Joan
A jaunty tune can be heard being hummed from the second-floor hallway of Newton's Cradle, the only disturbance of this Friday noon's overcast uneventfulness. The redhead with the black-and-green hoodie, somewhat presentable basketball shorts, and the now-full belly had stayed up far too late to want to be in class, but boy, did his fingers itch. It was as good a day as any to play hooky. Yay, three-day weekend! *Wughh.*

With his headphone volume up far too high to make out any of his own thoughts and a tangle in his gut anyway, Owen swiped his card through the lock on his door, shoved it open, and...

"*HWATTHEFFCK-*"

...Fell flat on his face. *The hell?? Surely, his room wasn't* That *Messy when he left it..* The visor of living red glass that caught his face before it hit his carpet slowly melted back into his skin and left his cheek to press against the fibres. Feeling around with his foot and kicking the door shut, the boy sighed deeply. He'd clean whatever it was up after a bit of floor time. Yeah. That sounded nice.
Betty
Amelie's eye snapped open at what sounded more like a heinous screech from hell than a boy. She was having one of the best naps ever beside his desk. Owen just felt the nessesity to ruin that, *Of course he did he has the hand eye coordination of a newborn foal.* Amelie lifted her head to greet the boy with a heinous scowl. 

This was the second time Owen fell in front of Amelie. They have this sort of thing going on don't they? Amelie affectionately turned all his homework into origami, and due to the loud crash he made they're most likely collapsed from the tower she put them in. 

One origami in particular, a tiger, landed on her face and her frown deepens. 

"Du bist ein Zirkusclown." 
She murmurs. 
"You certainly know how to make an entrance. You do nothing but falling when I see you, is that pure happenstance?"

She speaks her tone harsh and mean, laced with malice that isn't true to her really. She just feels the need since he interrupted her best nap in a year.
Joan
*The lump of not-dirty-laundry talks??*

Owen's entire body went rigid as he spluttered an even more undignified noise and scrambled to get his legs off of the *Whole person* In his room and turn to face her. His panic wore off in a moment, though, as he realized that there was only one person that that gravelly, disgruntled, heavily accented voice (that was calling him a clown?) could belong to. He fumbled to tear his headphones off and cast them aside to get a better look at her.

"Amelie? AMELIE!!"

His palms rapidly smacked his legs out of excitement before he picked a tiger made of graphite-scratched lined paper off of her face to see that beloved scowl once again. A long lock of toasted-copper hair probably tickled her nose before he swept it behind his back and sank back to the ground with a blunt *Thump*, laying on his back and gingerly cradling the creature over his chest. *She made this precious fellow for me?* Out of view, his socked feet tapped madly.

"I-missed-you-it's-been-too-long-I'm-sorry-about-that-*Why, and how, were you asleep on my floor??*" Bubbled out of his mouth too fast to put much space between the words, like he was some wiggly puppy running circles around his friend after a long day at work.

Ah. Yeah. How in the hell did she get into his room? Did she strike a deal with the devil, or Mr. Cantor? Or was she secretly hiding some Kitty Pryde tricks up her sleeve? Owen felt bad for not seeing her as often as he used to. He supposed after that, she deserved to keep her X-man secrets as long as she pleased from him.

There were smudges under his spark-lit eyes, but the crooked smile digging into his cheeks was genuine. *Floor time with Amelie, what joy!*
Betty
Owen was lucky she's always on opioids. The weight off of her was a relief more than it should have been, just waking up does things to people it seems. Her face still stricken with a horrific scowl that only Owen could smile at. *It was amazing how he could, maybe there were multiple things in his head that were loose. Not just one.* 

Amelie's face scrunched up just a tad while Owen was over her for just a moment. His hair felt soft and not like a broom like she thought it would be. Amelie stared with a narrowed eye, bones moving unending in her skin. Yes it was her, she didn't understand why he was so giddy over that fact. 
*The catatonic hospital girl appears!! Woopie!!!*

She watched him act like a toddler happening upon their Christmas gifts, what a sight. She wouldn't say a word about it as she rolled her eye. It was odd Amelie felt like she was Rolling the other but everyone knows she only has one. Oh, the joys of phantom parts of the body. 

