St. Peter's Asylum discussion

Roxie placed a hand over her chest with a fake offended look in place. "Of course I can keep the secret. Who do you think I am?"

She laughed a little, the easy going smile returning. "Where might this secret place be?"

"The attic, on the top level of the asylum." Jason didn't raise his voice, and glanced around him just to make sure the cost was clear. There was no need to be careless and miss an eavesdropper--who knew what might happen if his true plan was discovered? But he saw no one, and so continued. "I know how to get there--it's not hard. You ask a nurse, tell them you're looking for something a child patient wanted that was taken away by accident or something. They'll let you up for that. Nobody ever wants to refuse a child." A swift, scornful roll of his eyes came with the words, but Jason smiled nonetheless. "I'll be there waiting. We can go tonight."

Roxie snorted. "You're forgetting I'm a volunteer, hon. I can waltz on up whenever I please. Not a problem in the slightest."

The blonde kicked one leg over another, her wide smirk still in place. She ran a pale hand through her ever-growing locks, and looked up at Jason from under her eyelashes. "And why the sudden need for alone time?"

Jason shrugged; smiled. He had been expecting this question. "You mean you don't feel it? I don't know, Roxie, I'm just so fucking sick of being followed around like I'll do something terrible whenever I want to be with someone I like. It bugs me. I figured it couldn't hurt to steal an hour or two just for us, you know?" It was, Jason reflected, not entirely a lie. That was a good thing--he wasn't much taken with having to do so much fibbing lately.

Roxie arched a eyebrow, a little colour of suspicion decorating her expression. However, the girl didn't act upon it, and instead shrugged.

"I see where you're coming from," she mused quietly. "I'm in."

The blonde pushed aside her suspicion, even laughed it off a little. Why should she be afraid? Jason wouldn't hurt her, in her eyes. He was a friend.

((You poor, ignorant child.))

"Cool." The smiled widened. Jason stood up as he prepared to leave--he had things he needed to talk about with a certain someone. "So I'll see you...when?" he asked, his smile turning playful, even flirtatious. "A few hours from now?"

"Sounds good," said the blonde with a wide smirk, offering Jason a wink before waving goodbye.

((Aaaaaand to the attic. Who goes first?))

((You.))

((Kay, give me a bit. Dinner ))

Morgan sat in the library, a big smile on her lips and her legs kicking back and forth. A book rested upon her lap, and her finger ran quickly across the pages. Blue eyes gazed forward, and for once Morgan was not worried. She read quickly, especially considering her age and disability, and to a lot of people that proved shocking. To Morgan, it was only second nature.

Her mind was clear, and nothing was on it except for the story of the book she was reading. She wasn't considering Raven, or the dark thoughts, or anything. For once, the little girl was simply bubbly and happy, and that was good.

"There's a building hidden in the dark
Long abandoned in which no one talks
Down the hall into the farthest room
Children gather in this ghostly tomb

And smile, for they were waiting here
Especially just to play with you
All the happy faces, such happy faces
They know you'll join them soon..."

The song came from the other end of the library. The voice that shaped it was quiet and low, as if the singer didn't want to disturb the only other occupant in the room with him--and in all reality, Carlos didn't. It was just a song that fit his mood, his mood and the situation too, now that he thought about it. So perhaps he was singing to Morgan, the little blind girl across the room. Perhaps he was greeting her. Or maybe, just maybe, he was warning her.

The little blonde looked up, her ringlets bouncing around her shoulders as she did. Cloudy gaze traveled eerily towards the voice that echoed throughout the halls of the library, and Morgan smiled a little. Her empty gaze fell upon Carlos, and though she could not see the boy she painted a picture of him in her head.

"Hello," Morgan chirped, a chipper smile in place. She kicked her tiny legs, cloaked in a dark blue jean, back and forth, occasionally bumping her bare feet against the plush of the chair she was sitting in. "You sing really good."

Carlos raised his eyebrows when she spoke--he hadn't expected a response quite yet--but a smile parted his lips nonetheless. He continued the song, because it bothered him to start and stop. Besides, there was more that he needed to tell her.

