(no subject)
Characters: Anzu (anzu_kun) and Yami (idonthaveityet)
Rating: PG
Description: This actually took place last Tuesday. Anzu goes to visit Yami at the asylum with a tiny little gift to show her concern. Long, awkward silences ensue, hugs are given, and a CareBear makes his RP-cameo appearance.
As she sat waiting in the reception room of the asylum, Anzu kept reminding herself why she hated asylums so much.
As she waited for the nurse - who had been gone for quite some time now - to return and lead her to where Yuugi's brother was, she scanned the small, prison-like reception room where she was. It wasn't very bright, nor was it welcoming - not to mention it had the faint smell of some kind of rancid cheese. Clutching the small HallMark gift bag in her lap, she hummed softly to herself and tried to picture herself someplace elsewhere; preferably one that didn't have that foreboding sense of doom and rotten cheese lingering over her head.
At last, the nurse returned, motioning for her to get up and follow her. Still clutching the small bag, Anzu followed the nurse down the hall to the visiting rooms. The nurse stopped in front of one of the rooms, which was currently guarded by two brutish looking guards, neither of which looked very friendly.
"You've got an hour and a half," the nurse said curtly, as she opened the door and ushered Anzu inside. Cautiously stepping inside, Anzu glanced around, taking in the surroundings. There was a small metal table and two metal chairs, one of which was currently occupied by Yuugi's brother. Anzu silently scanned the tall boy's appearance, and relieved that he only looked somewhat undrugged, she smiled and spoke. "Hey."
Yami didn't look up. That was becoming something of a pattern now, wasn't it? In the first few days of visits, he'd been more aware, been attentive to the guests, hypersensitive to each one and trying to react in the way they expected as quickly as possible. That was what the doctor had taught him, after all; he had no purpose but to do what was asked of him as quickly as possible. Be as pliant as possible, say nothing more than what you're asked to, don't allow yourself to fall into anyone's debt (not that they'd want you) and don't resist, that way all of it will end quickly and painlessly and this will all be over.
But the doctor wasn't here anymore. Brief visit in the morning, like he always was in the morning, in the dark, hands sliding down his -- but he hadn't been back since. And Yami had never known what to do, but now he was being forced to come up with a plan of his own. And that wouldn't work. And he wished the doctor were here because the doctor might have cold, spidery hands that treated Yami's body liike personal property (and wasn't it exactly that?) but at least the doctor told him what to do and say and think and stroked his hair when it was all too confusing.
If the doctor wasn't here, then he had to do whatever he could to handle the situation until the doctor was here and could make all of these problems go away again. And Yami didn't trust himself, no, but staring blindly at the scrap of paper Malik had left behind, he didn't see what else he could do. There weren't any other options. And even if he was worthless and pathetic and too weak to stop any of this from happening to him, the situation was still here, and he was still in the middle of it. And until Dr. Kamui came back to wipe his mind blank again, he'd have to do whatever he could to handle this on his own.
A little insulted that Yami had ignored her greeting, Anzu sat down across from him, still smiling. "I, uh....I brought you a present," she grinned, setting the bag on the table. "I thought it might keep you company while you were here."
Another present. Yami was rapidly discovering that he despised presents and everything that came with them, and that was an opinion so by the doctor's rules he shouldn't have had it, but....
He didn't want presents. Particularly not from -- he glanced up now for a moment only because he couldn't think of another reaction -- someone he barely even knew, who was smiling at him like that. Bright blue eyes, brunette, pretty enough smile; he remembered her from somewhere, but that was the case with most of his visitors. A vague sort of recognition, but nothing concrete and nothing that stayed sharp enough in his fuzzy mind for it to have any impact. Yuugi knew her, he thought, but he didn't want to think about Yuugi. Or anything.
"You can't give that to me," he said automatically, taking Malik's scrap of paper and crumpling it before it could be read. "You won't be repaid." Those were the doctor's lines, so wouldn't they help keep order until Dr. Kamui came back?
Utterly confused by Yami's words, Anzu blinked. "Um....I din't expect to be repaid..." She reached into the small bag and retrieved from it a stuffed animal. But not just any animal.