"Vit was comfortable. I vasn't going to your bed, the vite hair on it looks crusty."
Honestly it surprisingly was, she was out with what felt like minutes. It usually took...5 to more days of no sleep for her to knock out peacefully for an hour. She did just that actually. *Maybe the floor wasn't as comfortable as she thought.* 

Amelie wasn't about to talk about how she got in. She was going to make up some bullshit about how she was a vampire due to being partly Romanian. She has some magic tricks up her sleeves surprisingly. She has her ways. 

She made multiple origami, that one just happened to fall upon her face. Owen would be pleasantly surprised. 

*Ich frage mich, was dir durch den Kopf geht.* 
"Vhat are you doing?" 
She scoffs. A her hands curled into tight fists they laid close to her neck, looking like they were protecting her neck from something they both couldn't see. Amelie lowered them and unclenched her hands, they laid against the floor. Still. Of course.
Joan
A plume of pink bloomed across Owen's face for a moment, wondering how Amelie noticed the errant white-blond strands before he did; he then snickered a little at the mental image of Amelie fixing to just help herself to his bed and scowling in distaste at the evidence of Uriel beating her to it the night before. What odd people he took for friends.

"I dunno. Hanging out on the floor, same as you," He reasoned, making out the remnants of notes he knew he would never have reread anyway in the tiger's body. He held his breath until Amelie relaxed her hands; whatever that reflex was, he didn't question it. *Was it bad to be a little tired of questioning it?*

Owen stretched long, the tip of his toe brushing the bottom of one of the cases housing his beloved bass guitars. It felt good to sprawl out, and it was nice and cool at their level. Not a half-bad napping spot, he'd hand it to his prickly friend.

"So, what brings you to my kingdom, O Disgruntled Maker of Paper Beasts, the So Rudely Awoken?"
Betty
Amelie raised her brow at the errant pink that decorated the boys face. *Somebody is a little smitten.* Amelie wasn't too terribly blind, and it's disgusting how somebody with white hair could shed so much. Her nose scrunches. *Uriel. Ugh.* 

Amelie lowers her brow her face still scowling but noticably more relaxed. Amelie looked at the tiger, she wasn't sure why she made so many of them. It's going to give her a headache if she thought about it. They're fun. 

"Excuse you. Vhis is my floor." 
She hissed. Amelie was pleasantly surprised to find the floor comfortable, it's too comfortable for a floor. More comfortable than what she was used to. Floors are meant to be uncomfortable... She shouldn't think about that. 

Amelie reached forward pinching Owens nose, extremely hard for a moment. 
"Don't call me vat."
She pulled back just before a bone breached through the wraps of her hand. 

Her hand rubs the other, coaxing the intrusive bone back into the confines of her weak flesh. 
She hums looking around Owens room with a tired yet cautious gaze. 
"I just vanted to. It's comfy."

*Lügner. Sag die Wahrheit.*
Joan
"*EeEEP!-*"

The boy once peacefully grinning ear-to ear yelped in surprise, his proud, pointed nose being pinched, and pinched *Hard*. He should have known better than to underestimate Amelie. She hadn't any *Scheiße*S left to give, but a grip like she still meant business. Still, the playful (in her way, he supposed) gesture tickled him. Just a little. On the cinnamon-smattered cheek, and under the ribs.

He hissed a little when the bone cut through her hand; she had made it clear before that she didn't need his pity, but it wasn't in Owen's nature to ignore it completely. It looked like it hurt, and he felt it somewhere deeper than his hand.

"Alright. Happy to lend my floor, then, if you say so." The smile, still, could be heard in his amiable tones, that always seemed to curl up at the edges.

