Dark eyes stared out of thebnlackness with bitter loathing, framed by the pale, sallow skin of the boy's face. Mouth set in a hard line, these eyes were set to kill, if only they could find their target. But nothing could be found in this empty place, for it was his end, the final destination, he could feel it. Never again would the warmth and beauty of the setting sun kiss his pale face, bring color back to his now-ghostly complexion. Some would pray to their Gods at such times, beg a higher power to bless their lives and save them from such cruel injustice. But the broken, battered teenager that sat alone now in his cell, there was nothing for him. He had long since abandoned such beliefs, as no one had ever helped guide him before. A sense of emptiness touched him now, filling and spilling over and under his thoughts, leaving bitter remorse and regret in their wake. He had no God. He had no family, no friends, not even an aquaintance to care whether he lived another day or finally chose to end it all.

A soft sigh parted Josh's lips as he shook his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes in that casual array it always managed to find. He stared at the cold metal that locked around his wrists, almost hoping that he would wake up from this, and find that it had all been a dream. He knew that he shouldn't waste his thoughts on pathetic fantasies that could never come true, but in times like these, who could help themselves? He couldn't help but wonder - as he had more than once in the past few weeks - what it would be like to grow up with a family that loved him, a group of friends that looked out for each other. He didn't know how it felt to be included in some sort of enviornment... not counting the one he was currently in. This place was the only place he had something in common with other people - drug abuse, and supposed clinical insanity. But Josh knew he wasn't insane. He knew his past, and he knew his thoughts. No, he wasn't insane... yet.

The cuffs scraped mercilessly against his wrists, opening old wounds and letting the pain intensify in those that were fresh. Bruises covered his arms, for the guards always had to use force when holding him down. Everything ached, and it was getting harder and harder to think through the dull pain. Unlike when he cut, which was sharp and harsh during the process, then slowly faded into a more bearable pain, this was constant and draining, like a migrane without a cure. He wore a black sweater with the hood flipped up, hiding his face in darkness. His jeans were flared at the bottom today, and a deep, pitch black. He sat against the far right corner of the cell, hunched over his knees, which were drawn to his chest. In this almost defeated position, it would be hard to recognize Josh, even if his hair was visible. It didn't have it's tell-tale streak in it either, they'd forced him to dye his hair back to it's black base, and he hadn't been able to get a hold of more dye just yet.

He had nothing left to fight for, but he would keep on fighting anyways. It was all he knew.

When Josh saw the girl start to stir over in the other cell, he didn't turn his attention toward her. He briefly remembered when they'd brought her in, but he couldn't remember how long ago it was, or what she was stuck down here for. He wasn't a sympathetic person, but even Josh could harbour a little sympathy for anyone shoved for life in a place like this. Especially the people like himself, the ones that didn't deserve it. As he heard her gasp, he wondered what she was seeing as she looked at him. Was she seeing a broken, defeated teenager, or was she seeing what everyone else seemed to? The tough, hardened criminal that was his facade. He didn't know, and only a small part of him cared.

People hardly spoke to him in this place. It was just something people didn't do when they were down in the cells. They were either too pissed off to speak, or wallowing in their own self pity. It surprised him enough that he turned his head automatically to look at her, cocking it ever so slightly to the side, intrigued. He couldn't lift a hand to brush his black hair from his eyes, so he just flipped it back in a casual movement, blinking slowly as he took in her appearance. He usually wasn't so silent, so calculating of the people he was caged in around, but at the moment, she had caught his interest. Was she in here for some sort of an act against the guards, or was she one of those truly, clinically insane folk that were too deranged to be kept around the other patients? Then again, Josh couldn't count that too highly against someone, they'd debated keeping him in here full time after he'd tried to slit Steven's throat with a sharp peice of bathroom tile.

"I'm fine," he responded in his dark voice, the tone flat and lifeless. He tried to remember back to the last time his voice had sounded human, and couldn't. He had spoken in a lifeless tone for so long now, he couldn't even remember what his voice had sounded like back then. This troubled him, and his brows creased as he frowned. He didn't like to think about that. Then he turned his attention back to the girl. She had shown concern for him. He wondered what sort of courage it took to be the first to ask a question like that. A lot, probably. He couldn't see himself doing that. He blinked away the thought. Might as well return the favour.

"What about you? Are you alright?"

