment enough after their last jaunt into misguided heroics. The empty cage at the end of Ward V was only too conspicuous for its emptiness.
"Sebastian?" Drocell sounded worse than he looked, each word a razor against his tender throat. While he didn't look surprised to see Sebastian, he didn't look particularly happy either. The title of Staff was a heavy stigma to hold, despite his repeated actions to the contrary.
"Your friends are worried," Sebastian said by way of hello, pulling a chair over to the bedside. Friend was probably a strong word, and he doubted Ciel's worry was actually over Drocell's well-being, but the guarded look he was receiving convinced him to try and play nice. "So I said I'd pop in. What's the diagnosis?"
Drocell didn't look convinced, voice clipped when he replied coldly, "Flu after a treatment."
A treatment. Sebastian couldn't help but be curious. If what he was ordered to do on Ward V were considered treatments for the patients beyond help, what treatments were given to the patients they were supposedly trying to cure? His open curiosity was not helping Drocell's mistrust, that much was clear, but Sebastian couldn't help but inquire regardless.
"They wanted me to tell them things. Things that I know aren't true. But they didn't want the truth, they wanted me to believe their truth," every word was grudgingly given, Drocell's gaze accusing, as though it had been Sebastian himself who had done the deed, "So they tied a cloth over my face and poured water on it. I couldn't breathe. And they kept doing it until I gave them the answer they wanted."
Sebastian frowned, "So you told them the things they wanted to hear anyway?"
Drocell bristled at the tone, more denigrating than he had intended it to be, and reiterated, "I couldn't breathe. I would have said anything to make it stop."
"And giving them exactly what they wanted in the process," Sebastian shook his head as though disappointed, "What was it they were trying to get you to say?"
Sebastian could see Drocell shut down by inches and knew that he had gotten all the answers he was going to from him. He was more displeased by that than he would have expected. Did it really matter, at the end of the day, what fabrications they were making about Drocell? Sebastian had barely ever said two words to the man before today. It made no difference to him in the long run. Yet as they shared their stunted goodbyes and he left the infirmary, the persistent itch spread along his skin, inching from his hands to cover the rest of him. Restlessness, frustration and annoyance. They spread like an infection until there wasn't a bit of him not infested by them.
The bite on his hand stung as his fists clenched and he tried to focus on it, the stretch of the broken skin, the slight cracking of what little scabs there were, the pull of the bandage's adhesive on fine hairs, but it didn't work like it had last time. It only made him think.
We're not indestructible.
He was Staff, as much as any of the others. Even if he didn't take pleasure in torture and delude himself into thinking he was doing good,he still wore the uniform, still got to leave the Wards at the end of the day. He was Staff, and he was not infallible. A patient had bitten him and he had bled. He still felt the pain of it. He was human, they were all nothing but flesh and blood, so why? Why did Drocell, as big as any of the rest of them, cower and grovel instead of fighting back?
None of them were children. Ciel, at seventeen, was the youngest, and Sebastian had seen his strength. The moment he had felt cornered, all five foot seven of Ciel had taken down the bigger and physically stronger Agni without a moment's hesitation. If it hadn't been for Sebastian, he could have throttled Agni to death that night. If Ciel could do that, the youngest and so prone to illness of one kind or another, then surely they all could. For pity's sake, Alois had buried his goddamn finger in a person's eye on Sebastian's very first day, and in doing so had brought the Institute grinding to an absolute stop. Was that not power of a different kind?
They were capable. They had the strength and the motivation, without a shadow of a doubt. So why, Sebastian puzzled with mounting judgement, why did they play the victims, let themselves be bullied and broken as though there was no other option? There was another option, there always had been. A shove, a fist, a weapon at the very worst, there was always another option.
It was pathetic.
Drocell lay there, sick as a dog, blaming the people he had allowed to waterboard him. But no, it was completely out of the question that he fight against them, that he not let them hurt him. They were only humans, as temporary and damageable as him! He claimed to have told them whatever they wanted in order to make it stop, but a well-aimed punch would have had just the same effect, if he only had the good sense to do it.
The closer Sebastian drew to the main ward, letting his thought's plummet continue, the angrier he became.
It was the patients that had put him in this position. Sebastian could never have claimed to be a particularly nice man, no, but nor was he a bad one. On the black and white spectrum, he was a firm and steady grey. Even so, he didn't do bad things. He had never hurt people. He had never told anything more than a white lie. He had never stolen a thing. The only thing he had done was to accept a friend's recommendation and apply for a job. His only crime was trying to make his own way in the world, to earn honest money. What was so terrible about that, so deserving of this retribution? Yet now he was being ordered to hurt innocent people under the guise of helping them, innocent people who wouldn't make the slightest move to defend themselves, landing him with all the responsibility of what happened, while all he could think about was the overhanging threat of what had been done to Finny and that empty cage on Ward V.
