Loras was woken up by a very stern looking old lady that night, who made it very clear to Loras that sulking time was over and that he was to abide by the rules. Currently, that meant that he was supposed to be down for dinner. Since this was a facility where some people were recovering from anorexia, everybody was required to eat at the designated time and not allowed to skip their meals.
Already given the leeway of skipping lunch and afternoon tea, Loras trudged down reluctantly behind the stern looking lady who was leading him towards the dining hall. Said dining hall was behind a set of very sturdy looking hardwood doors and when it was opened, the scent of roasted chicken and sumptuous gravy hit Loras like a wave.
Looking around, he noticed simple but elegant wooden tables with plush chairs. The flooring was a beige colored wood and the walls were a soothing green color. Groups of teenagers were milled around, chattering lightly while eating their meals. It was then that Loras noticed the serving counter at the far end of the hall, where the cooks were laying out big trays of food and kids were piling up their food onto white ceramic plates.
It was all very warm and cozy looking, but Loras quickly reminded himself that he was not supposed to settle into anything here. This was just a prison, maybe a lavishly adorned one, but he was damm sure that they were all just being lulled into a false sense of warmth and comfort so that they forgot the fact that they were being held here against their will.
Loras was dead set to hate this place and nothing was going to change that.
"Go ahead and grab whatever you feel like eating, love. I'll wait until you're settled, alright?" Loras just huffed at the old lady. He knew why they were being so observant of what he ate, the damm doctors at the hospital had deemed him underweight and had his parents convinced that he had some sort of eating disorder.
Stupid doctors and psychologist with all their stupid theories, acting as though they knew everything that was in his mind. Well, they did not and Loras really wished that they would stop telling him what to do and controlling his life. He knew what was best for himself, he was a big boy who could handle himself, thank you very much.
Figuring that he should be picking his battles and guessing that arguing with the old lady in the uniform who was now watching him like a hawk was not going to gain him anything at all, Loras just quietly walked up to the serving counter to see what they had there. He saw that there was indeed some roast chicken, along with heaps of veggies and cheese.
Seeing bread at one corner, he immediately thought of eating a sandwich and told the guy behind the counter exactly that. The lady frowned when Loras asked the guy to assemble two tiny sandwiches with no condiments at all, but refrained from saying anything.
Good, Loras though, because he was not about to stand being lectured about how little he ate. He was short and slight anyways, so he never needed much to keep him going. Looking for a place to sit, he skimmed the hall slowly, looking for a group that didn't look like massive jerks.
His eye caught on a girl with bright red hair, attention grabbing in such a mundane room. She was sitting with another mousy haired boy and she looked bored while the boy sat opposite her was wolfing down food at incredible speed. Shrugging and deciding he might as well try and make some friends while he was stuck in this hellhole, he approached the table with a hopeful smile.
"Hey, do you guys mind if I join ya?" Loras put on the most cheerful tone he could while feeling like crap, and the red haired girl's head snapped up almost immediately. Her blue eyes widened as she looked at him up and down. Then with a giggle which she tried to cover with a cough she said, "Yeah, sure. My name's Sansa by the way and that's Theon. Welcome to table of misfits."
It was at night after they had had supper and returned to their rooms to retire for the day that Loras started feeling the itch on his arm. In the pale moonlight that was streaming in through the open curtain, Loras looked at the scars that he had left on his wrists. Long, thin scars that had once bled out his misery.
It felt like it was burning within him, coursing through his veins and poisoning his mind. The ache was so profound that he felt like he was going to burst if he didn't slice the veins open, didn't let the poison seep out with the blood. He scratched and he scratched, trying to get the itch and the burning that came along with it to leave.
This was what they didn't understand, didn't know about. Loras could not even begin to explain it to them all, his family and the doctors, why he absolutely had to cut himself and let whatever it was that was causing him pain in his veins to just leave his body and let him sleep already.
Because this was agony, pure agony to have it trapped in his body and torturing him through the night.
