][ 008

[team_sociopath]

You can pace the room if you’d like, but it’s barely a cage; long enough to lay out on the floor in either direction, but not much bigger. At first it seems empty; but after a time the shallow sound of breathing is perceptible, coming from one of the walls. There’s a bed there, little more than a cot, with a supine body on it. Was that there

Comments

[habitformed]

[ It's a small space, but that doesn't quite bother Mouse. And no one is coming to get him, which doesn't quite bother him either, if only for the other person in the room. Stranger, maybe, but definitely here. Life has taught him that there are levels of suffocation, a million ways to be stifled, and very few of them truly bother Mouse.

At least, that's what he tells himself as he scrambles to his feet and shifts nervously back and forth at the foot of the cot. He should scream, see if it wakes the guy up. Mouse claps his hands instead and jumps up and down in the hopes that'll make some kind of noise.

It does. Barely. ]

[team_sociopath]

[It's been a long time-- feels like a long time, anyway-- since there was any noise in here, aside from the all-too-frequent intrusion of guards and researchers, and their racket is unmistakable. Tommy wakes up, already pulling himself up into a little ball because there's someone else here, and that someone else is automatically an unknown quantity.]

Who are you?

[habitformed]

[ Mouse starts but then automatically peers at the boy now curled up at the head of the bed. The shock of white hair is confusing because the face is familiar. Billy only...not Billy.

Mouse blinks silently in the darkness and then points at himself. ]

Mouse. [ He shuffles his feet again and then points at the boy, making sure to keep his hand to himself. ] ...Tommy?

[team_sociopath]

How do you know my name..?

[He's suspicious, still not quite out of the confines of dreaming. This is all he has. He hasn't brought the walls down yet, to come face to face with his own mirror image.]

[habitformed]

[ It's a weird question and the fact that it's weird shows clearly on Mouse's face. His eyes dart back and forth across Tommy's features and then towards the bandages and the hanging IV.

Doped up maybe, Mouse figures. Did that mean he wouldn't know Billy either? He squints and makes an uncertain expression. ]

Friend of a friend...?

[team_sociopath]

I don't have friends.

[That's as much bitterness as sarcasm. He looks down at the IV. It's not exactly a matter of trust, that he takes his eyes off Mouse; it's hopelessness. There's not much he can do here to defend himself, after all. He starts to pick off the bandage holding the needle in place.]

Doesn't matter I guess. Why're you here?

[habitformed]

[ It's an obvious question, one that Mouse doesn't really have an answer to if he stops to think about it (which he doesn't). Not knowing why he's here, how he got here, what they were doing in this room with Tommy doped up can be a worrying thing and the last thing Mouse wants to do is freak out.

So instead, he takes a few steps closer, his nose crinkling in sympathetic discomfort as the bandages are peeled away from reluctant skin. ]

Do have friends. Duh. [ Mouse chews on his lip and then offers an uncertain: ] ...need help?

[team_sociopath]

Pretty sure I just have to pull it out.

[He glances up, not that there's much to see. Too powerless to be guarded, he's skeptical instead.]

Where you arrested, or what?

[habitformed]

[ Arrested? The word gets Mouse to lift an eyebrow and take another look around at his surroundings. No, he'd never been arrested before but plenty of the guys in the Calling had. It was the sort of things they'd trade stories about over bowling and in between beers. Pissing contests for high school drop-outs, that's what comparing rap sheets was like. Still, in all his imagining, Mouse never thought it would be like this.

Shaking his head, he looks at the walls and then reaches out with a hand to touch one. ]

...Juvie? [ he asks. Couldn't be. ]

[team_sociopath]

Super juvie.

[He looks disgusted, not at Mouse but at where they are.]

Power suppressors in the walls. No one can hear you scream. At least, no one who cares.

[habitformed]

[ Super juvie. Mouse mouths the word as if he's never heard the phrase before because he hasn't. The hand on the wall flattens itself so that his palm is now pressed flush against it. Was there anything on the other side? Anyone?

It was impossible to tell so Mouse balls his hand to a fist and then bangs, once, against the wall and then whistles sharply like someone who's looking to grab someone's attention. He looks back at Tommy. ]

No one?

[team_sociopath]

You might get a guard passing by, sooner or later. They're used to screaming.

[He's leaning against the wall again, his arms raised, wrists crossed behind his head. It's kind of a parody of a nonchalant pose. He's doing it in case the IV site bleeds, to collapse the needleprick.]

Who let you in?

[habitformed]

[ Another good question. Again, no answer, no matter how hard Mouse searches his brain for one. Realizing this makes him obviously uncomfortable and he does that gawkish shuffling thing again with his feet before bringing a hand to rub at the back of his neck.

Wait, Mouse did have an answer. One that didn't make sense. ]

No one? [ He says a second time, only this time it's meant to be an answer. But, perhaps unintentionally, Mouse's voice lifts at the end, making it a question all over again. ] Just. Showed up.

[team_sociopath]

You do that a lot?

[Hey, people teleport, right? Maybe this guy just ended up in the wrongest wrong place there is. Abandon all hope.]