Under Glass [Crina/Public]

There was only silence in the rec room. A kind of silence that could be compared to what was found in solitary confinement- It was unsettling.

At least to some.

To Crina, it was a reminder of the forests that surrounded isolated villages back home (except much less dangerous). And she enjoyed that. She liked the quiet and the darkness and the solitude...Only in the wee hours of the morning, however. The Transylvanian didn't think she could handle this sort of atmosphere all the time.

She sat facing a dirty, barred window waiting for the sun to rise while picking mindlessly at the cracked seat cushion (which now had a considerably large hole). Only an hour more.

The woman used to shuffle about the room as she waited but they, the staff, would find her and bring her back to her room. It was always something about her being too' noisy' and too 'dangerous' to herself and others. How walking around an empty room was harmful to others was a mystery, still she would comply. The better behavior meant the better chance she had of getting out of this nuthouse.

At least..she hoped it would let her out. She was always getting warnings about being out this early without supervision around.

Crina sighed and pulled her knees close to her chest, praying nobody would find her just yet.

((so late, but... I miss rping family times :I XD))

Sometimes Dimitrie felt well enough that he could go out.  Sometimes.  But even less than that, the actually let him out.  So usually, if it was sometimes, he took his transportation in his own hands.  It was difficult, maneuvering the wheelchair-- there was still a large collection of needle sores in the insides of his elbows and beyond that, and he was still in the throes of withdrawal from the worst of just about any drug he could get his hands on.  He didn't know why.  At least here they wouldn't get between him and his family.  

He hadn't exactly been looking forward to having to confront his mother and the rest, from the times she'd tried to get him to stop and come back "home", so when he saw a familiar figure in the recreation room, he was glad to see it wasn't her.  

Crina.  They were both a bit broken, weren't they?  He supposed it was hereditary.  "Soră," He called over the empty room, from the doorway.  "What are you doing in here alone...?"

She titled her head over the back of the chair, staring at her young, sickly brother with eyebrows raised in mild surprise.
"Ah..Salut..." Crina whispered softly after a brief moment of silence. The woman sat up and turned in her chair, studying him. He looked awful from the withdrawals, possibly worse than when he was feeding his addiction. It made her heart sink although she wouldn't show it. They both knew well that he didn't like being reminded of it.

"I'm waiting for the sunrise....The view isn't too nice from inside..." She waved her hand to the window. "But it's good enough...Come join me. It'll be just like at..."

"...home."

There was a pause. Then she got up, careful not to let the chair creak as she moved.

"What are you doing here..?" She tiptoed over to greet him, planting a kiss on both cheeks then his forehead before crouching down at his feet. She looked up and tilted her head. "I mean..it's rather early to be up...for you..."

She remembered long, long ago when Nicoleta would wake them at such an ungodly hour for chores. Dimitrie would always stay in bed until verbal warnings turned to threats..Or Claudiu decided to body slam the youngest. Crina's lip twitched, the closest thing to a smile. Those might have possibly been the better times.

He didn't really know the state of the rest of his family, for how long they'd been here.  Crina worried him-- but really he ought to have been worrying about himself.  "They let me out more now," He explained.  "Not without someone pushing me... But I couldn't sleep, and I felt like I had to get out of there." He was barely recovered from some almost-organ-failures.  Technically he shouldn't have been out without an oxygen tank, but he couldn't lift it himself.  

Smiling tiredly when she greeted him, it turned a bit more sad when she crouched and looked him over.  "Don't look at me like that, Crina..." There was some emotion he couldn't place, but he didn't like it.  "You're missing the sun, aren't you...?" 

He did have good memories from his childhood-- a jumbled collage of cattle, and mother's aprons, and stumbling over rocks and  breathing in warm air in a field.  But they were gone now, and replaced by methadone and beeping medical machines.

"I'm sorry..." She frowned, getting back to her feet. Crina placed a hand on his shoulder as she circled around to the back of his wheelchair and took hold of the handles. She carefully wheeled him to where she had been sitting before, worrying about how easily she could push him; he weighed too little for somebody so big.

..I don't mean to." She fidgeted with the chair to make sure he would see as much of the outside world as he could through the tiny window. The Transylvanian eventually took her place back in the uncomfortable chair and watched him, unaware she was doing just as he told her not to do. "I just haven't seen you in the longest time...You've gotten taller. And your hair...it is very blond." She crinkled her nose slightly and said half jokingly, "I don't know if I like it, frate."

Crina shrugged at his question and twisted her finger around a loose thread on the arm of the chair. "I'm missing a lot of things, I guess..."

She gave another shrug, brushing it off as if it were nothing. Because it was nothing. Her sadness couldn't compare to what her young brother was fighting through and she couldn't begin to imagine what that was like. The woman glanced at him once more, noticing the slight difficulty in his breathing. There was a heaviness in her chest.

"...How are you holding up?"

He brushed off the apology-- it was something anyone would have done.  After all, he used to be so healthy, so ambitious.  But he overestimated his ability, though his pride never died.  It was hard being here.  It put it into stark reality-- there was nothing he should feel proud about.  "Don't you think I look good? Women like this hair." Untrue.  But he was too proud, again.  "And mami hated it." So he went through with it.  It would be brown again, by the time he left this place, though.  

He looked at the sun (a pretty pathetic show, from where they were looking) for a while, troubled by what she had mumbled.  "What do you mean...? You'll see the sun from the outside again." It was odd, to see her so sad.  As a child, she was like a second mother.  One was hardly enough to keep an eye on all the children.  He reached for her hand, pulling it away from the string.  "Crina..." But he didn't know what to say.

How was he? "...I'm alive.." What else could he say? "Uh.... They said parts of my lungs died... From the heroin.  And... It's been hard, getting off that, and all the others." An understatement.  "They took Emiliana somewhere else.  She's probably fine..."

As much as he tried to pretend he was a man, he would always need his mother.  Now more than ever-- though he didn't want her to see him the way he was.  "Have you talked to Mami...?"