[Bah, I'm putting my post back to normal size, I have a headache and it's harder to read lol]

Josh shivered and pressed his chest closer to his knees, uttering an almost silent string of curses under his breath. He had always been at least partially sensitive to the cold, and it was freezing down here. His sweater was thing, and while it helped his teeth from chattering, it didn't do much else. The cellblock area of the hallway had been disconnected from the heating systems of the building, and Josh thought he knew why. They said it was due to technical difficulties, and they had yet to call someone in to fix it, but he figured they just did it so they could see the patients suffer all the more. As if shoving them into a dark cell like some criminal - and Josh had been there before, it wasn't very different - wasn't enough, they had to make it drop dead freezing down here, too. He missed the heat of the sun, the glory and the freedom to just step outside into the light and let it kiss his pale skin. Summer had been his favourite season, he remembered. He'd always loved to sit somewhere in the grass and just relax a little bit, forget about life and the stress he was going through. He would play his guitar outside. He had smiled, back then, hadn't he? He could hardly remember what it felt like to do anything but smirk and frown. He was glaring now, staring daggers at the guard who stood in front of their cell with his gun positioned like a member of the SWAT team.

What was Josh going to do, chained up like some poor, forgotten animal in a cage that was just about the right size for one? They already knew that he was weak. He'd blacked out and attacked someone, and they'd tackled him, held him down, and stabbed the needle into his arm just as he came to. He couldn't remember who it was he'd attacked, the drug they'd injected into his bloodstream still had it's hold on him, and his memories were foggy. Josh hated needles. Usually when they shot the crap into his blood, he was blacked out, and it was what weakened him enough that he couldn't contain a high enough level of rage to keep him blacked out. But today he had bashed his head against the floor, the pain had brought him back to a conscious state, and he'd seen them stab his arm with it. Even thinking about it now made him feel lightheaded and dizzy, as he always did. A light sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, and he gulped in air so he didn't faint. It doesn't hurt at all, people always said to him. Why are you so afraid? He'd love to see them come back and say that after they'd practically had it stabbed into their arm. As if to back up his point, his arm throbbed where they'd injected the drugs. Even when he did drugs to get high, he never used anything with a needle.

He smirked and snorted, shaking his head slightly when she started to explain the reasons she might be stuck down here. "I seriously doubt you hit anyone," he said, shaking his head again. After all the stupid, small things they had thrown Josh in here for, heck, he would believe anything. You simply had to attempt to open your door, and if you were one of those patients that were disliked in the asylum, you were hauled down and stuck in a cell. Steven had taken to volunteering to guard Josh's room at night so he could taunt him and see how long it would take before he snapped. Josh had actually gotten angry enough to kick the door down once - too bad he'd been blacked out, he would have loved to have seen the look on the idiot guards face. "I doubt that a door would hurt them even if you did manage it, the guards here are just assholes that don't give a shit about anyone in this place but themselves!" He raised his voice at the end of the sentence, just loud enough that the guard could hear him.

He saw the older man tense his shoulders, though he didn't turn in Josh's direction. "Watch your mouth, kid."

"Will I hell," Josh laughed. That comment was ignored.

As she spoke, he glanced down at his wrists and tugged them apart lightly, feeling the metal stop his movement almost instantly. His look was sad and sort of distant as he gazed at his locked wrists, knowing it would be like this for a long time now. It felt empty, hollow knowing you were probably spending the rest of your days in an institution for mental folk. Especially when you weren't insane. He'd just pissed off the wrong people. "Well," he started. "I'm down here because I attacked someone. I don't know what I did to them, but I attacked someone. And I'm bound up like this because I'm a criminal to them. To everyone, really. They're afraid of me." This made him smirk. "And my name's Josh, by the way. I don't care how much you talk, the silence is suffocating me anyways."

Josh blinked slowly and curiously as she started to react to his words, almost like she was panicking. The air was so cold that he could see his breath on the stale air as he exhaled softly. What was she doing? He hadn't said anything much, just mentioned what the place made him feel, what the hell was wrong with that? His dark hair fell across his face, and it annoyed him that he couldn't raise his hand to brush it from his eyes. He just watched Margot with that same, curious, intrigued expression as he had before. He'd learned that you could teach yourself a lot if you just watched people in this place, it made things somewhat less boring and repetitive. He had started to make a habit of 'studying' people, in a way. He got to know their weaknesses and their strengths, slowly. His old habits were coming back to him. Slowly, but they were there. He was remembering the first steps into manipulating people, and he was going to use them.

