A/N: Well, this is probably the only Courage story I've written since starting ATE that I've actually updated with a second chapter. I delayed finishing this to focus on writing ATE chapters several times, but it's finally here!

-Breakfast-

"Hey!"

Courage groaned sleepily and turned over in his bed. Eustace was yelling at him to wake up, he was sure of it, but it was so nice to be sleeping in an actual bed. He didn't care how stiff and uncomfortable it was, it was still so nice to have. Just this once he would risk punishment, if only to enjoy this a little while longer...

"Hey! Wake up, you twit!"

Courage's eyes snapped open and he turned over onto his back in a rush. For a moment he had forgotten where he was, and without his glasses he could barely make out the face looming over him. Instinctively, his arms flew up to his head in an attempt to protect himself.

"Don't be that way, idiot! I'm not going to do anything! I've simply decided to be your alarm clock! They will be here in about five minutes to unlock the door, and since you're new here, they're going to go over a million different things with you. So I'd rather you be awake and ready to go ahead of time so that this will go as smoothly as possible and I can get to breakfast as soon as possible."

Courage had left his glasses on the plastic nightstand beside his bed. He fumbled blindly trying to grab them, his eyes flitting from the blurry face to the nightstand and then back again to the blurry face several times.

"H-how do you know they'll be here in five minutes?" He asked. "T-there isn't a clock, or at least I didn't see one last night before they turned the lights off."

"Roughly five minutes, give or take, and if you must know, I happen to be rather attuned to the schedule that everybody runs on in this place. The morning hustle and bustle has already begun and soon they will be taking us patients down to the cafeteria for breakfast. They supervise us at all times, but thankfully they do not breathe down our necks. If you are expecting to have a guard trailing behind you at all times, you are mistaken. There will be somebody nearby in case you decide to go off the deep end and they have to subdue you, but generally they respect our boundaries and thank goodness for that or else this place would have been the thing to drive me mad instead."

Courage stood up and adjusted his huge, round glasses. Through the barred window he could see that it was overcast outside and rather gloomy. He suspected that it wasn't even seven in the morning yet.

He turned his eyes back onto his new roommate, and with the gloomy light filtering into the room, he could finally get a better look at him. There were still deep shadows under his eyes, and Courage was certain that he must not have slept at all overnight. He was leering at him with severe blue eyes and narrow spectacles. His hair was short and graying, but what really caught Courage's attention was the scars. This Computer guy had more than a few faded scars of varying shapes and sizes all over his face and even on his neck. There was one particular scar running from the bottom of his jaw, all the way up his cheek, and ending so close to his eye that Courage was amazed he hadn't lost it to whatever had made the scar in the first place.

"It's rude to stare, you know!" He spat, obviously not enjoying the fact that he was being scrutinized, and it probably didn't help that Courage couldn't stop gaping like an idiot.

Trying to pull himself together, Courage blinked several times and then looked away sheepishly.

"Hmph! The bathroom is over there, twit!" His roommate huffed. "Go freshen up and change your clothes! You've got three minutes now before they come and don't you dare make me have to wait for breakfast!"

"Uh, they didn't give me an extra pair of clothes." Courage replied, looking down at himself. Admittedly, he was very tall, and it had been hard for them to find a pair of those white shirts and pants for him.

"That's not my problem! Just do whatever you've got to do!"

Courage stood up, and while Computer was maybe just a tiny bit short all on his own, Courage himself was tall enough to all but tower over him. It didn't account for much though. He did not have an ounce of muscle on him and while he 'was' tall, his gangly arms and legs made him far more clumsier than he liked.

He headed for the bathroom door, having completely missed it last night because he had been so focused on Computer before the lights went out. Grabbing the handle, he looked back at Computer, who was still watching him with arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"Don't tell me you're so stupid you don't even know how a bathroom works?"

"Y-you don't have to be so mean!" Courage stammered, opening the door, stepping inside, and then slamming the door shut right away. Anything to get away from that judgmental gaze for a little while.

The bathroom had a softness to it unlike anything he was used to seeing. It was like it had been stripped of anything you could possibly hurt yourself with and replaced with a softer counterpart. The shower was one Courage had never seen before in that you stood up in it. The one on the farm had been like a big bowel and you ran the risk of falling while getting in or out, not that Eustace had ever let him shower very often. Only when his smell became too great for the old man to bear. Half the time he simply threw Courage outside with a bucket of water and a little soup, but on occasion Muriel would fight to let him use the bathtub.

"No mirror." He murmured, having noticed the lack of one over the small sink. There was a soap dispenser, but no toothbrush or toothpaste.

