I Made You up to Hurt Myself

Aled and I managed to waste a fair bit of time, just sitting in the lounge talking. Shay woke up around seven and he helped pass the time, too, chatting about what would happen if toasters grew arms and legs, and tried to take over the world. Apparently, he has a whole plan formulated to tackle a mutant toaster invasion should the opportunity ever arise. It's good to know we have someone to rely on if that happens. You know, just in case.

Today wouldn't be too eventful anyway. I'd completely forgotten, but as Aled had reminded me, it was Boxing Day. Yeah, that's right, the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. Aren't I great for knowing that?

In most households, Boxing Day tends to involve a lot of tidying, and paper recycling, and trying in vain to keep the chocolate away from the children until everything was clean. It's just a tad different here. You see, there's not exactly much to tidy when each kid gets one small present each. And half of us couldn't wrap a present to save our lives, so there's not much waste lying around. What do we do all day, then, you ask? Well, that's simple. We tidy everything else.

It's a bit like spring cleaning except not in spring. Winter cleaning? Okay, it's nothing like spring cleaning, other than the fact that it's cleaning. Ha, that barely sounds like a word anymore. Cleeeeeaaaaning. I'll stop saying cleaning now.

We continued chatting about those creepy hybrid toasters, and had just moved on to discussing dogs with four heads when one of the nurses bustled in, going about her work as usual, before gasping when she noticed the three of us huddled up on the sofa, as if we had every right to be sitting there talking at 6am. What can I say? We're cool kids.

"You boys know you shouldn't be up at this time, don't you?" she scolded, scowling at us for a moment until the smile she was clearly suppressing took over.

"We know," we replied in unison. Or Shay and I did, at least. Aled's version was slightly more disjointed.

She attempted looking serious once more, before giving up entirely, and chuckling softly at us. "Oh, you boys, what am I going to do with you?" She seemed to contemplate whether it was worth coming over and sitting beside us for a moment, but gave in rather quickly and did so anyway.

I didn't know many of the staff's names here. I didn't need to; whenever I wanted something, I just asked someone else to ask for me, or poked the arm of the nearest orderly relentlessly until they gave me what I wanted. I should probably feel bad for not being more polite, but I really don't. If they're not going to be nice to me, why should I be nice to them?

I knew her name, though. She's called Holly, and she's surprisingly nice. I never thought I'd ever actually like anyone who worked here, but I'd taken a strange liking to this girl. She couldn't be too much older than us. Maybe five or six years? Yeah, that probably sounds like a lot to you, but to me, it's really not that much. She was fairly pretty, too. No, scratch that. She was very pretty. No, scratch that, as well. She was extremely pretty. She'd definitely be my type...you know...if I liked girls.

She was sweet, though. I'd miss her when I left. Although, from what I've caught of the whispered conversations in the dead of the night, the ones that they were confident no one could hear, I wouldn't be leaving any time soon. And believe it or not, I don't mind all too much. I preferred the company here to that of back home. Or, what was my home - I seem to consider this place home now.

"So, Ian, what got you up so early?" Holly quizzed, still smiling. "The Ian that first came here would lie in bed until twelve if you let him."
She grinned fondly at the memory, despite it being only a few months ago.
I shrugged. "I wasn't gonna get up, but Sean wasn't there when I woke up, so I figured I'd have a bit of a look around."

Her smile faltered slightly as I spoke, watching me carefully, her brown eyes glazing over slightly.
Oh, God. Something really bad has happened to him, hasn't it? Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.