The brownish slop falls onto Irving's plate with all the grace of mud, splattering halfway over the front of his uniform, and a few drops on his glasses. He blinks like a lost dog for a moment, trying to control the compulsion to clean because he knows if he starts he won't stop. So the short, chubby redhead pulls back his lower lip to gnaw on, and trots to the nearest table, his nose and throat clogging with the need to cry. He feels much too young to be in here, barely nine and lost in a sea of preteens and teenagers. The younger kids get to eat earlier, but he just had a birthday and got stuck with the older crowd.

So he sits at the wood bench, splinters pricking his legs as he shifts his weight, and tries to concentrate on the plate in front of him, instead of the spots on his glasses clouding his vision, or maybe that's the tears, and he forcibly ignores the clamoring need to rub the stains out of his hospital-clean gown.

He's only been like this for a minute, though, when a fellow redhead drops his plate at the other side of the table, swinging only one leg over the bench to straddle it so that he can eat and still face the windows high above. The other boy smiles disarmingly, and Irving feels his panic disappear. He can trust this boy.

His table-mate sticks his spoon in his own pile of goo, where it stands straight up even now unaided. Sighing, he turnes to Irving, a bright but bittersweet smile on his face that makes the younger inmate's heart stop.

"Well... At least it's protein." He laughs. "I'm Phineas. Who're you?"

"Irving." It comes out a whisper, a squeak. Phineas laughs anyways.

"Nice to meet you, Irving."

And he's hooked.


Somebody's got a cruuu-uusshh^.^ Haha. Irving is adorably awkward.

He got put in because he tends to latch onto people, like the girl in a class of his- who he then followed around for several months, her parents were creeped out, and got a restraining order. Which he then violated, but only because he couldn't help not being close to her, because she gave him a bit of comfort he didn't get from his family. So, DMRC being the closest thing the city has to a juvenile detention center, he got sent there. Of course, it is actually because of his psychological problems that he was in trouble in the first place, so he's with the mental-hospital kids, not the juvy kids. Because Anatinus is nice like that :D (Someone like to take a stab at cracking the name? You all know him, I promise!)

Next up will be Buford, I think. Then probably Stacy, and then some individual reviews of characters introduced in "Rate". Seriously, I need better prompt words. Suggestions, please!

Reviews are love. 3 Constructive criticism would make me die of happiness.