Friday I don't care about you, it's Saturday... (B2, Open)

He watched the clock tick off the hours all day long, waiting for the end of school so he could go back to the boy's facility and... wait for Saturday. He already had he clothes picked out for tomorrow; Jeans, another short sleeved shirt, this time the orange one, and his work boots. He's take off as soon as he could that morning and walk to the Riding school, he couldn't work there yet, but at least he could see Theo and check on the horses...did they all come over too? He didn't know and wouldn't till tomorrow.

The whole situation was just ridiculous, there had to be some sort of confusion, there just had to be. He'd never gotten in trouble at Hadley, there was a riot, a blackout, Murders, suicides, and multiple attempts of mischief. Hell, he didn't even get into the food fight the last spring. Niall answered all of Doctor Scully's questions as they filled out his new application for St. Christina's, he didn't have any contraband, ever. He was well behaved and a mostly a B student, but he was restricted to the facility grounds all week, and this one didn't even have stables on site, they were off grounds. What was he supposed to do with all this wasted time after lessons and therapy? The stables were practically his home, he talked to Beauty, No-no, Whis, Pickpocket and Fact more than he did most people...Maybe that was the problem?

Niall looked at the the made-to-measure tack Theo got him for his last birthday, it has a special place of honor on his desk. It could sit there for now, till he met his roommate(s) then he'd likely feel out the other boys temperament's. On the walk to his dorm Niall had found a small rubber ball in the pushes, it was red and roughly the side of a baseball, still nice and springy... he'd ashed the particles of dirt and probably animal droppings off in the men's room sink and dried it on his t shirt, giving it a few test bounces in the bathroom before wandering to his room, depositing his slightly lanky frame on the twin bed still laying on his back with the heels of his bare feet resting against the headboard. The boy bounced the ball off the wall, just above his toes, catching it with either hand, the rhythmic thunk of rubber against the wall and muted smack of the ball against his palm before he tossed it back started off slowly enough, only as Niall started to count the number of times he caught the ball and bounced it back that he started to pick up speed. Soon, he was sitting n his knees at the foot of his bed, bouncing the bass as quick as he could, he reached with his left hand to catch a strike that went off sides, only it sailed above his fingertips just barely touched the ball, all he could do was turn as watch it sail out and towards the door...and hope he didn't hit anyone.

Ace heaved a sigh as he walked toward his dorm, cursing the cruel bastards who'd decided that weekend leave didn't include Friday. The thought of Serenity letting herself into the Calloways' apartment and letting a yell of "Heute ist Freitag!" ring out brought a small smile to his face, at least until he realized that she was probably there now. They were probably getting dolled up to go out on the town, without Ace, as they had for the past... year or so. His thoughts turned to his girlfriend, who he hadn't even caught up with that day; he'd just gotten up and taken off as soon as he was allowed. Emmy probably had other C-ward friends she wanted to go out with, and he knew she also had a part time job, so he didn't want to bother her with his lack of leave privileges. But Saturday, he would take her out. He planned to buy her lunch and probably some kind of sweet for dessert, and maybe take her shopping if he could. There was a card in his wallet that hadn't seen the slot of a reader for some time, and Emmy needed to be spoiled.

Why did they put me in B? Ace ran the words from the student handbook through his head... A was intensive, and C was able to be discharged, so that meant that B had to be somewhere in between. But I can't do anything that they would need to watch me for. I'm already, like, kinda dead here. Can't exactly off myself. I'm not some kind of delinquent, either... Sighing again, he shook his head. It was a punishment. It had to be. This is what happens, Ace, when you take God's gifts from yourself. He worked hard. He doesn't like this. It's punishment.

But then again, he thought as he walked, it's not really horrible. Maybe I'm not hated. Maybe this is more a wake-up call than a punishment. It's probably a second chance to do the right thing this time. At least I do get to go out... I shouldn't be ungrateful. That's why I'm in this predicament in the first place.

He was just about to turn into his room when something small and red whizzed right past his face. He just had time to scoot to the side a step to avoid it when he realized that it was just a rubber ball. It bounced off the wall behind him, and Ace spun around to catch it on its way back. Giggling, he brought it into the room and bounced it a couple times off the floor. "This yours?" He asked Niall. Without waiting for an answer, he bounced it toward his roommate and went to put his bag on the bed. "I used to love those things. I'd get them out of the bubble machines at the supermarket and drive Ma bonkers with them. Until my dog would inevitably eat them. Lather, rinse, repeat. They were usually smaller, though." He sank down next to where he'd put his bag and started to take his jacket off. "I like the really big ones you can get from those cage things at Wal-Mart." He smirked. "Anyway. Wow. I'm already bored. What's up?"

