Doing as you're told (Freya's twins)

[Laura Richardson]

Laura had finished drawing the view out of the window. She wasn’t overly brilliant at landscapes, but Finn (she assumed it was Finn and not Ash, because the tone changed a lot unless it was somebody else or they had that odd disorder thing where you were a lot of different people and Ash had said Finn was right beside him.) had said it was what he wanted, so he must want it. Finishing, she smiled at it and brushed her hand across her face, transferring graphite from her hand to her nose. There.

Getting up, she wondered how exactly she was supposed to find him. He – she was assuming Finn was a boy’s name. Ash sounded a bit like a boy’s name too – hadn’t told her that bit. She’d been too relieved at knowing the right thing to do to ask. Now she was feeling a little worried again, but she decided to go and check the boy’s dorms. If they were both boys they were bound to turn up sooner or later. Hopefully they’d be boys… she didn’t want to be in the wrong place.

Laura wandered down to the boy’s dorm and chewed on her sleeve. She was a little worried, and biting her nails had got her in trouble recently. Chewing her sleeves was nowhere near as comforting, but in Laura’s experience ‘in trouble’ was a very painful place to be. She should find Rio soon…

Seeing two boys together, looking similar, Laura decided these must be who she was waiting for. She walked towards them, drawing outstretched. They seemed nice on the computer, maybe they were nice in real life too? She didn’t say anything, but smiled at them instead. Hopefully she’d got the right people. If not… well, she could apologise and then go and slam something in a door. She hoped these were the right people. Please let them be right….

[Ashton Reid]

Finn laughed, and ruffled his brother's hair, rolling his eyes simultaneously. "She'll be fine. She'll go and draw something, and then she'll come here and I'll have two weirdos trailing after me getting in my way and begging to be told what to do," he told Ash, turning away from the view out of the window and flopping down on the bed. Only then did he notice the expression of worry on his brother's face. "What?" he sighed snappily, crossing his legs and leaning against the wall.
"Do you... want me to leave?" Ash asked him, his voice barely more than a whisper. His hand clutched the windowsill as he stared at Finn, face going pale. Finn rolled his eyes and patted the bed beside him, shaking his head. "No, I don't. Remember what happened last time I told you to go away? Besides," he wrapped an arm around his little brother's shoulders as Ash curled up beside him. "You know what I'm like. I'd never survive without you." Ash wriggled closer to him, closing his eyes and resting his cheek on Finn's shoulder, jumping when his brother suddenly moved and spoke again.

"Hey, let's go and sort out your dorm room. We've done mine now," he shrugged Ash off his shoulder and stood up, surveying his quarter of the room critically. Well, it wasn't home, but it would do. It would have to. He headed out into the corridor, almost tripping over Laura, stopping himself just in time in the doorway. Ash walked straight into him, and he stumbled again, and both of them ended up leaning again the wall. Laughing slightly, Finn pushed himself upright, shook his head, and looked down at Laura cautiously. Taking in the drawing, held out defensively, and the smudge of grey across her face, he guessed who it was almost immediately. "Laura, right?" he asked her, holding out a hand for the drawing. "That was quick."

"I'm Ash, this is Finn," Ash, as usual, was the one to introduce them, smiling at Laura before leaning over Finn's shoulder to inspect the drawing. It was good, better than anything he could ever hope to do. Sighing, he smiled at Laura again, wondering where she came from. Did she have parents? She'd said she didn't have any brother or sister... she could have Nathan, as far as Ash was concerned, but he doubted that she and Laura would get on. Hopefully, she had a nice family. It would be... awful if she came from an abusive relative or something of the like.

Finn handed the paper back to her, rewarding her with a genuine smile. "Impressive. What else do you draw?"

[Laura Richardson]

She stumbled back a bit as she was almost stepped on – didn’t want to hurt anyone by accident. That would be awful. She didn’t want to hurt anyone here, especially when she was only just back and everything. No matter what the doctors thought, (Except Doctor Hudson, who said he believed her and everything,) she wasn’t taking any chances. Especially any chances that could see these nice people dead after they told her what to do. She liked knowing she did the right thing. It worried her when she didn’t know what to do.

Laura wondered whether to introduce herself. Even if they knew who she was, was it right? Doctor Hudson had and she’d known who he was. And Doctor Murdock. A thought occurred to her and she wondered if she’d been sent away because she’d been bad in therapy with Doctor Murdock. Maybe… she had been trying to be punished, but she’d thought he would hit her or something instead. She hadn’t wanted to get taken places by people and made to go to school and been kicked out of school and everything…

“I’m Laura. I’m usually… pretty quick.” It was true, she was. When you had nothing else to do, you tended to get just a little more competent at what you had left. Laura smiled shyly at Ash and Finn, who was at least for the moment blissfully unaware of his new status as go-to guy for the things she couldn’t ask Doctor Hudson about. Or Rio. Laura wondered where Rio was, he was usually about somewhere… but something told her that she shouldn’t ask Finn to please hurt her so she wouldn’t end up hurting other people. Somehow she didn’t think that would be right. Holding out her sketchbook, Laura smiled cautiously. “I um… look if you like. I drew puffins yesterday. Do you like puffins?” Was that the right thing to draw? She wasn’t sure any more. What if he didn’t? Laura’s fingers found their way back into her mouth again and she wished she knew what to do. Was it ok for people to look? It had been ok before. She hoped it was still ok now. Was it even the right question?

[Ashton Reid]

Finn flicked through the pages, nodding as he gazed intently at the sketches. "Yeah, I like puffins. Bloody hell, these are good. You do this a lot," he told her quietly, his attention focused on the pictures. Ash looked over his shoulder to see what could have impressed his brother that much, and whistled softly, raising an eyebrow. Impressive. He grinned at Laura and nodded, showing he agreed with Finn. They were good; Ash wasn't sure he'd ever met anyone with this much artistic talent. "How long have you been drawing?" he asked her as Finn closed the book gently, almost reverently, and handed it back, wrapping the arm around Ash's waist once it was free.

Turning, he went back into the dorm room, muttering, "Come on, let's sit down," fairly sure Laura would follow, knowing Ash would. Flopping down on the bed, he lazed against the wall, watching Laura curiously. His only experience with DPD was Ash, who wasn't too bad with other people. Just him. Laura had been desperate to be told what to do in the chatbox, so apparently she didn't have a particular person she was dependent on; anyone who told her what to do would be fine. That probably wasn't a good attitude, and Finn could see why she was better off in a place like this. On the other hand, there would be all sorts of people here, people who would take advantage of someone like her, and he didn't doubt that if she hadn't encountered one of those people already, she soon would.

"How long have you been here?" Ash asked her, settling into the bed beside Finn and snuggling up to him, resting his head on his brother's chest and wrapping an arm around his waist. He liked Laura; she was very sweet, and she had DPD like him. It was nice to know he wasn't the only one. He was a little worried about her, though; she looked slightly scared, her fingers stuffed into her mouth as if she wanted to stop the words getting out. He gave her a reassuring smile, hoping to put her at her ease.