St. Peter's Asylum discussion

The classroom is a small one, but it at least has some posters hanging on the wall. They are educational, but it's something. There are only two or three desks in the room, all spaced out evenly facing an old chalkboard with a large crack coming from the top right corner. There are to be no more patients than there are desks in the classroom at one time, and even then, there are guards at the door and the corners of the room. The classroom is meant to preferably have only one patient and their teacher (usually a volunteer or nurse that is given a manual on the basics of learning) are to be together in the room with minimal security. There are limited supplies for the room, and most are as in bad of shape as everything else.

RP here.

Silas was not exactly the type of person who held a love for school--he was an ace in most of his classes and saw no reason to distract himself from more important matters by continuing his education here in this awful place. Still, he came to the classroom. Because it was quiet. Because it was small. Because he needed to think. Cat was doing better; his stepsister had learned. Felix was too occupied with his own inner demons these days to worry about the two of them, and that was also good news. That left almost no one who could--or would--care. Excepting, of course, the swarm of nurses that Cat's unusually sullen behavior had brought down upon them. The redhead was still angry at his sister for that. But it was no matter. Here and now, things were quiet. Things were peaceful. There was no one around to interrupt his thoughts.

Except the young blonde who stepped trough the door, escorted by a guard. For the same reasons as Silas, Rebecca Eve was in the classroom; for the quiet. She looked back over her shoulder and when she she that there were no guards, took an object out from the front of her jeans. There, she had hidden her worn and tattered Bible. She walked passed where the redheaded boy was sitting, and offered him a little wave, the kind where the fingers wiggle in the air at the person being greeted. "Hello," she said sweetly, being as friendly as possibly to the boy a she sat down in the desk opposite him. On the flat desktop, she opened the Bible and took out a pen. Soon, she began to cross things out, the pen making vicious slicing sounds on the paper in the silence of the classroom.

Silas could take only about thirty seconds of this before his patience began to wear thin. "Do you mind?" he snapped, pounding one closed fist on the table. The familiar spark of irritation had appeared in his eyes--the girl hadn't been in the same room with him for more than a minute and she was already grating on his nerves. That had to be some sort of record. "Some people here are trying to think, in case you have not noticed."

Rebecca looked up, surprised by the sudden outburst from the boy. "Um, I'm sorry? Is there something bothering you?" The young girl tried to keep the harsh tone out of her voice, as she was herself now irritated with Silas. She hadn't been making any noise, or so she thought. In truth, the noise of the pen on the paper went unnoticed by the religious rebel. She did this so many times for hours sometimes, that she didn't ever notice the noise. Imagine the girl's confusion, then, to the outburst from the boy across the way. "I'm sorry, was I perhaps breathing too loudly for you?" Her face showed her sudden distaste for Silas. How rude, she thought, in a rather sulky manner. Just because he was miserable did not give him the right to make others miserable as well.

Silas rolled his eyes. How mature of this girl. "No," he replied, calmly, patiently, as if he were speaking to a very young child about to throw a tantrum, "but you are making more racket than I like with that pen. The paper of your book is crackling like dry twigs in a wind. I don't suppose it was your great-grandmother's?" Another roll of his eyes. It was unclear as to whether the older Frost was simply asking a question, making fun of Rebecca's family, or both. At this point, it was probably a little of all three.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow, but did force herself to lower her hackles and calm her barbed tongue for now, at least. "Well, I'm sorry that my pen is making noise." She shrugged, and it wasn't quite clear whether she meant the apology or was trying to shut the older Frost up. "I guess I don't notice it, anymore. The noise." She looked up from the pages if her book to shoot Silas a harsh look. She ignored the remark about her family, mostly because she didn't feel that she actually had a family and he had not yet said anything about her mother. "Though. i highly doubt that it was making so much noise you had to punch the desk. After all, it's done nothing to you." Silas had spoken to her as if he were a child about to have a tantrum, but her voice sounded as though she were speaking to a young toddler who had already had their tantrum. Firm, but not necessarily harsh towards the redheaded boy.

