Alright, I'm sorry. I've contracted writer's block, and as most of you know, it's a hard thing to get rid of. *Sigh*
Anyway, here is another AU. Because I can.
Disclaimer: I'm too tired to think of something witty to write here, so just pretend that there's something funny here.
11. Aura (Prompt 063)
He isn't stupid; he knows the doctors say he's crazy. He's not. He is not crazy. He's just too smart for his own good. Yeah, that's it.
Anti-Cosmo sits with his knees hugged to his chest, his back against the semi-soft wall. Theyhave made sure he can't hurt himself, and there are guards watching him 24/7, but they really needn't watch him. He's not going to do nothing.
Meanwhile, nurse Anti-Wanda prepares herself for another gruelling day. They have a new patient: Anti-Cosmo is his name, and apparently he's been displaying psychopathic behaviour for a while. When he finally did something illegal, they caught him, preformed a quick examination, and threw him into a padded room before you could say 'crazy'. She frowns slightly.
How bad can he really be?
The gossip circulating the 13th Mallory Hospital for the Mentally Unstable is incredibly unreliable and outrageous most of the time, and when it isn't it's usually crazier than its patients, but this time . . . well, this time Anti-Wanda isn't so sure.
With a heavy sigh she trudges downstairs to the newly occupied cell, Anti-Cosmo's breakfast—or what passes for it—in hand. When she reaches the door, she stands there for a moment. What if he really does have three tongues like everyone says he does? Or eyes with no whites, just pupils? Don't be ridiculous, she scolds herself. Shaking her head to clear it, she punches in the entrance code on the small keypad, and the door opens silently.
Anti-Cosmo looks up as the door opens. He isn't particularly sure if he trusts any of the doctors, nurses, or therapists in this place, as their auras all seem darker than they should be. However, he does know that should he do anything rash, security guards shall be on him before he can make it to the end of the hallway.
So he merely uncurls himself and examines the new arrival. She's nothing special at first glance, what with her average looks and everything, but her aura—it's something else. It's pink—like her eyes, Anti-Cosmo notes—with threads of light green tangled together. It's like Christmas colours, but with a white film overtop. He's seen people with auras that have more than one colour, but never one with colours that are opposite. Complementary colours, Anti-Cosmo thinks. How peculiar.
She speaks gently, but with a cautious, almost unnerved edge that does not go unnoticed by Anti-Cosmo.
He glances over at what's on the tray she's brought. A blob of something that might be applesauce, the remains of what may have once been the cousin of hash browns, and a glass of—is that orange juice? Well, one decent thing out of three isn't too bad.
For the first time in what feels like decades, he speaks. "I suppose they were out of pancakes, hm?"
The surprised pink eyes look back at him, as her aura swirls majestically around her like a pink-and-green shield.
He grins, revealing small, pointed fangs. "I take it you think me delirious?" He pauses for a moment, but continues without waiting for an answer. He doesn't need a verbal one: her face is as readable as a book. "Well then, I must be a special case." He lets out a small, humourless chuckle. "No pun intended."
"I dunno how to respond to that," she says, looking dumbfounded.
Anti-Cosmo crawls to the edge of the bed and folds his legs underneath him, resting his hands on his lap like a child waiting for a bedtime story. "Come on, have you not had patients who aren't actually insane and can carry a conversation like a normal person?" He can't help the wistful tone his voice takes on when he says normal.
"Not really."
"Oh."
Anti-Wanda doesn't really like to speak to the patients. She doesn't like fraternising with anyone who isn't safe, and crazy people definitely aren't safe.
She turns and is about to leave when his voice—accented English, she thinks—rings out again. "Your name, what is it?"
"Anti-Wanda," she replies immediately, not stopping to wonder if she should be telling him.
When she turns back around to face him, he's standing right in front of her. She shrieks in surprise, jumping backwards.
He gives her a little wink. "Anti-Cosmo," after a mock-bow, he holds his hand out to her. "Pleased to meet your acquaintance."
She hesitantly reaches out her own, smaller hand, and shakes with him. His hand is not warm, but not quite cold either, its temperature hovering in that indescribable area.
"Will I see you again?" He asks, sounding not unlike a schoolboy after a first date with a pretty girl. Her aura flickers almost imperceptibly, the green suddenly becoming more dominant than the pink, but it switches back before Anti-Cosmo can make sense of it.
She nods slightly in response, not trusting her tongue. Then she turns for the final time and walks carefully out, the door clicking back into place behind her, and the last wisps of her aura fading along with Anti-Cosmo's smirk.
Anti-Cosmo heads back to his bed, ignoring the tray of food.
Her aura . . . he could watch it all day; the pinks and greens mixing, blending, swirling in an array of magnificence never seen before. It is beautiful. The shades call to him like a hunter's horn, whispering their melodic melodies into his tired ears.
Carefully, ever so carefully, because that squeak the bed make irks him to the point of madness—still no pun intended—he eases himself into a lying position.
He falls asleep and dreams of swirling pink and green glows, each dancing to the rhythm of a heartbeat.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Her heart pounds, her palms sweat, and she's sure she's red-faced. Why, she can't tell. It's because of that Anti-Cosmo, she thinks. That's probably why.
He's definitely a weird one. Even so, she feels drawn to him, like some outside force is trying to shove her—
No, she thinks, cutting off her thought mid-sentence. I'm not going back in there.
