[fiction] Foster Care: The Apnea (We Die Young)
So...this obstensibly follows Bad Things Happen in Threes, but it's really more about Kaiba.
Kaiba and his f-ked up life. Probably rated R for language, implications of child abuse, racism, disassociation, violence, pregnancy, and all other sorts of fun stuff. No pairings, really, but Seto/Anzu implied at the end. Spoilers for Kaiba's backstory (both anime!canon and what I've made up XDDD).
Also for 31_days October 11 (a deer in the headlights)
You’re just another druggie.
You’ve known that, you’ve always known that, but for some reason you thought you were special, different, unique. You were Kaiba Seto, and you are just as much in awe of Kaiba Seto and what he’s accomplished as everyone else.
But Kaiba Seto isn’t you, no matter how much you like to pretend he is.
You’re just Seth O’Connor, just another half-Jap army brat ‘cos your dad went (as they say) native. And your dad was the base drunk, and everyone knew it, and you knew it, but he was your dad, and he loved you, and so you pretended he wasn’t tanked most of the time.
And then your dad was dead, and you (suddenly) were Inoue Seto, the half-gaijin kid whose mother had ruined herself not only with a round-eye but with an American (and you were an American, and you knew the Pledge of Allegiance by heart and you knew it was the greatest country that ever existed and the people you now were living with were those Right-Wing Nationalists everyone said were crazy). And you were learning a new language, and your brother seemed to forget any English he ever knew, and you wanted to shake him because this wasn’t your life and his name wasn’t “Mokuba” anymore than your name was “Seto.”
But it was your life. And when they told you that there was no God and no Blessed Virgin and burnt incense to dead people and told you to wear a kimono and then beat you and told you that your mother was a whore for the enemy, you said they were right because they were the adults and you were the child, and you said so in the only proper language: Japanese.
And then they were done with you, and you weren’t Inoue Seto anymore because the Inoues had dumped you, and you were just another orphan. You promised your brother a better life, and at night, up there on the orphanage roof, when the bigger boys let you into their little club and the world had faded to a pleasant haze, you almost believed all the lies you told him.
Kaiba Seto is perhaps the easiest role you’ve ever played. Gozaburo didn’t care about your eye color, didn’t care you had an annoying habit of calling your little brother “Michael.” He just wanted you to design and calculate and compete, and you did because you were good at it (all your teachers - from the ones on the base to the ones in the orphanage - said so).
He didn’t care about you, either, but even though you were (secretly) hoping, you knew he wouldn’t. He cared about cold, hard cash, and by the time you were twelve that was all you cared about, too, because cash got you smack. Cash got you respect.
But no matter how much you tried to convince yourself, no matter how much of a military brat you still were, you couldn’t justify what you’d done. Because weapons of mass destruction were just that: weapons of mass destruction.
(You still dream in guidance systems, in video footage of the carnage wrought by KC technology.)
And then Gozaburo was dead, and you were allowed to do whatever you fucking wanted, and as long as you could make sure Mokuba got enough to eat and that you got your fix, everything was all right. Better than all right because for some fucked up reason, people just didn’t want to use you, they wanted to be you.
So you remade yourself. Played a new role. The teenage genius. The boy who couldn’t lose, and winning was so very important. Gozaburo had taught you that, hadn’t he? He’d flung himself out the window after you engineered your takeover, and you hadn’t wanted him to die, honestly, you hadn’t, you just knew that you had to beat him at his own game. So you won.
(And then you lost, and then you lost again. To Pegasus Crawford of all people, who fucked with your brother. And no one fucked with your brother, least of all some effeminate American who still watched cartoons. So you joined up with Yugi and his band of do-gooders, and - suddenly - you were on a winning streak again, even if you never could win against Yugi.)
And here you are, four years after that man’s death, and you’re still as fucked up as you ever were. Just another kid who let circumstances get the better of him, and they’ve got you on a morphine pump because you’d never be spilling your guts to Anzu otherwise.