*She missed me*, a thought bubbled to the surface, twirling through the soft hollow beneath his ribcage. The thought of someone, her, thinking about him still made him giddy, no quiet joy quite like possibly being missed.

Cupping the back of his head with his right palm, he let his left flop palm-up a couple centimetres from hers. If she wanted it. Maybe yes, maybe no. The contact, for him at least, was nice. The tiger, much like a beast folded of flesh and blood, seemed to curl up on his chest, content to rise and fall with the slope of the soft yawn that passed through him.

"Missed you too," He dared. He could be a little shit today- he was already skipping.
Betty
Amelie looked like she was going to knock Owen upside the head. She wasn't! But she certainly looked like it. If she- she wasn't weak. She just didn't want to. 
Amelie flicked her eyes up to Owen when she heard that noise. A small note of irritation flashed through her mind. Cracking like lightning against her already loud skull. Amelie turned more to the floor. There was no time to think about that. This was a time for relaxing not pettiness. 

"I'll take your room if you aren't careful."
She mocks. Her tone still hard and like sand against glass, scratching against something that was once clear. 

*He knows your bullshit.* A voice laughs. She lets a release of hot air fan through her nose. How was she that damn easy to read, was she that out of the game? Shit. 

Amelie wasn't going to sleep again, she knows this. She messed with the floor, dragging a finger back and forth through it. 

Amelie placed both her hands beneath her in an instant, and forced her upper body up. *Ah, she forgot.*
She can't walk. Amelie said nothing as she went back to the exact position she was in. Exact. Perfect. 

"Like I could miss that face." 
She couldn't. *Er war kein Gesicht, das sie vermissen konnte.* She did. 
*Sie war es leid, so kalt zu sein.*
Joan
"Aw," He pouted, sticking out his bottom lip like a child imitating a cartoon character trying to mooch some sympathy. "But I'm so adorably dishevelled!"

Rolling his shoulders back, half-on the carpet and half-on the floor, Owen felt a series of *Pop*S down his spine, and he sank back into his spot seemingly deeper than before. Amelie had the right idea. But, then again, she.. Couldn't really get up.

"You wanna get up, or.." The boy with the cedar-bark-and-turmeric gaze trailed off, nudging a pinky against hers. He didn't really need the hoodie today, evident by the soft heat radiating away from even his extremities. Today it was calmer, the cold from the floor pleasantly seeping into his skin, but the sleeping ether still twisted in its dreams. His other hand fiddled with his discarded headphone cord.

"What's on your mind, *Aaaaaamelie*?" 

Owen peered into her hard-set features for answers, having had quite enough of what was probably still printed on his.
Betty
Whatever sympathy Owen was trying to garner was snuffed out by the violently annoyed look Amelie gave him. Amelie faced the desk and didn't give a single passing glance to Owen. 

Amelie said nothing. Her hand which was tapped against clenched an pulled away. She looked back to the boy, rolling her eye as she cast her stare to the floor. Her eye hollowed as she brushed her finger against the surface again. Owens anxious fiddling ignored for Amelie's contemplating. 

Amelie cast her frighteningly cold gaze onto Owen again. There was a violent blizzard in that eye that best not be questioned. She was cold in all ways where he was warm, it's sad isn't it. 

"Ze floor is very warm. Either vhat or I'm just colder than the south pole." 

It wasn't what was truly on her mind. Who'd want that; nobody that's for sure. 

"Vat's on yours." 

A answer for another question. Though it always sounded like a demand coming from Amelie, oh well. 
*A game, for a soft hearted boy. She'd play along, where there wasn't much she could change.*
Joan
"I-I dunno," Owen spluttered reflexively, before remembering that he could slow down and think about it. 

He did know what was on his mind, he was just tired of it. Ares. Uriel. Valio's late birthday party, and how his hotheaded friend *Seemed* To be cool with him but with the ever-present fear that he was resented, tolerated, about to be voted off the island. And his softer-spoken friend, who he felt like he couldn't comfort, who he knew felt bad because they couldn't convince him that his best was enough. His own brain, twisting all the love he felt into things to worry about, sour pits in his stomach. He was talking about it with his shrink, which *Was* Progress, it had to be, but. But nothing. He still felt crappy.

