St. Peter's Asylum discussion

Rosemarie was too angry to cry out, but the force she felt when she was shoved against the wall made her jaw snap down on her tongue. Thankfully, it wasn't enough to cut it down all the way, but it had left a good cut, and blood welled into her mouth, a small drip coming out of her mouth before she had no choice but to spit it out. It looked as though she had been going to spit on Raven, but the blood ended up on the floor beside them and not on his face. The pain ebbed away and then she realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks. From what? The pain in her tongue, the pain from the slap (it was on the same cheek as the time in the infirmary and growing red), guilt for snapping at him, grief for Leah, or panic that Raven would hurt her? She didn't know, her mind was all over the place and she hadn't finished one final, understandable thought she was so incredibly distraught and torn between the girl she all but saw as Lisa or Raven. One of her thoughts was around the fact that her and Raven had just been on the peek of their love, they were so completely in love with each other, and she had just ruined all of that. Another was simply screaming at Raven to not dare touch Leah. She didn't say anything for a while, just glared at him, irises of chipped ice meeting flaming onyx stone. "Shut up!" She suddenly snarled, not yet realizing that was not going to do her any good. Her body was so tense, she must have felt like a wooden board in his hands. Hands that could easily crush wood and break bone. "Get off of me. You don't..." She trailed off, not sure how to finish her sentence. Instead, she wriggled against the wall, thrashing and trying to stupidly escape his grip.

Another instinctive reaction: wham! Rosemarie's head came forward and then was slammed back into the wall, hard enough to create a lasting echo. His left fist came down on the ex-Hunter's windpipe, and the right held her in place as one knee came up in a strike to her stomach. If that didn't shut her up, nothing would. Raven wasn't thinking anymore; the only thought running through his head was how angry he was now. Surely, had his complexion accommodated such things, he would have been completely red in the face--as it was, it simply seemed as if fury had transformed him from man to demon. His entire expression screamed fury: there was no compassion, no concern, no worry that he might have seriously hurt his Hunter with those strikes. There was only a snarl of infinite ire emphasizing the fire in his eyes and the strength behind his hands, strength he was trying so hard to hold back for her sake. He slapped her again, quite hard, and leaned forward. "I don't what, sweetheart?" the Indian demanded of Rosemarie, his voice right next to the ear that now faced towards him. "What? Is there something you'd like to tell me? Is there something I'm missing here? The moment you became a fucking nanny to a traumatized little girl, perhaps? Or maybe the moment when you lied and decided to tell me that you love me!" The words were shouted, too loudly to be anything except for an exclamation. The thought of that--the thought of the little redhead having lied in the park (for all he knew, she had!)--brought on a fresh wave of rage, and the Indian did not think as he stood aside and threw her down to the floor, then knocked her away from him with a powerful strike to her middle. He had to--if she stayed where she was, she was going to get hurt. He would break a bone. Hell, he still would now; the difference was that she was harder to get to. Raven was seeing red now--and no amount of backtracking was going to bring color into his world again.

[Rosemarie's the on getting pounded on, but it's Raven you feel so bad for.]

Maybe it was the knock on the head, or the mind blowing pain from every enraged strike, or the fact that she was finally starting to gain her thoughts, but whatever it was, Rosemarie had regained some proper thought. She realized she had snapped on Raven for absolutely no reason that he could tell, and on top of it, she hadn't even explained herself. Now she'd made him mad--no, mad wasn't even the right word. He was beyond pissed, beyond furious with her, and for good reason. They were in the black land now, and she didn't know how to get them both out, or even herself without leaving the room and even then, he would go after her and Rosemarie didn't want to leave him like this. She stubbornly stayed put, even though she knew it would be better to leave, she wasn't going to leave him when he was so angry like this, she wasn't going to make this the same as the infirmary. "Understand," she finished her sentence, whispered, inaudible for the Indian to hear. "You don't understand." She looked up at him, the icy glare gone and replaced by wide eyes of wonder that somehow screamed both an apology and a question of what she had just done to him. "I'm so sorry, you don't understand and I didn't even explain." Without much warning, Rosemarie burst into tears, her body shaking with her sobs. What did I do to him? How could I have hurt him like that? Oh, gods.

((Once again, entirely her fault. If it weren't, I would feel bad for her--but refusal to accept responsibility for her own actions merits her no ounce of pity from me.))