He didn't mind the lack of any of those things. His appearance hardly mattered to him. There wasn't much of himself to look at, with his long, ugly face that Eustace loved to mock him for, even though his own face was just as long and ugly. Courage always had a little bit of hair growing on his chin that he had never had the means to shave off, and there was also his brown, unkempt hair that Muriel herself cut whenever the chance arose. There was also his brown eyes that Muriel had always said were very pretty, but he never really considered them anything special.

He soon exited the bathroom to find a man waiting for him in the main room, standing beside a very impatient looking Computer.

"Ah, you are-" The man spoke, looking down at his clipboard.

"Just call me Courage."

"Right, er, Mr. Bagge then. We generally don't permit the use of nicknames around here, but given certain circumstances..." He gave a quick glance over at Computer.

Computer gave a nonchalant shrug in response. "Ask me about what happened to the last idiot who tried to use my old name."

"I think I'll pass..." Courage weakly uttered out.

"Well, anyways." The man spoke, taking a step away from Computer. "It's time to go over your schedule-"

After ten or so minutes of explanations, rules, schedules, and various activities he could take part in during his free time, Courage was finally guided out of the room along with Computer and they were escorted down to the cafeteria.

"Eggs again?" Computer muttered to himself, rubbing his tired face in annoyance.

There was a whiteboard on the wall beside the cafeteria door displaying what they would be serving for breakfast, lunch, and supper today.

"Eggs! It's always eggs on Friday! Seven years! I've been stuck here for seven long years and they can't even bother to switch up the menu once in awhile? Ugh, I never want to see another egg for as long as I live!"

Courage, utterly stunned, came to a sudden halt and their escort nearly ran right into his back.

"C'mon now! Keep moving!" The man gently but also firmly urged.

Seven years? What on earth could be so wrong with this Computer guy that he was still in a mental hospital after seven years? Courage was suddenly very worried about how safe he was with this Computer person all over again.

The cafeteria looked like one you'd find in any school. There were plenty of patients getting their breakfasts and at least ten supervisors were stationed in different parts of the cafeteria to keep an eye on things. They were not acting like unfriendly guards either. A few of them were chatting happily with the patients.

School...

Courage bit his lip as he followed Computer over to the lunch line. He had been in elementary school once, if only for a very short amount of time, but it had been long enough for a place like this to feel familiar to him. Muriel was the one who had wanted him to attend school, but the town of Nowhere had been too small to have a school of its own, so Courage needed to be driven to a school nearly an hour away. The moment Eustace had figured out how much gas it cost to take him to that school everyday, he immediately called the school up and forced him to drop out. While Muriel had tried to pick up the slack by homeschooling him, Eustace had enjoyed intervening in that too. He had mocked Courage for being stupid and talked over Muriel constantly until she gave up.

"You're just a mutt we picked up off the street! A dog like you is too stupid to deserve an education!"

Courage shuddered at the memory.

At the lunch line, he grabbed a tray and slid it down the line as several lunch ladies placed food onto the tray. He glanced over at Computer, who was still ahead of him, and that was when he noticed yet another new thing about his strange roommate. He was wearing a white glove, like one you'd see a butler wearing, on his right hand.

But his left hand...

Courage couldn't stop himself from wincing at the sight of it. Computer's left hand looked like it had been shoved into a blender at some point and then been left to heal horribly afterwords. It was a gnarled mess of bumpy, raised scars. Courage could not stop staring with his mouth gaping open like an idiot. He was not even sure how Computer could even use that hand. It had to have a whole host of flexibility issues and even his fingers were badly scarred.

Computer, sensing that he was being stared at, glanced over at Courage. Realizing that his left hand was being eyed up, he dropped it to his side where Courage could no longer see it.

"What is it with you and staring?" He asked indignity.

Courage was left silently wondering why Computer would cover up his right hand but not the gnarled left one. How bad could the right one possibly be in that case? The mental image Courage's imagination came up with left him nauseated.

"Why is it so hard for people to mind their own business?" Computer grumbled to himself, pushing his tray forward.

Embarrassed, Courage decided that he'd do everything but look at Computer. The food they were putting on his tray looked pretty good. It reminded him of Muriel's cooking, something that he had only been allowed to enjoy when Eustace wasn't around. Muriel had always been careful about that sort of thing, but those moments of safety were few and far between. As far as Eustace was concerned, he didn't care if Courage starved. He'd never been allowed to eat at the table with his parents, and he had often been left the most meager or disgusting bits of food to eat when he 'was' fed. Muriel's cooking was for Eustace and that man would never share what was his with a mere mutt.

