St. Peter's Asylum discussion

If a patient ever feels the need to let out some creativity (negative or otherwise) the Art Studio is definitely the place to go. It is a small but cheerful room, with large windows that let in a generous amount of sunlight during the daytime and the eerie but beautiful shine of the moon during the night. The walls are pained a soft, pretty shade of blue and the floor is made of dark rosewood, faded and scuffed with age. Six large tables are arranged in a large rectangle pattern and take up most of the middle of the room. There are four chairs to a table (two on each of the long sides) and each is equipped with a basket which holds basic drawing necessities, mostly consisting of colored as well as graphite pencils, crayons, markers, and erasers. Other supplies are kept in each of the three large cabinets lined up in the back of the room. They aren't labeled, but in them, you'll find everything from drawing paper to paint. Worn How-to-Draw books and references pictures fill the shelves that line the right wall, and a sink can be found nearby. Patients may ask a nurse for specific materials not otherwise found here, such as clay or carving tools, though such privileges are reserved for low and moderate security patients only.

Roleplay here.

The art room may not have been much to most people, but to the younger Frost, it was heaven on earth. most all her drawings were done in this cozy, cheerful little room: a room which so often provided the quiet and atmosphere she needed to work, and there was a seemingly limitless amount of supplies--never mind that it was all old and run-down. Today, Cat sat at the table nearest to the window, so that the sunlight that streamed through streaked her short hair and warmed her from head to toe. On the page before her was a developing drawing: a small, terrified fox kit cowered up against the walls of his den, shying away from some large creature only shown via the shadow that fell menacingly across his small form. Behind the tiny creature, a mother fox stood, tail up in a dominance stance but mouth wide open, as if yelping. The picture, of course, was a representation of her and Calix, and the boy's unexpected breakdown in the cafeteria.

Roxanne had expected to be alone; not many patients frequented the studio. She didn't come to draw so much as write; write her worries away, her fears and her terrors. And she usually did so alone.

Green gaze fell upon Cat, and the blonde jumped. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and her stomach dropped. She had to remind herself that Cat hadn't hurt her, that the younger Frost didn't hold any grudges, and with a deep breath Roxanne entered, quietly shutting the door behind her. "Hi, Cat," she said quietly, stiffly, taking a seat across from the younger girl.

Roxanne wasn't the only one whose nerves were practicing red alert drills. When she heard the door open Cat, too, gave a start, and nearly smudged her page with the pencil in her haste to look up. "Oh!" she exclaimed, one hand flying up to cover her chest. "Oh, hi Roxanne. I didn't see you these."

"Sorry for disturbing," she said with a forced smile, placing her book daintily on the table and pulling her pen out from the front of it, where it was clipped. "There aren't normally people here; I didn't expect to see you." Of all people.

"Really?" Cat raised her eyebrows, slightly surprised. "Then who did you expect? I don't really take my drawing all that seriously, but there aren't exactly a lot of artistic patients around the asylum. If anyone's likely to come here, it's the artist types." Unless others were looking for quiet, the only reason anyone would have to come to the art studio would be to...well, make art. She gave a little smile--not as forced as Roxanne's, but not as friendly as it could be. She was distracted, wondering why the broken blonde seemed so nervous. She thought they had patched things over.

Again, Roxanne tried to quell her terribly obvious nerves. It was Cat, for Christ's sake. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Roxanne reminded herself over and over that Cat wasn't her brother; she wasn't anything close. But something about the Frost family did indeed make her nervous, regardless. She shook these thoughts aside, placing a hopefully warmer smile on her lips as she shrugged. "I don't know... nobody, I guess. I don't think I ever knew you were an artist." In a quick change of subject, Roxanne nodded at the artwork sitting in front of the younger Frost. "That's impressive; you seem to be really talented."