And in an instant, he was on her. "Shut up!" he roared, pouncing on her, delivering kick after kick to her stomach. Goddamn it, why didn't she just pipe down? "Shut up, shut up, I don't want to hear it!" And then he spun around, towards the wall, and began to pound against the cold stone. His fists, his feet, they were flying, landing strikes that would have easily bruised even the strongest of people, telling the tale of his outrage. In just a few moments, he'd scraped the skin off of his knuckles and they began to bleed, but it was with half a mind he even noticed the redness and not a thought was spared to the pain, though it would no doubt be horrible later. He couldn't think, could hardly hear or see (but of course he was grounded enough to register the sound of that wailing, that wretched, whining wailing that his girlfriend had the gall to make) and his mind was a black storm. He might have been screaming--he didn't actually know. All he knew was rage, and it was telling him to fight. Fight and hit and beat until the sniveling bitch on the ground shut her sorry mouth, perhaps for good (right now, in his state of mind, he thought that that would be a wonderful thing.) There was a small, insignificant snap, and then fire shot up his hand, but the Indian hardly noticed. He didn't even stop hitting with it. He couldn't stop. Because if he did, he would round again on Rosemarie, and he--the rational, sane part of him, the wise man in the back of his mind--had a feeling that if he did, his hands would close around her throat and he would not let go.

[Well, yeah! It's entirely her fault! I don't even care about her, I'm worried about Raven!]

Rosemarie tried to shy away from his touch, and managed to only when he rounded back to the wall. Each time he yelled, she flinched and started to cry harder for reasons she didn't really understand, but had enough mind to let her tears fall silently. Her body still shook terribly, but she kept her cries silent. She couldn't look at him, or else she would open up her stupid mouth and set him off further. She didn't see the blood, but heard the sound of him pounding against the wall. He was so loud, if she didn't figure out a way to stop him, they would both get caught in here and then she feared what would happen to them, and more importantly him, because he would only become even more enraged with the staff's presence. Raven had told her to stop talking, and she had obliged, but would that be enough? She doubted it, but she had to try because she had enough sense not to go near him and to certainly not touch him. Instead, she tried to do as she was told and curled herself up into a slight ball, cursing herself over and over while she waited for the sound of him beating the wall to end. What the hell did I just do? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, gods, I'm sorry. I am so stupid. Please stop, you'll hurt yourself if you don't.

Slam! Slam! Slam! Three more strikes, and then the Indian fell to his knees. The walls dripped red, his hands dripped red, and his vision, too, it was dripping red. He didn't stop because he wanted to; he stopped because he had to, because the white-hot pain in his now-broken left hand was too much, because the muscles in his arms and legs and hands and feet were screaming and he just couldn't hit the stone anymore. Besides, stone didn't scream. Stone didn't cry out, stone didn't fight. Stone was still and silent and cold, and stone was not something that deserved his fury. And so Raven lurched to his feet and staggered, much like a drunken man, over to the door. Had Rosemarie scurried around to see him, she would have noticed the way his teeth were bared in what was both a grimace and a snarl, would have noticed the way insanity contorted his features until he became someone unrecognizable. His dark eyes were rolling wildly in their sockets, seeing everything in vivid, red detail but noticing nothing. He snatched at the handle on the door, let out a low, guttural screeching sound when the pain reminded him that the hand he'd used was broken, and then wrenched it open with the other hand (in pain but with all the bones still intact). Without a word--he wouldn't have been able to make any comprehensible speech even if he'd wanted to--the Indian headed out the door, not a thought nor a look nor a feeling spared to the girl on the ground behind him. He had to find something to hurt--and he had to find it fast.

((Fade?))

[D: Fade.]

The formerul homeless girl had not been in the file room in quite some time. She hadn't needed to be, she had read and re-read all of the patients' files over and over until she had been able to memorize some of them. Now she had heard of and even spoken to some of the new patients and it was time to read some new files. Jacob's, for instance, and that was the first one she had read. She was now beginning to understand the conversation they had had the other day at the peach tree and was quite interested. She was thinking that maybe he could make a nice victim and then changed her mind. She was barely able to wrap her head around the sydrome and how it worked and besides, he had an excuse for everything. What fun would that be? She replaced his file and was looking for a new one when she came across a file that made her eyebrows knit together. It had the last name Adair with a ", Anna" after it. What on earth was that about? Akantha only knew of one Adair at the asylum, and that was Raven, so who was this Anna character? Akantha decided to find out. She grabbed the file and resumed to her usual spot on top of a file and dulged herself into the life of Anna Adair for about fifteen minutes or so.