By the time Sebastian arrived on the ward, he was inexplicably seething. He strode straight into Ciel's bedroom, either not noticing or ignoring the sharp look he was given by Grell, but knowing that it would make it back to Angela before the day was out. He didn't even notice that Ciel hadn't actually been in his bedroom in the first place until he trailed in after him, looking the closest to concerned that he ever came.
"What's happened?" Ciel demanded, not even scowling when Sebastian claimed the bed instead of the chair. Flopped across the mattress with his shoes on the sheets, it was usually more than enough for a reprimand, but this time, Ciel held his tongue. Picking battles was a finely tuned skill.
"Popped by the infirmary," Sebastian announced offhandedly, "Drocell is sick but he'll probably be back in a few days time. Nothing to batten down the hatches over."
"And?"
Sebastian looked at him from the corner of his eye, "And what?"
"And something else is clearly bothering you – did he throw up on your shoes?" Ciel asked, gesturing at Sebastian like he was pointing at a literal dark cloud above his head, "I'm not seeing why Drocell being ill has got you looking so menstrual."
"And nothing." Instead of snapping, Sebastian's voice was perfectly amicable, which only made Ciel more positive that something had happened to get under his skin. "Nothing's happened."
Ciel rolled his eye, "Oh, so we're lying now. Okay." Nodding his head, he went on in a saccharine tone, words so heavy with sarcasm that they could have been used as blunt weapons. "Did you know? You're a patient here too. Plot twist, I know. And I'm actually in leagues with the Chairmen. It's all a ruse."
"Hysterical," Sebastian said, deadpan, "You should have been a comedian."
"Grell's really in love with Angela," Ciel replied, "You're just his beard."
Sebastian sat up straight with the beginnings of a glare battling the forced nonchalance from his face. "I hadn't pegged you as the type to want to talk about feelings. Will we be braiding each others hair soon, too?"
"I don't want to talk about feelings," Ciel spat the word like a curse, "But what would you rather talk about, the Ashes? Are we done with this now, because you have to get out in about five minutes. So you can either carry on being a passive-aggressive bastard, or you can just tell me what happened. The hair braiding is entirely optional."
They glared at one another for a long moment, but as it usually was, Sebastian was the first to give ground, looking away with a sigh. When he answered, it was little more than a murmur, a question to himself rather than to Ciel, "Why don't you fight?"
Ciel heard nonetheless and looked confused, prompting Sebastian to elaborate.
"I mean, I've seen you. You're not helpless, you're not weak. I have seen countless times that you are smarter than the lot of them. Yet you go to your little shrink sessions without question. You behave and keep your head down like the cowed little boy you are. I saw you overpower Agni with your bare hands yet you're terrified of a goddamn room. A room full of nothing threatening, just mirrors! Believe it or not, you're not that scary to look at, Ciel."
Ciel's face had gone blank at the first mention of The Room, which effectively masked his confusion. There was anger in Sebastian's voice, anger at him, and he couldn't understand where it had come from. It was misplaced, he was certain. He was one of the few acceptable targets for it, one of two or three people at most that Sebastian could rant at and avoid severe consequences. Regardless, he found himself bristling, and even as a rational voice repeated to him that it was misplaced anger to be dealt with carefully, he still didn't like it being directed at him.
He managed to hold his own temper with more difficulty than he would have liked, asking calmly, "Sebastian, what do you see when you look in a mirror?"
Sebastian blew out a breath exasperatedly, "We've had this conversation before; I say my reflection, you insult my hair. We have come full circle here."
Ciel shook his head, replying shortly, "Not this time." He dropped into the desk chair with a sudden boneless exhaustion. Most of the time, he looked untouched by St. Victoria's, infallible in a way Sebastian could only hope to emulate. But sometimes, in moments like this, the soul deep weariness slipped through the cracks.