"Oh, well, thanks." Cat's smiled widened at this bit of praise. "It's not much, really. Just a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing I like to do after something important happens to me." She paused to root around in the basket on the table, looking for a colored pencil that would match the brilliant green of Calix's eyes. Her own were no problem; every box of colored pencils ever had some sort of dark blue. It was when she found people with eyes such as his that she ran into trouble. "I mean, it's that or have a panic attack, and I think you understand when I say I'd rather draw." A slight laugh which was, again, not as light as usual. Roxanne was concerning her with her sudden nervousness, especially after she had been amiable enough in the common room several months before.

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, I understand. It's always nice to have an outlet." Roxanne kicked herself internally for being so... awkward? Was that the word she wanted? Irrational seemed like a better choice. There was no reason to fear Cat; the girl was a sweetheart, and she was making an attempt. The blonde chuckled a little, a light, airy laugh. "A spur-of-the-moment thing, eh? It's pretty good for it to be that," she said with a little grin, biting habitually on the tip of her pen.

Cat smiled a little, but the light in her eyes was worried. She tapped Roxanne's hand lightly with her pencil. "You shouldn't do that," she said. "It's bad for your teeth. And the pen." She tried to sound amused, but her concern for the girl showed nonetheless. She decided she wouldn't get very far simply pretending that it wasn't there and nothing was wrong. "Roxanne, are you all right?" The words were quiet, gentle. "You're acting a little strange today. Did I say or do something wrong?" And the unspoken question was: did Silas? Cat could think of nothing more that would induce some relapse in this fragile broken bird than a renewed threat from her brother. She prayed that this was not the case.

The blonde paused, and dropped the pen from her mouth. At the name, her stomach even dropped, but the blonde shook her head. "No, no, nothing. Nothing happened. It's just... old nerves, y'know?" Roxanne offered a little smile, and shrugged her shoulders. "I'll be fine, don't worry. Just keep on talking." She flicked her hair out of her eyes, tucking a spare strand behind her ear, and resorting to tapping her pen on the notebook that sat in her lap. Roxanne didn't even want to think about it, in all reality. If Silas was even close to being in the same room as her, she wouldn't be so sane, regardless of how jumpy she already was. She hadn't seen the sociopath since, and she easily admitted that she was pleased by this news.

((We might have to change that.))

"Okay," Cat said smoothly. She began to color in the older fox's eyes with the blue pencil (the right shade of green she hadn't found, and she needed time to think about what to do.) Without looking up, she spoke: "Have you ever met a boy named Calix? Brownish-blonde hair, green eyes, real funny way of talking and acting?" Roxanne had asked for a change of subject; why not talk about the subjects in her drawing? No harm could come from that--it was a completely innocent thing to speak of, and best of all, Silas would have no problems with it. Well. He might have a problem with her talking to Roxanne, but Cat immediately decided not to dwell on that happy thought. That could spell trouble for both of them.

((I know I was thinking that while I was writing it.))

Roxanne nodded. "I've heard of him in passing. He's the one who kind of has a... different view of the world, right?" The blonde tried to think of a way to describe Calix's condition, and she decided that was the best she could do. She noted the drawing, the mother fox with Cat's eyes, and the younger fox beneath it. "Why, did you run in to him?" She was happy for the change of subject, and breathed a little easier as the weight lifted off of her chest.

"That's the one. I met him in the cafeteria the other day and he had some sort of meltdown. Went straight into panic mode and started screaming and crying. The works. I have absolutely no idea what it was, so hence the giant creepy shadow." Cat grinned a little and tapped the darkly shaded area around the little fox. "I tried to help him, but he just started yelling for me not to touch him because I was a witch. Maybe I should add a little hat to my fox. Or a broom." Laughter, then--Cat was a strict realist, but it was funny sometimes to joke about strange little add-ons she could put in her pictures. Especially when they fit odd situation like this one had been.

Roxanne's own laughter joined Cat's momentarily, and a small smile found it's place on her lips as she nearly analyzed the drawing. "It's really good," she commented, a little grin in place as she continued tapping her pen. "How long have you been drawing, Cat?" Curiosity coloured her tone; the blonde was truly curious about how long the short-haired girl had had to work for her skills.