The door had been left carelessly open, and the light which spilled out into the hall caught the eye of the very girl Akantha was reading up on as she wandered down the hall (everything in this hallway was so ridiculously shadowed, it would be almost impossible not to notice it.) Light on her bare feet, as per usual, the young Indian girl stepped to the threshold of the door and stood just before it, casting her shadow into the room. "I may not be a genius," she said to the girl standing in the doorway, arms crossing over her chest, "but because there's an old picked lock on the door, I'm assuming no one is supposed to be in here." One dark brow was arched. "Did you notice the same thing, or are you just stupid?" What kind of person left the door wide open while they were in a completely restricted area? The idea was ridiculous, even to her, and she had never once considered breaking any rules! Either the lanky, tanned girl leaning casually against the cabinet had no brains or no caution, but whichever one it was, she had already made a bad impression. Anna Adair was not a fan of either type.

Akantha looked up slowly, not at all seeming to have a care that she had been caught. She glanced back down at the file then at the girl who looked so offended standing in the doorway. Huh, how ironic. This was the same girl she was reading about! Anna Adair. Raven's long lost sister. "I don't know why you've got your panties in such a twist, dearie, your brother does the same damn thing." She closed the file and crossed her arms over her chest in a position similar to Anna's own. Did this girl not know about her brother's own sneaking around? Maybe it was time to drop some bombshells on the girl. "And no, Anna, dear, I'm not stupid, it just doesn't matter if I get caught or not. Apparently you're the only one who cares.

The eyebrow crept up just a little higher, but Anna's face remained impassive, as contemptuous as before--she had shaken off most of her wariness around this place, and now her true personality (what was now her true personality, anyway) was coming back full force. The girl knew her name and that she had a brother; either she had just been listening more intently to gossip than the rest of the patients, or she had been reading her file--not something the Indian girl found to be too alarming, given the circumstances. The girl was bound to know some things about her that she wouldn't know otherwise; what good would it do her to react? "I don't think my brother's an idiot," she said casually, ignoring Akantha's attempt at a bombshell. It came as no surprise to hear that Raven was a rule-breaker, coming in here often to read forbidden files. Half the asylum seemed to know that he did so, but no one had ever mentioned him getting caught, and that was good enough for her. "If he does come into this room--and from what everyone's always whimpering about, this is certainly a hangout--he wouldn't leave the door open like a some careless rube nervous about her first thieving job." She smiled, a sickeningly sweet expression so common on the stereotypical Southern belle, and allowed a bit of a repressed Oklahoma accent into her voice, so that she drawled when she spoke: "It don't matter if you get caught, you say? Goodness me, you must be some big shot around here! I didn't realize. I'm so sorry I disrespected you, sweet-pea." The smile turned into a mocking smirk, to make it clear that Anna was being utterly sarcastic.

[I love her. XD]

"Well now that you know, maybe you should scoot on out of here. God forbid you got your perfect ass in trouble." She tapped pointedly on the file she still had in her hands. This girl had given attitude, and quite a bit, for a newbie here at the asylum. The new ones were usually spineless scardy cats who jumped if someone so much as walked next to them. Had her brother's reputation given her a big head, as if she herself were some sort if asylum royalty by kinship? "I don't really know why you find it to be your business anyways, sweetheart. I don't think it's much of a concern to you and nor do I think you're much one to enforce rules anyways. Didn't you just get here not even a week ago? That's cute, trying to act big and tough and live up to your brother's precious reputation. That's sort of gone now, anyways. He's not the demented badass who murdered his sister he made himself out to be anymore."

"A month, brainless," Anna corrected gently, and indeed spoke as though she were talking to a mentally challenged girl. "Or near enough, anyway. I wanted to round it so I didn't confuse you." But at that last comment--the one about her brother--the act dropped, and her eyes turned to cold black stone. "Excuse me?" Her voice had dropped until it was low, dangerous. She walked forward, so that she and the green-eyed girl were very close. "Murdered his sister? Do I look dead to you, honey?" She made it seemed as though she were angry over the denial of her existence, as she had been in the graveyard: but of course such was not the case. Her brother was a murderer, yes, that was known, but he had never in his life tried to hurt her, and she did not appreciate the gall of the girl she'd just met. "Because I promise you, I'm not. Right here, just like you. The only difference?" One more step forward. She was very close now--close enough to see a slim scar curving along the tanned girl's neck--and her lips had pulled back just slightly, to expose the tips of her teeth. "You break easier."

