Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square Enix.
Authors' Notes:
Minikimii -- Happy Dem-Dem(-Dem) Day! Remember, today's date is quite important in the word of KH fangirlism, because this is the ultimate Demyx worship day. Please Enjoy. :D
Nitlon -- "Worship day?" Dude, I thought it was like...Demyx uber-masturbation day. (Oh look, there go any readers with a sense of shame. Goodbye, our almost reviewers! Or something.) Then again, it's 6:42 AM. I am in no fit state to be doing...anything.
Minikimii -- ... Yes, it's also the uber-touch-yoself day for Demyx. (Now I know what I'll be writing while at school today.) XP
Wednesday is for Beige
"Mom, Dad… I'm gay."
That was all it took, really, to get me to a psychiatrist. It was like 'one, two, three – rejected from your family!' There were no second thoughts or apologetic murmurs, sad smiles or reassuring 'it's okay's.
Everyone just stopped fucking caring.
And that was four months ago.
Now, whenever I come home from school, my 'parents' won't ask me how my day was, but instead tell me when the next psych appointment is. Instead of encouraging me in pursuing a career in music, they were taking me away from the latest failure to see a 'more reasonable' shrink. Instead of trying to sit down and talk through my feelings as a family, they threw me into a room with a semi-comfortable couch, freezing air conditioning, and too many shelves filled with pompous I-have-this-on-my-shelf-so-it-proves-I'm-intellectual books for me to even bother reading the titles as I ignored the good doctor trying to break into my head. Instead of asking if I needed help with any homework, they would tell me my appointment got rescheduled because mother's "Holy Fucking Shit! My Child is Gay" support group at church had an event.
That church is a piece of bullshit, by the way. They don't really even worship God like they should be; the perfect church for the rich-ish community I live in – all style, no principle.
My parents also think my last shrink was 'liberal piece of trash' who needed to get 'straightened out and find God' before she corrupted more young minds with her Satanic culture. (They completely ignored the fact that she was a vegetarian, raised Catholic and 'a faithful servant of the Lord since birth', as she liked to put it.)
Because apparently supporting gay rights is so wrong.
Shoving a pillow into my face in the darkness, I scowled to myself and flipped over to bite into the cover angrily, careful not to let the guitar pick I kept in the pillowcase from sliding out and falling behind the headboard of my bed. My parents would kill me if one of the cleaning ladies found it during their rounds. They've been instructed to alert my parents whenever they find anything on the 'list of items that equate unforgivable sin'. This guitar pick is the number one item, and they think the maids threw it out months ago while they were tidying everything up to be picture perfect.
Mask this, mask that… why don't we suffocate some children's personalities? Oh, and we could go create some robot plastic pretties while we're at it! Then we could all have perfect front yards with pristine lawns and a man named Jesus to mow the grass because we're all either too good for the job or too fucking lazy to get up off our asses and do it ourselves!
Goddamn.
I pulled the covers over my face and bit my lip as I sank into my favorite deep blue pillow. It was cold and I needed something to dab my eyes with before the tears turned the pillow into a midnight navy color.
My parents found me a new shrink for tomorrow. Hopefully this one isn't some psychotic freak. God knows I can't take this shit any longer…
- -
Lying in my bed at six-thirty in the morning on a Tuesday, and the world was not as it should have been still. There was movement. Outside, people, and I suppose the price you pay for living in an upscale apartment is that all the trophy wives of your neighbors must wake themselves up at the crack of dawn and put on their velvet couture track suits which cost more than my work computer so that they can go for a brisk jog before having their morning tequila.
They must have thought we lived in Paris. Because every morning, though this one was particularly bad, it was like a chorus of crass songbirds: "Good morning, Kelly, how did you sleep!" "Oh, bonjour, Angela! Well, as well as I could, what with the husband keeping me up all night!" Ha. Ha. Ha. That Kelly, she sure was a riot.
