R R I - REHABILITATION & REINTEGRATION INITIATIVE

Characters: Leandro and Wren
Setting: The greenhouse, Block B, Morning day nine.

( And if that's all you know that will be all you receive. )

Characters: Leandro and Becka
Setting: Her room, night

( When the outlook isn't so bright... )

Characters: Leandro and Kyle
Setting: Coutryard, Leandro's room, morning

After the turmoil of the night, Leandro had slept like the dead for several hours. He woke up face down in his pillow, breath wheezing audibly against the linen. Uncomfortable, he sat up and rubbed his fingers into his ribcage to relieve the stressed muscles. He had been unaware of the sounds and events of the hours past.

Rousing once more from bed with a pulsing headache, Leandro went through the motions of preparing for the day. A steaming shower soothed his nerves a little further. When he was through he brushed the steam from the mirror and looked into his own eyes, his neck, his shoulders. The sprawling symbols reinforced his resolution. Today would be a different day.
Clean and dressed in his usual dark pallete and boots, he stepped from his room only to be greeted by a dispersing throng of people in the middle of the courtyard and something odd on the ground. He wrinkled his brow, instinctively looking around for more information. He saw a familiar figure headed in the other direction and charged into motion again before he got away.

"Kyle," he called in a short bark, then coughed into his fist. He tried again when he made it closer. "Hey, Kyle. What's going on?"

( Where do we start? )

Characters: Becka and Leandro
Setting: The kitchen, the Room #2

( No one should be alone. )

Characters: Adam and Leandro
Setting: Tool shed, late afternoon

( You going to offer to be my real man and put my door up for me? )

Characters: Wren and Leandro
Setting: the kitchen

( broken things and jagged edges )

Characters: Jason, Reece, Wren, Leandro, Brady, Kasper
Setting: Courtyard, early afternoon

There was a twinkle in Kasper’s eye. A small hint of life outside her anger that roared awake as she left her spot perched above the coop of chickens, all running around like their heads were cut off. She had taken the time to finally retreat back into her room quickly, take the most lightning fast shower she could and change out of the old clothes from the day before. The blood washed away from her hands, but the bruises on her neck and knuckles remained.

Having thrown on a pair of torn jean shorts and black tshirt with some long since broken up band logo on it, Kasper locked her door and made her way to the farm end of the facility. The black fabric of her large shirt hung over the bones of her hips like sheets in the wind and by the time she had wandered back from the farm, she had tied one bottom corner to the side in a knot, showing part of her skeleton figure below it.

She took a slow, satisfying walk towards the stocks in the courtyard of block A after returning to complete the satisfying scratch to her itch. With a wide grin and prowling wander horizontally across the grass to get a better look at those ahead, Kasper unclasped her hands from her back, a single, fat tomato firmly grasped in one hand. She tossed it gently in her hand. “Now, which one of you gets the prize,” she whispered to herself, beginning to approach closer.

Wren had been sort of hovering around the edges (out of Caroline's view) just to be sure nothing happened. Like, for instance, what was about to happen when she spotted a woman she'd not really seen much of previously. But that didn't stop her, as she immediately rushed to get into her path before she reached her clear destination. "No." Wren said firmly. "You are not going to be throwing that at the helpless."

( i ask you why you did it )

Characters: Kyle and Leandro
Setting: Morning - courtyard, cafeteria, Leandro's room

As the crowd began to disperse, Leandro was amongst those who eventually left his post and stalked back up the yard, his shoulders drawn up around his face. He didn't bother to look back or wait for anyone else; his compassion had run out on him. It seemed there was a limit to how much disappointment he could handle before he abandoned it for the typical layer of iron around him. It was easier that way, not to expect much from anyone, but now he had to mull it over and try to take it in stride that one of those he felt so despondent for was Wren herself. Despite everything he would have thought about her, she was the one who put the victims to the stocks and locked them in. He could no longer keep her colored with the same innocence in his mind. It felt like the bubble of gentle exposure he'd been experimenting with for the past few days had thoroughly burst.

As he walked he was not paying much attention to where he was going, though his clip was fairly fast for him. He was headed in the direction of the cafeteria, since something was supposed to be there and no matter how he felt he wasn't willing to just leave it on the ground for the poachers to pick over. It could have been something useful. As he went his eyes skimmed over the ground beneath him, the grass brushing past his boots.