A smile lifted at the corner of Silas's thin lips. It was a very small, very humorless, and very dangerous expression. "I did not punch the desk," he told her, with a raise of one eyebrow. "I simply thumped the desk. Had I actually meant to hurt the desk, it would no longer be standing. Much like you, if you keep on the way you are." One thing was for sure: the redhead surely didn't like Rebecca's tone. He didn't like it one bit. If she were wise, she would change it, heed his warning. If she wasn't...well, then he was not going to accept blame for the consequences.

Rebecca so wanted to ask the hot-tempered boy who had pissed in his Wheaties, but decided against it. She didn't like the smile on his face, not one bit. "Well excuse me for not knowing the difference between a thump and a punch. To me it all looked the same; a fist hitting a desk." The sour, sarcastic tone dropped after that because she feared he would demonstrate the difference between thumping and punching on her if she didn't stop. The Merchant girl now regretted ever saying a friendly greeting to the boy to begin with. "And there's no need for your to be so cold," she added with wide green eyes bright with slight irritation. "I'd said one word to you and had barely sat down when all of a sudden you're going off on me. What would you like me to do?" She asked him, throwing up her hands as if asking him for a suggestion. "Pretend like I hadn't been snapped at?"

"Preferably, yes," Silas said flatly. After all, that was what Cat did. And Cat was one of the only people he bothered to associate with for precisely that reason: she gave him no trouble. And when she did, she didn't mind when he punished her for it. Apparently, his remark hinting at this had done nothing but make this frustrating teen pause for only a second--what a shame. Had his situation not already been so precarious, Silas would have been tempted to punish her, and see what kind of reaction she would give him for it. He would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little curious about that: after all, everybody had their secret fears, their secret sides. Perhaps--should the situation keep escalating--he would see about dragging hers out of hiding.

Rebecca gave him a look of shock. He had expected her to keep quiet after his little outburst? Rebecca then decided that Silas probably didn't have social interaction, that would explain him in her mind. "Well," she said with a hint of anger still there in her voice. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm just not that kind of person." Pointedly, she opened her book again, slammed it rather loudly onto the desktop, and continued to cross out lines as her eyebrows pulled together and her lips moved in time with the irritated curses going through her mind.

"If I were you, I would work on becoming that kind of person, at least temporarily, very quickly." Silas's voice was low and angry. He had a feeling that this blasphemous girl--he could see now that she was defacing a Bible--was making much more noise than she had to, simply to irritate him. And he didn't like that. He went on, "I don't even know your name, girl, nor do you know mine; and we have already gotten on each other's nerves. This is not a good thing, and so I will make you a proposition: you keep your loud mouth shut, and so too will I control mine. Then we will cease to become each other's problem." A raise of one eyebrow and a clenching of fists--signs that said that Rebecca had better not decide to stir up more trouble. "Have we got a deal?"

It would seem the the Frost boy couldn't let the manner go, and if she didn't entertain him, Rebecca would never be able to get her work done. With a sigh, shut her book and tossed the now capped pen onto the desk. She turned so that her knees were out from under the desk and she was facing Silas. "Firstly, to make this a more proper affair, my name is Rebecca. Secondly, not that I have any problems with the details of this little deal in the slightest, why do I have to change myself for your benefit? From the looks of you, you aren't royalty, therefor I see no need to throw myself at your feet sting to fulfill your entertainment woes." She simply sat there, in her chair, now. Her green eyes looking at him expectantly.

Silas shrugged, unfazed by this comment. "I am not royalty," he agreed. "Far from it. I am simply Silas Frost, and I am advising you to take a wise course of action because I know for a fact--even if you do not--that should you try to make trouble on purpose, things will end very badly." The anger in his gaze had calmed somewhat; the older Frost no longer looked as if he wished to give Rebecca a good thump on the head with her Bible. Nonetheless, his tone bed seriousness, and his tight fists had not relaxed. The message was all too obvious: his words were true, and he meant them.

