remi! - gay and stressed

When the kids have turned in for the night, or whatever it is that ghosts do instead, the Night Nurse finds herself in the office. The Dead Boy Detective Agency. Of course she'd been left here to fend for herself on earth for the next who knows how long. It could only happen to her. Asa is still struggling to comprehend how exactly her life had spiralled into this sad state of affairs so quickly. One moment you’re running the afterlife’s Lost and Found Department, the next you’re marooned on earth and apparently working as some sort of official handler for an unofficial detective agency. . . how does that even work?

She should’ve just stuck to the book. None of this would have happened if she’d stuck to the book.

Although, wasn’t that what that strange man in the fish had been trying to tell her? That doing everything so rigidly by the book might not always be the best choice? That, perhaps, rules could be broken? That kindness could be a viable option? Asa’s never really been one for kindness, ironically enough. Nurse she may be, but that healer’s oath had never been taken by choice. No, the powers that be had dished out a fitting punishment to a demon who had done terrible things; she who had lived on suffering would be bound forever to undo the very thing she’d fed upon. Perhaps her prior disregard for any sort of decency resulting in that damned oath is part of the reason Asa is so uptight now. It’s easy to be a stickler for the rules when not following them has seen you quite literally burned before.

She looks away from the ring, a near-permanent adornment on hands that seem altogether too delicate to have caused as much suffering as they have. Her gaze instead falls upon the case files. Even she, authoritarian as she’s become, can’t deny the real, tangible difference those boys have made. And she’d rather die than admit it, but they’re probably part of the reason her department had even received those commendations in the first place. Not that she can die, but she’d sooner find a way to do so than ever come out and say that she had, in fact, been in the wrong.

She can’t say that. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps one day, when she’s more adjusted to this new-found autonomy. To moral choices. To freedom from the rules.

Fingers trail lightly over the numerous files marked solved; so many, and ever-growing. She’s going to be part of this now. Asa still feels quite conflicted about that, but there’s not exactly much she can do about it. Maybe it would do her good to try and see this as an. . . opportunity, rather than a punishment. Maybe, this will end up being. . . what was it Kashi had said?

One of many adventures. . .