(And all right, so that was another reason why you wanted to be Kaiba Seto because at Battle City he got to play the hero and save the girl.)
She’s sitting next to you, holding your freaking hand, and what kind of poseur are you to be saying all this crap? And yeah, you wear eyeliner, but it’s to attract all those emo gamers, not because you actually like that god-awful, self-indulgent crap that passes for music. And if your dad could see you now, he’d be rolling in his fucking grave because no son of his would ever wear eyeliner.
(No son of his would do all the things Seth O’Connor’s done, either, except maybe take care of Michael because that was the last thing Dad asked you to do, and dammit, you’re doing it.)
She tells you Mokuba’s fine, Mokuba’s great, Mokuba’s worried, and you wonder if maybe you should just give in and give up on the custody issue.
Your mother’s father will be nice to him. He looks Japanese enough for them. And you think your dad’s parents would be nice to him. You have vague memories of their farm and the August heat and the homemade ice cream.
(But you promised, and O’Connors don’t break their word, even if Kaibas do and even if you’re a Kaiba now).
She says she’s got something important to tell you, and you think you’re looking at her with appropriate seriousness, but it’s hard because she’s talking through cotton and there’s water lapping at her hair, and she doesn’t notice.
And you’re hallucinating because she did not just tell you she thinks she’s pregnant because you can’t even figure out what your last name is, so how the hell could you figure out what the kid’s last name would be? And Jesus, Mary, and All the Effin’ Saints, you’re a druggie, and she’s going places with a capital “P.” And you’re suddenly in one of those horrible daytime dramas where the girl gets screwed over because she’s thrown her life away for a night with some stupid, low-life who’s too high to wear a fucking condom.
And if you were really Kaiba Seto, you’d go find Seth O’Connor or Inoue Seto or whatever the fuck he calls himself (and hoodlums always seem to have really stupid aliases) and beat the shit out of him. Break his nose. Break his face.
But you’re not Kaiba Seto, and (no matter how much you pretended) you never were.
You’re just another druggie.
<< previous | next >>
.
Kaiba and his f-ked up life. Probably rated R for language, implications of child abuse, racism, disassociation, violence, pregnancy, and all other sorts of fun stuff. No pairings, really, but Seto/Anzu implied at the end. Spoilers for Kaiba's backstory (both anime!canon and what I've made up XDDD).
Also for 31_days October 11 (a deer in the headlights)
You’re just another druggie.
You’ve known that, you’ve always known that, but for some reason you thought you were special, different, unique. You were Kaiba Seto, and you are just as much in awe of Kaiba Seto and what he’s accomplished as everyone else.
But Kaiba Seto isn’t you, no matter how much you like to pretend he is.
You’re just Seth O’Connor, just another half-Jap army brat ‘cos your dad went (as they say) native. And your dad was the base drunk, and everyone knew it, and you knew it, but he was your dad, and he loved you, and so you pretended he wasn’t tanked most of the time.
And then your dad was dead, and you (suddenly) were Inoue Seto, the half-gaijin kid whose mother had ruined herself not only with a round-eye but with an American (and you were an American, and you knew the Pledge of Allegiance by heart and you knew it was the greatest country that ever existed and the people you now were living with were those Right-Wing Nationalists everyone said were crazy). And you were learning a new language, and your brother seemed to forget any English he ever knew, and you wanted to shake him because this wasn’t your life and his name wasn’t “Mokuba” anymore than your name was “Seto.”
But it was your life. And when they told you that there was no God and no Blessed Virgin and burnt incense to dead people and told you to wear a kimono and then beat you and told you that your mother was a whore for the enemy, you said they were right because they were the adults and you were the child, and you said so in the only proper language: Japanese.
And then they were done with you, and you weren’t Inoue Seto anymore because the Inoues had dumped you, and you were just another orphan. You promised your brother a better life, and at night, up there on the orphanage roof, when the bigger boys let you into their little club and the world had faded to a pleasant haze, you almost believed all the lies you told him.