She looked at him evenly, feeling unfazed by his threat, though she knew she should be very afraid of Silas Frost. "I'm not trying to make trouble on purpose," she told him in an innocent tone that matched the look now in her eyes. Trouble just comes to me. "I'm just trying to figure out why the sudden outburst over a small noise. You must have been thinking about something very important," Rebecca observed, but didn't pry on the subject. It wasn't her business to ask what the young man was talking about.

"Very important," Silas answered, completely serious. But he waved a hand, as if dismissing the thought, and shook his head. "But it's not even that which is the main problem. That, I suppose, would simply be that I am very irritable, especially when I am expecting quiet." A quiet chuckle came then, at this little comment; it seemed that the redhead was at least attempting to make amends by poking a bit of fun at himself. He figured the tension in the room needed a little bit of winding down.

Rebecca hesitated, fixing Silas with a close stare before deciding he was actually possibly trying to make conversation lighter. The younger girl physically relaxed, her tensed muscles unwinding slowly. "If you were expecting quiet, then why didn't you stay in your dorm? It must be a lot quieter in there, right?" The hackles were completely gone, and the sarcasm in her voice was gone, replaced by the friendly, naive, if not a little cautious tone similar to the one used when she had first greeted Silas.

Silas shook his head. "No." And that was all. Cat spent a lot of time in their dorm--she had even before her unfortunate little chat with Felix--but now, even when he tried, it was nearly impossible to force her out. And it was hard to remain in such close proximity to her without beginning to think about her, and the mistakes she may or may not have made that day, or the people she may or may not have talked to that he didn't approve of. That only led to anger, which led to shouting, which led to violence. And he didn't need Cat breaking anymore than she already had. No, Silas no longer spent a lot of time in his dorm.

"Oh." Curiosity gleamed in Rebecca's eyes. From the single-answer word to the long silence after, it was clear that it was a subject not to be pushed on. Still, she was curious to know why it was that Silas didn't stay in his dorm. "What? Do you have a noisy roommate?" she tilted her head gently and bit her bottom lip, nervous that she had asked. "You and your roommate don't get along?" She guessed again, not expecting a real answer from Silas at all. She sooner would have expected a sharp retort or glare than a real answer.

"We get along perfectly well, most of the time. And anyhow, I can't see how it's any of your concern." Silas's tone was suddenly sharp--not loud or threatening, just sharp, like the edge of a blade. And he did glare, though not nearly with as much venom as Rebecca expected. "I apologize if I sound particularly unfriendly, but again, I have problems with strangers trying to poke into my personal life without probable cause." Again, he was trying to smooth over the cracks that he could feel beginning to form in the conversation--thus why Rebecca wasn't immediately pounced upon. The last thing he needed was another rumor going about.

"Sorry," came the low mumble, and Rebecca turned back around while she mindlessly flipped through the pages of her book. "I was just curious, is all. I didn't mean to pry into your business." Truthfully, she didn't want to give Silas any excuse to become angry at her. He didn't seem exactly like the kind of person you wanted to anger in the first place.

"Well, as they say, curiosity killed the cat." Another tiny smile, this one more amused, lifted at Silas's lips. Being related to his stepsister made that both a pun and a truth: and quite amusing ones, at that. It got old sometimes, he would be the first to admit to that, but it always made his stepsister laugh, and there were occasions where he liked--even wanted--to hear her laughter. Those times were becoming increasingly rare as time went on, that was true, but they were still there. Thus the little smile and the phrase itself.

Rebecca nodded, conversation dwindling now, and she wasn't sure if she was relieved or unhappy about it. Though, honestly, she was starting to lean closer towards relief. "Yeah, I suppose you're right," she admitted grudgingly, eyes placed on her book. She didn't say that she exactly trusted the Frost boy. He had first been angry at her, ready to hurt her, it had seemed and then trying to be joking, then guarded. Not that she could blame him for it, at least being guarded. She had asked some odd questions, and had expected that sort of reaction. That didn't make her trust him any more, though.

((I'm derping. Shall we fade?))

['m derping, too. Fade.]