"When are you going to get it through your thick skull? No coffee! It's only milk or juice for you!" A voice yelled, pulling Courage out of his thoughts.

One of the lunch ladies was in an argument with Computer who must have started it while Courage was distracted by his thoughts and not paying attention.

"You know the rules!" She went on. "You're not allowed to have any caffeine until you start sleeping regularly!"

"Okay, okay!" Computer relented with a listless shrug of his shoulders. "It's been months now so I thought perhaps I could get away with just the tiniest cup of coffee that you might have available."

The lunch lady's eyes narrowed. "Don't you play your games with me, machine man. I know your tricks."

She placed a milk carton down in front of Computer, who leered at it in disgust.

"Eggs and milk! It's the same stuff day in and day out! Bah! I never even liked milk before I got locked in here in the first place!"

"Oh, enough of your complaining! It's the same thing from you day in and day out too, you know! If you really want, I can give you juice instead!"

Computer reached for the carton. "If there's one thing I hate more than milk, it's that fake garbage made out of sugar with no hint of actual fruit juice to be found!"

Courage watched as Computer picked up the carton of milk, only for it to slip out of his fingers and fall to the floor. It immediately burst open, sending milk everywhere. At first, Courage assumed that it was an act of defiance from Computer, but his expression seemed to suggest otherwise. Apparently he had grabbed the carton with his bad hand without even realizing it.

"Great..." He quipped, the word coming out more like a sigh.

"Don't worry about it. I'll have someone clean that up." The lunch lady spoke up, her combative attitude dissipating somewhat. She handed another carton to Computer who was far more careful with it this time around.

As Computer left to find a place to sit, the lunch lady turned her attention onto Courage.

"Oh, you're our new patient!" She jovially exclaimed. "If I remember correctly, your name is-"

"Just...call me Courage."

He gave her a nervous smile.

"Sure thing, dear. Watch out for that puddle, okay?"

Courage stepped over the milk spillage so that he could get closer to where the lunch lady was standing on the other side of the counter. She seemed to be sizing him up, as if she had to be careful or else he might turn out to be another tricky patient like Computer.

"You don't have any dietary restrictions from the doctor, I believe. So, in that case, you have milk, juice, and coffee to choose from. And if none of that appeals to you, we can just give you plain, old water instead."

Having never had coffee before, he decided he'd give it a shot. Muriel had always been a tea drinker and she had on a few rare occasions brewed him a cup. Coffee had always been Eustace's thing and he certainly would never have given any of it up to a mutt.

"You're 'his' new roommate too, aren't you?" The lunch lady asked just as he was about to walk off to the tables with coffee and tray in hand.

"Y-yeah?"

She let out a good humored chuckle. "You're the third one this month!"

Courage winced. How on earth could she find that funny? It was barely even two weeks into the month for goodness sake! What the heck could have happened to the other two people?

"His bark is way worse than his bite, dear! I've been dealing with him for years now! He's an absolute coffee fiend, and he's creative about finding ways to get his hands on it too! They almost banned coffee from this hospital entirely once because of him!"

Courage was not entirely sure why he should find any humor in any of this, and his mildly nervous expression was quick to be noticed by the lunch lady.

"Don't you worry about him! If he starts giving you trouble, just call him Calculator instead and he'll back off real quick! If push comes to shove, you can always come talk to me and I will give him a piece of my mind! That silly fool needs to get used to having a roommate for once. He can't keep driving everyone off forever."

"T-thank you!" Courage stammered, glad to have someone to turn to if this Computer guy ended up being as much of a nightmare as his previous roommates had apparently found out.

Courage found himself an empty table and sat down. None of the other patients seemed interested in talking to him or even letting him sit with them, and that was perfectly fine with him. Friends were something that seemed beyond him anyway. He was just a dumb mutt after all, and he was unlikely to see any of these people again once he was out of here either way.

As he dug into his food, he suddenly got the distinct feeling that he was being watched. He tried to ignore it for the longest time, but eventually his anxiety got the better of him. Looking up from his food, he could see his roommate eying him up from a nearby table. He figured it would be best just to ignore him and focused upon on his food once again.

It was not to be, however, because all of a sudden his roommate was upon him.

"Well hello there, new 'friend'." Computer mockingly greeted him, sliding into a chair beside him.

"Hey..." Courage muttered out absentmindedly, wishing that Computer would just go away.

"I happened to notice that you have coffee." His scheming roommate went on.

"Yeah? What about it?" Courage replied, reaching a hand out and sliding the cup farther away from the apparent 'coffee fiend'.

"Look, I want to cut a deal with you, you lanky excuse for a twit." His roommate huffed indignantly. "I will give you literally everything on my tray just for that cup of coffee."