"A little while. I liked drawing even before things started getting...bad between Silas and I, but after they did it stopped becoming a hobby and started becoming a kind of obsession. I guess you could say I really started getting serious about it when I was seven." That was when things had seriously begun to go downhill; when Silas stopped simply shouting in his anger and started to strike her in it. Cat gave a little wince at the memories that came; this was a touchy subject, and should Silas himself find out that she had been talking to Roxanne about it, of all people, then he would have her hide.

Roxanne nodded, her lips slightly pursed and an almost understanding look in her eyes. "Yeah, that makes sense. I get it." The blonde offered a smile, and shrugged. "Oh well. You do what you have to do to get by, right?"

"Right." Cat nodded, relived that she had decided not to push things any further. A curious look was offered, and she looked up a moment from her drawing to ask, "If you don't mind the question, what do you like to do to get by, Roxanne? Everybody has something, and I haven't seen you doing anything really unusual like a lot of patients when they're stressed. But I figure you've got to have something, right?" After all, one did not simply walk away from what the poor girl had unscathed.

The blonde shrugged. "My nurse suggested I write, like, poetry and stuff. It works every now and again, when I'm not doing too bad." She offered a small smile, and continued the tapping of her pen, a quiet, consistent noise that provided something solid for Roxanne to hold on to, something consistent so that she wouldn't break. It had simply become a habit nowadays.

"Really?" Cat's curiosity was replaced by interest. "Can I see?" As someone who had gone through what she had, Cat thought, Roxanne had to have written some interesting things. She was curious to know about them, to see if they were personal or simply inspired, to see if they were any good or not.

She handed the book over, a few nerves dancing around in her stomach as she did so. "Sure, I don't mind. It's mostly just some spur-of-the-moment stuff that's on my mind."

Cat paused and began to read these "spur-of-the-moment things" over, trailing the finger that was not stained with graphite gently down the pages. "Wow," she murmured as she read. "Some of this is really good. You sure you just get your inspiration randomly?" Much of the writing seemed a little more...personal than that. And the younger Frost would know--all of her drawings were that way, after all.

Roxanne shrugged. "Most of it I do. There's a few that I kind of slave over but most of them just pop up out of nowhere." She beamed a little at the praise, a small smile in place.

((Gaaaah I hate it when RPs trail off like this. I'm derping. Fade?))

((Fade.))

Carlos was one of the few who wasn't completely himself again by now, several weeks after the fire--that night in the graveyard had taken a lot out of him. He hadn't exactly snapped on Juana, but he had been somewhere close, and the thought was not at all comforting. He'd alienated her, he was nearly sure of it. She was going out of her way to keep out of his, and it was something that the young Hispanic had both expected and dreaded. But that was what happened when you were him, and you couldn't keep in your right mind for more than a day even if someone held a gun to your head and threatened to shoot. Today, Carlos sat at one of the art studio's large tables, several jars of paint open in front of him, both hands coated with color after color after color. He was finger-painting, and not for much reason either--boredom had begun to to gnaw at his insides as time went by and everyone went about their slow recoveries, and he hadn't quite worked up the courage to find and talk to Juana. So he sat, and aimlessly mixed and matched colors and patterns and shapes on the large sheet of paper in front of him, humming as he did so. Today hadn't been so bad. The guilt wasn't as pressing.

Domonic, much like his friend, wasn't himself and hadn't been since the fire. He'd spent much of his time avoiding most people, spending less time taking care of other patients and spending more time cleaning up around at the asylum. He had washed and folded laundry over and over, cleaned out the pool countless of times, as well as many other chores that were usually left for the young volunteers. The young nurse hadn't much wanted company since he'd found out about poor Cadenza's death. He couldn't believe she was actually gone. It didn't seem real; he felt more like he was in a dream more than anything. As having been her nurse as well as her lover, he would have been lying if he'd said he didn't blame himself for not helping her out of the asylum. He had let her get lost and didn't assist her out. It had left Domonic day after day looking more like a patient than a nurse, and some of his fellow staff members had voiced their concern. He waved it off, and had wandered around until he found himself in the art room. A ghost of a smile almost crossed over the nurse's face when he saw his friend. "Hi, Carlos," he greeted in a hollow tone before tidying up what was already close to perfection on the shelves.