The world was not still, calm and hazy and tea-colored still.
I'm quite adamant about my sleep. I didn't have to get myself up until seven o'clock, and if those hens were going to try and make that impossible, well, that's what comforters are for. I pulled the blankets thickly up and over my head and closed my eyes to the bright light fingering the whole of my face. Most of the surfaces in my bedroom were dark, or at least grey; I didn't want sunlight to reflect off of them. The blankets, too, were dark, but the underlying issue with hiding from the entirety of Little Paris for the next half an hour was that cocooning yourself in a blanket made it quite hard to breathe after about thirty seconds. Sweat built up in the juncture of my chin and my neck like steam, and the air was warm and thick with my exhalation. I pulled the blankets off of my head and inhaled like a caught fish released back into the water.
The cool rush of air was wonderful for a few seconds before "Oh, Anne! We were wondering where you were! Now, we were thinking of stopping by the Cafédu Chat for coffee after our morning exercise, care to join us?"
I suppose I should make it clear that I was not a trophy wife. Me being a wife, period, was going to be very difficult unless New York changed their laws about gay marriage. Oh, and provided I actually managed to find a sexuality buried somewhere inside me, beneath the penchant for books and solitude and that healthy disrespect for authority I expected to retain until I reached twenty-five.
I was Zexion Lorrant, overgrown child prodigy and psychologist with a PhD.
Which, I suppose, makes it almost painfully clear that I was intelligent. My mind grew far faster than my body, and if the television raised me then it appeared it did a mighty fine job of it, seeing as how it always convinced me to go read a book instead.
One could say I was living the dream life. A bachelor in a big beautiful apartment with too many windows, a job at a state-of-the-art hospital treating patients that were either rich or had parents who were rich, and all at twenty-two. What a lucky boy you are, Ienzo.
I wasn't complaining, exactly, because all of these things were very helpful to me.
But intelligence is tiring. The stupid are truly the happiest people in the world, and I say that after having treated a few of them. The quickness of one's mind had a flat line: the more intelligent you got, the better your life was; but at a certain point, it stopped mattering. Now you were too smart, and everything seemed dull near your sharp mind.
Too much thought, and a mind like a razor in a brain tenderized by consideration of all things, and a soreness from all its little cuts settles itself in your head, everything like swollen.
I had constant headaches, dull, thumping things, hardly worth the effort of going to get a pain reliever. They came, I think, because I was never challenged. I was like a fat dolphin in an aquarium with no toys to play with or whales to harass. No mind stimulation, no one interesting enough to keep me entertained.
I groaned, because the air conditioning was always turned off overnight (no use wasting electricity) and wasn't scheduled to come on until six forty-five.
And at this point, there was absolutely no way I was going to get back to sleep, so I pushed the covers off and rolled over onto my stomach to check my PDA.
New patient today, Demyx UNK, notes:
-from meeting with parents
I remembered meeting this boy's parents, and I remembered that he was – sixteen? Seventeen? Young enough that his parents could still control his life, I suppose, was what I got from that. I opened on the only page of notes I'd taken down so far, when his parents came to tell me what was wrong with their son.
I scanned quickly over the words.
Ah. One of those.
I admit that I had become a bit sarcastic with my note taking, as these were for personal reference, and that the actual work files were much more professional:
Summary: they want me to cure their son of his homosexuality.
Perhaps next they will ask me to keep Fido from fetching tennis balls or to help teenage boys dampen their raging libidos. They tell me that I will be the fourth professional they bring him to for help, as he didn't speak to the first one or the second one, and the third one had sided with their son. Were I able to, I would decline their proposition, but governmental connections coupled with the fact that they'll just move on to the next doctor if I refuse keep me from doing so.
I'm inclined to agree with Mark Twain when he said, "Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat." The world would be a much simpler place to live in if it weren't for people like this.
First appointment next Wednesday.
