A/N: Written for:
The Prompts in Steps Challenge, 4.19 - opiate
The Yugioh all seasons/verses Bingo: the non-flash version, #144 - untidy
The Halloween Trick or Treat Bag (Advent 2015), day 6 - summoning ritual: write a fic with a favorite character doing something the opposite of themselves, and make it believable
Diversity Writing Challenge, c17 - write at least five reincarnations (slightly different) of the same scene (eg. like the same person doing the same thing five times, with subtle differences)
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It's a Bad Habit
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1. seclusion
He starts tucking himself away in corners of the world. His apartment is easy. All he has to do is dim the lights and be silent when someone knocks and they eventually go away. Though he's a little surprised Honda and Jonouchi don't break down the door at any point but really, that only serves to tell him why it's a good idea to tuck himself away from the world.
They still try to interact with him at school as they've always done and, really, he's tired of this charade. It's not their fault they're two-faced in their friendship because he's technically the two-faced one, but he'd tired too. He doesn't want to do this anymore: this pendulum that keeps on swinging to and fro, between friendship and enmity, between this shaky trust and fear and the way they look at him with apprehension while the other him slinks back into the recesses of his mind as though he'll change again.
And he's sick of being the avatar of this game. He can't stop the other him, he knows, but he can do this at least. Hide away so they can be sure the he who smiles and pretends there's nothing wrong is a fake - because there is something wrong, there always is, and it hurts all of them when the farce is finally revealled and that includes him as well.
He can suffer less tucked away like this as well, not teased by that false hope that's always snatched away and given back like a carrot dangling in his face.
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2. suppression
He starts drinking because people say it can "drown all his sorrows" and that's a lovely image, and he wants to try. But it doesn't quite do that, and later he wonders what he was even thinking because he's a good child, isn't he, and that's a trait for naughty rebellious children instead. It's the sort of thing he can imagine the other him doing and he wonders if they've reached the point where even he can't tell he's possessed anymore (because, before, the lack of memory would be a drop-dead giveaway) but then the other him laughs in the back of his mind and says: "no, landlord, that's all you."
But that's afterwards when he's sober and crashing and maybe it's just because he's serving as entertainment or maybe it really does make a difference, but the other him is drowned out in the buzz and yet doesn't bother trying to stop him.
And by now he's been tucked in a corner by himself so long that nobody else tries to stop him either.
So he doesn't try to stop. He just keeps on going and he doesn't even place the lie because it shouldn't be so easy. He's underage. He's living alone. He skips more school days than he attends and he's cut all ties with his friends. But the questions, the concern, they're all shallow and easily brushed off. It's like bubble wrap wrapped around him and, at this point, he doesn't really care who's done the wrapping.
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3. sedation
He starts on painkillers because there's a pain that won't go away. Sometimes it's a headache. Sometimes it's a chest pain. Sometimes it's just a deep rooted aching in his soul. The doctor goes by the book and he's the one breaking the rules, withholding information as he is but he can't tell her. He can't tell anyone and then there are other things he just doesn't want to tell. He's gone to the doctor for the pain and that's all he wants.
And it's right at the top of the ladder that things start to work. Those opiates that shouldn't be taken with alcohol but: "it doesn't matter for now, since you're underage" but that's not quite true and he doesn't tell her it's not quite true, either, nor does he wait. That cloudy feeling where there's no other voice in his mind urging him or poking and prodding him or stealing his body entirely. That cloudy feeling where that hasn't ever happened either. Where his family's still together and alive. Where he has lots of friends and nothing keeps them away, nothing scares them off, rightfully or otherwise…
But that feeling of numbness still wears off and the deep-rooted ache of his soul comes back. And so does he.
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4. solace
He start pricking his fingertips because he now drifted in and out of clouds and possession and he'd almost forgotten what his body felt like. It seemed counterintuitive when he stopped to think about it afterwards - a long time afterwards, when he'd graduated from fingertips down to his wrists and then slowly up his arms - because he taking painkillers to kill the pain, isn't he?
But they're different types of pain and it's distracting and it's the sort of thing that can tell him he's drifting in some place or other, that he's still alive. And it's a worthwhile thing, for a moment, until he has to clean the blood that begins to pour out and at some point he gets tired of doing that as well. The blood's not exactly in the way. The other him seems to think it accentuates the image and something's wrong, something's not quite adding up but he doesn't really care if either one of them trip up. He's not taking any extra cares. If they do, then maybe something will change. Or he may do that himself; he's been progressing by himself very nicely, after all.
And then he'll start to wonder why it's so important to be alive anymore…
And he wonders if the voice in his head will pipe up then, because he needs his landlord, whatever condition he may be in, doesn't he?
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5. silence
He starts thinking about a more permanent solution, though it's far too righteous to say he's doing it for anyone else. Though a part of him does wonder that, if he'd only thought about this before, he could have kept his friends.
But friendship was always a two way street, or more convoluted than that, and he couldn't be the only one to be blamed, to pay.
In any case, he starts thinking of a more permanent solution because he's hardly living anyway. He's almost always in darkness now and there's a multitude of reasons and the other him in the back of his mind is further down on the differential list now but that doesn't change the fact that he's tired of it all. He can stop, but he can't stop, not really. He's far too far along for that. It's what they call addiction, or dependence, or depression - but depression is slightly different, isn't it. Depression is the label they might put on the cause if they'd had all the tools… Or maybe if they didn't have all the tools, because that doesn't explain the other him at all, doesn't explain there really is something inside him he has to squash.
And now he's squashed it far too well; there's nothing left behind and he may as well take out the trash. And it takes a long time for him to realise it because there are so few windows, but he does. He notices. He puts it all together and there's nothing stopping him from acting on that conclusion.
For some reason, not even the other him says a thing. He no longer needs him anymore.
And that was his only reason to go on.