Akantha did not appreciate the proximity of this Adair girl and her eyes flashed in slight irritation. So she placed a hand on Anna's shoulder and with a frown on her face, pushed the girl away so she was not standing so close. "That hurt a little, did it, sweetheart? Well that's not my fault. It was your wonderful brother who thought he'd killed you. After all, he might as well have held your head underwater the way he just let you float on by." She herself had never read Raven's file, she had never found it and assumes Raven kept it himself, but she knew of the minor details of the accident, even more now that she had read Anna's file. Interesting stuff, really. The Adairs always were. "The same goes for here in this asylum, of course," she added with a small smirk forming on her full lips, a caramel colored lipstick on them today. "He can't save you here." Now it was Akantha, so over-confident, who took a step towards the Indian.

It was that over-confidence that got her into so much trouble. Anna saw her opportunity, and she took it without hesitation. As the girl neared her and placed her weight more fully on her right foot, her own leg shot out, secured a position around Akantha's left knee, and pulled. The green-eyed girl came forward--nearly tripped as the foot set behind her was swept suddenly and swiftly to the front--and fell, hard, on her back. Quick as a flash, the foot which had been used to bring her down was pressing hard on her stomach, 116 pounds effectively pinning her, and then the light of the file room's single, flickering bulb was blotted out, replaced by the Indian girl's furious, shadow-thrown features. "I'm sorry," she said softly, and her voice was as cold and dark as a winter wind: chilling, somehow filling up the room. Her eyes glittered--not with anticipation, as Raven's might have in the same situation, but with clear and obvious malice nonetheless. "Do I look like I need saving?"

With a sharp yelp of surprise, Akantha went down on the ground hard. The small Indian girl was not so small when she stood on your stomach, it made it more difficult to breathe having all 116 pounds of a person on your stomach. She coughed, trying to breathe a bit more normally when a thought came into her head. "Well, I guess it sure seems that way, doesn't it, hon?" Then her hands wrapped around Anna's ankle that was on her stomach and rolled violently, pulling Anna to the floor. When she felt her move towards the ground, she rolled until she hit a file cabinet, Anna's own file somewhere on the floor, long ago forgotten. She rose to her feet and glanced around the floor, looking for the girl who she had momentarily lost sight of.

The move had not been expected, and Anna went down slamming one knee into the concrete and absorbing the rest of the shock on both hands, thrown out to break the fall. A sharp bolt of pain went shooting up her leg, but she gritted her teeth against it and made no sound--Akantha could not see her as she rolled towards the file cabinet, and she did not want to give away her location or movements. Favoring her left leg, the Indian girl bounced to her feet and was able to get to Akantha's right before the green-eyed girl had even stood up, flickering out of her line of sight. With the speed of a snake her right hand shot out, trapping a decent fistful of Akantha's long hair and yanking sharply back. The girl, though taller than she, was heavier, and it was because of that that she went slamming into the wall at Anna's back with such force: gravity handled most of the impact while Anna took care of the pulling, stepping nimbly to the right to avoid her opponent's body--she wanted to trap her, not get pinned herself--and making sure to keep a secure hold on her hair. She drew in, raised one knee (her good knee--the hit one was kept safely behind her left leg in a fighting stance) and slammed it hard into the girl's stomach, the force of the impact jarring her slightly; but hopefully nothing she couldn't recover from in the time it took the older girl to get her breath back.

Akantha felt hand yank her hair back far too late before she could do anything about it. She tried to move around as she was thrown towards the wall to see Anna behind her, but the more she movedthe more strands of hair were tugged at viciously by her own movement. She let out a loud groan when her back hut the wall and a sharp pain stabbed at the center of her back and spread through the rest if her body more dully. She had tried to react quickly to the first blow but Anna was too quick for her and had a knee slammed into her stomach. An aching pain struck her and her breath escaped her again with a soft grunt. She lay helpless for a moment, trying hard to gasp for air again. She did manage to raise an arm and strike at the Indian'a face that had blocked out her light again like a detailed shadow. She made contact as she regained her breath and shoved the body in front of her.