Kyle had kept to the side throughout the entire proceedings, talking to the odd person here and there, but never for very long. As everyone else disbursed, he considered whether he should really stay with Meg, but in the end decided that he couldn’t watch her night and day. After all, that was why he’d asked Adam to help in the first place, and he knew he couldn’t put so much responsibility on his own shoulders - especially unasked.

In the end, he headed off towards the cafeteria. He wanted to see whether the items he had requested for himself and Leandro last night had arrived. It was only belatedly that he realised he was following the man himself. The man who was quite clearly unhappy with him today.

But Kyle had never been a coward or one to edge away from a difficult issue. He preferred to deal with matters head on. Lengthening his stride, he caught up with Leandro as they entered the cafeteria and reached out to place a hand on his forearm. “Hey - can we talk?” he asked.

( And then they talked... )

Characters: Charlie and open to all!!
Setting: The Courtyard, following directly on from this scene

Charlie decided that, if they were ever going to reach a conclusion about this bullshit, someone was going to have to take charge. Proper charge. And that, he decided, may as well be him.

He jumped up onto one of the stocks and balanced himself, raised up above the milling people and standing on what was the focus of their conversations, if not their direct attention. "Okay, people. Look - I get it. We've been put in a shitty situation. Apparently, two people here have fucked up. Nobody's bothered to tell us how, or give us any information, other than the fact that we're meant to put them into these things here." He banged his foot hard several times against the wood. "So, we can stand here and argue about 'human rights' and 'cruel and unusual punishment' and what the fuck they will do to us if we don't bow to their every command. But, really, it comes down to a simple choice: are we doing this or not?" He let that question linger for a moment or two, then continued. "So, what I suggest is a really simple check. Everyone who thinks that we should go ahead with the punishment as mandated, go stand over by the tool shed. Those that think we should look up at the cameras and say 'fuck you' to the people watching? You go stand by the gym. Let's see what we all think. Vote with your feet people!" he announced, before jumping down, and heading right over to stand by the gym. He leaned against the building, waiting to see what everyone else would do.

Characters: Leandro & Kyle
Setting: Activity Room, Evening

Merciful dusk was just barely threatening to drop over the walls of the facility, the sun having gone a little faint as if it had been shrouded in wool. Leandro dragged himself through the elevator system at this time, tired but not so tired that he could not keep a date. It was strange, or perhaps just the way of life in here, that he found less skulking to do at night and less reason to stay awake until all hours. He kept falling asleep bizarrely early for him; in his life in Los Angeles he would have happily roamed the streets until dawn. They were his then, after all, when the "normal" people filed away into their houses to hide.

It was also very well likely that the emotional turmoil of that morning was still hanging on his heart. He did what he thought was right but doubt was a sharp thorn. Leandro had so little confidence in his ability with complicated emotional issues. Mostly, he liked to pretend he didn't have any. But with Wren... He couldn't help but try to spare what he could from her. She broke his heart with that teary-eyed gaze. Hopefully the afternoon had put a little bandaid on that and she would sort everything out. Maybe Charlie would be a stand-up guy after all. Leandro left the theorizing at that.

For now he was off to see Kyle, to slip into a more comfortable skin with someone who didn't know what had happened in the kitchen. Kyle thought he understood him now, Leandro thought, and that was mostly very charming. It still remained to be seen how he would react when he had expectations of Leandro's behavior and even those were blown. It wasn't that it was difficult to talk to the artist. He had that sweet face and those eyes, and when he got going about something he knew there was that sparkle to him. He was smart and curious, and that could come to be intoxicating. But it felt distinctly as if he came from a very different world. Leandro wondered if he could get more of that out of him today, even moreso perhaps than drawing advice.

( Art and Other Things )

Characters: Leandro and Wren
Setting: Kitchen, late morning, day 5

( nerves and sugar )

Characters: Charlie, Leandro, and eventually Wren
Setting: Kitchen, late morning, day 5

( not all reunions are happy ones )

Characters: Kyle and Leandro
Setting: Outside of room 2, day 4, late night.


Long after the sun had gone down and the excitement of dinner in the kitchen had passed away, a lone rangy figure leaned up against the wall outside of room 2, his arm across his chest and the faint glow of a cigarette bobbing between his fingers. His face was posed to the sky, in which he could just make out a slice of the moon beyond the facility’s imposing walls. It bathed patches of the courtyard white and turned a ribbon of smoke from his lips into a fading ghost.