"I thought you might like the blue one," Anzu said weakly as she pushed the blue CareBear towards Yami. "I can exchange it if you want...maybe you'd like one of the other colors....?"
An awkward silence followed this statement, and Anzu found herself looking down at the table. This was quite embarassing on her part. She barely even knew this guy, and here she was, in an asylum, trying to make polite conversation with a CareBear peace offering. Why had she come here again, anyways? The answer seemed a bit cloudy to her, although she was quite certain she had done so to offer some sort of kind gesture. Either way, it wasn't going well. Heaving a long, pent-up sigh, she spoke up. "So....how have you been?"
Yami was still staring at the bear, trying to figure out precisely what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. The question came almost as a surprise, although he'd heard it dozens of times a day since the visits had started. It'd been hard enough to focus before strange, fuzzy blue bears with funny stars and moons on their stomachs started making appearances in the asylum; now he was having trouble just figuring out what was going on.
...Then again, it'd always been the doctor who made sense of things for him before, so maybe this was what it was always like, trying to think on your own. Had it been like this before? When he was still Yami and he still living on the outside instead of in his little cell-like room? Although he lived more in this glaringly lit visiting room, now, didn't he? But he didn't think it'd been like this before Marik. This difficult to think, this hard to follow conversations and come up with his own responses. Maybe it had been. He'd been delusional then, of course, arrogant enough to think that he was worth anything and could handle himself, when he'd always been worthless and needed someone else to tell him what to do.
He blinked, momentarily too confused to protest further at the idea of a gift, and picked up the bear. It was weird. But it was soft. He sort of liked "soft" after a fashion, except that Marik's eyes were cinders and cinders and ashes and ashes were soft and soft wasn't good. But Marik's eyes weren't blue. And the bear was blue. But Kaiba's eyes were blue. That was troubling. Wasn't it? Now he wasn't sure what he was thinking about, wasn't sure he was thinking at all. Was he thinking? How could he tell? He couldn't tell. Could the doctor tell? Maybe the doctor could hear him thinking.
Probably not.
His visitor -- he still didn't have a name for her, couldn't find one although he distantly thought he might've once known it -- had asked a question. How had he been? That one was easy. He took the bear off the table and held it, frowning down at it as he tried to make more sense out of it. This was all highly unusual. Perplexing.
"I've been," he answered slowly, not looking up from his present. "There's no how. It just is." That was true, after all. That made sense. Can't be in any particular way without opinions and without feelings and without thinking and without all the other things he'd lost track of lately.
Not quite sure what exactly Yami meant by saying so, Anzu forced a weak smile once more. She had noticed Yami's gaze had drifted to the bear, and so she decided to speak up once more. "I think it's name is Bedtime Bear. I had one like it when I was a little kid...."
She paused, then reached forward and picked up the bear. "Whenever I was upset, my mom always told me to give it a big hug, and then I'd feel better." Gently stroking the top of the fuzzy bear's head, she looked up. Still force-smiling, she handed the bear back to Yami. "You try it. I mean, you don't have to...but maybe it might make you feel better....?"
Well, this was...embarassing. Yami was now staring at Anzu as if she were completely off her rocker, and she was left to think that she had mad a bloody fool of herself. Just when she was about to say something else, a tiny ringing noise filled the air. Realizing it was her cell phone, she smiled apologetically at the perplexed boy, pulled it out, and stared at the text message spread out on the screen:
"Yo, Anzu! Can I borrow some toilet paper?? Kthnx, your neighbors."
"Sorry, Yami..." Anzu said as she stood up. "I, um...I've got to go, but...." she reached into her purse again, pulled out a notepad, and scribbled something onto it. "Here's my phone number, in case...well, in case you want me to come back..." she set the paper down carefully, then smiled. "I, um...I hope you feel better soon..."