((It's been almost five months, I'm calling a fade. XD))

Jacob had not intended to come into the file room. He hadn't intended to go anywhere at all, actually--he'd just walked out of his dorm and taken a right and headed down the hall, and then the next thing he knew he was in a small, darkened hallway, and at the end of that hallway there was a small, decrepit door, and then curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd knocked the old lock off the knob and peered cautiously in. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room--the single bulb hanging from the ceiling afforded only minimal light, even after he flicked the switch--and he saw that the only things within were several battered file cabinets, he had nudged the door open further, slipped inside, and closed it gently, almost soundlessly, behind him. The file room. Who would have thought? He'd known the place existed, of course, but he had never once thought of trying to find it--and why would he? He had no desire to read up on his fellows. He had no right to their diagnoses, their secrets and families and personal lives. He left the snooping to those who favored it, and did his best not to worry about it too much. People were going to break the rules sometimes. That was just how it was; not everyone, unfortunately, was going to share his philosophy on pacifism. But Jacob stood by it himself, and nothing was a better indicator of that than what he was doing now: sitting and writing in his journal. Tucked unobtrusively into the corner, he had his head bent down and a pen in one hand, scribbling busily at the page.

Aspen had been wandering the halls with the sphinx prowling beside her when her eyes fell on her dragon, perched above an open door and flapping its wings anxiously. She had been confused for a few moments, but when her eyes returned to the sphinx she was gone, and the dragon had hissed in agitation, as if it were asking if it were not good enough for Aspen. After assuring the creature, she peeked her head into the dark room, with the dragon peering down above her, and a quick burst of fire lit up the room momentarily, a burst of fire that only she saw. The file room was not somewhere that Aspen preferred to visit, but today the dragon was curious, and so she took a step inside with her white beast close behind. Eyes scanned the dark room, and she too saw the boy in the corner that the dragon saw, but while the dragon flew over to investigate, Aspen stayed near one of the cabinets. She was never very interested in the private lives of other patients; no one exactly caught her interest, positively or negatively. And so while her fingers leafed through files, her eyes strayed to the dragon and the boy who sat writing. "Hello there," she said in a smooth tone. "What might you be doing in here, hmm?"

"Writing," Jacob replied, without moving. "Hold on..." And he finished his sentence, set the journal and pen aside, and looked up. "Hi," he said, voice less impatient now, gray eyes curious as he looked the newcomer up and down. He did not recognize her. "I didn't really come in here to write. It's just nice and quiet, so I figured I would when I found it all empty. I don't remember coming here at all, actually. I was just kind of wandering, and this is where I ended up." And he shrugged, the explanation offered with a casual nonchalance. Under normal circumstances he might have been startled by the sudden appearance of a strange girl in a room like this, but it was, after all, where the files were kept--in truth, he had not expected to be alone for long. There were always patients around looking for a one-up on others, he'd often been told, and a lot of them were sneaky enough to break into this room and read the files and get out again before anyone suspected a thing; he'd kept the thought in the back of his mind when he'd sat down and first opened up his journal. Because there was no reason to give an undue reaction, especially not around here, was there? No. No, there was not. Jacob Fox preferred to keep his head out of that whole game, thank you very much. So now he offered Aspen a little smile, easy as you please, and said, "Mind if I return the question? What are you doing here?"

The dragon then hopped off of its perch, occasionally blowing little puffs of fire as to illuminate the dark room better. It beady blue eyes were focused on the boy: his hair, his eyes, the necklace around his neck and the book in his lap. He seemed interesting enough, yes? Surely worth the bored creatures time? With a small smile, Aspen shook her head and she took a seat, crosslegged, and a little bit away the boy. "I'm not exactly sure. You could say curiosity pulled me in here. I saw the open door and just had to investigate." A pause. "I'm not one of those psychopaths who hunts through files, you know." These words were followed by a little laugh and a little shriek from the dragon. Aspen smiled in the direction of her creature, which was in turn the direction of the boy. It wasn't often her dragon was out for fun; most of the time, he came out to fight and argue and get her in trouble. But this boy didn't seem like trouble.

"I'm glad," Jacob told her, with a little laugh and a slightly wider smile. But all the same his eyes never left her, as though he were considering and trying to figure out if she were playing at some angle. She looked rather unassuming, he had to admit, not the type to lie or play any of the aforementioned games; she looked and acted more sane than many of the patients he himself had seen. She didn't have a smile too wide for her face, she wasn't staring at him with sick fascination or malice or scorn, and while her green eyes looked just short of glassy and unfocused they were clearly aware of him and everything about her; even more aware, perhaps, he thought--they were focused on something he could not see. And as long as that thing didn't tell her to jump up and throttle him, Jacob was absolutely fine with that. "I'm not either, if it helps," he added then, once his little evaluation was complete. "But now you've made me curious. Who're you? And what are you staring at?" A brief few notes of laughter. "Is there something standing over my shoulder like in the movies? Should I be concerned?"