"Today's self-pity session, I guess." He wrinkled his nose. "I'm too much, an-and then I'm not enough, and so I'm- just-" 

The restless-tired-frustrated-hot-cold-itchy boy sat up with a *Hrmph* And picked at the floor between his legs for a moment. "Mind if I just.. Make some noise about it? Tell me if I'm loud, um, please."

Owen didn't need to scoot very far throughout his sometimes-cozy, sometimes-cramped room to go through the familiar motions. Selecting his red Spector (a beauty, truly) and making sure his amp wasn't up too loud, he plucked a couple of testing notes before flopping back onto the floor. Its weight pressing him to the floor was welcome; if he was pinned, he could stop pitifully floating about like a helium balloon four days after the party.

The thick metallic strings buzzed to life beneath his callused fingertips, reverberating from his amp to the floor beneath them; noodling no song in particular but the musical equivalent of ...A beached blobfish. No skeleton, barely a shape, a far-off glassy look in his eye. 

Amelie would notice, though, a bar here and there of a song she had shown him once, that had stuck; he didn't know all of it, but it surfaced and dove lazily beneath the surface.
Betty
Amelie just watched Owen. Her frown deepening. He obviously can't hear her now, her voice is broken as is. No need to make it worse. He could hear her. She just didn't feel like saying anything. There was so much going through his head that really wasn't needed at all. A boy like him shouldn't have to deal with so much. You'd think he'd learn. 

He wasn't loud. In fact Amelie could barely hear it, compared to the ugly cacophony of sounds in her head it felt like Owen was playing jazz. Her one good ear picks up on the note or two of a song she played a couple times at least. He's quite the fast learner with other things, nobody quite gives him credit for it. 

She just stayed on the floor. It's a place she was familiar with, unlike... Everything here. 

Her hand unclenched. Owen is so much and more. Yet he just seems to take things onto himself over and over like it's a job. 
He's enough and more... So much more. She repeats in her head. 

*How was Amelie so lucky that this boy didn't hate her... Incredibly so apparently.* 

Her mind stops and she forces the pounding headache coming upon her to the back of her head. Her gaze on the way his fingers pluck the stings to make a sort of pleasant tune; despite being a mixed mess of things he remembers, she finds she could listen to it again and again. And, with the guitar she got him too? She was glad he liked it.

She makes no noise. She makes no motion, her face stuck in that rancid look no soul dare stare at. For one though. Pain isn't on the forefront of her head. How pleasant.

"You can make it louder if you want."
Joan
"O-okay."

A side view of half a crooked, boyish grin, and a minuscule adjustment to a knob.

Rumbling sounds hummed through the floor under Owen's back, along his shoulder blades, and through his skull. He never did know what to do with silence. Even comfortable silence, like this. And so he unwound, in one of the only ways he knew how; negative thoughts unspooled in rough, frustrated bursts, made even more muddled and angry when a note didn't come out right, interspersed with bits of songs stuck in his head and half-formed melodies that didn't quite know how to reach his fingers yet. 

It was a skill, learned, honed, and practiced to the point of drawing blood from his once-soft and raw fingertips, to translate the chatter in his head to sounds like these. He let the pent-up things that couldn't be words yet rumble and clack like he were speaking them- better than if he were speaking them. He breathed.

Amelie could do this, too. He hadn't seen her with her violin in an age and a half, but he had heard her do it- she was a properly trained musician, name underlined in blue and everything, hints of her once-poised stage posture still present in how she held herself in moments where time ran thin through the cogs behind her eyes. Her music had a texture, a fingerprint, sharp and ragged and dripping with viscera and grace alike, unlike any other. It really did baffle him how she seemed so content to lay back and just listen to him fiddle. Notes of *Giddy*, *Flattered*, *Nervous* Wobbled through his scattered sort-of-tune.