Yami took the paper only because he was too confused to do anything else, and wondered vaguely what he was supposed to do with it. Would the doctor take it away from him? And the bear, for that matter. He wasn't supposed to take things from anyone, because that meant he owed them in the same way he owed the doctor, because that was all he was good for and he couldn't owe her like he owed Dr. Kamui because he wasn't allowed to and he didn't know what he was supposed to do with that bear anyway or if he was even allowed to have her phone number he couldn't call her of course because that would require asking for another favor and he didn't want to ask the doctor for a favor that big and anyway he had no reason to call this girl he didn't even know her name and
But she was already leaving, and that meant the visit was over, and he liked it when the visits ended, and maybe they'd let him be alone for a while since it wasn't time for the visit to end yet and that would be nice because he hadn't been alone in a while and he liked being alone and maybe they would let him stay in his room again and he could sit in the corner and figure out what the bear was for and that would be nice because figuring things out was nice even if Yami wasn't entirely sure he could figure things out anymore but he wasn't going to ask the doctor about the bear, he decided, and he could figure it out on his own.
Maybe. It'd be one of the few things he'd figured out on his own since he came here. Maybe the doctor would just take the bear away from him. He wasn't sure he wanted it, anyway -- he didn't like that it was that color. Blue. Blue wasn't a good color, although he supposed he liked it all the same. Or had liked it. Now he wasn't sure anymore.
"Thank you," he managed, a bit too late as the visitor was already leaving. He wasn't entirely sure what he was thanking her for, but he wasn't entirely -- or even mostly, or even partly -- sure about anything, so that wasn't anything new. Yami stared at the bear some more, and tried distantly to remember what its name was supposed to be.
Anzu had only gone two inches from the door when she heard Yami's response. A bit shocked, she tried to turn around and say, "Your welcome," but by then, the nurse had closed the door shut, and was ushering her to the exit. "Okay, okay! I'm going already!" Anzu snapped as she was rudely shoved through the door. As the cool fall air brushed past Anzu's face, she stared back at the asylum, which cast an eerie shadow in the mid-afternoon light. Her visit hadn't changed the fact that she hated these buildings, but something had come out of her visit.
True, she hadn't said much, and it was also true that she had embarassed herself beyond all belief. Even so, she couldnt' help but feel as if she had made somewhat of a breakthrough. She had managed to have a somewhat literate conversation with Yami, and perhaps even made him feel better. And wasn't that the reason why she had come here in the first place?
Sighing happily, she turned and began to head back towards her dorm, where her next-door neighbors were anxiously awaiting for her to return with that extra toilet-paper roll.
Rating: PG
Description: This actually took place last Tuesday. Anzu goes to visit Yami at the asylum with a tiny little gift to show her concern. Long, awkward silences ensue, hugs are given, and a CareBear makes his RP-cameo appearance.
As she sat waiting in the reception room of the asylum, Anzu kept reminding herself why she hated asylums so much.
As she waited for the nurse - who had been gone for quite some time now - to return and lead her to where Yuugi's brother was, she scanned the small, prison-like reception room where she was. It wasn't very bright, nor was it welcoming - not to mention it had the faint smell of some kind of rancid cheese. Clutching the small HallMark gift bag in her lap, she hummed softly to herself and tried to picture herself someplace elsewhere; preferably one that didn't have that foreboding sense of doom and rotten cheese lingering over her head.
At last, the nurse returned, motioning for her to get up and follow her. Still clutching the small bag, Anzu followed the nurse down the hall to the visiting rooms. The nurse stopped in front of one of the rooms, which was currently guarded by two brutish looking guards, neither of which looked very friendly.
"You've got an hour and a half," the nurse said curtly, as she opened the door and ushered Anzu inside. Cautiously stepping inside, Anzu glanced around, taking in the surroundings. There was a small metal table and two metal chairs, one of which was currently occupied by Yuugi's brother. Anzu silently scanned the tall boy's appearance, and relieved that he only looked somewhat undrugged, she smiled and spoke. "Hey."
Yami didn't look up. That was becoming something of a pattern now, wasn't it? In the first few days of visits, he'd been more aware, been attentive to the guests, hypersensitive to each one and trying to react in the way they expected as quickly as possible. That was what the doctor had taught him, after all; he had no purpose but to do what was asked of him as quickly as possible. Be as pliant as possible, say nothing more than what you're asked to, don't allow yourself to fall into anyone's debt (not that they'd want you) and don't resist, that way all of it will end quickly and painlessly and this will all be over.