It had taken him a day, but Carlos had finally struck up the nerve to take the friendly nurse's advice and go find Juana. Today, he had decided, he was going to stop being such a sissy and actually get things done. It had taken quite a bit of initiative, but finally he had mustered up the courage and wrote a note to Juana (in Spanish, just in case it was intercepted) telling her to meet him here. It was not a popular patient destination, which made it ideal for long apology talks and even lengthier explanations. There were two guards posted outside the door as always, an added bonus--now no matter what happened or how upset he (or Juana) got, all either of them would have to do was yell and instantly, there would be staff on the scene. No danger of anyone getting hurt. Carlos sat at one of the old, rickety desks, sucking on a Jolly Rancher and drumming his fingers anxiously on the desktop. One of his marbles was being rolled in tight little circles by his free hand, and try as he might he couldn't stop thinking: What if she didn't show? What if he had been too late? The thought was surprisingly horrifying, and the young Hispanic found himself praying that such was not the case. He'd made a promise. He couldn't afford to break it now. Not when he'd already invested so much.

When Juana had gotten the note, she had felt a sudden rush of emotions that she didn't think she would ever feel about something as petty as a note from a young boy who she'd hardly met. Almost immediately, the young Hispanic has felt raging anger and the note had been ripped up and thrown over the dorm. She had stayed angry like that for close to a half hour, just pacing back and forth through her dorm, practically seeing red when she saw a piece of ripped up note. Why would he dare even attempt to speak with her after the day of the fire? Juana was sure she had made herself perfectly clear about how she felt. She felt she couldn't trust him and shouldn't have thought of doing so to begin with. Was he really so desperate to trust her for whatever reason that he would dare make contact with her? She wondered why he wanted her to trust him so badly to begin with, and when she thought it over, no positive ideas came to mind. Then a part of her mind had remembered how sweet he was, and so kind except for that one time. Maybe he wasn't trying to get anything from her, but really wanted her to be his friend so he could help her. She would make clear that she didn't need his help. In the end, it was curiosity to which part of her Carlos's actions weighed in towards that made her show up at the classroom. She looked at the guards at the door with an expression that told them without her words that she was worried and scared to be here and then opened the door. She closed it tightly, angrily even and fixed the younger Hispanic with a raised eyebrow and angry gaze. She said nothing, but stood with her arms crossed over her chest, waiting for Carlos to speak.

Carlos saw the girl as soon as she walked in, and his eyes widened very slightly. She looked so mad--he hadn't, not even in the worst cases imagined, once thought that she would look so utterly and completely enraged. It certainly hadn't been what he was expecting, not in the least, and because of that the first words out of his mouth were: "This is a talk, not a planned execution! Juana, for the love of God, I'm not your enemy!" The words were out before he thought about them, and immediately the young Hispanic snapped his mouth shut. Shit. That had not been a smart thing to say--because Juana had every single right to be angry and mistrustful and they both knew it. But on that note...hadn't he warned her that something like this might happened? Hadn't he said, warned her to he careful? He had, several times, and each time he had been waved away in disbelief. Which begged the question: was that amount of anger so justified? Carlos didn't know, couldn't think of a satisfactory answer in a short enough time to merit saying anything else--and so he sat there, both hands gone still, and he looked at her with what had to be some distant cousin of anger starting to burn in his own eyes. It wasn't meant to be there, but it was. After all, there was nothing else he could do except for sit and contemplate the tension thick between them; and helplessness as not something the former slave appreciated being.

Juana's gold eyes widened ever so slightly at his little outburst. In her eyes, she could and should have been as angry as she was. He had done -in her eyes- exactly what he said he wouldn't. He had taken her trust and broken it. You can't trust anyone, he had told her, and that was what she had told him before he had promised he would never take advantage of her trust. He had lied to her, and that hurt her and made her angry at the same time. "That hasn't been decided yet," she told him evenly, wanting to put her hand on the door and just leave. Something in her made her stay and watch what looked like anger grow in his eyes. He was angry at her, for what? She thought of when he had warned her about his bad moods and she hadn't believed him. Was he angry because of that? He had no reason to, she thought. She didn't know that Carlos had let out the beast, and she had explained his actions to herself as him showing his true colors. She didn't change her expression or her posture.