His words brought a slight frown to Aspen's lips, accompanied by a stiffening of the dragon and a slight little hiss of smoke escaping it's jaws. It was interesting. No one had ever bothered to ask her what she was looking at; most of the time, little actions such as that went unnoticed in the asylum. Indeed, the boys question caught Aspen by surprise, and she paused for a few moments as she tried to formulate an answer. Her name was the easy part, of course she knew that, she wasn't dim. But what was she staring at?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Aspen smiled, and brought her glassy gaze to the boy's. "My name is Aspen Palmer. And no, there's nothing behind you; I'm not staring at anything. I'm simply... zoning out? Is that the phrase?" A quick glance to the dragon, who nodded its head, and Aspen nodded her own in turn. "Yes, I think so. And who might you be?"

You are looking, I just saw you! Jacob thought, not aggravated but slightly indignant. Indeed, Aspen's gaze had flitted briefly away from him, and though the glance she'd given...well, whatever it was had been small, it was certainly there and at least a little meaningful. He thought to ask her why she bothered to tell this little white lie--to bring her attention again to the fact that he was in no way, shape or form after a way to hurt her--but decided against it a moment later. There wasn't any reason to get into it now. If the girl wanted to talk, she would talk. If she didn't, he wasn't going to make her. Even if she was a little strange, her speech just slightly off (did she really not know one of the most commonly-used phrases English had to offer off the top of her head?), her trustworthiness maybe not all that high. It was none of his business. And until it became such, Jacob was quite content to let it rest. So instead of prodding, he folded his hands and said simply, "My name is Jacob. Don't worry about zoning out; happens to me all the time." He smiled, equal parts amused and reassuring. "And to more people than just us, I bet. There's definitely a lot in the world worth thinking about. Even more stuff around here. You have to admit, it's an interesting place." Well. That was one way of putting it, anyway.

At that, the dragon snorted smoke, and Aspen let out a little snort herself, a quick breath of air followed by a shake of her head. She took it upon herself to sit, bending down and crossing her legs underneath her, and she scooted a little closer to Jacob as to hear him better over the screeching of her dragon. Aspen rolled her eyes a little, though, as her dragon let out a screech and made its way to her side, where it curled up and wrapped its tail over its nose. Aspen habitually placed a hand over the dragon, which to Jacob looked only like she was resting her hand on the ground as opposed to the dragon she herself saw. "Interesting. Yeah, sure." Aspen laughed, then, an eerie sound, and she shook her head. "That's sure a way to put it."

"One way," Jacob agreed, though he did not return her laugh. There had been something just a little off about it--he had the feeling that if he even tried, any laughter of his own would come out forced and even stranger. "There are a lot of others. Strange, old, kind of run down...I could go on." I could say it's scary as often as it's not, and some kind of a psychopath magnet. He thought the words, but did not say them (though one hand did rise to pinch his necklace between thumb and forefinger, a more nervous habit than anything else). After all, Aspen had assured him that she was not one of those psychopaths, or indeed anyone he ought to be afraid of at all, so he didn't see the point in commenting; psychopaths were at least predictable in their reactions. He never knew how the average patient might react to statements such as that, and so always found it easier to err on the side of caution. He was not, after all, daring or reckless by nature.

But Aspen spoke the words that Jacob didn't: "And its like all sorts of criminals are put here instead of jail. I feel like that jeopardizes our safety more than anything else." Aspen shook her head, and with a flick of the dragon's tail, moved her fingers a little bit, stroking the dragon's scales, though to Jacob it would simply appear as if she were tapping her fingers, if he could even see her hand in the dark. "So, then, Jacob, if you don't mind my asking, are you Jewish?" Aspen temporarily lifted her hand to point at where his necklace would be, initially spotted by the dragon a few moments earlier, and this action brought a shriek from the creature which brought her hand back down. "No ill intent, of course, I'm simply curious.*