But the doctor wasn't here anymore. Brief visit in the morning, like he always was in the morning, in the dark, hands sliding down his -- but he hadn't been back since. And Yami had never known what to do, but now he was being forced to come up with a plan of his own. And that wouldn't work. And he wished the doctor were here because the doctor might have cold, spidery hands that treated Yami's body liike personal property (and wasn't it exactly that?) but at least the doctor told him what to do and say and think and stroked his hair when it was all too confusing.
If the doctor wasn't here, then he had to do whatever he could to handle the situation until the doctor was here and could make all of these problems go away again. And Yami didn't trust himself, no, but staring blindly at the scrap of paper Malik had left behind, he didn't see what else he could do. There weren't any other options. And even if he was worthless and pathetic and too weak to stop any of this from happening to him, the situation was still here, and he was still in the middle of it. And until Dr. Kamui came back to wipe his mind blank again, he'd have to do whatever he could to handle this on his own.
A little insulted that Yami had ignored her greeting, Anzu sat down across from him, still smiling. "I, uh....I brought you a present," she grinned, setting the bag on the table. "I thought it might keep you company while you were here."
Another present. Yami was rapidly discovering that he despised presents and everything that came with them, and that was an opinion so by the doctor's rules he shouldn't have had it, but....
He didn't want presents. Particularly not from -- he glanced up now for a moment only because he couldn't think of another reaction -- someone he barely even knew, who was smiling at him like that. Bright blue eyes, brunette, pretty enough smile; he remembered her from somewhere, but that was the case with most of his visitors. A vague sort of recognition, but nothing concrete and nothing that stayed sharp enough in his fuzzy mind for it to have any impact. Yuugi knew her, he thought, but he didn't want to think about Yuugi. Or anything.
"You can't give that to me," he said automatically, taking Malik's scrap of paper and crumpling it before it could be read. "You won't be repaid." Those were the doctor's lines, so wouldn't they help keep order until Dr. Kamui came back?
Utterly confused by Yami's words, Anzu blinked. "Um....I din't expect to be repaid..." She reached into the small bag and retrieved from it a stuffed animal. But not just any animal.
"I thought you might like the blue one," Anzu said weakly as she pushed the blue CareBear towards Yami. "I can exchange it if you want...maybe you'd like one of the other colors....?"
An awkward silence followed this statement, and Anzu found herself looking down at the table. This was quite embarassing on her part. She barely even knew this guy, and here she was, in an asylum, trying to make polite conversation with a CareBear peace offering. Why had she come here again, anyways? The answer seemed a bit cloudy to her, although she was quite certain she had done so to offer some sort of kind gesture. Either way, it wasn't going well. Heaving a long, pent-up sigh, she spoke up. "So....how have you been?"
Yami was still staring at the bear, trying to figure out precisely what it was and what he was supposed to do with it. The question came almost as a surprise, although he'd heard it dozens of times a day since the visits had started. It'd been hard enough to focus before strange, fuzzy blue bears with funny stars and moons on their stomachs started making appearances in the asylum; now he was having trouble just figuring out what was going on.
...Then again, it'd always been the doctor who made sense of things for him before, so maybe this was what it was always like, trying to think on your own. Had it been like this before? When he was still Yami and he still living on the outside instead of in his little cell-like room? Although he lived more in this glaringly lit visiting room, now, didn't he? But he didn't think it'd been like this before Marik. This difficult to think, this hard to follow conversations and come up with his own responses. Maybe it had been. He'd been delusional then, of course, arrogant enough to think that he was worth anything and could handle himself, when he'd always been worthless and needed someone else to tell him what to do.
He blinked, momentarily too confused to protest further at the idea of a gift, and picked up the bear. It was weird. But it was soft. He sort of liked "soft" after a fashion, except that Marik's eyes were cinders and cinders and ashes and ashes were soft and soft wasn't good. But Marik's eyes weren't blue. And the bear was blue. But Kaiba's eyes were blue. That was troubling. Wasn't it? Now he wasn't sure what he was thinking about, wasn't sure he was thinking at all. Was he thinking? How could he tell? He couldn't tell. Could the doctor tell? Maybe the doctor could hear him thinking.
Probably not.
His visitor -- he still didn't have a name for her, couldn't find one although he distantly thought he might've once known it -- had asked a question. How had he been? That one was easy. He took the bear off the table and held it, frowning down at it as he tried to make more sense out of it. This was all highly unusual. Perplexing.