There weren't too many Asian boys wandering around Hadley lately, so Niall recognised Ace easily enough...also helped that everyone had been crammed on the a plane and a ferry together for a day. It kinda helped you learn who was whom when you were in close quarters for so long. He started to apologise the second he saw the other boy come into view, that ball was going to hit him right in the-- air. he gave a visible sigh of relief, his whole form relax as Ace responded by giggling and even catching the ball. Ace seemed like an okay guy, not someone he'd have to worry about like Duncan...

He rose from the bed as Ace retrieved the ball and stretched; Niall hadn't realised being lie on the bed in a mood somewhere between brooding and moping could make you so tense. He rolled his back, listening for that tiny crack of each vertebrae realigning properly, "Yeah, I found it outside and cleaned it up, I didn't mean to let it get away from me though, sorry about that." Niall caught the ball as Ace tossed it back, listening politely as he rolled the rubber sphere between his palms and slowly padded back to his be to sit down. He remembered those machines well...and the project his brother endeavoured on to create quarter slugs so he didn't have to pay for the blue sour gumballs they both enjoyed.

That was likely why he was here in ward B...he hadn't talked much to his Hadley therapists, then again it was their fault kinda as well, wasn't it?
maybe, he wasn't so sure.

Niall tucked his right leg under his backside as he sat, letting the left dangle over the side, bounding the ball much slower against the floor, watching the read blob bounce as he spoke, "this is up pretty much...waiting till tomorrow morning so I can go find the stables and well...spend the day there like I used to before the move..." he stopped the bouncing for a moment and looked at Ace, "D'wonder why we're in ward B?" it was an odd topic of conversation, but it was the only think he could think of, aside from horses, but that might be a little weird to go on about that when they've only just met, "Oh, I'm Niall, by the way."

Ace started rifling through his bag, though still listening to Niall, his head tilted in the other boy's direction. Finally he found what he was looking for: the sketchbook Dr. Buxton had given him what seemed eons ago, that now doubled as his journal. He brought it out and sat it on his lap and turned to face Niall fully now, smiling. "You know, this is going to sound really sad... but that's awesome! Not often you find amusing things lying around at the ol' looney bin." He grabbed a pencil from the bag and tapped it lightly on the book a few times.

"Oh, yeah," Ace sympathized. "Stables aren't on the grounds here, are they? That sucks. I mean I'd only been to them like twice, but I can see where it's... I guess a..." He shrugged, scratching slightly at his scalp with the tip of the pencil, searching for the right words. "It's not my thing, horses, but they are pretty nice." He remembered the first time he'd gone to the stables; the horses were much bigger than he'd imagined the animals would be. Granted, he had known they were large, but it took seeing one up close for it to really click. He'd been mildly afraid of them at first, but had warmed up, started to talk to them.

"So did you have horses or something before you came here?" It was more out of curiosity, something to break the ice and kill the boredom, but of course, if Niall had had horses, Ace was still interested to hear about them. "And do you think they brought the old horses? I hung out with one once... oh, what was the name... Imp! I groomed that one. Imp is, like, seriously a real sweetheart. Or do you think that they couldn't bring those? I mean, what with all the weird shit that happened with Hadley right before we left..."

Niall's next question made Ace smirk a bit. "I was wondering the same thing just as I was walking down the hall, actually." He finally opened the book and started doodling whatever came to mind. Some spirals, a weird bat-looking thing, another airplane, a sketch of his roommate. Finally he sighed and put the pencil down in the middle of the book and closed it. "Well... I know that A is for the people that need intensive whatever-the-fuck, and C is for people that can be discharged, potentially... B is somewhere in between. At least, that's what the handbook would suggest. I used to cut myself, so that may be why. That and I've had three suicide attempts, and the fourth one..." he stopped. No one ever seemed to believe him anyway, so what was the use. "Okay, four. So I'm guessing that's why I'm in B." He offered a friendly smile. "I'm not sure about you, but I guess you could use my theory to come to your own conclusion. Of course, you don't have to talk about it with me. I only talk about mine because, really, there's no reason it does any harm."

He shifted to his knees and started bouncing on the bed slightly before stopping and lightly smacking himself in the forehead. "Ohh! Yes, Niall! I knew I'd seen you a few times, but couldn't put a name to the face. God, I feel dumb now. Sorry! I'm Ace."