And just like that, the anger was gone. Carlos let out a long sigh, and as he did so he slumped, seeming almost defeated, into his seat. "If that's really what you think, then that's what I've bought you in to talk about, Juana," he said quietly. Over the span of two seconds, he looked as if he had aged fifty years. Both elbows were set on the table and the young Hispanic's head fell into his hands. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of them, a sign of weariness, and then gave another little sigh before raising his head to nod at the chair. "Siéntate," he told her, and it was not a request but an order. "I know exactly what you're thinking right now, Juana, and I don't like it. You know exactly what I'm thinking, and you don't like it. So we're going to sit across from each other and talk it out like a couple of dignified people, all right? Otherwise, this entire thing will have been a waste of your time and mine." The way the young Hispanic spoke brooked no argument. He was still looking at her with that odd, sudden old-man weariness, an expression so out of place on his childlike features. He wasn't waiting for her to accept. He was waiting for her to do as he said.

Juana had to admit that the younger boy's sudden expression alarmed her slightly, though it didn't show in her face. He was either very desperate to talk to her about what had happened so that they could regain their previous friendship, or he just wanted her in his life for some sort of plan that required her trust. Juana knew the latter of her thoughts was ridiculously stupid, and though she couldn't understand why Carlos so badly wanted her in his life, the young Hispanic girl obliged. She moved across the room to the chair across from him. Her expression was still angry and weary of him, but her body language was not as rigid and more relaxed. She decided that as much as she couldn't understand why he was always so sweet to her, but since she couldn't ever think of a situation where he would need her trust for anything, and so she decided it would only make sense to give him a chance. After all, he'd never hurt her before. Still, she wanted an explanation before she decided that she could forgive the boy. "Hablate," she told him, setting her chin on her hands.

"First of all, I have to say it: I'm sorry. About the graveyard, that night of the fire. I know it's probably the last thing you want to hear me say, but it's true." Carlos held her gaze for several moments, trying to communicate his sincerity, before dropping his head to look at his hands again as he thought about what else to say. How was he to explain everything? "Do you remember," he said slowly, "when I said that I was no se sentía bien? When I told you my brain was kind of short-circuiting?" Internally, he rolled his eyes at himself. Of course she remembered. Nothing else would account for the lingering traces of anger in those golden eyes, but the Hispanic still thought he might as well say the words. Sometimes it was easier to state the obvious before moving into more painful territory. "Well, what happened during and after that is a perfect example of what everyone calls my "episodes." There are two kinds, as far as I know, and I'm loathe to discover anymore: there are the kind that make me very violent and dangerous--that's what I was warning you about in the common room, that's the beast--and then there's the kind that make me paranoid and angry. I don't have a name for it, but that's what you saw." With this explanation he raised his head again, looking Juana in the eyes. How was she taking it? "It wasn't an attack on you or me showing my true colors. Juana. It was stress and shock and grief all building up and coming out the wrong way. Can you believe that?" And as he looked at her, there was quiet desperation, quiet hope, in his eyes. That was the best he could do by way of explanation, and Juana now had to decide for herself whether she wanted to take it or leave it.

Juana almost rolled her eyes at his apology, though she refrained. She would at least let him get out what he needed to, and so she sat, catching his gaze as often as she could while he spoke. When he finished, she let the words sink in slowly. So it was, after all, the very thing that she had thought it was that had snapped at her on the night of the fire. It made her feel a little bit better now that she knew the truth, but she still didn't feel completely positive about their scenario at the moment. At least, not yet. She wanted some things answered first. "Pero cuando la bestia se apodera ¿todavía confías en mí? Porque confíar es muy importantr a mi.¿ Si? Comprendes? ¿Puedo confíar en su cuando estas la bestia?" She dropped her guards for now, letting her worry and wide eyes that shone perhaps with desperation show. He needed to understand how important that was to her. "Carlos, I need to be able to trust you whether you be what you call the beast or mi amigo. I can't, can't have you trust me y me confías and then have the beast rip that. We have to start from scratch every time that happens and I can't do that. I'm finding it difficult to put this little trust in you right now. Can you answer that for me, amigo?" She hoped he could, and she hoped the answer was that yes, their trust would be okay no matter whether he were Carlos, the beast, or the unnamed. If the answer were no, Juana could see herself in a downward spiral from torments from the beast and the unnamed harassing her and Juana couldn't do it even if she found she wanted to.