"Oh!" Carlos looked up from his painting, a little startled. He hadn't recognized the boy in the room until he had spoken his name, and even then he wasn't entirely certain that it was who he thought. Dom? No, it couldn't be. This stranger was so...down. So depressed. So unlike the laughing, smiling, joking boy he had met in the common room all those weeks ago. But it had to be Dom, even if the looks and movements weren't the same--because the boy had a very recognizable voice, and even though it was weighed down with something like loss, Carlos remembered it. "Hola, mi amigo," he said, turning around in his chair to look at Domonic with obvious concern in his eyes. Of course, he had no idea that the nurse had been so close to one of those who had died in the fire. "I barely recognized you, couch-napper. What's wrong? You look so down."

Domonic sighed heavily. Was he really so obviously unlike himself it caused alarm throughout everyone in the building? He hadn't yet realized just how depressed he had been from his loss, the loss had blinded it. For a long time, the nurse didn't answer, just kept tidying up things that were already tidy, trying to keep his hands busy and distract himself. It didn't help, but only made things worse. He was doing exactly what his love would have done had she been attempting to avoid a problem. "Fo you remember the fire, Carlos?" Of course he remembered the fire. It was the biggest thing to have happened to St. Peter's since its opening quite possibly. He pushed away the drawer he had been working on and went to sit next to the young Hispanic. He said nothing, just looked at his friend with a sadness in his usually bright blue eyes.

"Of course I do. How on earth do I forget?" It was because of the fire that he had almost snapped, and it was because of the fire that Juana was trying so hard to avoid him. In hindsight, it was a rather stupid question to ask. Anyone who didn't remember the fire had either passed out during it or was experiencing amnesia. "What about it, Domonic? Was your dorm on the second floor or something? Did you lose your stuff?"

Did he lose something? If the situation hadn't been so devastating, Domonic would have found the question amusing. He wouldn't be upset over something as small as losing his room. That was nothing compared to what he and many others had actually lost. "No, my room is still intact, but thanks." Domonic cleared his throat where he felt a small tickle in the back of it. He wasn't crying, he hadn't really cried since he had first been told about Cadenza, but he looked like he was rather close now. "No, but I did lose something. It was much more important than a room." He sighed, running a hand through his chocolate brown locks.

Realization dawned on him then. "Oh," said Carlos quietly. His voice was sad, sympathetic. "Oh. Somebody died, didn't they? Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, Dom." The Hispanic didn't think that the nurse would mind his use of the nickname--and even if he did, it was clear that he was in no shape to do anything about it. He could actually see tears in the usually-cheerful nurse's eyes. Don't cry, he willed him silently. Don't cry on me. Please. I'm so bad at comforting people--and my hands are covered in paint, for crying out loud. I won't be able to do anything and that will make me feel like an ass. So please don't cry.

Domonic was able to pull himself together better and within a moment, his eyes were dry. He nodded slowly. Yes, yes he had lost someone in the fire. "She was my... Patient." His patient, his girlfriend, his love, and it was still hard to believe she wasn't around anymore. "She was lost in the asylum, couldn't find her way out and she died there." But had that been better for her? It was a tragic death, a horrible way to die, but she had always thought she was forever trapped in the asylum with no hopes of ever getting out. She was out, now, and probably happier where she was then than in the asylum. That didn't make it any easier for Domonic, though. If anything, it made it worse.

"Well..." Carlos gave a little sigh, unsure of what to say. He would have apologized again, if Domonic had looked like it would make him feel any better--but it didn't, and so the Hispanic kept quiet and only gave another little sigh. One finger, covered in red paint, began to trace absentminded patterns on the sheet, intermixing with yellow and green and orange and blue. He just looked at the young nurse with eyes that spoke where he could not, and a little frown of sympathy was evident on his lips. "That's rough, buddy," he said at last. "That's rough."