"Circle you, circle you
Stay with us and play forever
Circle you, circle you
Close the door and leave us never

'Til we see the rising sun
This is only the beginning
Circle you, circle you
Aren't we having lots of fun?"

Whoops. Morgan giggled a little to herself, in her own accident, as she realised that the boy wasn't done yet. The blonde groped around for the bookmark, and once her pale hands clasped around the ribbon she pulled it down the page and closed her book. She clasped her hands atop the book in her lap, and continued kicking her legs back and forth with a smile. The little girl sat silently, listening to the boy sing with a smile on her plush lips. The young girl was less focused on the message of the song; though it did come across to her. For the time being, she focused on the eerie voice, not allowing anything to ruin her good mood (a tactic she had rather perfected, thanks to Jason).

((Jason: Glad to help.))

This was the part where the song began to get sinister, and this was the part that Morgan needed to hear. Considering Carlos's current state, it was essential that she did so.

"There's a home within the forest clear
Hiding secrets that no one can hear
Shred the broken body from the mind
Immortality through death's design

While laughter and the children's hands,
they come together in the room
"It is time," they said
"Close your eyes," they said
"And we'll all play Circle You."

Circle you, circle you
Can you feel time creeping closer?
Circle you, circle you
I'm so sorry, your turn's over

'Til we see the rising sun,
they take heads from off our shoulders
Circle you, circle you
Aren't we having lots of fun?"

Morgan cocked her head to the side, ringlets encasing her shoulder in a sheath of blonde, and knit her brows together. Curiosity danced across her features, and the blonde pursed her lips a little. She wasn't afraid, no, far from it. If the girl could deal with Raven, she could certainly deal with this boy. She was simply intrigued. Intrigued and curious.

It was here, Carlos decided, that he was going to stop. The song wasn't over, but this was the point where it stopped fitting their current situation, and he saw nothing in the rest of the lyrics that could serve to further warn the little girl across the room from him. Should she come to him now and things took a turn, she could blame no one but herself. His lips parted in a small smile, and he gazed down at his hands folded on his knees. Quietly, very quietly, as if he were talking to himself, he said, "On your own head be it."

Morgan understood the risk, and so the young blonde didn't move. She flicked her hair behind her head, though, and the wide smile returned. Cloudy blue gaze stared just to the left of the boy, and as she spoke, Morgan's feet stilled.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice chirping through the distance that separated the two, that provided her safety.

"Carlos." The boy raised his eyes from his hands to her face. And because she couldn't see, Morgan would miss the dangerous glitter in their dark depths--but it wasn't a great loss. Most people were too stupid to realize when to stay away and tried to interact with him anyway. Right now, Carlos could see advantages no matter what the blind child decided to do. "Carlos Rivera. Your name is Morgan, right?"

Morgan had heard just a little about Carlos. He was a somewhat new patient, and nobody seemed to want to talk about why he was here. He must have been dangerous. Like Raven.

And yet, with this revelation, Morgan was still not afraid. "Yes, I'm Morgan," she answered. "How do you know me?"

Carlos's grin widened, and his own head cocked to the side. "A little birdie told me." He had talked to Raven, and also to Wren (the only two patients that he knew of who were named after birds) and the former had told him a little about Morgan when he had asked why they were together so much. The Indian hadn't said a lot, but he had said enough, and Carlos was curious to see the reaction Morgan would have to his particular choice of words.

Morgan knit her brows together, a little frown crossing her lips. A raven was a kind of bird. Carlos had been talking to Raven. For once, a little bit of fear danced across her face, but it was extinguished as quickly as it had come.

"Raven?" Morgan asked quietly, her voice shaking just a little. "You've been talking to Raven?"

"Sí." Carlos nodded. "Not much, though. Not enough for you to worry your pretty little head over it." His smile stretched further, just a little bit further, and could she see Morgan might have made the comparison between him and the Cheshire cat, or perhaps the Joker (did little kids read comic books? He didn't know.) Nonetheless, the look in his eyes didn't become any more sharp and his pupils didn't widen, which meant either he took pity on her or he simply didn't hear the tremor in her voice. Today, it was most likely the latter.

