Title: Biblioclasm
Fandom: Being Human
Spoilers: General for series 4.
Warnings: Blasphemy; swearing.
Disclaimer: Being Human belongs to Toby Whithouse and the BBC. The quote that Cutler is paraphrasing is from Heinrich Heine.

Summary: Hal wants to start a fire that might just burn them all. (AU – canon divergence.)

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Hal burns a book. He does it in a fireplace at Downing Street, a sort of trial run to see how easy it is to destroy leather and paper and the word of God. It's very easy, judging by the hiss and crackle, and the acrid fumes that tickle Cutler's nostrils. Cutler doesn't watch, of course. He's no Old One, and he has no idea how Hal can bear it, how he could steel himself to touch the thing – but maybe Hal doesn't feel a thing. Nothing could be worth putting yourself through that much pain.

"So you're really going to do it, then?" Cutler asks, turning round as the tightness in his chest begins to ease – but it doesn't ease completely. It won't, not while this is still hanging over them.

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

Hal looks up from his inspection of the charred lump in the grate – looks right at Cutler, which means that it's a genuine question, that he's prepared to listen to the answer. Things have changed since Cutler went to Brazil. A lot of things have changed, in fact, and not all of them for the better.

"It's a waste of resources," Cutler says. "You can burn the books, but you can't destroy the texts. Okay, so you managed to shut down the internet, but people always find a way. You can burn the Qur'an, but there are people who can recite the whole thing from memory – backwards."

"Then we'll destroy them, too."

A fuzzy, sepia memory: school assembly; old Mr Rosenberg; something about the burning of books ending in the burning of people. The Nazis must have been staging one of their bonfires. Nineteen thirty-something – a lifetime ago – and why that's suddenly surfaced Cutler has no idea. It's not like he cares about the bloody books. It's not like he cares about the humans, either: Hal can round them up and torch the lot of them if he wants to. It's the repercussions that scare Cutler, the repercussions that Hal just can't seem to see. Can't, or won't.

"Roosevelt said that books are weapons," Hal tells him, slipping a hand into his jacket pocket. "He was talking metaphorically, but in our case –"

The force of it sends Cutler reeling: another Bible, a tiny thing barely bigger than Hal's fist, but it's enough to make him scramble backwards and, fuck, that really, really hurts. Yes, books are weapons. There's no point in Cutler trying to deny it, not when he's doubled over and gasping like he's just been punched in the stomach. Hal's made his point, but he keeps advancing, and of course he won't be happy until he's pressed the thing into Cutler's face, until he's made him shriek – and Cutler has to remind himself that it only feels as if his skin is burning.

"I have no intention," Hal spits, "of leaving such weapons in the hands of the enemy."

Then the thing disappears back into Hal's pocket and Cutler is left – shivering and sweating – to wonder why, if his lungs are heaving, he doesn't seem to be able to breathe. But he has to find the air from somewhere, because he has to speak. He has to make Hal see that this is a mistake.

"So you burn all the books," he gasps. "What then? Are you going to burn all the crosses, too? All the menorahs and the Stars of David? Are you going to burn down all the churches and the synagogues and the mosques? It won't do any good." The Kristallnacht didn't do the Nazis any good, either, not in the long run. "And in the meantime, we've got the resistance shooting our off-duty soldiers, and setting up bomb factories right under our noses here in London. We need to focus on that, not waste our time on –"

"They're symbols," Hal cuts him off, and Cutler should have known he wouldn't stick around, that new Hal who listened to him. Cutler has changed, but Hal just keeps reverting. "Book are symbols, and symbols have power. Look at their War Child. How long has that prophecy kept the humans going?"

"Oh god, not the War Child again. She probably doesn't even exist." Cutler clamps his mouth shut, because this whole argument – as tempting as it might be – is going nowhere. He needs to try another tack. "Just look at it from a practical point of view. I mean, how are we supposed to burn a load of books that we can't even touch?"

"We get the humans to do it for us." Cutler can picture, all too vividly, what their reaction will be, but Hal is grinning. "And you seem to have forgotten that some of us are immune."

Hal would enjoy that: a demonstration of his own personal power, the superiority of an Old One. He'll want it to be seen – will probably gather a crowd and force them to watch, in spite of the ban on public gatherings. The ban that's been put in place for very good reasons.

"It's going to cause trouble," Cutler warns him.

"I can handle it."

"I don't think you realise how volatile things are out there." It's Fergus's fault: for all his tough talk, the man is afraid of telling Hal the things he doesn't like to hear. It's not just Fergus's fault: they've all been afraid, but that's a luxury they can no longer afford. "This might be all it takes to start an open rebellion – and then what? You can't lock up every single person in the country."

"Now, there's a thought," Hal smirks, and Cutler didn't come back to Britain to listen to this. In fact, he's suddenly wondering why he came back at all. It was his decision – and he's no idea if that makes it better or worse.

"I'm asking you not to do this." Cutler would beg, if he thought it would do any good.

"I've already given the orders."

Cutler has Hal by the arm; he's yanking him around, and he's going to – he doesn't know what, but he needs to do something, because this is bad news. Bad for Hal; bad for everyone.

"Christ, Hal," Cutler snarls. "Why do you always have to insist that you're right?" Hal's staring at him, startled for once into honest anger – and he isn't the only one to be surprised. But his time in Brazil has left its mark on Cutler. Hal has only chosen to see the tan, the surface changes, but the roots of it have burrowed deep. "If you're going to have your bonfire," he says, "then don't expect me to stand around and toast the marshmallows."

Cutler walks away.

Cutler walks away, and nothing happens: no angry summons to bring him to heel; no parting shot, despite the fact that Hal always has to have the last word. Cutler crosses the landing and his feet, his body – something deep inside what he thought was the unalterable core of him – tries to turn him around, to pull him back. It's an old reflex: old, but not yet dead. It doesn't matter. It's the fact that he doesn't give in to it that counts, because if he goes back this time, then he'll never stop.

Cutler's at the top of the stairs. He places his foot on the first step, because he can see the road that Hal is going to drag them down, and he can't walk it with him, not when he knows what's waiting at the end. Cutler keeps going, leaving Hal behind – leaving Hal alone. Leaving him to face it all alone. Hal: the man he calls his friend, although the truth is far more twisted than that. Far more fierce. And maybe some things are worth a little suffering, after all.

Cutler reaches the turning of the stair, and stops. He's earned his freedom: for the first time ever, he could walk away. The irony is so exquisitely painful that Cutler starts to laugh.

Hal burns a book. This time, he's standing in what used to be Trafalgar Square, surrounded by row after row of resentful faces. Hal burns a book – the first of many – and Cutler stands by his side and forces himself to watch.