Kaiba Seto is perhaps the easiest role you’ve ever played. Gozaburo didn’t care about your eye color, didn’t care you had an annoying habit of calling your little brother “Michael.” He just wanted you to design and calculate and compete, and you did because you were good at it (all your teachers - from the ones on the base to the ones in the orphanage - said so).
He didn’t care about you, either, but even though you were (secretly) hoping, you knew he wouldn’t. He cared about cold, hard cash, and by the time you were twelve that was all you cared about, too, because cash got you smack. Cash got you respect.
But no matter how much you tried to convince yourself, no matter how much of a military brat you still were, you couldn’t justify what you’d done. Because weapons of mass destruction were just that: weapons of mass destruction.
(You still dream in guidance systems, in video footage of the carnage wrought by KC technology.)
And then Gozaburo was dead, and you were allowed to do whatever you fucking wanted, and as long as you could make sure Mokuba got enough to eat and that you got your fix, everything was all right. Better than all right because for some fucked up reason, people just didn’t want to use you, they wanted to be you.
So you remade yourself. Played a new role. The teenage genius. The boy who couldn’t lose, and winning was so very important. Gozaburo had taught you that, hadn’t he? He’d flung himself out the window after you engineered your takeover, and you hadn’t wanted him to die, honestly, you hadn’t, you just knew that you had to beat him at his own game. So you won.
(And then you lost, and then you lost again. To Pegasus Crawford of all people, who fucked with your brother. And no one fucked with your brother, least of all some effeminate American who still watched cartoons. So you joined up with Yugi and his band of do-gooders, and - suddenly - you were on a winning streak again, even if you never could win against Yugi.)
And here you are, four years after that man’s death, and you’re still as fucked up as you ever were. Just another kid who let circumstances get the better of him, and they’ve got you on a morphine pump because you’d never be spilling your guts to Anzu otherwise.
(And all right, so that was another reason why you wanted to be Kaiba Seto because at Battle City he got to play the hero and save the girl.)
She’s sitting next to you, holding your freaking hand, and what kind of poseur are you to be saying all this crap? And yeah, you wear eyeliner, but it’s to attract all those emo gamers, not because you actually like that god-awful, self-indulgent crap that passes for music. And if your dad could see you now, he’d be rolling in his fucking grave because no son of his would ever wear eyeliner.
(No son of his would do all the things Seth O’Connor’s done, either, except maybe take care of Michael because that was the last thing Dad asked you to do, and dammit, you’re doing it.)
She tells you Mokuba’s fine, Mokuba’s great, Mokuba’s worried, and you wonder if maybe you should just give in and give up on the custody issue.
Your mother’s father will be nice to him. He looks Japanese enough for them. And you think your dad’s parents would be nice to him. You have vague memories of their farm and the August heat and the homemade ice cream.
(But you promised, and O’Connors don’t break their word, even if Kaibas do and even if you’re a Kaiba now).
She says she’s got something important to tell you, and you think you’re looking at her with appropriate seriousness, but it’s hard because she’s talking through cotton and there’s water lapping at her hair, and she doesn’t notice.
And you’re hallucinating because she did not just tell you she thinks she’s pregnant because you can’t even figure out what your last name is, so how the hell could you figure out what the kid’s last name would be? And Jesus, Mary, and All the Effin’ Saints, you’re a druggie, and she’s going places with a capital “P.” And you’re suddenly in one of those horrible daytime dramas where the girl gets screwed over because she’s thrown her life away for a night with some stupid, low-life who’s too high to wear a fucking condom.
And if you were really Kaiba Seto, you’d go find Seth O’Connor or Inoue Seto or whatever the fuck he calls himself (and hoodlums always seem to have really stupid aliases) and beat the shit out of him. Break his nose. Break his face.
But you’re not Kaiba Seto, and (no matter how much you pretended) you never were.
You’re just another druggie.
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