"Rough being an understatement," Dom replied with dry humor. Even his usually bright and rich humor had gone dark. He hoped in a fee weeks he could improve a little bit to become more like himself. Everyday was a new battle with him, it seemed. He was still enough of himself to notice that he friend wasn't exactly the usual Carlos he knew, either. "Your turn," Domonic announced and turned for a moment to produce his own sheet of paper. "May I?" He asked, looking at the paint. Maybe doing something childish and whimsical would help lighten his mood a little. "What's eating you, amigo? You don't look so happy, either." Silently, Dom hoped he hadn't lost a loved one as well. It was something he wouldn't wish on an enemy.

((Not even Raven?))

Carlos nodded and slid the paper over. "It's nothing," he replied with a little shrug. "Nobody died, anyway. I was just kinda shaken up the night of the fire, and I think I scared off this friend of mine. It's bugging me a lot, because I distinctly remember telling her a few days before everything went to hell that I was an okay guy and that all she had to do was trust me. I pretty much shot that chance right in the face and it sucks." The Hispanic gave another sigh, then began to draw a little blue flower next to his mindless red smears. They looked too much like blood for comfort; he had to counteract that somehow. "Nothing you need to get all worried about, though. You have enough problems without having mine on top of them. You just take it easy, okay, amigo? It doesn't make sense for you to worry about me."

[I really wanted to have that be the last sentence, but decided not to. XD]

"I'd rather worry about someone else's problems than focus on my own. It's easier to handle." He dipped his fingers into a jar if blue paint and began to smear it carelessly onto the white with a ghost smile on his lips. "So you scared her off, huh? Can't you just apologize to her and have her all happy with you again? I bet if you do it in a stellar fashion, everything will be okay. Is she a patient?" Maybe if he'd known the girl, maybe even worked with her, he could help his friend out.

"Yeah. Her name is Juana. Problem with your plan, though, is that she's got trust issues." Carlos gave a frown, dipped one of the fingers that wasn't currently covered in paint into a jar of purple, and then began to draw out several smiley faces, just for kicks. "I don't think she's going to believe me if I apologize. I started ranting the night of about how untrustworthy other people were and how everyone was out to get everyone else. I'm pretty sure she believed me. How am I supposed to fix that?"

"Hmmm." With the hand not having any paint, Domonic rubbed his chin in thought. He'd basically just thrown her biggest fear into her face. How could he fix that? "Well, that depends on how badly you want her affections back, I suppose." Domonic's reply sounded a little distracted, mostly because he was. He was trying to figure out if he knew Juana. Not personally, no, but he was pretty certain he knew who she was. "Is she one of the newer patients? Foreign? Could probably speak your language?" Domonic gave Carlos a half-hearted nudge at the last question. He took red now, and began to mix it with the blue. He liked the look of it, actually. There was some blue, some red, then they merged together at the ends of their swirls to make purple. It was impressive for the young nurse who had no creative art skills whatsoever.

Carlos didn't smile, but a little humor seeped back into his gaze nonetheless. "Spanish? Sure she knows Spanish, she's from Ecuador." His accent flared on the country's name. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

Domonic shook his head. "Never mind, forget it." He wouldn't tease his friend, he decided, not when he was so down in the dumps. He was so down, he shouldn't have even attempted such a thing. "Back to the first question. How badly do you want her to forgive you? How much do you want her affections or trust back again?" He figured that was as good a place as any to start. Thankfully, he had never been in a situation where he had to apologize to Cadenza for doing something wrong. The thought of her almost brought tears to his eyes again, but he swallowed it down and painted a more joyful color -yellow- on his paper to try and lighten his mood.

Carlos thought about that for a moment. "Pretty bad," he decided, and as soon as he said the words knew they were true. "I told Juana I wanted to be her friend. I said I would try and help her get around her...fear of other people, I guess you could call it. And I pretty much ruined that chance a little while ago--so yeah. I can safely say that I want her to forgive me pretty badly. I really hate doing things like that to people, you know. Everyone kind of assumes I do like it, because I'm always so crazy when the beast takes over, but I don't. It really sucks."