Ace stopped bouncing and shifted again to lie on his side. "So, I'm probably going into town myself tomorrow, but if you want, I could help you find the stables. I think it might be on the way. If not, who cares? Not like the island's huge, and I'd get downtown eventually. Anyway, it's your call. If you want company, I wouldn't mind chilling with you for a bit."

Niall really seemed like a nice kid, and Ace wouldn't have minded getting to be friends with him. After all, they were roommates, and it was always easier if you could tolerate the person, and easier still if you were friends.

Finally, Ace reached for his laptop and flipped it open. "Do you like some certain type of music? I'm sort of fidgety right now, and music calms me down. I'm kind of an audiophile, I guess. If you don't mind, I want to put some on... I'll keep it down, but if you mind, I won't do it. Otherwise I'll see if I have something we'll both like."

((You don't have to match this, lol... he just wouldn't shut up.))

Most people as Niall was noticing seemed to have Ace's thinking on horses, ha the animals were nice but not exactly their thing. He didn't mind it, Daragh had been a bit the same after they were take from the ranch, he'd sworn up and down he never wanted to see, look after, clean up to ride another horse again... his boast didn't even last three days before the more vocal of the two had to admit he missed those gentle beasts with their wickering voices, graceful steps and large eyes... there was just something about a house that was undeniable.

“Kind of; I grew up around them.” that was honest, wasn't it? He didn't have to answer every question beyond what was asked, he needed to learn to focus on what exactly was being said. Ace second question left Niall blinking, Immediately he thought of Beauty, Whis and Pickpocket, Fact, Imp, Soso, Queenie and her foal Ace and even Vamp... they'd gone by plane, and from that he noticed while getting on the plane, a lot of the staff had their pets in the cargo hold, where was obviously no room for horses, but that didn't solve the problem of what exactly happened with the horses, his eyes traveled back to the tack set Theo bought him for his birthday..Merrylegs was Beauty's professional name and it was embroidered on the side of his tack..it was be some sort of twisted plot-line if he had his own tack and his admittedly favourite horse was on the other side of the country. “I...I dunno. I hole T—Mr Loving got to bring some of them..then again everything happened so fast... I mean one minute we're in New York and the next day we're here... I hope you get to see imp again, Ace.” I also hope Beauty's in there with Whis and pickpocket...

When Ace smiled Niall did too a little, though it faced as he explained the wards, admittedly Niall only skimmed his handbook. Looks like he knew what he would be doing at the stables aside form looking over the horses and talking to Theo...it really was stupid of him not to read through. So, He was in the middle, like Ace...Not quite damaged enough for ward A, but not trustworthy enough for C. Well he's just have to get to C somehow. Maybe his was what an addict felt light? Cut off form their drug of choice being expected to focus and function like a person who lacked that near debilitating need. Niall remembered spending one biology lecture sketching the upper body of a horse, naturally it was Beauty, he even shaded it...thank goodness the boy remembered what Mitosis was otherwise he would have probably had to spend the afternoon in her office stabling papers or maybe waiting for that see through frog to poop or something...

“Don't feel bad, I only remember your name because I'm good with that stuff.” He smiled, Ace was kind of animated, but it was a nice change of pace, he didn't really know his last roommates...well Aside form Aubrey, all the others kind of faded away eventually, like a stain on a white shirt soaked in bleach. Briar stood out as well but one day he simply stopped coming to their dorm. AJ and Brent never shared a dorm with him. The revolving door of roommates and their random vanishing acts was enough to make a young man paranoid. He really hoped Ace was going to stick around, he seemed a great deal of fun.

“That's be great, Thanks. I'll get to visiting downtown one day I suppose, but I really want to see the riding school first.” As Niall spoke he didn't notice he suddenly started to sit up straighter, remembered the dozens of well intentioned, harmless threats Theo leveled at him for slouching in the saddle, if the man was going to be running a riding school the he was without a doubt going to get on him to ride properly more intently.
The ball in his hands was bounced a lot softly and with more control on the floor beside his bed as he watched ace get out a laptop and flip it on, "Mostly Rock but I'll listen to anything, really."

Nodding, Ace continued with his aimless sketching. He couldn't think of anywhere remotely near him that had horses when he was growing up, so he normally only saw them on TV. Before he'd gone to the stables at Hadley for the group therapy, he hadn't exactly had a good idea of just how big they really were. They were even more beautiful than on TV, of course. That didn't mean he was any less afraid to touch them. "I hope so too," Ace said, offering Niall a soft expression. "I think that maybe he got them driven here, like in a truck or something. Or a horse trailer, and they could put that on a ferry, for sure!" Really, though, Ace wasn't sure, as he knew next to nothing about horses. "I wouldn't mind seeing Imp again, and I guess I might want to check out the other ones. I think I saw one called Ace there." He smirked. "I wonder if the other horses made fun of him for having a funny name..."