Morgan frowned a little, but as Carlos told her not to worry, Morgan shrugged it off a little. I hope he's telling the truth,, she thought, her mind beginning to drift back towards the darker thoughts, the ones that she didn't like.

She ignored the mention of Raven, and took a deep breath to clear her mind. Quickly, the smile was glued back into place. "What were you singing?" she asked, cocking a head full of blonde ringlets to the right.

Carlos looked thoughtful a moment. "Just a song, I guess. It was originally Japanese, by some artist called Vocaloid. Somebody translated it into English and made it sound sort of like some twisted nursery rhyme--I like it better that way." He shrugged a little, smiled. "A boy at the hospital I used to live at sang it all the time, when he was feeling...out of sorts. I learned the words from him."

The young blind girl nodded a little, and leaned forward in her chair out of curiosity, though she didn't leave the safe boundaries of the chair. "You've lived in hospitals before here?" she asked, innocence and nothing more colouring her tone. The idea of living anywhere else than this asylum was fascinating to Morgan, as she only remembered the bland gray halls she had learned to call home.

"Sure have." Carlos grinned. "Wasn't anywhere near as nice as this place, though. Back there, I couldn't do anything without an entire escort of nurses." He rolled his eyes, but not in scorn; the gesture was automatic now he'd seen so many people do it. "But here...things are different. I can run and they can't catch me. I can hide and they can't find me." I can fight and they can't beat me. Carlos didn't dare speak the thought aloud, but a silent smile rose to his lips when it came. "I can get away," he said. He was smiling. "Do things."

Morgan nodded, and cocked her head to the side. Her feet resumed their kicking back and forth, and her gaze fell to the bottom of Carlos' chair; she no longer made the effort to keep eye contact. A sign that she was getting a little more comfortable. "Why did you leave?" Again, nothing but curiosity coloured her tone.

"Leave?" Now he laughed, a short, swift burst of sound. "Hah! I didn't leave, silly. They would never have let me just leave. I got out." There was a telling twinkle to his brown eyes now: how much more would Morgan want to know? How much would he be able to tell her--and how long would it take, he wondered, for him to get lost in the excitement of it all and go for her? Not long, not while he was like this. Not long. And Carlos couldn't say he minded.

((Question: is there enough of an attachment between the two for Raven to get upset over Carlos attacking her?))

Morgan remained impervious and innocent, her blank gaze hidden underneath knit blonde brows. "How?" Morgan tried to think of how it would be possible to escape an asylum, any asylum, this asylum. Carlos told it as if his old asylum was more strict than this one; how did he get out of that one? The curious little girl just kept asking questions.

((Hm. Maybe. I don't think Carlos will, though. She's just a kid.))

Another laugh, this one longer and a lot more unsettling. It bordered on maniacal. "A good magician never reveals his secrets," Carlos replied, hiding his ever-widening grin behind one hand. He knew the child couldn't see him--he was simply hiding his expression from the librarian nearby. He didn't want her to be getting suspicious; he'd been in solitary confinement before, and he had no desire to be sent there again.

Morgan knit her brows together, and yet at his laugh a smile crossed her lips. His laugh was funny, almost a little like a madman, or a villain in a movie. Morgan found that really funny, and it took all of her effort to keep it to a small smile. "Puh-leeease? I'm so curious."

"Nope." Carlos zipped his lips and tossed an imaginary key back over his shoulder. "Can't tell you. How much trouble do you think I'd be in if I did and then you got ideas in that pretty little head of yours? I could get in some real hot water, you know." Back at the old hospital, the nurses were very strict about rule-breaking. Stepping out of line meant a stream of endless therapy sessions where the doctors would reprimand you for "hindering your own progress." Carlos had spent a lot of time in therapy.

Morgan sighed a little, and rolled her eyes. "Please. None of the nurses here will even care." She offered a tiny smile, and began twirling a ringlet around her tiny, porcelain index finger. "They never do anything to anyone."

Carlos raised a suggestive eyebrow, a sly smirk creeping up onto his features. He stood up. "How do you know that's not just what they want you to think?" he asked. One step forward. "How do you know they're not lying to you, Morgan? I've never met a nurse who couldn't punish."