Well, there was no use lamenting over the uselessness of some peoples' nineteenth-century attitudes. I ran a hand through my hair and groaned, because it was messy again, and I'd have to brush it before I left for work.
After a shower and a slightly painful combing, I checked my appearance in the mirror. Grey suit, beige shirt, light purple tie; non-invasive and dull colors. My hair was parting to the side drastically more than usual. One of my eyes was completely covered by it. And my face, as it always was, was bone-white. Sickly, almost.
It occurred to me that I was going to look like shit when I met this Demyx fellow for the first time. But I found myself, as usual, unable to care.
- -
"Demyx, please, darling… I only want you to at least attend the first appointment!"
She fake sniveled once as a pedestrian walked by her rolled down window. The woman glanced down at her crying and immediately gave me the death glare. Not only did my parents hate me, but the world apparently wanted me reformed too.
"Mother," I sighed, "this is the fourth person you've sent me to see."
She fake sobbed and my father turned around from the driver's seat (the car was parked) and almost-bellowed, "Demyx, son, it's for your own good!"
Why did they always have to address me name-first now? It was like if they stopped saying 'Demyx, son' or 'Demyx, darling' I would forget to answer and pretend they were dead. Which, when I stop and think about it, is quite tempting.
"I don't need to go; it isn't working."
The car was hot, too hot. This time, they'd driven an hour just to get me to go see this guy. Apparently, he's a genius with figuring people out or something, but I'm not buying it. Plus, it's been getting chilly lately, so the adoring parental units forced me into jacket. The weather outside is barely jacket-worthy, let alone glove worthy.
"It's not working because you don't want it to," my father glared. "Now you're going to get your sorry behind in there are attend the dam— darn session!"
I crossed my arms and focused my attention on the guitar pick I'd smuggled into the palm of my left hand cut-off glove. Leaning my head against the window, I closed my eyes and focused on the hard plastic. The curved pattern a gold letters engraved into one side and the small nick on the right edge just under the 'E' were still vivid in my memory.
I honestly doubt I'll ever be able to forget.
"That's all I'm asking of you!" my mother cried, over dramatizing her delivery and causing my eyes to instinctively open at the ridiculous tone of voice she was using. I closed my eyes and had to suppress a giggle when I imagined a frog jumping into her throat and making everything she said come out in useless croaks.
Attempting to look like I'd just zoned out toward the sidewalk again, I readjusted the striped cut-off gloves on my hands and heaved a sigh. Maybe if I closed my eyes long enough they would finally leave me al—
Weight shifted out of the driver's eat, the car door slammed, and I nearly kissed the pavement for the first time in a few years. Much to my dismay, I felt a fist bunch up in the hood of my jacket and yank me out of my seat.
I shouldn't have unbuckled the seat belt when we parked; it would have saved me from being yanked outta my kind of comfortable seat by a barbarian.
"Young man," my father hissed, his face wrinkled in disgust and far too close to mine for my liking, "we're paying thousands to get you help and we're trying to fix you! You are going to get your ass in there and you are going to stay for the entire session and you are going to talk to the damn shrink, you hear me, you ungrateful bastard?"
Irritated, I lightly shoved his body away from mine and straightened out my clothes, careful not to let the pick fall out from my gloves.
"Fine," I glared back. "I'll go." Just don't get stoned to death by the angry commoners before get back; I wanna help.
- -
First observation: his office doesn't smell like anything. I don't know what I was expecting this time, but already I could tell this guy was going to be by-the-book bland. The wait in his office didn't take very long, seeing as I was the first appointment of the afternoon and I was already five minutes late for my session.
Then some sixteen-year-old kid wearing a suit stepped out of the office.
"Are you Demyx?" I nodded. "Please follow me."
As expected, there's nothing special here. Standard couch, desk, bookshelves, and ridiculously lush-looking carpets and paintings. He'd probably fit very well with the church.