"You are lucky. To be able to look at your reflection and think, "Yes, that's me." To not doubt it even for a second. I envy that certainty. I haven't had it for a long time. You can't even begin to understand how terrifying a mirror is when you don't know yourself any more. There's nowhere you can turn in The Room to escape your own eyes, and even when you close them, you just know that this … thing with your face is still looking at you, watching you, judging you. Your reflection knows everything, Sebastian, and that is horrifying to me. I don't see myself in the mirror any more. What I see... I don't even know what to call that thing that's looking back at me, but I will not let myself become It. It is not me and I won't let that change. You can laugh and make snide comments all you like, but unless you've been locked in that room with nothing but It to keep you company, you have no right to tell me it's unworthy of my fear."
Sebastian had the good grace to drop his eyes for a moment, as though regretting bringing it up at all, and under normal circumstances, he would have let the conversation drop too. But not today. Today he was seething, today he needed to understand.
"Fine. You're right. I don't understand that and I don't particularly want to. But you still haven't answered the question – why don't you fight?"
Ciel gave a little burst of incredulous laughter.
"You don't think I'm fighting?"
"No, you're not." Something in Sebastian snapped then, a tether pulled that bit too tight, and he raged on, "You're just letting them do whatever they want and I know you could do something, you could all do something, but you're all just sitting around and waiting for someone to save you. And I think it's pathetic. You're pathetic for letting yourselves be the victims, and they're pathetic for letting themselves become exactly what Angela and Faustus and all the rest of them wanted them to become -"
The tirade was brought to an abrupt halt as Ciel finally had enough of it, strode over and gave Sebastian a hard slap across the face. His cheek flushed an immediate red, his silence a stunned one. Of all the reactions he had expected, a slap was not one of them.
"If you're done," Ciel said coldly. His disdain eased as he went on, fortunately. "I get it. Feeling helpless is one of the worst feelings in the world, but getting yourself all worked up about it isn't going to help. I won't lie, your position is just as bad as mine now. You're under their thumb, you are St. Victoria's whipping boy just as much as the rest of us are, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. But don't you dare blame us. We didn't do this to you. I understand. You want the experimental patients to fight back, right?"
The haze of red faded from Sebastian's vision and in its place was immediate regret for his outburst. He hadn't realized how tightly wound up he was until he came spinning loose. His cheek stung hotly, and while a part of him was concerned over how fond he was becoming of being assaulted, he was grateful for the grounding of it.
Sebastian was suddenly hesitant to look up. If he saw even a flash of pity on Ciel's face then, he wasn't sure he would be able to take it. He didn't need pity, not from a patient, certainly not from Ciel. After the silence was drawn out for that moment too long, he forced his head up. It was with relief that he saw nothing but impatience in Ciel then. Impatience, annoyance, the only concern there over wondering if he had slapped Sebastian so hard that the brain cells controlling speech had been knocked loose. That was more like it, that equal footing, that return to equilibrium.
Sebastian found his voice once again.
"It would make it much less … easy," Sebastian confessed, shame in every word, "You said that I could consider hurting them all I wanted so long as I didn't actually do it. So I do and it helps. And it's not the imagining hurting them that helps. It's thinking about what it would mean for me if I did. Doctor, Ash and that lot off of my back, not having to second-guess every single thing I do and say, feeling at least a bit safer. I'm selfish, Ciel, I'll be the first to admit it. I don't want to end up like Finny, and knowing that hurting those patients is the only thing that can keep me from ending up like him is making it far too tempting. And I just think, if they don't even care enough to fight for the sake of themselves, then why shouldn't I? I still care enough about myself. I don't want to die, or worse, end up like of them."
Ciel nodded, replying simply, "You're scared."
"I am not scared," Sebastian snapped, unjustly offended, "But I can't keep saying no to them, Ciel. It's not fear, it's instinct. I just know that if I keep saying no to them, it's my ass on the line. I won't let myself be the next Peter."
Ciel replied as though he hadn't heard, obviously still stung from Sebastian's accusation, "You said I wasn't fighting. That's not remotely true. I may not be using my fists but the last thing I'm going to let myself be is the victim here. You don't have to throw punches to fight and I'd rather break a mind than a bone."
"Yes, very poetic," Sebastian sneered, "But I'm not really following you."
Ciel looked prepared to give him another slap.
"What I'm trying to say is that we fight in whatever way we can here. I prefer to keep my hands clean. I can't give them any more ammunition to use against me, so strategy is all I have. But you, the fact that you can resist is your fighting. You're not helpless, you're defying them and there's not a damn thing they can do about it."
Only yesterday that would have been enough to salve his wounds, but even before Ciel had finished speaking, Sebastian could feel the phantom weight of rusty scissors in his palm and the chalky feel of gloves that did nothing to keep his hands clean. V6 staring up at him blankly, not resisting, making it so easy to do as he was told. Ciel was so confident that Sebastian was resisting, almost trusting in his ignorance. Inexplicably, it felt like a betrayal. The guilt turned to irritation on his tongue.
