Fix me [tag Jessan]

[maggie]

Kaydian looked around his little section of the barracks. He had already organised it three times. Everything was exactly in its place, not even a millimeter off. He had already also organised his neighbour's bunk. He would probably get into trouble for it later. The other prisoners were constantly growling at him not to touch their things, but he couldn't help it. If things were messy... He couldn't explain the feeling. The overwhelming terror. The unsettled feeling. The knowledge that everything would come crashing down around his ears... He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself and keep himself from starting to make rounds, cleaning everything. it didn't matter that the others still needed to keep things in some semblance of order. He could see the blanket that was a centimeter off. The shoes that weren't perfectly aligned with the edge of the bed. All those little things that even the guards didn't really care about.

He started pacing. He had a little time, before supper, which was supposed to be his free time. He didn't like free time. He never knew what to do with it and it made him more anxious, so he usually spent it cleaning. But now that his things were clean and he could see the messiness around him, he couldn't seem to find peace. He shook his head, going to find a guard.

He didn't make eye contact as he approached, counting his steps to make sure that they came out to an even number. The fact that they did soothed him somewhat. "`Scuse me," he murmured, his voice just barely audible. "I heard some of the others talking. They said the mindhealer's taking patients. Could I... Could I go see her? Please?"

[nozomi]

The guard originally paid no mind to the little prisoner when he approached him. He'd been leaning against the wall, eyes scanning for bits of trouble outside of a trembling prisoner. Cowering prisoner - whichever. He didn't care.

"The Mindhealer?" Said the guard in a brilliant impression of a parrot. He shrugged, then, and moved to put his hand on Kaydians shoulder to lead him along. But - no. The touch never came, the guard rethinking his actions towards the newbie. The fresh ones always go so scared. "Why not. Let's go see if she's free right now."

He gestured instead for Kaydian to follow, turned on his heel and started to walk through the barracks. Click click click of loud footsteps until they came to Jessans little "office". He knocked on the door and immediately looked in.

"Mindhealer Jessan? A prisoner requested you."

The pale woman looked up from her scrolls, eyes lighting up at his words. "Oh?" She pushed her chair back, one of three such in the room, all near a roughly put together table. "Send them in, then! Then go away."

At least he waited until out of the room to mutter something unkind. The guard waved his hand. In the general direction of the cell. "Go on, get in there, she'll call for us when you're done."

"Indeed." Said Jessan softly from the doorway of the office. She fixed Kaydian with an interested gaze, soon followed by a smile. "Hello, young man. I'm Jessan. May I ask your name?"

[maggie]

Kaydian followed behind the guard, idly counting both their steps. He winced, taking an extra step since the guards' were uneven. He frowned, realising this made his steps uneven as well. He shook his head, trying not to think about it, concentrating instead on the mindhealer. He walked in, trying to figure out how to even out both his steps and the guard's.

He paused near the table, not looking up at Jessan yet. He reached out, placing the chairs more neatly around the table as he began to speak. "Kaydian," he murmured. "My name's Kaydian. They brought me here because I stole things. And because Lagan was making Dust. I didn't make any, though. Or take it. I don't like Dust." He realised he was talking too much and frowned. "I want to stop cleaning stuff. If I stop, I know that something bad will happen. But the others... They hit me if I touch their stuff. But it's not my fault they're so messy." He looked up at the mindhealer, distressed. "Can you fix me?"

[nozomi]

Poor darling.

Jessan never thought herself an easy woman to impress, not the sort to care overmuch about how broken others were. Generally, the cracked and bruised tended to annoy her more than anything. Her brother was the one to enjoy the smaller creatures, and keep them hidden away in his room to do who knew what to them. Luckily for Kaydian, Jessan did not pity him, nor did she find much interest in him, personally, but more along the lines of just how his fingers straightened and organized things in that bare room.

"Good for you, dear. Dust is quite horrible you; your first week here at Warden's would not have been a pleasant one, by any means." It'd be worse than how they treated them, anyway. New arrivals, she'd noticed, were seen as vicious, dangerous, and volatile until they proved themselves different - not a fun way to start a life in a new, gray cage.

She smiled, gesturing to one of those very neatly arranged chairs. "Sit down, Kaydian. We can talk about fixing you. Just breathe." Jessan settled down herself in her own chair, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt. "First thing first, dear - you say that the other prisoners are hitting you? That's something you report to the guards. They aren't allowed to hit you, even if you're touching their things. What do you tell them when they get angry?"