"They're minors," Jacob said quietly. "They're minors and they're sick and that's why they're here. Part of the American prison is rehabilitation--but it wouldn't have helped them there. It definitely wouldn't have helped them there. Believe me; I know." The hand that was not pinching his necklace drew a little pattern on the floor, and he watched it instead of Aspen. Prison rarely did anything for anyone, he couldn't help but think. It hadn't done anything for anyone Before and it wasn't doing anything for anybody now. People always said they meant well, but...how often did they, really? He had been in a prison, for the last few months of his life. So had his neighbors, friends, countless of innocent strangers who had done no wrong. And they had been told they were being helped, hour after hour, day after day, beating after beating and death after death they'd been told. And for what? What had it done for him? For any of them? Absolutely nothing. Less than nothing. And for a few moments, there was silence--Jacob said nothing, only pulled his journal into his lap and flipped to his unfinished page and scrawled a brief note to himself, a reminder to tell Holly about this conversation and these thoughts he was having (she'd made him promise a few weeks before to keep her updated on his state of mind). When he was through, he looked back at Aspen, and his gray eyes were sad as he nodded his head. He was silent. Suddenly, he had lost all interest in talking.

The dragon peeked its head out from where it had been tucked underneath large wings, and a little cry of concern left the creature's lips before it got up and walked over to the boy. All of a sudden, the dragon was tired, and the beast curled up in the boy's lap and rested its long neck and head upon Jacob's knee, much like a cat would. A flick of the tongue brought a small smile from Aspen, who now brought both hands back into her lap, but the smile was gone once she returned to Jacob. "My apologies. I did not mean to bring up any unwanted memories." The girl frowned a little, and the dragon was not a curious creature, it was not the sphinx. The dragon didn't ask any more questions than were necessary, and it was perfectly fine to leave the interrogations out. Too many people favored the art of interrogating patients with rapid-fire questions until the truth wormed its way out, and that was cruel. Aspen wouldn't wish that upon anybody, and nor would the dragon. A hand reached out, then, and gently patted Jacob's knee, and again, Aspen said: "I apologize."

Jacob sighed, just slightly. "It's all right. It's not that hard to do and I almost think it's half of my problem." He shook his head a little, rubbed the Star of David between the fingers that were pinching it. He wasn't wrong: the memories of Before did come up a lot, and when it wasn't because he was having a bad day it was because of something somebody had said. It was why he was careful about talking to people, particularly strangers, particularly where it was dark and quiet and they were alone. It made the atmosphere heavy, and that did little for the good of his state of mind. To better it, he made himself look up and say, "It's all right" again, and give a little smile to prove it. Then he made himself sit up straight, put the journal aside and bring his hand down from his necklace, because it was a philosophy of his that one always had to take the first steps away from melancholy on one's own. Finally, he allowed that tiny, reassuring smile to widen the slightest bit and said, "But let's change the subject anyway, just in case. I'd rather not have to take more pills for my mood, you know? They hand them out like candy here as it is."

At that, Aspen rolled her eyes, and she let out a little peal of laughter that was met with a raspy hissing sound that was the laugh of the dragon. "You're telling me," she said with an amiable smirk and a shake of her head. "I don't know a single person here who isn't on a slew of pills. It can't be healthy for us." The redhead reached her hand up to her hair, running her fingers through it and pulling it out of it's ponytail, shaking it out behind her. The dragon wrapped its own wings around itself tighter, and began flicking its tail against Jacob's thigh, but it wasn't as if he would notice, which seemed to irritate the dragon. Aspen chuckled, both at the thought of pills and at the dragon's friendly attitude towards Jacob, and she shrugged. "I don't know, they always complain about us needing to "eat healthy" and "take care of ourselves" here and then they load us with all these medications that make us into... not even ourselves. Y'know?"

"I know," Jacob replied, nodding. "It's kind of weird if you pick it apart. They don't seem to be doing anything for literally anyone most of the time, and when they do work it's only on people who don't really need them at all, not that badly." He was having an off-and-on relationship with his own antidepressants, which sometimes lifted his spirits but more often than not did nothing at all, sometimes even weighing them down even further. It worried Holly, and his dedicated young nurse was always taking matters into her own hands, asking if he felt all right on any given day, if he wanted to stop taking or change this prescription or that, always on high alert in case of malevolent side-effects. He didn't mind much (he thought it was sweet of her, really) but he sometimes wondered just how competent her higher-ups were with this sort of thing, all the same. "And sometimes I wonder what the doctors think they're doing at all," he added, not thinking for a moment about the words coming out of his mouth. "I mean, I'm dead. We're all dead. And God knows about every single one of us, about everything in our heads and everything that's "wrong", but He made us this way just the same. And I think: if He doesn't have a problem with it, why should we? What are we even doing?" Jacob raised his hands a little and shrugged, eyebrows slightly raised, as though answering his own question--or perhaps to say I just don't know. He didn't, after all. Not a bit.