"How sixties of you," he laughed, "That sounds good in theory, Ciel, but this isn't some after-school special. I can't just stick it to the man and not end up with any consequences."
Ciel returned the ire in spades, able to communicate so much disdain with one eye alone.
"Is that so? Because it seems to me that Agni is doing perfectly fine."
Sebastian finally had to falter. It had been Agni who had recommended St. Victoria's to him in the first place, the only other sane staff member in the place, who had been there years longer than Sebastian himself. Considering how blatant his friendship, to say the least, with Soma was, it was unbelievable to think that Agni hadn't met similar treatment from the staff as he himself was receiving. Just as unbelievable as it was to think of Agni harming any of the patients, experimental or otherwise. He had been unwilling to so much as shove Ciel off of him even as Ciel's hands had been around his throat. Whatever change came over people working at St. Victoria's, a change Sebastian could feel closing in on him, Agni had fought it and won.
"There's nothing I can say," Ciel continued, "Our situations aren't the same, no matter what way you look at them. But Agni, he might be able to help you. Go talk to him. Ask him how he's lasted this long. If nothing else, you know he's on your side."
"I think there's something living in his hair," Luka whispered conspiratorially into Alois' ear, eyeing Doctor with a suspicious frown, "Well, it was alive, at least."
It took great effort not to laugh out loud at the words no one else could hear, a treacherous smile slipping through, one that Doctor's keen eyes did not miss. That was one more alarm bell ringing for the man since their monthly check-up had begun, yet another little discrepancy bleeding through that Alois didn't realize to hide.
Doctor was very good at what he did. While he was no psychologist, he took pride in what he did and utilized his down time for studying the areas in which he lacked. As such, it was clear to him within minutes of shutting the infirmary door that something was not right. Identifying just what was simple enough.
Alois very rarely made such determined eye contact. While his behaviour could shift from outgoing to self-contained in an instant, it had always been a constant that he had difficulty maintaining eye contact with the majority of the staff, bar Dr. Faustus, for any extended time. He masked it well usually, feigning a shift in his attention, something outside the window or anything new within the room stealing his focus. Today, however, he was meeting Doctor's eyes with a deliberate intent. Too much thought was going into it. Alarm bell one.
The way he was sitting. Alois was not a person typically at ease, no matter the situation or the location. Especially not within the infirmary, what he and his fellow patients no doubt irrationally considered to be 'enemy territory'. He always had a closed off manner, gave off the potential for aggression that kept people away like a hedgehog's spines. He would huddle into himself, curl up as small as he could, all defence, yet today was different. Today he sat with a forced relaxation, slouched down into the cushions, limbs splayed. Too sudden a change, too groundless a change. Alarm bell two.
His pupils. Not their size, that was as it should have been. However, for all that Alois was fixing such intent focus on Doctor, his stare unwavering, his pupils would not remain still. He may have been trying to keep his attention on Doctor, but the way his pupils kept flickering to his left was cause for concern. Especially since every minute shift of attention coincided with a hint of humour. A fought away smile, a smothered laugh, things of that sort. There was nothing worthy of such mirth that Doctor could see. Alarm bell three.
Doctor did not make it a habit to ignore warnings so blatant. He put away that day's dose of Zydrate and called for Dr. Faustus. He didn't take long to arrive, heeding Doctor's urgency. The moment he stepped through the infirmary door, a subtle change came over Alois, easy to miss but one that Doctor was watching for. The eye contact disappeared, his entire posture stiffened, and he no longer let his attention wander to the left of him. It was the eye contact that was most interesting to note. A complete one eighty – forcing himself to look at Doctor when he usually wouldn't, and now refusing to look at Dr. Faustus when he usually wouldn't be able to tear his eyes away – very interesting.
"I was busy," Dr. Faustus said after gesturing Doctor aside, having yet to acknowledge Alois at all. He spoke with all the usual respect he showed to those so much as an inch below him on the pay roll. Doctor ignored it, as he always did.
"I'm sorry to have pulled you away, but I thought you'd want to deal with this first hand, y'see," Doctor explained with cheer ill-fitting the situation, "I've noticed some abnormalities with the patient. Behavioural changes you might want to take a note of."
"Such as?" While his expression had yet to crack, there was more interest in Dr. Faustus' voice now. As much interest as he ever deigned to display, at any rate. He gave Alois a thoughtful glance, taking note of the immediate differences he could see, but then his attention was caught by the unused syringe on the desk. "You haven't given him his dose."