((Your characters are my favourite fjkgalskjhgalfa.))

Morgan didn't see the suddenly threatening posture of Carlos, and so she wasn't afraid in the slightest. "I don't know, I've never met one who can," she countered with a little smirk.

((This is the desired effect.))

"Really?" His voice was quiet, almost menacing but not quite hitting the mark. Carlos sounded as if a switch had just been clicked in his mind, the switch that operated the cage that the beast was constantly kept in. The bars slid open, the creature peered out. "I ought to show you, then. You might learn something. It would be like a game; a pretending game. You like playing pretend, don't you Morgan?"

Again, the poor, innocent Morgan didn't sense exactly the danger she was in. She could hear the change in Carlos' voice, and she knit her brows a little, but she didn't see it as anything to worry about. She survived Raven; she felt she had nothing to be scared of.

"I love pretend," Morgan said with a giddy smile.

((Child, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot.))

"Good." Carlos nodded slowly. "That's good." He began to walk forward, across the library, stopping at the foot of the couch where Morgan sat. He lowered himself down onto the cushions, and he smiled at her. "We can't play here, though. It's boring here. We need to go somewhere else." Somewhere where there were no nurses, no guards, no patients. Somewhere where they could be by themselves. Somewhere where no one would be around to listen.

((She's five. Give her a break for being an idiot.))

Morgan nodded, her smile still in place. "Okay. What kind of pretend are we playing?"

((Point taken. But still. She's perceptive. :P))

"I told you, about nurses. We're going to play pretend about nurses. I'm going to be the nurse, you're going to be the patient. You're going to break a rule, and I'm going to...well, that's a surprise." Again his smile grew, almost wide enough by now to be a leer. If he did this right, things were going to turn out fine. Just fine.

Morgan smiled, a little eagerly. She didn't sense the danger. She wasn't suspicious, or at least, not enough to be wary. The poor, innocent young girl didn't even know what she was getting into. "Okay, that sounds like fun. Where do we go?"

"Where ever you want to go."

Morgan pursed her lips. "Well now, that's not fair. You decided we're doing this, so you should also decide where. It's only fair."

"Está bien, está bien. I'll pick." Carlos chewed on his lip for a moment in thought. Where to go, where to go...

"The basement," he decided. "You're little, so I bet you're not really allowed to be down there, are you? It could make the pretending a little bit more realistic, don't you think?"

Morgan nodded a little. "Yeah, that sounds like fun!" She was excited; Morgan had never been down to the basement, as she wasn't allowed. "Let's go then!" The young blind girl hopped up, excited, and gently clasped her pale hands together.

Carlos smiled, stood, took her hand in his. His grip was tight with renewed energy. "Sure," he said. "Let's go then."

((You post in the basement.))

((Okay.))

There seemed to be a bout of opposites running around the asylum as of late; those so controlled had broken, those so broken seemed to be more controlled. The young blind girl fit more into the latter category, and she was no exception. Morgan had a rather bright smile in place, and even her physical appearance seemed to be better than most days. Her clouded blue gaze was bright and glimmering, and her hair was once again golden and silky, curling up around her jawline (she had just received the first haircut in approximately a year).

It had been such a long time since Morgan had been in a good mood such as this. It was as if the child in her had been revived, and the woman that had been forming was entirely cut away with her hair. She sat in a chair that was far too big for her, with a book of Braille in her lap, and she kicked her feet back and forth against the front of the chair.

Across the room sat Raven, his legs crossed, his hands folded and set on his knees. He, of course, belonged to the former category, if only slightly, and that was why he was here in the library today. Reading usually ended up helping when he wasn't himself--it was all to easy to forget his own problems when reading the likes of Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe, because the characters often had so many issues of their own. He'd come in to read, yes, but then he had noticed Morgan, and he'd sat down in a chair across the room to watch her instead. She seemed to be doing better; and that was a good thing. The Indian himself might have been a tiny bit worse, but he still had goals in mind for Morgan, and he still wanted to see to it that she reached them.