An eyebrow was arched at Jacob's words. Dead? The last Aspen knew, she was alive and well and certainly not dead. But every patient had their secrets and their beliefs; if Aspen was allowed to have her creatures and not be questioned about it, then Jacob certainly deserved the same courtesy. The dragon was interested, though, and Aspen made a mental note to look for Jacob's file, later, or rather ask Erin about it. She would know; she knew everything. And so instead, Aspen shook her head with an exasperated look on her face. "I agree entirely. I don't know qualified the nurses and those mysterious men above the nurses may be. I mean, there's a murderer working as a nurse, for crying out loud!"

Jacob's eyes widened slightly at this piece of news. "No way," he said, shaking his head slowly--more out of shock than disbelief. Honestly, he didn't know if he'd put it past this place. It seemed poorly managed as it was, who knew what kinds of conversations went on in the upper ranks? Still...a murderer? On the staff? Why on earth was he not a patient? More importantly, why was he being allowed access to their files and records and dorm rooms whenever the urge struck him? A million questions raced through Jacob's mind at the mere thought, but the only outward sign he gave was another small shake of his head. He'd have to ask Holly about it later; you could never tell what was true and what was being made up just to scare you, after all, and while he wasn't gullible (he had learned too much during his life for that, most of it from Before) he knew he certainly looked the part. Perhaps Aspen was only pulling his leg, to see how frightened she could make him. Perhaps this was her own version of a game. Jacob decided it couldn't hurt to find out. "Do you know anything about him?" he asked. "Like, why in the name of God he's on the payroll? That's--sorry for the pun, but that's crazy! People don't just let coldblooded killers work with the mentally ill whenever they want. They'd do more harm than good. Wouldn't they?"

Though the dragon was a curious creature, it itself was the one who had prompted Aspen to ask about the nurse, and a few series of questions to Erin had provided a decent amount of answers. And so the dragon remained where it was, curled up in the boy's lap, and it flicked its tongue at Aspen as she spoke, accompanied by a few puffs of smoke. "There's supposedly some sob story about his sister, and how he was a loser-deadbeat and made her take the blame for the murder, and then she got sent here and he followed her. They're both nurses now. One of them is a killer and one of them is a basket-case, though she doesn't seem it." Erin sure knew a lot, and it was helpful for Aspen and a few of her creatures. Long ago, the redhead had learned that making friends in this asylum was easiest when you had information to give and gossip to spread, and so she thanked the dragon for being such a curious creature. Aspen too, shook her head in disbelief and let out a little sigh that was met by a puff of smoke from the dragon. "Its ridiculous, isn't it? That the nurses are so... incompetent?" The last word was spoken with the voice of the sphinx, who, though not in the room and currently overpowered by the content white beast in the boy's lap, seemed very irritated to have been replaced so easily. The blonde cat-woman appeared in the shadows, not showing her face and not entirely there, but enough for Aspen to hear her voice. Glassy green eyes darted towards the left, near the door, where the sphinx seemed to sit, though she was shimmery and hidden in the shadows and hard to see clearly. The dragon shrieked, and brought Aspen back to the scene before her. "I find it hard to believe they even accomplish anything here. Its just a place to hold the unwanted parts of society."

Jacob nodded in agreement. He couldn't help but feel that way himself, sometimes; feel as though he was only a cast-off, and St. Peter's his home not because it would help him but because society's majority didn't want him around ruining the atmosphere of normalcy with his delusions and depression and the faraway look in his eyes. He got the feeling that all the patients felt that way, occasionally, and a flash of sadness (and something else--pity?) went through him. "Sometimes I think that, too," he replied. "But hey, could be worse, right? Electroshock therapy and lobotomies could still be legal medical practices. The guards could be beating on us for no reason. We could all be scientific experiments." And as he ticked the awful alternate realities off one by one, he tried to smile and found he was unable. Where had he drawn the inspiration for the words? Before, of course. Auschwitz. A little sigh, and a shake of his head. He stood up slowly. "But we're not, are we? We're mostly okay. We won't be, though, if we stay here for much longer." And he was not so much worried about getting caught as leaving to find a more cheerful room, some place where he did not have to think of these depressing things and the conversation was lighter. Of course, he did not say that to Aspen. "So I'm gonna go. It was nice talking to you! Maybe we'll see each other around sometime." And with that and a little smile, Jacob picked up his journal and pen and headed for the door.

((Fade.))