"..Amelie?"

His other voice, notably less sure of itself.

"Would you, um, would you want to play with me, maybe, sometime?" His eyes fluttered over to her death-cold expression, and back to a poster on the opposite wall. "We could make some cool sounds, I-I'll bet."
Betty
Amelie was a professional, posture so ridged in a way that she's ready even if her eyes are closed. So conscious of stares aimed at her that they watch even in her head, with nauseous laughing and disgusting faces. Chained to being a puppet for pompous folk, but a sight for those lacking inspiration. She hopes she was a sight for both her sisters not only Tejal on that stage. Though, she did miss how Tejal ran to the back after a concert to crush her in a hug too tight for after a show. 

She remembers every note of her violin. Every pluck every wave of her arm to produce a lengthened note of disguised sorrow. She knows she remembers, she practices again and again. Her leather jacket grows heavy on her fragile body. *A remnant of her.* Amelie's breath has stamina but she dosent seem to show that. 

Amelie stares at Owen's unbound passion for his music. He looks amazing, he'll be a great player. She knows he will. 

Amelie flickers her gaze to Owens face, acknowledging him. The side of her face covered by bandages seems all the more hollow now... She feels like she dosent have both eyes, her face remains. 
*Warum fühlt es sich so an... Verfault?*

"One day, Owen. I'd love to." 
 Amelie looks to the guitar again. 
"Only if you'd let me. I'm remarkably hard to play music with."
It's true. She likes to think she's a good violinist. She'd love to play the violin with him. Amelie looks at her hands, watching the bones move and scratch under her skin. Perhaps the strings will feel less hollow when played with another. She looks back to the instrument. She'd be happy to make music with him. Elated even.

"We'd make amazing music I think."
Joan
Owen's flurry of noise subsided a little to hear Amelie speak; his hands moved, and his eyes darted elsewhere, but it was doubtless that he hung off her every word. He really did think she was so cool. He hoped he could convince her, one of these days- she didn't seem to believe him.

"You think?"

An excited-sounding note, slapped hard under his thumb. Louder than he anticipated. He winced a little. Still, her surprisingly earnest, dare he say *Warm*, admission lit his face from the inside.

"I think your playing is incredible. I, I wonder how we would sound.."

Owen chewed on his cheek for a moment, debating whether to say something. "I have.. Something to show you, actually," He bubbled, the answer decidedly a *Yes*.

A deep breath in, and a slow and focused exhale, hands lifting and stretching as he coaxed something within them to life. Not much happened with his left, merely a familiar heat radiating from his palm, but his right hand seemed to wrap itself in a glove of calm red as though lifted from a warm stove. Light from the open window glinted off of irregular, shifting facets as said hands resumed their places on his precious scarlet instrument.

"It's um, rough, to say the least- not ready to show the band yet- but I sneezed while practicing a week or so ago, and figured out..."

Music, again, decidedly the calm, looping interlude in Metallica's *Orion*, but with a strange fuzz to it. The strings hummed with more than electricity; they slipped from his glassy fingers too soon sometimes, the notes sometimes sour and uneven in volume, but the beginnings of a deliciously muddy tone ran beneath the trivial mistakes. Owen got the hang of it, sliding his fingers along the strings with growing excitement, wrapping the two of them up in his almost-beautiful waves of noise. No pedals he had peddled could quite match it.

He paused for a moment, cracking his knuckles and nervously grinning back at Amelie. *So? Is it working?*
Betty
Amelie furrows her brow.

"*Dummkopf*, I know so."

There was a note of vauge passive-aggressiveness behind her words. She didn't just say that for it to be questioned like a joke. Amelie's scowl stayed, unchanging to the feverish smile Owen had. 

"That's something to find out. Is it not? No use wistfully thinking about it when you can act. Which I know you overthink often."