Solitary confinement, in Jessan's opinion, came as too severe a punishment for a few hits here and there. Warden felt better to rule by fear of consequences, it seemed.

[maggie]

Kaydian blinked. "They don't hit hard. And they already said not to touch their stuff. They don't do anything if I leave them alone. I hate it when people touch my stuff. I feel like... Like my mother used to act when she was afraid not to be able to get Dust." He had thought, at first, that she had been like him, with her pacing and worrying. Sometimes he thought that maybe he had gotten those feelings from watching her. It didn't matter, however. "It's my fault, they shouldn't be punished. I just apologise." He shrugged. "Sometimes I try and show them that it's good, that now everything is organised. But last time I did that the person messed everything up worse than before."

He sat down in front of her, folding his hands in his lap and not making eye contact. "I like it here," he said quietly. "I just want to be fixed so I don't make people mad. It's stupid and I know it's stupid. No one else needs to have everything neat." He relaxed a bit as she took charge of the conversation. He didn't like having to worry about dealing with his problem himself, anymore, not if she was doing it for him. "I don't want anyone to be punished because I can't stop organising things." He paused, thinking about it. "If someone can't stop himself from hurting people, you don't punish or try to fix the ones who react to his violence. You punish him and you try and fix his urge to hurt people. It's like that with my moving their stuff."

[nozomi]

"It isn't stupid." Jessan shook her head slightly, fingers linked together on her lap. The boy in front of her, he fell quiet sometimes, but he didn't fidget, or pick at himself, or need to straighten his fingers or clothing the way that some of the others she'd seen need to. The boy - Kaydian, she had to remind herself - Kaydian's hands weren't red from constant scrubbing. Jessan preferred the clean ones to those whose tendencies towards the slightly obsessive were to hoard. Oh, the hoarding. By Ramoth's shiny hide, the boy was sweet, and Jessan smiled, just for that. "Your compulsion to clean, and straighten isn't exactly a healthy level, and it's effecting you more than cleaning should, it isn't stupid.

"Very good analogy, however. I'll have to keep that one in mind. I like it." Jessan liked a lot of things, though rarely did she go out and tell the person why, or when. The Mindhealer shifted, tucked some mussed hair behind her ears. "Everything you tell me here is confidential, Kaydian, so please don't worry I'll be running to the guards with news on the prisoners. No one will be hurt because of anything you say with me."

"You say something bad will happen if things aren't in their proper place, looking as they should, Kaydian. Can you tell me what it is that is going to occur if everything isn't perfect? For examples - the chairs. I noticed you straightened them before we sat down. What were your thoughts then?"

[maggie]

Kaydian cracked a bit of a smile, glad that someone found that his cleaning wasn't stupid or bad or something to be punished. He paused at the question, though, frowning. "I... It's hard to explain," he said quietly, looking down at the ground and wringing his hands together a bit nervously. "It's like a tight feeling in my chest, at first. Just a little irritating. Like something you know you have to do. And if I don't start tidying, it gets worse. I start getting really scared. It's not... It's not one specific bad thing that's going to happen. I just know that if I don't tidy up, there's going to be a disaster. Like I'll be released or Thread will start falling again or someone will die... When my mother died..." He paused, taking a little breath. "I spent four hours cleaning afterward before I called anyone. I had a feeling that I hadn't cleaned enough. The doormat was off, the glasses were too rectangular, the bedspread was uneven, the pillows weren't fluffed properly... I thought I had done a good job. I had put everything right before I left and checked it. But it was still bad." His voice had gone oddly flat as he spoke. It was rare that he told anyone about that day.

"If everything's not perfect, this time, something worse is going to happen. I mean I know it won't. And I know my mother died from Dust and that it was a long time coming. But still. I can't help it. Before Mama died it was a little better. I mean it was still... not normal, but it was better. After that... I can't help it. If something's out of place, I know in my head that it's not going to affect anything, but everything else is just screaming that someone's going to die or something bad will happen." He paused, looking up with a rueful grin. "I used to steal. Before. But I got so bad I started having to fix all the displays and everything. So they caught me." He paused. "I like it here. I got a little better. But I still want to be fixed. I don't want to be scared every time a chair's a millimeter away from where it should be."