The small bit of silence started to weird Ace out. He began nervously chewing on his pencil eraser, his dark eyes darting over toward his roommate and back. What if Niall knew that he was sharing a room with... a dead boy? Sighing, Ace wondered if he should keep to himself more, like he normally did. There was no use making friends if he was just going to leave them soon... it had to be soon. Eventually, God would realize that keeping this boy in a place where people knew he was dead might freak them out. Ace himself was already quite freaked out. With good reason: he was in a brand new place with a few new people, and still no one understood what was going on with him. He wished he could say that the fact that he did was all that mattered, but that would be selfish.

"Oh," Ace laughed, putting his pencil down in the middle of the sketchbook. "Well, my name's not exactly hard to remember... three letters, one syllable. Easy peasy. Yours... I don't know why I forgot it. I remembered your face, just not the name for some reason, and right when you told me, it snapped together... Well. You know what I mean, I guess. My thought process isn't exactly coherent lately, anyway." He shrugged, raising an eyebrow and grinning sheepishly.

"Yeah... so I guess you'll take riding classes? Have you before?" He tried to imagine himself riding a horse, but he really couldn't. He was a city boy, with no horse to ride and nowhere to ride one if he'd ever come across one. Usually, Ace was content to ride around aimlessly with his speed-demon mother in her Trans-Am. Right before she'd...gone, she had been looking at getting something 'more crazy fast,' because apparently a jet wasn't fast enough; Midori had to break the sound barrier on land, too.

The sudden surge of memories and emotions started to conflict in his head, and he started fidgeting even more as he navigated his music files for something nice. At some point, he'd picked the pencil back up and was twirling it around the fingers of his left hand while his right clumsily pressed and missed buttons. "Mostly rock, huh?" he mused, realizing he didn't have much other than electronica. Fortunately, his music obsession included making genre-specific playlists, so he finally gave up trying to find something specific and clicked the generic rock playlist. "I'm not really sure what all's on this... probably some rock-industrial-something, some classic rock, some Japanese stuff... but it's got drums and guitars and it's all good to me."

Some Pink Floyd came on first, and he smiled. It reminded him of that day, hanging out with Jamie and Chance. He briefly wondered what they were up to when he remembered the most recent IM conversation he and Chance had. Ace burst out into giggles. "So I wonder if that weird science teacher came. Chance and I figure her only friends are cardboard cutouts of Star Trek characters. You... yeah, you were in our class, right? Oh, man."

Ace flopped back onto his pillow and stared at the ceiling, his laughter dying away almost as quickly as it had come. This... it was his mother's favorite band...well, probably a three-way-tie with Boston and Janis. But he would listen to it, because rock was what Niall had mentioned, and it only brought back the good memories.

still seated on the bed and absentmindedly playing with the rubber ball Niall nodded as Ace spoke. He didn't think making twenty-seven horses go from middle-of-nowhere New York to the middle-of-the-sea Oregon...actually it wasn't Oregon was it? that application he filled out sad a lot of things the meant quickly simply they were not in the US anymore... He knew that Whis and Pickpocket made it, Theo would never let those two go, but he didn't outright own the other horses, and because of that it left a big question mark over which, if any of the remaining horses made it over. he nodded at Ace, returning the gentle expression, "Yeah, they could definitely make the journey that way." he didn't want to be negative with Ace trying to hard to make him feel better. But the horses they knew back in Phoenicia were likely gone. It would not be difficult in the slightest to make friends with the new ones at the riding school, but he would still miss those long face he got to know so well at Hadley. "Wouldn't have been smart for any of them to make fun of each other's names, they all had fun ones. Oh you must mean Quinnie's foal, Ace. Yeah, he was still young, always around him mom." That reminded him, Ace Finn. His new roommate was probably the only kid on campus who shared both his first and last name with residents of the stables. The was an old Saddlebred on the farm named Finn... Finn was a patient old boy, not much for prancing about all over the place like a young foal, but he had a peaceful, lovely temperament.
Merrylegs may have been his favourite, but Niall knew every horse in the stables on some level.

The silence didn't much bother Niall at all; e was generally quiet unless he was talking to something on four legs. His brother had been the social lubricant for both of them and without Daragh, Niall was still adjusting to being 'the talker' for himself. It had always been so very much easier to sit back and let Dar do these things and to notice that maybe everyone wasn't as comfortable in the quiet as he was. Had Ace told the other boy he believed himself to be deceased Niall would have likely nodded quietly while wondering if maybe Ace had suffered an head injury as a baby or perhaps before the move that was making him believe something that was pretty much disproven by the fact he was disclosing his 'status' as dead to another person.