((The unnamed. That sounds so awesome.))

Carlos wanted so badly to tell her yes. He did. The problem was, he wasn't positive that it wouldn't be a lie. Finally, he settled on a sort of compromise. "There's nothing I can do about the beast, Juana," he told her. "And quite frankly, not much I can do about paranoid angry me either. They pretty much do what they want and there's nothing I can really do except for sit back and watch." They hurt, her words, though he tried very hard not to let pain flash in his eyes. She still couldn't trust him, even after she knew that he couldn't control himself? that none of it was really his fault? That showed one of two things: either the girl really, really had bad trust issues, or she had absolutely zero faith in him no matter what part was up front and talking. The young Hispanic quite preferred the former option. "I'll tell you what I can do, though. I can go away, to my dorm, or find a nurse. I can go away from you and you won't have to play any part in watching me turn into something I'm not. But if I say you have to go, that doesn't mean be stubborn and stick it out. That means go. Because the episodes never wait for anyone." The hand that wasn't holding the marble in place clenched into a loose fist--possibly in irritation, possibly in sincerity. There was no way to tell. "¿Entiende usted? Because I'm not kidding around. I never was. You can't wave that sort of thing off anymore. Not ever again. Not if you really meant what you said when you called me your friend. Do you understand that?"

[Mysterious.]

"Quiero ayudar," she said sadly, her eyes falling down to the table where she sat. She believed Carlos, she really did, and she had faith in him, but it was his other parts she had problems with. She couldn't trust them or have their word. So there would be parts of Carlos she could never trust, and it was hard enough to trust Carlos. She wanted to, though. She wanted to both trust him and help him. It was something she never wanted to do for someone, or at least not in a very long time and so she thought that there had to be something special about Carlos that made her want to trust him. "I wish I could help as much as possible," she told him, and began to speak her thoughts out loud. "I want to trust you, Carlos, but it is extremely difficult. Let me try, though, por favor. I will try and help you and we can see if things run smoothly enough. ¿Si?"

The wave of relief that the words brought on was enormous. Success! "Sí," Carlos replied with a nod and a little smile. "Sí, Juana. We can do it like that." There was a pause, and the smile left the young Hispanic's features so that a more serious expression could take its place. "Because I really do want to be your friend," Carlos said quietly. "It's not some act, or some plot to mess with your head. Do you want to hear the absolute truth? It's that I'm lonely, Juana. I'm lonely. Even batshit crazy psychopaths need and want to have friends."

((Fade?))

[:'( Carlos! I love him so much.]

Juana's expression suddenly went soft, a tiny genuine smile crossing over her full lips. He really did want nothing but friendship from her, and she could say it relieved her and let her guard down more comfortably as well. Though she couldn't help but feel the least bit upset that she had thought he would have tried to do something to ruin the trust she was trying to invest into him. Why would she think that of Carlos? He was obviously so sweet and kind to her, it was too much for it to have been anything but a façade. She didn't understand why someone like him could he lonely, but she would put an end to such unnecessary matters. The young Hispanic girl reached over across the table and wrapped her arms around the younger Hispanic's neck. She now had a friend, and between that realization and the hug, Juana was feeling fantastic.

[Fade.]

Eric didn't understand why he needed to be in the classroom. What did he have to learn? Nothing important, and besides, he had to learn about everyone and everything in the asylum before he could learn about stupid math tables. He had been at the asylum for a few months now, and had already learned a lot (one of which was to look before sitting and stay away from angry people) but there was still so much to be learned. He would figure it out, he supposed with a small mental shrug. It was just like school, or figuring out how to climb the tallest tree all the way to the top. It wasn't anything anyone could teach you. His head hung over the worksheet he had been given (his teacher had stepped out after giving him the paper) with little interest in actually doing the work. He sighed, running his pencil over the corners of the paper, doodling carelessly. One came out as a piece of broccoli with an open mouth and notes coming from it. In Eric's mind, the broccoli was singing to him. He had no idea what any of the notes he'd drawn meant, he had only seen them on cartoons, but he did know that it had something to do with music and songs, so it was good enough for the Jacobsen boy.