"I can take a look at her file if you'd like, see what her problem is." His words came out slowly, almost in a drawl. He knew that that was probably not a good idea, giving out personal information, but Domonic knew that Carlos wouldn't take advantage of such a thing, and he really needed help. "If not, I'd say either explain your condition to her and tell her it wasn't you that night, your intentions are pure, or you can apologize in a really extravagant manner. Judge the girl and pick which one would be more convincing to her, or both if you think that'll work."

"I was actually gonna do the first one." Carlos gave an incredibly dry, very nearly humorless chuckle. "Extravagance isn't really my thing, couch-napper. I just don't know if she'll take it as well as I hope she does, so I've kinda been a sissy about it and not gone to talk to her yet."

Domonic frowned a little, looking up from his paper to his friend. "You haven't tried at all? I wonder how she'll take that. I suggest you go figure out how she does, and soon. Waiting might make her more angry." Domonic gestured towards the door with a paint-covered hand as if to say, go find her, already! He had been right, working out Carlos's problems had helped him so much more than he was before. Maybe it was time that he saw his usual patients again. Being with Carlos had already helped him wonderfully. Or maybe it had been the paint, but Domonic seriously doubted the latter.

"All eight, all right." This actually made Carlos crack a smile, and he pushed back from the table with both paint-covered hands. He stood, walked over to the sink, and as he slid both hands under the water (it ran very poorly--this would take a while) looked back to shoot Domonic a wink. "Hey, Dom? Gracias. Maybe it did help that you worried about me."

((Fade?))

One of the first smiles Domonic had cracked in weeks crossed over his face. He raised a hand at his friend and made a hurry up gesture as he did so. "De nada, amigo. And no problem, anytime."

[Fade.]

It had been days since Rosemarie had gone to the peach tree, days since she had last seen Raven, and to that, she was grateful. She couldn't see him again, not after he had seen the emotions she brought on in him, not after she saw that she feared him. It was a hard thing to take in, and she still hadn't fully taken it in when she had come into the art room. It was a good way to blow off the negative energy without hurting some other patient. It hadn't done much for her, because she'd only been able to sketch out things that reminded her of Raven. The graveyard, the peach tree, his dorm room door, she'd drawn them and every time she did, she would throw out the drawing and try to draw something else, but then it would always come back to something that would remind her of Raven. She was about to throw away another drawing--this one of arrows sticking into a tree--when an idea struck Rosemarie. Desperately, she turned toward the garbage in an attempt to retrieve the crumpled balls of paper that contained her sketches. Maybe, just maybe, what was going through her head could work to win Raven over again. Maybe.

"You know, there is paper in the drawers, Fraulein Toom." The voice, lightly accented and very-so-slightly amused, belonged to Phoenix, who now stood in the doorway with Katze held in her arms. A small smile of amusement had parted pale lips, and blue eyes were gleaming with amusement that wasn't mocking for once, but completely genuine. What was Rosemarie doing, digging through the garbage? She'd thought her to have more class than that. A light laugh, quiet and pretty, drifted across the room as the little redhead crossed the scuffed floors, taking a seat across from the one the ex-Hunter had been using.

((Sorry, bad post--I must run off to eat dinner.))

['Tis fine, go eat~]

Her head didn't move, but her eyes of cobalt blue flicked in her direction. The voice wasn't mocking, as so many had been in the past few weeks, but sincere in its amusement, Rosemarie would say friendly. A friend, not an enemy. The flick in her direction confirmed that yes, it was only Phoenix. Not a friend, exactly, but as close as she could come to nowadays. The ex-Hunter didn't speak to the fellow redhead, just shook her head in response to her amused questions and waving her off. She grabbed all of the papers from the can and began to unravel them from their crumpled state, setting each rumpled piece of paper on the table beside her. Standing, she dusted herself off, looking around the art room for more supplies she could use. "No, Phoenix, I had to grab what I just stupidly threw out." She didn't add that she was making a gift for Raven. She was too distracted by the decorative sketch booking paper she had luckily found. A few pages, sure, but it was at least something.