Courage considered it for a moment. The coffee wasn't 'that' important to him, and if it got Computer off his back for a little while...

"Alright, you can have it, I guess."

Computer eagerly snatched the cup up. "Finally!" He exclaimed greedily.

Unfortunately, the coffee didn't have time to get anywhere near his lips because the lunch lady had been watching them and she called out to him from across the cafeteria.

"Hey! You know the rules, machine man! No caffeine! Give it back to Courage!"

Computer's eager expression was quickly replaced with a glum look of annoyance.

"Foiled again." He sighed. "Just take it before I do something that will give them a reason to lock me up in here for another seven years."

Courage reached for the coffee cup, and as his fingers wrapped around it, they inadvertently touched Computer's own gloved fingers. Instantly, it became very clear to him that something was very wrong with Computer's gloved hand. Startled, he let out a yelp in fear and pulled his hand back as fast as he could.

Computer nearly dropped the coffee in a panic. "Shhhh! You idiot!" He harshly whispered, using his bad hand to cover Courage's mouth.

Courage couldn't stop himself from trembling like a leaf. Whatever was under that glove had been hard and cold, like some kind of metal.

Computer glanced around the room, checking to see if anyone of authority had noticed what just happened. If the lunch lady had seen it, she was ignoring it, because she had turned away to help pack up some leftovers with another lunch lady.

"Don't go crying out like that! As if I just hurt you or something of the same sort!" Computer hissed in a low voice, still keeping his scarred hand pressed to Courage's mouth. Courage could feel his fingers twitching at times, and he suspected that it wasn't entirely voluntary.

"I'll remove my hand and explain myself if you promise not to start crying like a child!"

Courage nodded weakly, and with a sigh of relief, Computer lowered his hand.

"Look," He said, carefully using his bad hand to pull back the glove hiding whatever was under the other one.

Courage stared, unsure of what to think. At least it wasn't an even more horribly gnarled hand. Instead it was a metal one seemingly made out of complex machinery.

"It's a prosthetic, and a very advanced one at that." He explained.

He pulled up his sleeve to show that the prosthetic was attached to where his wrist should have been. His real hand, obviously, was gone. Worst still, Courage could not help but notice that the scars that covered his other hand and face also ran up his arm as far as it could be seen. The worst of the scarring was near where the stump of his hand would be had the prosthetic not been attached to it.

"I was only allowed to have it under the condition that I do not hurt myself or anyone else with it. So I don't appreciate you yelping like I tried to hurt you." He raised his scarred hand. "This one is practically useless so I would very much like to not lose the one good thing they've given me in this prison. Just be glad you've never had to try and hold a book and also turn the pages with only one hand. It is as every bit maddening as you can imagine."

Courage couldn't help but ask, "S-so why do you wear a glow over that one but not the other?"

Computer made a halfhearted effort to clench his scarred hand into a fist and only managed to get it about half way. "It's simple, really. People expect something like this around here. This is the pity party ward after all. Everyone who's here has had something done to them that messed them up in the head, and there are usually physical scars that come along with it. Besides, I have enough issues using this hand without having to deal with a slippery glove on top of it. This prosthetic though? I got tired of all the questions after the millionth time, so I prefer to hide it. People at least know better than to ask about the other one, but everyone and their mother thinks they are a master engineer when it comes to my prosthetic."

"I-I understand. S-sorry for g-getting scared."

Computer shook his head. "Man you are a coward, stammering away like that. Just don't get my prosthetic taken away and I will 'happily' put up with your pathetic cowardice."

He put the glove back on with some difficulty, and without saying another word, he took his tray and headed back to his own empty table.

Courage couldn't stop himself from glancing in his direction several times, but Computer either didn't notice or care. Everything about that guy made Courage nervous, and somehow he was going to have to keep sharing a room with him.

He had quickly come to notice a certain trait about him though. Regardless of what sort of expression he had on his face at any time, his eyes always held a certain dull, disinterred, and almost deadened look to them. Courage was not sure if it was just tiredness that made him look that way or if it was something else. It gave him a rather gloomy air, like he was only going through the motions, or like he was only doing what was expected of him and nothing more.

A/N: This scene is, more or less, meant to show that the things that were done to Computer by 'Him' are far more external than internal compared to the main ATEverse. Human Computer at least has the benefit that he's not slowly dying from the injuries inflicted upon him. His hands being the part of him that got messed up the most kinda comes from the thing he said early on in ATE Volume I, about how his keyboard keys are kind of like fingers. Plus, having a metal hand works as a small nod to the machine nature of his main story counterpart.