A gentle knock, and a quiet call for whichever nurse happened to be teaching that day. Morgan often frequented the classroom, but she preferred being alone as opposed to a full classroom. For that reason alone, the blind girl let out a gentle call.

Strawberry blonde hair and cloudy gaze announced the blind girl and her arrival. She had become rather well known, and so anyone would have recognized her slight figure in the doorway. A curious little look was in place as she spoke.

"Anybody there?"

Morgan hadn't seen the teacher just leave, and she couldn't see the boy who sat all alone. The strawberry-blonde stood in the doorway, blue gaze staring out at absolutely nothing, as she awaited an answer. She, of course, expected none.

The boy that heard his food, being new, did not recognize the girl, but he did recognize a friendly face, and so Eric raised a hand, waving it ever so slightly in the air. "Hi. I'm here," he piped up with a small smile. As excited as he was to see what he thought was a friendly face, he thought of his run-in with Jason, the boy with the angry green eyes who had said bad words to him. He hoped that this girl wouldn't say bad words to him. He really didn't like them all that much. Sometimes his mom and dad had sworn at each other a lot when they had fought. Still, he kept telling himself that she looked like a nice person, even though her eyes looked kind of funny. Eric, who had never seen a blind person before, thought that she just had funny eyes.

A little knit of her eyebrows, and Morgan was off making her way towards the voice. An unfamiliar one, which was odd. These days the girl knew almost everyone. "Hi, there."

It took Morgan a few seconds, but she eventually made her way through the maze of chairs until she found one beside Eric. Once she sat across from the boy she offered a big, warm smile. New people were her favorite thing.

"Hi! I'm Morgan."

She hadn't yelled at him, but had done something nearly opposite and smiled at him, mirroring the friendly smile that was on his thin lips. This was a nice girl! How wonderful it was to meet someone nice, and his own age! Maybe the two could be friends, Eric surely hoped so. Right now, in this place, sometimes that was all Eric wanted, just one friend to have fun with. He didn't even mind that this potential friend was a girl. "I'm Eric," he said, and always one to remember his manners--he was after all, a boy from the south--reached out his hand, intending for the girl to shake it. He had no idea that Morgan couldn't see his hand, despite the fact that he was looking right into her eyes, almost admiring the cloudy look in them. They were so different, not like anything the boy had ever seen before, which automatically made them cool, new, and exciting.

His hand was shaken almost delicately, and then dropped with a little grin. "Hi, Eric. I don't think I've seen you around before." From his voice and his grip, Morgan thought that the boy couldn't be older than ten. "Are you one of the scary people I should avoid?" A teasing tone had entered her voice; she wasn't at all worried for either outcome. Morgan had become exceptionally skilled in befriending the psychopaths. Children her age were no problem.

The hazel-eyed boy shook his head. "I haven't seen you around, either, but I'm new. Are you new, too?" He honestly hoped not because if she were new like him, then she would be just as lost as he was, and he didn't want that. He wanted a friend, and he wasn't too picky, but he hoped for a friend that had been around for at least a little while. He took her question quite seriously, furrowing his small brows together as he pondered the thought. He didn't think he was scary, at least, not when he didn't eat the Bad Food, and he was sure that he hadn't eaten any meat for a long time. No, he wasn't scary, but Bad Food Him was. He didn't like him, but he didn't want to scare this girl off with the idea that he could be scary already. "No, I'm not scary," he finally said, shaking his head again firmly, as if convincing himself. "Why? Do I look scary?" Maybe that was why nobody wanted to be his friend! Maybe he looked like a scary mean guy that nobody would like.