The next morning, Loras just shoveled some food into his mouth as Sansa chatted on about some celebrity gossip. He was on edge, tired of feeling trapped due to the fact that there were uniformed men and ladies watching over all the patients there. So right after breakfast, Loras sneaked out to the roof of the building, letting out a breath of relieve when he noticed that there was no one else there. Sitting near the water tank so that he would have some shade from the scorching sun, Loras pulled out a cigarette from inside his sneakers.
He had sneaked them in, stuffed them inside his turtle plushy and a few in a hidden compartment of his school bag. He had created that secret compartment so that he could sneak the cigarettes to school and smoke them during break time, and when he was told to pack his stuff one of the first thing that came into his mind was to grab whatever stash he had and sneak them in whatever way he could.
Lighting it up with a tiny lighter that he also hid in his sneakers this morning, Loras took a long drag from his cigarette and immediately felt relieve coursing through his body. Not enough to get rid of the ache begging to be spilled through the flowing of his blood, but enough to dull it so that he was just antsy. Finally, there was just one thing that he could do to deft the rules at this dammed facility, one act of rebellion that ensured Loras that nobody was going to control him and tell him what to do.
Because he was petty in that way.
So absorbed he was in his reprieve that he did not notice the quiet footsteps approaching him. Eyes closed, he was fully enjoying his nicotine induced moment of bliss when he was startled when he heard a deep voice say, "Now, now, what do we have here? A little minx sneaking out and getting a fix. A pretty little one no less."
Loras' eyes snapped open at that and his eyes were immediately hit by the blinding sunlight. He squinted a little so that he could see who it that had caught him was, but all he could see was an extremely tall and broad shouldered dude with a shock of black hair.
He place a hand above his forehead to block out the sunlight just as the dude sat down beside him. Up close, Loras could now see his face clearly. Slightly tanned skin, with a defined jaw and startlingly blue eyes that glimmered. Loras' breath hitched when he looked into those intensely colored eyes, they were enchanting and Loras felt them drawing him in already.
Shaking his head to clear it and looking at anything but the boy's face (as Loras could now see that even though the dude was older than him, he could not have been that much older), Loras tried to speak clearly through the panic he felt at being caught, "What, are you going to report me or something? Tell one of those uniformed people that I'm breaking the rules already?"
He had intended for it to come out sounding harsh and a little nonchalant, but Loras could hear the panic laced into his voice. The blue-eyed boy just smiled brilliantly at him and asked with a smirk, "And what makes you think that I'm going to report to one of them? How if I am the person who they report to at the end of the day and now I don't even need them to tell me that you're being particularly rebellious today, seeing that I've caught you myself?"
Loras got slightly pissed at that. He was very sure that there was no way in hell that this boy in front of him who hardly looked twenty had that kind of authority in this place. Whoever those watchers or babysitters were reporting to, it was some psychologist or doctor somewhere, who was probably some old fart who had nothing better to do than to poke their nose into other people's business.
This kid hardly looked like he's graduated college, much less being some hot shot in some mental health facility somewhere. Feeling his stubborn streak come back, Loras blew cigarette smoke right into the other's face. "Yeah? Those uptight psychologist let some punk like you watch over us? Maybe you're high or just delusional, but I see no way that could happen."
The boy just threw his head back and laughed, like he wasn't bothered with Loras' insult at all. "Wow then, the kitten has claws…"
Refused to feel bothered by some giant who was way too chirpy too early in the day, Loras just closed his eyes and continued smoking. That is, until the cigarette was snatched right off his hand. "Hey!" Loras snapped when he saw the boy smoking his cigarette. He normally didn't mind sharing, but he had to keep whatever he had managed to sneak in for himself.
Loras grew even more annoyed when the boy decided to stub out the cigarette and stand up. "Well…" the boy smirked as he dusted the back of his jeans, "…you're here whether you like it or not and I can tell you right now, sweetling…" the boy paused to look Loras right in the eye, "…and maybe you think that being rebellious is helping, but it really isn't. try and stick to the rules and be a good kitten if you wanna get out of here fast, or I promise you its gonna take forever before you see the world outside this facility."
With that, the blue eyed boy walked away and left Loras seething.