At the end she pushed a finger into the side of Owens temple before pulling back to listen to what the boy had to say. 
She raised an inquisitive brow, waiting. 

Amelie watched the boys melted jolly rancher looking power coalesce. It was odd to look at, much more pleasant than what Amelie had to stare at everyday though. It was somewhat pleasant despite looking like marinated chicken. 

"You don't have to explain yourself." 

Amelie's face remained painfully stale throughout the wonderful showing after that comment. Watching how he played with a stare that caught every mistake, every slip. It sounded amazing when he got the hang of it. With just a little more practice he'd be a spectacle, moreso than he already was. It was nice to see him so excited about this though, she'd grown tired of watching him be frantic over things he had no control over.

"You need to work on it." 
Plain, blunt, straight to the point. 
"It sounds very *Very* Good. With that extra practice you can master it to your hearts content. It works well. It fits." 
She spoke honestly, like she always has. She's happy that he found this out. 

He might become one of her favorite bass players. *One of her favorites.* You don't touch Storm child. But, Owen is good at what he does, admirably so.
Joan
"Yeah, I know." He just couldn't help but want to explain himself anyway.

Gushing for ages in gratitude didn't have the same effect on Amelie as it did on others, Owen had figured out. She had little patience for the exaggerated, for the things people were expected to say with less than their whole chests; she didn't have time for shit, or if she did, she didn't tolerate it. Owen was genuine more often than not, but not reflexively spicing up his every other word or picking through hers for hidden meanings was.. Refreshing. Few people truly had that effect, and he was especially glad for them. How lucky was he to have that? He smiled again, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Thank you, Amelie." For so much more than just that.

The melted-lollipop shell cracked and sank back through the boy's skin, working through muscle and skirting around tendons to settle back in his veins. He seemed to relax a little when it rejoined his system.

"For that, and, for breaking into my room today," He mumbled in a low voice, idly plucking a few notes. "I'm happy you're here, is all." Short and sweet- no need to wax poetic, he reminded himself. His head flopped over, facing away from her this time, eyes blinking heavily.

"Any requests?"

Amelie would be well within her rights to tease him for the no-doubt sheepish look on his face.
Betty
Amelie surprisingly knows his game well, byproduct of trying to impress the wrong people probably. She won't prod though, that's his own story to tell when he's ready. She dosent have enough time in this place to hear him say '*This is the bazinga shit ever unicorns shit on it!!*' She just wants him to show her and be done with it. Which she thinks he's learned by now, good on him. 

Amelie hummed, whilst listening to Owen. 
"I know. I'm glad I got here in time or I would've found you staring at a wall like it did something." 
Amelie watched him fidget nervously, it was actually endearing that he thinks highly(maybe) about her. First time in... A whole really. To be thought of better than a mere stain was refreshing. 

"Go through that roulette wheel of a brain and pick out one of your favorites." 

Amelie well, she could've teased him a little but there's no time for that. Amelie wanted to hear every sound and song he enjoyed so much. He has some good taste, what can she say.
Joan
*Hmmmm.*

*Black Sabbath- Solitude.*

"There was this guy. Back at the shop, back home. Hair longer than mine, jacket absolutely *Choked* With patches, big and gruff," Owen started, fingers softly plucking the melancholy melody. "He'd ruffle my hair, and ask me where such-and-such thing was, even though he probably already knew."

His face warmed, as though cast over by long-past sunbeams rather than just the shadow of his chair.

"He came in, the day after I got my Rickenbacker, and I ran out to show him. Asked him the question again, and he sat me down, and he taught me *This*." A soft glaze settled over his eyes as it came back to him, the simpler time. "I think, that day, he answered me with the truth."

It was a simple bass line. Convenient enough to teach a scrappy eleven-year-old who thought the world of you, and in one sitting, for he did learn quick, he did. It was true, though- the moment the kid believed it, and every time he played it again, it was the drifter's favourite song, and the order of events mattered less.