Morgan laughed a little, her tone as giddy as that of a sparrow in spring. Her grin was wide and toothy, and it brought a little flush to her cheeks. "I'm not new, I've been here for about four years now." The little strawberry-blonde shrugged, as if it was nothing, though she knew that Eric's next question would be why were you here so young?! That's what everybody always asked. Morgan was used to it.

At his next statement, though, Morgan laughed even a little harder. Oh, the naivety of some of the younger patients. They didn't know what a blind girl looked like, and she had known of it since she was born. Of course, who was she to talk? She was easily the youngest patient here. But as of late, especially with her growing fondness to Raven and Rosemarie, she could consider herself much less the innocent little blind girl she had once been.

"Well, I don't know if you look scary. I can't see." Easy as that. It was such an easy thing for her to say; she didn't even bother to act ashamed or surprised.

Eric let out a low whistle. Four years? He hoped he wasn't in there for nearly that long. His parents had assured him that he would only be there for a little while, only for a little while and he could be back home for forever. They had promised, so he was sure he would be home soon. "Wow. That's a really long time. Must be boring." His mind had begun to trail off already, going back to doodling on his worksheet. Most of his drawings were of random pieces of food with faces and speaking bubbles coming from their mouths. His pencil stopped though, almost dropping when Morgan spoke next. "Really? You can't see at all? Is that why you're in here?" That's why your eyes look so funny! Eric of course, knew better than to say that, especially not to her face. He figured that all of his questions were probably rude enough with the way he had bombarded her.

Morgan laughed again. "I suppose you could say that's why I'm here. My daddy was a little crazy, and he didn't want to deal with me. He dropped me off on the doorstep when I was three." She began twirling her loose strands of curly reddish hair around her index finger, which was a common sign of slight discomfort. Morgan didn't exactly enjoy talking about the man who had abandoned her; she couldn't even bring herself to think of him as her father. If anything, Raven was more of a father to her than her actual father ever had been.

"Or at least that's what the nurse's told me." She ended with a little shrug, and immediately her smile widened. "What about you? Why are you here, if you're not a scary person?"

A little gasp escaped the Jacobsen boy's lips. It was a gasp of surprise at the thought of her father abandoning her. She seemed so nice, why would he want to leave her? Eric could understand the thought, though. His father had left him, and he was certain that it was his own fault, but he had at least come over to see him every other weekend and would sometimes stop by on the weekdays, but he hadn't actually abandoned him. "That's really bad. He's so mean." Again, he didn't know what much else to say about it, at least, not anything that was still polite, and he wanted to keep on being polite, especially when he had just met her. When she asked about his situation, he blushed a little bit, but thankfully, she couldn't see it. "My food talks to me," he explained with a shy smile. "I don't eat the food but there's food that wants me to eat it, tells me to, but I don't like to because it makes me feel... bad." He didn't want to go into detail about how bad the Bad Food made him feel. He was worried he would scare off this girl that he hoped to call friend. "My mommy decided that wasn't good for me, so she put me here."

Morgan knit her brows together. Certainly the oddest case she had heard of in this asylum, and there had been plenty conditions that could be considered out-there. But she nodded, slowly, as her mind processed Eric.

"That makes sense." Her words were curious, and nothing more. "That sounds pretty cool, though. I wish my food talked to me." Morgan offered a grin and a little laugh; she could sense his nerves and tried her best to make light of the situation.

"But I get sick," he told the girl, still sheepish. There were days when he was so hungry, when his stomach roared violently that he wished he could eat. Sometimes, he got so desperate, he would give in to the Bad Food as it coaxed him to eat them. If not, he would end up in the infirmary, an I.V. dripping nutrients he missed out on so badly from not eating into his body. "The doctors say it's not good for me to not eat, that it makes me really sick, but I don't like hearing them cry when I eat them, so I don't eat." He gave a little shudder at the memory. Once, his father had forced him to eat some of his food, and the sounds of pain (agony was a more accurate term, but he wasn't well acquainted with the word) had been unbearable, and Eric hadn't been able to finish his meal. "So sometimes I wish my food didn't talk to me."