Smoking wasn’t his favorite habit, since it made his chest ache, but it did provide the excuse of lighting a match in public instead of doing it inside where the smoke tended to stay trapped. Plus, it was calming. The normally sharply-animated young man somehow managed to look contemplative then, a quiet veil over his eyes. It was only when he thought he heard footsteps that he looked aside. Leandro’s senses were sharp as a tack.

Kyle had taken a walk after he’d left Adam’s room, heading around the perimeter of the upper floor, waiting for the elevator and then walking the edge of the courtyard back towards his own room. It was clearly the long way round, but he needed some space and the air before he headed to bed. Maybe that was why he picked up the cigarette smoke so early, that alone giving him the heads up that he was about to no longer be alone.

He looked up and around, slowing as he caught sight of Leandro, not sure he was mentally prepared for this meeting, after the day he seemed to have had. Still, that fact in itself was nowhere near enough to have him be seen to be backing out of anything. “Hey,” he said, lightly. It was something, a start. Easy enough.

( Down the Rabbit Hole )

Characters: Leandro and Becka
Setting: Activity room, then her room, afternoon

( always makes you laugh )

Characters: Carmel, Leandro, OPEN to any who want to pizza party
Setting: Kitchen, around 4:30/5:00p.m.

Carmel had the dough ready, of course. She'd done that much earlier in the day, and scoured around for any and all potential toppings she thought anyone might be interested in. She filched a pepperoni from its pack and popped it in her mouth, hoping that everyone would enjoy the change of pizza to everything else she'd been doing so far.

Though she was tired--more than she wanted to be, that was for sure--she was looking forward to it. Leandro was generally good for cheering a person in a way, and she looked forward to getting to know him a little better, along with whoever else chose to show up. Which reminded her she should probably post something on her journal, which she went to do very quickly before setting herself up in the kitchen, setting up the dough for the first pizza.

Characters: Leandro, Wren, and OPEN
Setting: The bar, night, day 3

"Okay, this is is how we do..."

Leandro was carefully leaning over a pair of shot glasses on the bartop, an elegant oval-esque bottle gripped in one hand. It was full of a dark bronze liquid that, once uncorked, bled a green-sweet moss smell into the air. "It's Don Julio, fairly nice stuff. I was expecting some crap Cuervo, but you might like this. We're going to drink it auténtico, not Americano. That means no salt and no lime, not like a big baby."

He grinned crookedly at that, not expecting Wren to know the difference. Nevertheless, he wanted her first ta-kill-ya experience to be the best it possibly could be, very much minus the shredded clothes and passing out of the usual collegiate first-timer's setting. The mossy liquid went into each shot glass in a thin layer, one a little thinner than the other. He shorted her a bit off the usual level of the shot, just in case it really was too much for her to handle. Then each glass was held between his fingertips, the lesser one offered out to her.

"Alright, tip your head back a little like you're looking at the ceiling, and chug the shot as fast as you can. Pretend you're taking cough syrup. Don't worry, you will taste it." Leandro just could not suppress his grin in anticipation of drinking such a nice tequila himself. He gallantly went first, tipping the shot into his mouth and gulping it down. Naturally, it went from about 0 to 60 in less than a second, building up to a firebreathing cinnamon burn not unlike a full mouth of Indian cuisine. His eyes went wide and watered a little, and he had to shake his head, jaw swung open.

"Whew! Ya ya ya!" he punctuated the occasion. As the seconds went by it was mellowing out into the aftertaste that marked it as a nice quality – earthy, warm vanilla and pure, sweet agave.

Characters: Edan and Leandro
Setting: Courtyard, near the toolshed, lunch time, Day 3

( There isn’t a lot to suggest it’s even real except that it burns. )

Characters: Wren and Leandro
Setting: his room, early evening

( it begins )

Characters: Dominic, Leandro, and Meg
Setting: Morning of Day 3, the courtyard just outside the kitchen.

( So he was a fanboy. Fabulous. )

Characters: Cal and OPEN TO ALL!
Setting: Library, 10 AM - 7 PM

Cal had to admit that he was nervous, something much easier to do when he was alone. But it was true, he felt the same acidic stomach flutters that had plagued him in his first days of residency, no matter how prepared he'd been then or was now. Though he definitely was prepared, situated in the library with a cleared table and his hefty box of supplies.

It helped that he was even somewhat mentally scheduled, having reviewed the journals before coming down here, a freshly written list of confirmed visitors waiting next to his kit, and under it? Score sheets, because Cal already knew that today would be invaluable for much, much more than physical assessments.