Internal Issues
Chapter 2: A Trip to the Doctor
"Come on, Master Malik, it's time for your doctor's appointment." Rishid called up the stairs.
"Don't want to go!" echoed down at him. Rishid sighed. His brother could be so difficult sometimes.
Actually, he reflected further, that comment had to make him the king of understatement. Malik Ishtar was not just difficult. He was terrifying, smart, inventive, original- and psychotic. It didn't help that his darker half encouraged him in his psychosis.
"Master Malik, I drew up fake records and everything. We're going."
Sometimes it was simpler to use fake records rather than the real ones. After all, the real ones gave explanations that no regular doctor, especially one here in Japan, would believe.
"Do we have to?" A tousled blonde head appeared at the top of the stairs. Kohl-lined, soulful lavender eyes pouted down at him.
Rishid was far from immune, but he steeled himself against Malik's "look" and nodded.
"Yes, we do."
The blonde pouted a moment more before emerging from his room and coming down the stairs. He wore a dark violet tank top and khaki cargo capris that looked like they had come from the girl's section. Rishid sighed. His brother's fashion sense was definitely screwed up.
"Ready?" Rishid inquired. Malik glumly nodded, and followed the taller man out the door.
If the trip to the doctor's office was fairly docile, the check-in process was anything but. Malik panicked when they reached the waiting room, requiring that he be dragged in and earning him a lot of stares.
After all, it wasn't every day you saw a boy with blonde hair, dark skin, and suspiciously girly clothes, let alone a teen panicking and 'running for it,' so to speak. Rishid had to fetch him back, but not before he had nearly bowled into a young couple and their infant.
Finally they settled into the waiting room seats, as Malik fidgeted, muttering to himself. After ten minutes he announced, "Escape time!" and made to get up, only to find Rishid had grabbed his collar.
"… I said that out loud, didn't I?"
"Yes." Rishid agreed.
"Damn."
"Ishtar-san?" the nurse called from the door. Malik's already-large eyes grew wider.
"Please Rishid don't make me go!"
"Come on, Master Malik." Rishid said, relentless. He towed the boy after the nurse. She led them to a room smelling of antiseptic. It was pristine white, making Malik's golden skin and Rishid's dark cloak stick out.
"If you would sit there." The nurse indicated the paper adorned examining table. Malik meekly sat, one foot twitching uncontrollably toward the door.
"It says here that he's on medication, anti-psychotics?" The nurse turned to Rishid for confirmation, who nodded. He had had to make some provision for Malik's... extreme behavior. She made a mark on the clipboard.
"Any other medications? Allergies?" she inquired.
"None." Rishid said.
"Right." she said. She turned to the twitching boy on the examination table. "I'll have to take your pulse and blood pressure."
Malik watched in fascination as she took down a black strip connected to a dial and a pump.
"Hold out your arm." she said. He did so. She deftly wrapped it around his bicep, squeezing the pump to make it tighten around his arm. She watched the dial intently as the pressure increased, held, and then receded like a sigh. She unstrapped the thing from his arm and took his wrist with thumb and two fingers, counting in her head. She scribbled more on the clipboard and left a mystified Malik.
"The doctor will be with you shortly." she said.
Malik was distracted by what he had noticed close to him.
It was shiny. It was sharp. It was a scalpel. His hand edged involuntarily towards it.
"Master Malik..." Rishid's warning voice rang out. Malik whined to himself, but withdrew the hand. But, oh, how he wanted it! Just think of all the internal organs he could neatly remove with that thing!
The door opened and the doctor entered, a neat little Japanese man in a white coat that matched the room.
"Ishtar Malik?" he inquired. Malik looked up.
"That's me!" he chirped. The doctor smiled.
"You look pretty good. It says here, though, that you haven't had all your immunizations..."
"Immunizations?" Malik quirked his head to the side.
"Actually, he hasn't had any but the most basic." Rishid said.
"Hmm." the doctor said. "We'll have to remedy that."
"What are we doing?" Malik asked.
"Shots." the doctor replied.
"Shots?" Malik stiffened. Shots, as in, putting things in him? As if he didn't have enough things in him already? That appendix thing Ryou had explained to him the week before, for instance. That he really didn't want. It was a mass of chemicals, for Ra's sake!
"It's okay." the doctor said soothingly. "It's just a little prick." Completely misunderstanding his consternation, of course.
"You're going to put things in me?" Malik screeched, eyes wide and frantic.
"Umn..." The doctor glanced at his sheet. "Of... course not. We'll even take some blood, after."
"Really?" Malik asked, grinning and bouncing. He like blood. Just not inside of him.
"Of course." the doctor said nervously. He exited and returned with about seven syringes.
"You might want to look away." the doctor said.
Rishid shifted nervously. He wasn't sure if the doctor's deception was going to work and he wasn't sure what would happen if it didn't.
The syringe entered Malik's arm and slowly pressed its contents into his vein. Malik stiffened visibly as it did, snapping around to stare at the doctor after the needle left his arm.
"You put something in me!" he shrieked. "I don't want something in me! You didn't say you were going to put something in me! You put something fucking in me!" The golden teen was getting hysterical. Time to put a stop to all this before he woke up his yami.
"It's just things to keep your insides from hurting you, that's all." Rishid soothed as the poor doctor stood there, shocked and bewildered.
"Really?" Malik hiccuped, turning to Rishid for assurance. Rishid squeezed his hand.
"Of course. And after, they really will take some of your blood out."
"Yay!" Malik cried, bouncing happily and sticking out his arm. "I'm ready for more shots now!"
"Er... Right." the doctor said, attempting to play along. The shots passed without incident, thought the Egyptian boy's happy stare as blood was drawn out was a bit unnerving.
They left the office with Malik a good deal cheerier than he had been when they entered.
"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Rishid asked.
"Yes!" Malik answered unashamedly.