He found himself wondering who first taught the mysterious Amelie their favourite song. Were they as gruff? Did they curse and laugh as well when she hit a note sour enough to curdle milk, and did she laugh too? The grim line her mouth was pressed into let so little past it. Owen wanted to know so much more about her end of this thing that connected them, two very different people that they were.

"I wish I could take you there- the shop. I wonder what you would've told me, if I'd asked you what your favourite song was," He mused, his own tune melting into another. "Or you'd have frozen my nose off. *Hahah.*"
Betty
Amelie taps a finger against the floor. 

"He certainly sounds like a character. I wouldn't mind meeting him." 
Amelie listens as Owen sounds more like he dosent have a heavy chain to his thoughts. It's kind of refreshing when he isn't trying to juggle sixteen things and remembering to eat. 

Amelie sunk further into the shadow the desk cast upon her, it's shade gently putting another veil on an already hidden abomination. It's a wonder how she is even next to him currently. Odd. 

Amelie nodded but it was just her turning her head more to Owen. Her hands feeling solid and uncomfortable along with the rest of her body, she folded her hands over one another against her sternum. It laid unwanted against a body frail body, she could feel every bone that was truly part of her skeleton and not. It was disgusting, heinous. 

*She wonders how her sisters would look at her now.*

Amelie drifted off slightly, the sound of the bass becoming slightly muted. Her sisters, would they love her still? After everything would they still look at her the same? There was no smile on their faces when Amelie last saw them, Amelie can't remember what their smiles looked like... She needs to look at the picture she has again. Her scowl became worse when Owens words cut through her thought. 

"I would have. Space is a warmer thing than me, it's factual." 
Amelie's voice snapping against her throat like some veteran thinking about the hell they walked in, once upon their lives. Amelie isn't sure she has a favorite song, they've all gently mixed together with every note of her mind. She couldn't pick a favorite when she's trying so hard to remember. Her scowl etching into her features like stone. 

"What is something you'll always remember? Before your shield appeared."
Joan
GETTING MY ASS IN GEAR

*Always? That's a tough one.* And before his shield. When he had first arrived, the division between 'before' and 'after' its appearance (and the ensuing chaos) was stark and clear, as though burned into the the rings of soft wood that marked time; now, though, it didn't feel as strange, humming inside of him always. Time blurred, ever so slightly, new bark grew around the knot, and Owen found himself picking his brain harder than he'd expected to.

He slowed his loose plucking, and shifted his legs over to bend more comfortably than just laying flat. There were a lot of crappy things that he knew would stick around- a choppy slideshow of every time something something... *Oh, stop being a sad-sack.*

"I.. Hope I'll always remember the first time my dog dragged me into the ocean," He decided, adjusting a tuning peg. "I was having a rough time of things, wasn't paying attention, probably needed to be dunked- he was little, but I swear he's a bigger dog on the inside. Decided the both of us needed to go swimming."

It had been a little more complicated than that at the time, but in his little sunbeam, it didn't really need to be anymore. Just.. A dog with the right idea.

"Was bloody *Cold*. Would give your finger a run for its money! Knocked a lot of sense into me, though. Was the first.. First time I laughed that hard in a minute. Made it sweeter, even with all that salt in my mouth," Owen reminisced. He really did hope he would remember it forever- he had come dangerously close to forgetting, once or twice, but he always landed the same. The ocean was never where he left it, and it wasn't always Lemmy the dog at the end of the leash, but it was the sort of memory that was made more than once.

He didn't turn toward Amelie again, but tried to feel the prickle of her eye on him. *What an odd question*. Was there something she was thinking about, that fit the same description? *Tread gently...*

"What's yours? Before all the shit went down?"
Betty
Unlike Owen whom was forced forward he could turn back with fondness. Amelie could not. She couldn't. She couldn't. *She can't*. 

Before what. *Before everything was shit.* Before... What...*Before what...*
Amelie's face contorts into something awful, there's a burn to her gaze now. It's still unable to be read. 