"Well, no," Doctor paused, sensing the displeasure at that, "It didn't seem wise until we'd assessed the effects that it's already had."
Dr. Faustus didn't look convinced, dropping the conversation without a word and moving to lean against the desk in front of Alois. Alois gave no indication that he knew he was there, staring at the ground with a stony expression.
"Alois," Doctor almost did a double take at the change in Dr. Faustus' voice, from its usual cold indifference to an almost warm tone, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
Alois shook his still lowered head, his hair falling into his eyes, "No." It was a petulant sound, a child caught out but still trying to feign innocence. It wouldn't do.
"Alright. Then I'm going to ask some questions and I'd like you to answer them honestly, okay?" The softer manner Dr. Faustus was feigning, surely feigning, was working already. Alois was no longer tensing up quite so much, his head rising gradually. Doctor watched with interest, monitoring every slight movement Alois made.
"When was our last one-on-one?"
"Three weeks ago." A wrinkle at the nose, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, displeasure at the fact.
"And everything was alright then, you didn't lie to me?"
"No." Furrowing of the brow, insult at the accusation.
"And you're not going to lie to me now?"
"… No." An obvious hesitation covered too slowly, the beginnings of discomfort.
"Since our last meeting, have you experienced any nausea?"
"No." An immediate answer, a relieved expression, honesty.
"Since our last meeting, have you experienced any loss of sleep?"
"No." A slight shift of tone, though the answer was as readily given, a lie.
"Alois."
"… Yes." The guard was slipping now, Doctor could see, and his pupils began to dart to the left once again. Was it panic, he wondered, were they straying too close to the mark for the patient's comfort?
"And since your sleep patterns have been disturbed, have you experienced any visual or auditory hallucinations?"
"No." Both Dr. Faustus and Doctor found themselves paused then. The answer was too readily given but there was no telling change of tone, no aversion of the eyes. Truth or lie, neither of them could completely tell. With no way to move forward from that point, the interrogation ended.
"Alright. Thank you for your honesty, Alois," Dr. Faustus said, voice soft as sin, "If anything changes, you know to ask for me and I'll come as soon as I have the time. Now, we'll give you this and then you can return to the ward."
Dr. Faustus reached behind him to pick up the Zydrate, the neon blue liquid sloshing in its narrow tube. Doctor frowned, wheeling himself over to the desk with a polite cough.
"Dr. Faustus, perhaps it would be best to monitor the effects further before continuing this particular course of medication?" Doctor interjected in what he intended to be as non-intrusive a tone as he could manage. From the look he received, it was a wasted effort.
"I didn't ask for your opinion," Dr. Faustus said evenly, rolling back the sleeve of Alois' proffered arm. Doctor reached forward, putting a restraining hand on Dr. Faustus' before he could bring the needle any closer to the juncture of Alois' arm. Dr. Faustus tensed under the unwelcome touch.
"We have to assume that, at this point, it will do more damage than good," Doctor attempted to reason, throwing Alois a reassuring smile, but the boy's head was lowered once more. Abruptly, Doctor found himself pushed away, Dr. Faustus' cold amber eyes burning.
"You just concern yourself with the zoo downstairs, Doctor, and I'll take care of the patients."
With that, he turned back to Alois and stuck the needle home with far more force than was necessary. A display clearly for Doctor's sake. Doctor saw red for a moment, his pride stung, but he reigned it in before it could get away from him. With a smile less genuine than his norm, he bid the two goodbye as Dr. Faustus returned Alois to the main ward. With the reminder of his zoo, his thoughts returned to Ward V and its inhabitants, but it was difficult to focus on them after seeing the beginnings of a blatant deterioration before his eyes. The deterioration of one still salvageable.
Concern yourself with the zoo, Doctor reminded himself, even as he itched to call Alois back. There was much he could do for the boy, only on the edge of ruin, methods of treatment that could pull him back before the rot of the mind truly set in. But no. As Dr. Faustus was only so kind as to remind him, that was not his.
AN: Quick note to say that, for those that wanted to know, you can find me on Tumblr on either the cennis or thehardigan URL (not that Alex wasn't being an awesome message-passer-oner). And while it certainly won't be frequent updates, this story will definitely be finished as soon as possible! I just started a full-time apprenticeship so time is sparse, but with seven or so chapters left, I can promise that this won't be an abandoned WIP. Thanks for sticking with it, guys!