He usually might have snapped when she snapped at him, but in his current mood, he didn't want to interrupt whatever it was that she was doing. He wanted to let it play out so he could find out exactly what it was, to a degree. He guessed from what he'd seen that perhaps she was claustrophobic, and his mention of suffocating might have set something off. It took a lot to hold back the smirk that wanted to form on his face, but he managed to keep his somewhat poker-face-like facade in place. He didn't know whether he'd ever need to use that against her or not, after all she didn't seem much the type that could set him off, but people surprised him sometimes.

"It's not a problem," he said with a simple shake of his head as she apologized. He himself wasn't exactly afraid of this dark, dank cell, he just despised it with all the strength of his hatred balled into one cold, hard emotion. But in terms of fear, he was fine unless he started to think about perishing here. Like, what if he got into a fight, and they really beat the shit out of him? More than one, like the kids had ganged up on him in that dark alley. Outnumbered, stronger, so that he didn't have a chance. The memory made him draw in a sharp breath, but with expert care he kept his facial expression neutral. "I really had no intentions of frightening you, mainly just speaking my opinion of this... place." He was starting to speak in his more friendly, inviting tone now. Habit was starting to reform.

"You should stand up to them then," he said with a light shrug of his shoulders, looking over at her. "If you don't deserve what they do to you, then why let them do it without a fight?"

He smirked slightly when she said he was probably a lot stronger than he looked. She should see him when he blacked out and snapped the handcuffs. That was one of the most impressive things he'd ever done in his blacked out state, snap metal. His strength was at it's peak, and depending on how enraged he was, he could do strange things. He had no conscience, so he'd even managed to kill. "Yeah... a lot stronger." Still smirking, he looked down at the cuffs as she spoke of them. His voice was edging on sinister as he replied, "Oh, I know..."

Josh listened to what she was saying, smirking and shaking his head lightly almost the entire time. Sure, he could most definitely understand where she was coming from, that much was clear as crystal, but he didn't agree with her. Not at all. "No point?" he echoed, the hint of a challenge in his flat tone, and he flipped his dark hair back. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. It was a cold, flat, lifeless laugh, but it was impossible to mistake it as something else. "They took away my life. They stole my freedom, and soon they might just steal my sanity, too. But I'm never going to let them steal my pride. As soon as you stop fighting for yourself, that's when you've given up. And when you give up on yourself, you really don't have anything to live for." There it was, that spark of fight in his dark eyes. The spark that refused to die, no matter what they did to him in this place. He had been born a fighter. He had raised himself as a fighter. And if nothing else, he was going to keep fighting, because that was all he had left.

Her reaction to his words hadn't been as he had been expecting, but it just broadened his smirk. She seemed... frusterated at him or something. And that was very, very amusing to him at the moment. He listened to everything she said, and his smile didn't falter once. But after she finished, that ending sentence, it slipped away into a scowl. "I would watch what you were saying, if I were you," he said darkly, and it was so sinister it was almost a growl. It was obvious she'd touched a bit of a nerve in mentioning murder.

"I am physically strong, yes. And I am mentally strong. Because unlike most of the people in this place, I'm not insane. Not yet, anyways. I was put in here because I fucked with the wrong people. And I can't help but lose control." His voice inched up just a tiny bit, touching rage now. "I have killed someone. So I would watch what you're saying."

[By fucked, he means pissed off, not... yeah]

Josh listened to Margot silently, quessing that she meant something different than what she said, but not quite being able to place his finger on it. The teen that was usually so good at reading people was becoming less and less focused by the day, all due to this place that was dragging him downwards, trying to force him to leave behind what he had once had. He'd never had a family, he'd accepted this a long time ago. He had people that gave him life, but never people that cared. That was his definition of a family. Whether you're adopted or not, if those that care for you have love for you, you might as well view them as your parents. This made him hate all of the adopted kids, with their good lives, that weren't happy. They didn't know if their parents were good people, whether they gave their kid up for a good reason, or just because they couldn't be half assed to care for another living thing. So why throw away the parents that adopted you out of love, just to go searching for something you might never find?