[nozomi]

Poor, sweet boy. If Jessan could steal him away with her during the breakout, she would! He'd keep the camp nice and clean, and she'd have the ability to kick anyone in the face that messed with him. Alas, her brother would probably find someone like him to be very... hospitable. Machi's idea of that fell so far from Jessan's that even the rather cold woman did not feel like inflicting the healer with her brother and his taste. She grew a heart in there, somewhere. Maybe. Or perhaps she simply found the idea distasteful. He was a sweet boy, not at all like the other ones.

"What did it feel like before your mother passed away, Kaydian?" Jessan searched his face while the boy spoke, expression concerned. She'd seen it in people before, the triggers that set something of that before was just a tick. Everyone had a breaking point. Everyone had something go wrong with them. Everyone came into the world a little broken. Some were just more visible than others, and they were the ones that got screwed over for it.

And, with that thought, another question: "May I ask, Kaydian, why is it that you like it here better? While I am very glad you're not unhappy with that aspect of your life, I'll admit to being curious on the subject."

[maggie]

Kaydian was unaware of her ruminations about him, but he did sense that the mindhealer was an ally, of sorts, which kept him talking, despite the difficult subject matter. He would have found some excuse to bolt, by now, usually. "Well I used to like things being tidy. My mother used to tease me about it, but it wasn't that bad. I just didn't like living in a messy space. It would bother me a bit. You know, like when you have something that you have to do that's always bothering you at the back of your mind. And it had to be perfect. Just regular tidy wasn't enough, things had to be placed just right. Mama used to swetich things around or move them off center, just to see if I'd notice, sometimes. It was the only thing we'd ever fight about." He looked up briefly before going back to staring down at his hands. "It used to drive me mad, getting home and finding that she'd moved everything. Sometimes it was better, when she was too gone with Dust to care, because she wouldn't make a mess." His voice had become almost a whisper. "I was horrible to her."

He looked up in surprise when she asked him about what he liked at Warden. He actually smiled, relieved to think about something that made him happy. "Well I like it because I don't have to worry about anything. I get food, I have a nice, dry place to live and things to do all day. I like having a schedule and having the guards there to tell me what to do all day. When I was living with Lagan, I was always scared that I wouldn't be able to eat or that there would be an accident with the Dust he was making. I used to get scared of being caught by the Watch too, but I think it was a good thing, now." He shrugged. "I like not having to worry or be scared anymore."

[nozomi]

"Why do you think you were horrible to your Mother, Kaydian?" Jessan kept herself from arching an eyebrow, though she wanted to. The prisoner in front of her was the more fragile sort, despite all evidence otherwise that the little thing survived decently well up until warden's. (No matter the size, all of those quiet, nervous patients were 'little' to Jessan.) Her eyebrows pursed sympathetically when Kaydian started to whisper, expression softening once her charge relaxed a bit more.

She glanced to the exit, where those guards were - the ones who kept the schedule it was Kaydian so enjoyed. At least he enjoyed the system Warden's had set up... No wonder he'd gotten a bit better about the cleaning. Every minute of every day was already scheduled, put up to one thing or the other. "I'm glad being here has made you feel more secure, Kaydian. Once thing Warden's excels at, it's their scheduling. What do you do on your time in the recreation area? Do you go out?"

[maggie]

"I yelled, sometimes. And argued back and sassed." He looked down at his hands, going very quiet. "And I let her take Dust. I'd get it for her sometimes when she asked. And I shouldn't have. I tried to be good. I tried really hard. I kept everything neat and I made sure that we had food and I even made supper, sometimes. But she just always wanted Dust. And she was so sad about it..." He trembled slightly. "I just would get so angry sometimes. And I'd say terrible things. And yell. Especially when she would mess everything up on purpose. I got home from getting her Dust, once and she had unmade my bed and hid the forks everywhere and she had made the rug crooked... We didn't have a lot of things, but they were all out of place. Another time..." He shivered again. "This is stupid... I had this rag kitty. It wasn't really nice or anything, but it was my only toy I had kept. And I got home and she had stabbed it to the wall with a knife. She didn't have any Dust and I hadn't been able to find any..." He shook his head. "It's stupid. She was really good to me, most of the time. It's really bad of me to just remember the bad stuff. I'm bad to her even now."