"Have a seat. (I did.) My name is Zexion; I am your psychologist." He extended a hand forward.
I didn't take it.
"I see how it is."
The amused smirk on his face made me want to sink into the couch cushions and never come back up… but if I sank into the cushion, I'd probably end up having crazy people or emotionally effed up divorced middle-aged women sitting on my stomach and face. Bad enough already to see those types on a regular basis at Mother's support group. No way in hell would I ever let any of their plastic asses get near my face.
An awkward pause followed afterward, and I slid the guitar pick out of my glove and began tracing its ever-familiar contours.
"So, Demyx…" he smiled coolly, "why are you here?"
I looked up from the rainbow guitar pick I'd been fiddling with and saw him leaning back into the chair, smug, young, and – although a bit dull – classically stylish. The perfection made me want to puke. Every one of his lilac hairs were in place over the one half of his face, leaving only his left eye open.
"I thought you already knew that." I couldn't keep the scowl off my face when his eyes began twinkling.
"Yes, I've been informed, but I would rather hear it from your lips than a stiff email from your parents."
Oh, aren't you just so smart, Mr. I-look-like-a-fucking-sixteen-year-old!
I grunted and swung my legs over the side of the couch and laid down. An instant cold overcame me, as if I'd been eating an enormously oversized tub of ice cream and had fallen into the tub. Are these couches for the patients to admit things because they're cold and directly under the air vent's air current, or are they this way because laying on your back is calming.
Either way, I was slowing down.
"How can you be my shrink?" I rolled my eyes, looking back down to the pick. "You look like you're sixteen."
"I might look younger than you, but I'm twenty-two," he replied without batting an eyelash. Skeptical, I snickered. "Hard work and good genes can take a man far."
Yes, of course it does. Especially if you're a stripper or a prostitute…
"How do you expect me to take you seriously?" I managed out, slightly surprised I didn't accidentally blurt out my thoughts regarding the prostitute stripper.
The subsequent chuckle made me want to get up and leave, except last time I tried to do that, my parents were in the lobby and I chickened out. Instead, I lied and told them I was going to use the restroom.
"Your parents seem to approve, so why don't you?"
Aaand you change the subject. Impressive use of adolescent conversational tactics… Touché, but no way in hell you're getting into my head.
"Because the last three shrinks they shoved me into all had 'problems'!" I scoffed. "The first guy tried prescribing meds, the second one was a religious, bible-thumping freak, and the third one took my side so they called her 'unqualified' and wouldn't let me see her anymore!"
He was silent again. My eyes followed the end of the pen moving elegantly across the rim of the clipboard until the dipped out of my line of sight.
"And that is why you're here," he murmured, scribbling a note onto his clipboard.
"What?"
He didn't answer and I ended up watching his hand move across the page in concentration. I get two shitty psychologists, the perfect friend who gets ripped away from me, and then one who likes to make small talk and fuck with my head. Just great.
Too busy festering in my silence, I almost missed him when he stopped writing. The sudden awareness of the awkward silence made me squirm, and hesitantly, I dared a little flick of the eyes upward and my line of sight was met by the straight-faced psychiatrist's. Instead of backing away and apologizing (like the old me would have), I stared back. He simply continued the blank gaze into my eyes and smiled.
"You're lonely."
Authors' Notes:
Nitlon -- Zexion is fun. He usey the big words. 8D Now, I have to leave the house in eight minutes, but Pez tells me she'll be posting this at 9:09 in the morning (for me). So WOO. Anyways, thoughts are really nice. I dunno about her, but I've never done a cowrite before.
Minikimii -- Yeah... I'm Pez. Way to go Nitty, I didn't want to scare them with our petnames so fast, but if you insist!!
I hope you enjoyed it so far! Writing from Demyx's point of view as an angsting teenager is gonna bring lotsa lulz later. Hopefully he'll be happier next time. -laughs-
~Fermata Over Rest