It seemed like a stupid concept to him, and he hated it.

What Josh wouldn't have given to be adopted, to be one of those kids who hadn't gotten to know who his real parents were, and to have a couple that cared for him. Sure, not all adoptive parents were kind, but it seemed as if the majority were. He might be a lot less fucked up in the head if he'd been adopted. The people that raised him would never be parents to him. His father murdered his sister. He would never forgive the man for his wretched crime. Because as they say 'like father, like son'. The cruel heart that was passed on allowed Josh to become a murderer as well.

"Yes I will," he said, his tone going hard. And the conviction, that anger, power and determination behind his tone, heck, he could make you believe it. "I will have my freedom one day, and I'll bet the last breath in my lungs that I will. I'll take back what I once had, and I'll pick up the pieces of my life. I won't be like this forever, and no matter what, I'll keep on fighting. You can give up, I don't care. It's not my life you're throwing away. But I'm making one last promise to myself. People have messed up my life, but I won't contribute to the damage that's already done. I'll try and repair it. Because what I wouldn't give to be normal again."

His dark eyes glinted. "That's never pointless to me."

Josh could see the realization on her face, and he knew that he was right, he'd known it all along. He'd learned his lesson in jail, when he'd tried to commit suicide, and one of the few people that would still talk to him had saved his life. Even though it had been years ago, and that man had long since died of health issues in the isolation wards, Josh could remember his words as plain as day. They echoed in his head now, reminding him, giving him that tiny sliver of hope that they'd originally granted to him on that day.

'Why give up?' he had said. 'Why give in to those that broke you down, the ones that put you through hell? Killing yourself is just admitting that they've won, and when you wind up like this, Josh, you might think they already have. But people fight for themselves, dude. They fight for their freedom, and their rights, and even if it takes days, months, years, some of them, they get it back. You had the determination, kid. You had the drive. And unless you get right back up on your feet right now and keep going, you're going to lose that drive. And once you lose that... what's the point in life?'

That had been his speech. And it had jolted Josh to life, it had shone light on what Josh now fought for. Himself. Not quite his rights, because being a murderer, they had been stripped away from him. And freedom was almost impossible when you were damned here by the law. But he fought for himself, because then if there was ever a slim chance, he could seize it. He blinked softly as he thought of this, lost in a distant stare.

Margot's question brought him back to the real reality of the moment, sitting in the dark cell with cuffs on his wrist. "About a month and a half," he replied, his voice hard. He hated this place with such a passion, it was if he could almost feel the heat of his hatred against his pale skin. "And no, I haven't been out in the sun for years. I was in jail before this, don't forget. No windows in those cells, either."

At first, the dark teenager just nodded to her comment, not quite one to thank people, but still thinking over it, picking apart his mind for something he could say. He was the type that liked to say something that most wouldn't, rather than sticking to a cliche answer. Instead of "I know how you feel", Josh came up with something else. And this situation would be no different - he just had to find the right words to fit together. He studied his cuffed hands for a moment, eyes tracing the cold metal that restrained him. Their dark depths then moved to the tattoos, examining the thirteen, pondering the words of the girl, though it might have appeared that he was ignoring her, as he was looking at his hands and not making eye contact.

Finally, he found his voice, and he met her gaze before speaking in a serious but surprisingly truthful tone. "I wasn't born like this," he started, his words coming out slowly, because he was wondering whether he should confess this to a total stranger, or let her go on thinking what she liked so that he didn't have any possibilty of endangering himself. But he didn't see how this could hurt, so he continued. "I was the underdog. I was the kid that no one wanted to hang around, no parents wanted to take care of. I was weak and helpless, so they saw me as a target. And when the world sees you as a target, you're screwed. Unless... you develop a backbone."

He blinked slowly. "And I did."

Eyes glancing back at the cuffs, then toward Margot. "I made myself this way, crafted the personality I have. I toughened up and swore I'd never let them take advantage of me again. Even when I was at the bottom, I never gave up. I wasn't born with the fight, but I've got it now. And that's why I don't want to let go, because I don't want to lose myself again."

There, he'd said it. He felt better now that he'd gotten that off his chest, he'd wanted to tell someone that for a long while. And Margot didn't seem the type that could turn the knowledge into a weapon against him. And he was pretty sure he'd beat her in a fight if she did.