He wrinkled his nose when she mentioned recreation time. "No. I usually try to stay in my room and clean up. Sometimes when the guards say I have to go out, I bring my book and I try to read. I'm trying to learn. I already know most of my alphabet." He smiled a bit at that. "But I don't like recreation. I like chores better."

[nozomi]

"Kaydian." Jessan leaned in closer, her fingers rested on the tips of the table. She didn't take her eyes from the young man, watched each twitch of his facial expressions, how he looked at his hands, how he shivered. Poor creature. "We all have buttons that can be pushed, and there always seems to be a person or two who knows how to push them. Your reactions were normal, especially with how you feel about items being put in their proper place."

A single pale eyebrow went up, and the corner of her mouth quirked. The flicker was juts that - a brief twitch of her face, before it settled into her neutral expression. "And it isn't stupid to be upset over your rag-kitty, or to remember the bad things that happened. Anger and fear are easy to remember. Even the sweetest person on the planet can conjure up unhappy times when asked. You're sweet, Kaydian, but you're also very human. We don't have the selective memories of dragons."

"You aren't being bad to her by speaking honestly with me, Kaydian." Jessan said as gently as she could, fingers lacing together on the small table. But! Ah ha! There it was, he almost smiled, and with that, Jessan smiled as well. "I know one of the women who impressed to a dragon at this last clutch, she was trying to educate the prisoners." Warden had said so, when asked about the weyrlings. He said it in much- colder terms, but terms never the less. "Whether or not she's still doing so, I'm not sure, but I could always inquire for you, Kaydian. If it's something you're interested in." Jessan smiled again, a bit warmer than before. "If nothing else, words are a form of order. You make sense of the oddities around you through explanation. Getting outside is good for you, at the very least."

[maggie]

He actually looked up at her in shock when she mentioned that she knew someone who could teach him. An awed smile crept slowly across his face. "Really? You could find someone to give me lessons? I'll be a good student, I promise! I've always wanted to know how to read. And do numbers good. Mama always said it wasn't important, but I was always so jealous. Lagan knew how to read. All his things were labeled and I wanted so bad to be able to read them and know what was in them and put them in order..." He beamed with delight. "I'll be really, really good, if I can learn my letters. And I'll practice hard."

He wrinkled his nose a bit. "I would even go outside. But I... The outside is messy. And there's so many people, all disorganised... I'm always afraid people are going to start fighting or something. Not like when we're doing chores and stuff like that, where everyone has something to do and to concentrate on and you can tell who's going to start somthing because they aren't concentrating." He looked down at his hands. "That's what I don't like about here. It's as scary as the streets, sometimes. But at least the guards make sure that things stop, here."

[nozomi]

"I think I know of someone who may be able to help." Jessan agreed, her voice gentle. Well, well, hadn't that set the little thing off. Warden had only mentioned it, talked about a search here and there, but Jessan made a mental note to at least leave a request on the former prisoner-teacher's door about this eager young thing. She smiled, a faint thing, her eyes squinting up with it. "Of course you'd be a good student, Kaydian, and that you'll be very good. I will see if I can find her, and if I can't, I will locate someone else to tutor you."

Why was he so adorable? Silly creature. She liked him. "It's one of the bad things about this prison - you take all of the bad from the streets and condense it. But you're right, you have the guards. Have you tried speaking to someone you haven't started rearrnging the stuff of? Perhaps if you made a friend or two, it wouldn't be so scary. You'd be amazed how safe a friend can make you feel."

She smiled again and leaned in again, eyes studying his features as the two of them spoke. "Do you think you'd be open to making a few friends, Kaydian? If the opportunity presented itself?"

[maggie]

Kaydian was still smiling about having a teacher. A real teacher! And maybe one day he would be able to be smart and read things and even maybe start learning a bit of a craft to be useful! Or he could learn to organise things in the archives or something. They liked organising-type people there, he had heard. He could actually be useful and do productive things and contribute to the Weyr, if they would keep him and maybe he could have... friends?

His smile faltered a bit and he looked a little worried. He nodded slowly at the mind healer. "I... I would like to have friends," he admitted shyly. "But... but people don't like me, much. I... I don't know how to talk to them. And they think I'm strange. And.. they won't like me." He looked a little nervous. "I... I would like to try, though. But what if they don't like me?"