"I've been," he answered slowly, not looking up from his present. "There's no how. It just is." That was true, after all. That made sense. Can't be in any particular way without opinions and without feelings and without thinking and without all the other things he'd lost track of lately.
Not quite sure what exactly Yami meant by saying so, Anzu forced a weak smile once more. She had noticed Yami's gaze had drifted to the bear, and so she decided to speak up once more. "I think it's name is Bedtime Bear. I had one like it when I was a little kid...."
She paused, then reached forward and picked up the bear. "Whenever I was upset, my mom always told me to give it a big hug, and then I'd feel better." Gently stroking the top of the fuzzy bear's head, she looked up. Still force-smiling, she handed the bear back to Yami. "You try it. I mean, you don't have to...but maybe it might make you feel better....?"
Well, this was...embarassing. Yami was now staring at Anzu as if she were completely off her rocker, and she was left to think that she had mad a bloody fool of herself. Just when she was about to say something else, a tiny ringing noise filled the air. Realizing it was her cell phone, she smiled apologetically at the perplexed boy, pulled it out, and stared at the text message spread out on the screen:
"Yo, Anzu! Can I borrow some toilet paper?? Kthnx, your neighbors."
"Sorry, Yami..." Anzu said as she stood up. "I, um...I've got to go, but...." she reached into her purse again, pulled out a notepad, and scribbled something onto it. "Here's my phone number, in case...well, in case you want me to come back..." she set the paper down carefully, then smiled. "I, um...I hope you feel better soon..."
Yami took the paper only because he was too confused to do anything else, and wondered vaguely what he was supposed to do with it. Would the doctor take it away from him? And the bear, for that matter. He wasn't supposed to take things from anyone, because that meant he owed them in the same way he owed the doctor, because that was all he was good for and he couldn't owe her like he owed Dr. Kamui because he wasn't allowed to and he didn't know what he was supposed to do with that bear anyway or if he was even allowed to have her phone number he couldn't call her of course because that would require asking for another favor and he didn't want to ask the doctor for a favor that big and anyway he had no reason to call this girl he didn't even know her name and
But she was already leaving, and that meant the visit was over, and he liked it when the visits ended, and maybe they'd let him be alone for a while since it wasn't time for the visit to end yet and that would be nice because he hadn't been alone in a while and he liked being alone and maybe they would let him stay in his room again and he could sit in the corner and figure out what the bear was for and that would be nice because figuring things out was nice even if Yami wasn't entirely sure he could figure things out anymore but he wasn't going to ask the doctor about the bear, he decided, and he could figure it out on his own.
Maybe. It'd be one of the few things he'd figured out on his own since he came here. Maybe the doctor would just take the bear away from him. He wasn't sure he wanted it, anyway -- he didn't like that it was that color. Blue. Blue wasn't a good color, although he supposed he liked it all the same. Or had liked it. Now he wasn't sure anymore.
"Thank you," he managed, a bit too late as the visitor was already leaving. He wasn't entirely sure what he was thanking her for, but he wasn't entirely -- or even mostly, or even partly -- sure about anything, so that wasn't anything new. Yami stared at the bear some more, and tried distantly to remember what its name was supposed to be.
Anzu had only gone two inches from the door when she heard Yami's response. A bit shocked, she tried to turn around and say, "Your welcome," but by then, the nurse had closed the door shut, and was ushering her to the exit. "Okay, okay! I'm going already!" Anzu snapped as she was rudely shoved through the door. As the cool fall air brushed past Anzu's face, she stared back at the asylum, which cast an eerie shadow in the mid-afternoon light. Her visit hadn't changed the fact that she hated these buildings, but something had come out of her visit.
True, she hadn't said much, and it was also true that she had embarassed herself beyond all belief. Even so, she couldnt' help but feel as if she had made somewhat of a breakthrough. She had managed to have a somewhat literate conversation with Yami, and perhaps even made him feel better. And wasn't that the reason why she had come here in the first place?
Sighing happily, she turned and began to head back towards her dorm, where her next-door neighbors were anxiously awaiting for her to return with that extra toilet-paper roll.