"Don't worry about it, we're roommates so we'll get used to matching faces to each other's names."he grinned back, laying on his side as he stretched out on his bed, head turned to face Ace as his chin rested on his forearm propped up by pillows appropriated from the head of his bed, "Yes, I want to, Mr. Loving was kind of giving me lessons before the move. mostly on posture, I kinda slump in the saddle a little..." he rolled the ball with his left wrist as he talked, "I wasn't really raised to think much about how you held your back in the saddle, as long as you didn't fall off, you were alright. But English riding is different." That was a bit of an understatement, thought a topic for a little later.

Niall nodded as Ace spoke about the playlist he was about to start, "Sounds good to me." and listened, at least he was listening to to music until Ace started to laugh randomly, before the other boy could ask, his dorm mate explained the joke,Niall smiled, "I was and I dunno she also had that neat see through frog, Picard I think she named him, that was probably her friend too." She was an odd one, but harmlessly odd, like a friend that always wears a red sock because they think it's lucky or something. When Ace stopped laughing, Niall settled back down, smiling to himself thinking his first and only trip into that little po'dunk village with Theo to get his own equipment.
"So," Niall surprised himself by speaking, but his mouth has started and he couldn't stop it now, "What do you like to do around here? I mean I have horses, but um...how do you spend your free time?"

Nodding, Ace said, "Yeah, see? I'm sure they could! And, well, look. Even if I'm wrong, you know Mr. Loving would have made sure they went to good homes! I had only met the man a few times, but I could tell he loved his horses. So whether they're here or elsewhere, I'm positive they're safe." Dear God, Ace hoped they were. Regardless of whether or not he was a horse freak, he couldn't bear to hear about animal abuse or neglect of any kind. If those gorgeous beasts were suffering... He shivered slightly and put it out of his mind. No, Mr. Loving wouldn't have let that happen to them. He was a good man.

"Yeah, that is true. I don't know, I've always found it amusing how people name horses. It's almost like, they're so majestic they need whole titles, so you give them one, and then they need a nickname." He laughed, but the smile faded a bit. "I was sort of like that, too. Always around my mom. Maybe it's an Ace thing." Sighing, he turned his face toward the ceiling, toward Heaven, and wondered where she was and what she was doing. "I just miss her so much, you know?" He looked down at the page of the sketchbook where he had started to draw a plane, and he frowned at it. She'd loved those big, aluminum wannabe-birds with all her heart, or at least all of it that wasn't reserved for her family, and the damn things had been the death of her.

He nodded again, knowing about the whole posture thing. "I'd figure as long as I didn't fall of a horse I was good to go. But there's always a technique you have to master, for everything. And, I mean, posture is better for you anyway. You got... well, there's you moving, and the horse moving, and so posture probably just makes sure you don't strain your back or anything. I used to slump when I played the piano, and my shoulders would start hurting. So whenever my posture wasn't good Ma would come up and press on my back so I'd sit up. Eventually it turned to habit."

Niall was probably bored about Ace's escapades (or lack thereof) as a pianist, so he stopped there and started scrolling through his playlist, queuing up a few selections to play next.

"Oh, yeah. Picard... I wonder if he came, too. But he's like, the class frog. He's not her personal pet, I don't think. I guess if he was, she'd have him at home. Who really knows, though... I have no idea. I never asked. All I know is she got him for that 'dissection' unit we did because she couldn't give us scalpels." But it was true. She was a nice woman, patient, and harmless. Sometimes Ace debated ceasing his attempts at messing with her, but the look on her face when she skimmed his turned-in assignments just egged him on. The worst she ever did was have a chat with him about his performance.

"Umm... I kind of just do whatever. I mean, lately, I've been just hanging around... I used to go and play the piano, but I haven't really gone to figure out if they have one here yet. I guess I'll do that eventually. And, well, I have a girlfriend, so I hang out with her sometimes. Mostly I just sit around being bored. It's gonna be so awesome, getting to go out and stuff." His voice sounded hollow, though, like he didn't believe his own words. He didn't. Going out would mean watching people being alive and happy, and being reminded that he'd taken the privilege away from himself. At least, though, it might make the time he had left in the world go by faster.

He set the computer on the foot of his bed and leaned back on the pillow, his arms folded behind his head, one leg over the other knee. He bounced his foot to the beat of the music and closed his eyes. "So, what are you going to do when you get out of this place? You gonna buy horses or something?"