Amelie is staring at the gentle light brunette, it looks soft but it could cave under the weight so easily.
Amelie is trying to remember something, he needs something happy. All she can think of is this odd all devouring cold, but it's oh so accepting. It's so gentle so tender with the fractured mess of the girl- *It's so cold...* 
It had no weight it dosent press. If it's weightless. *Why is it freezing?*

Something is burning her eye, red dyes her vision. 

***"Ah."***

It's her blood. *It runs cold on her skin. It's fridgid.*

"Can I exempt myself from this question?" 

She wipes away what thick red would stain the floor. She can't stain anything here, that'd be awful. Her voice is toneless, *Disgusting.* She'd be surprised if Owen heard her. He looks red, nauseating. Amelie looks the same, unchanged except that awful red of her eye.
Joan
"Yeah, you can."

A smudge of fresh red caught the corner of Owen's eye, before the sound preceding it registered.
*"Oh-"*

The ambient fiddling stopped with a garbled sound, that he felt through the foot scrambling against the floor. He half-sat himself up, trying to find a way to prop himself up with the weight of the Spector on his stomach, before thinking better of it and *Thump*Ing back to the ground a little unceremoniously. Stubbornly, if one squinted. *Open wound*, something sitting in his ribs cried, the sound held behind his sealed lips.
*She doesn't like you fussing over her.*
*That looks like it hurts...*

"Um. Tiss-tissue?", he asked, willing his arms to be heavy again. She already sounded so tired. Should he have just let her sleep? He would let her sleep if she wanted. Safe and warm, as much of either of those as Amelie could get.

It was times like these where Owen wished he could have that insight into her that she seemed to have into him- maybe it was like that because he couldn't help but beam everything across his face, so everyone had that over him. Amelie was quite the opposite. He tried to imagine it: bones curling and twisting through his muscles, tearing through the hot murky sensitive stuff he was made of, snatching up all the warmth when he would be so tired already. His shield pushed against the skin stretched over his rib, probably trying to be helpful; *Not really, but thanks for trying*. Gah.

Owen's gaze tapped Amelie's one more time, before finding the same spot on the ceiling she seemed to be staring at. He wanted to say something more, but swallowed it. *I'm sorry. I wish I could help. Please tell me how.*
Betty
Amelie sits herself up with a slight wince due to the sound from Owens guitar. The slight closing of her eye leaving the blood that leaked into her eye a new trail down her cheek. Amelie quickly wipes it off with the bandage around her wrist. 

"No." 
It sounded too harsh, maybe something clicked inside her head. She was oh so tired. But, Amelie needed to clean her eye immediately less it get disgusting and it takes what sight Amelie has left. 

Amelie looks at Owen, she knows he wants to help. It's a shame Amelie is too prideful on what strength she has to tell him what she needs help with. She needs to reassure herself she can still live and *That she has the strength to do so.* 
Amelie dragged herself to her crutches resting by the door. Taking them and with the help of the desk. She lifts herself off the floor. She finds a haphazard purchase on her feet. 

Her breathing was slightly shallow as she took the knob of the door and opened it. 

"I need to clean my eye. I'm sorry."

Amelie says her voice trying so hard to not be quiet. 

"Have a good rest. I'm sorry for worrying you and cutting this short due to my... Unlucky timing. Goodbye, Mr. Edris."

And she leaves. You can hear her crutches grow quieter as she goes down the hall to find a sink or something to wash her eye with. 
Amelie's scowl grew freighting, *Her mistake for letting herself be slightly vulnerable.*
Joan
Owen wasn't sure which way to lean when his friend got to her feet, settling on hovering uneasily in case she might need his arm. She didn't. She rarely did.

A delayed "Oh, ah, d-don't worry about it" Vanished into the hall behind her, followed by the quiet click of the door closing a few beats later; she was well on her way now, but he would have loved for her to stay.

The now-alone again boy turned back to his room, and greeted the tower of paper animals with a strange smile.

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