She marches up to her boss and tells him this, the unsettling rockiness of her stomach growing stronger with each hollow step. She also tells her boss that she refuses to go back in that cell, and should he tell her that she must, she shall resign immediately.
Only . . . it doesn't come to that. Her boss merely gives a slight shrug, and tells her he will get someone to take her place.
Feeling confused but relived, Anti-Wanda heads away, trying to shake all thoughts of the mysterious patient away.
Anti-Cosmo is most certainly not disappointed when she does not return. No, not at all. He barely knew her; he shan't miss her.
Even if she broke a promise. She told him she would come back. He sits on his creaky bed, silently sulking.
The next morning, a different nurse comes in. The new woman's aura is red, the colour of blood and roses mixed in a morbid cauldron. He does not speak to this woman, no, merely sets his gaze upon her in an attempt to unnerve her.
It works, as her aura darkens, the red swirling around her turning to a deep burgundy. He smirks at her as she scurries out, but that smirk vanishes as he notices a faint shimmer of pink and green through the door's crack.
It's her.
He is at the door before he even realises he's moving, and he jams a foot into the shrinking space between the door and its frame.
He estimates that he will have approximately one minute before the guards arrive to place him back into his cell, so he must move quickly. He starts to count the seconds.
60, 59, 58.
Anti-Cosmo yanks the door open, and walks swiftly but silently down the halls, following the only aura he has ever been completely and utterly infatuated with. He watches the colours as they swirl around her, melding together in a seemingly impromptu dance.
57, 56, 55.
He is completely hypnotised by her. No, not her, he corrects himself. Her aura. Not her.
54, 53, 52.
Halfway down the hallway, she stops as if she's heard a noise. If she has heard something, it isn't Anti-Cosmo's footsteps. No sir: he is as quiet as a chruch mouse. Maybe even more, because Anti-Cosmo does not squeak in an annoyingly high pitch.
51, 50, 49.
48, 47, 46.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Anti-Wanda turns around. Anti-Cosmo stands directly behind her, eyes twinkling with amusement and a corner of his mouth curved upward in a half-smile.
She shrieks, but he catches her by the arm before she can jump back, or run away, or faint.
37, 36, 35.
"What—?"
"You didn't come back," Anti-Cosmo says simply, childishly, as if she's committed the worst crime known to mankind. "You told me you would come back." To himself, he sounds like someone on one of those overly-dramatic dramas on the television.
34, 33, 32.
Confusion makes her crease her brow, which gradually relaxes as she tries to remember.
31, 30, 29.
Anti-Cosmo swears that he can smell something burning.
"I's sorry," she says, though he can tell she's not. She's stalling for time, that's what she's doing. He knows it; knows that look of suspicion and distrust well enough to recognise it anywhere.
"No, you're not," he replies matter-of-factly.
She pulls her arms free of his grasp. "Why does yah care?"
21, 20, 19.
"Why shouldn't I?"
She obviously doesn't know how to respond, so Anti-Cosmo continues on.
"Have you ever seen an aura?"
18, 17, 16.
"An arm-what?" She acts befuddled, but Anti-Cosmo hears the cautious edge to her voice and sees the flicker of a shadow over her rose-coloured eyes.
He blinks at her, noticing that her aura has stilled its swirling movement completely, looking not unlike stagnant water. If the water is pink and green. "An aura. You know what I'm talking about, admit it."
15, 14, 13.
She doesn't reply.
12, 11, 10.
Anti-Cosmo frowns. "I can see them too, you know."
Finally, she speaks. "Really?"
He nods.
9, 8, 7.
"Your aura is pink . . . pink with little green fibres here and there." Anti-Cosmo says, looking inquisitively downward. "What colour is my aura?"
6, 5, 4.
Anti-Wanda merely blinks at him, taking in every inch of him with her eyes. Anti-Cosmo can hear guards' boots clomping down the hallway rapidly, but he doesn't press the young nurse for a reply.
3, 2, 1—
The guards grab Anti-Cosmo by the arms, and drag him down the dimly lit hallway.
0.
The mastermind can hear Anti-Wanda's slightly shocked whisper from ten feet away; probably because it is more of a shout than whisper. "Green an' pink."
He is green . . . and pink.
She is pink . . . and green.
He mulls over this as the guards shove him roughly back into the semi-padded room, shutting the door securely behind them. Automatically, Anti-Cosmo goes to sit on the bed. He doesn't fold his hands in his lap, but instead lays down on the cool material and stares up at the roof.
He and Anti-Wanda are complete opposites. Completely different. How . . . interesting.
Anti-Cosmo knows plenty about auras. He knows that the colour of your aura determines your personality, knows that the darker your aura, the darker your mood, and, perhaps most importantly, knows that those whose aura's are opposite, are, well, soulmates.
He's seen girls with purple auras holding hands with boys with yellow auras, seen boys with red auras kissing girls with blue auras.
So now, since his aura is green and pink, and hers is pink and green . . .
Anti-Cosmo sighs, he supposes he should start planing their wedding. It could take a while, so perhaps it is fortunate that he will be stuck in this white cell for quite some time.
The debatably insane man smiles slightly; who would have thought that he would find his soulmate in one of the loony bins?
2124 words, 1 awesome psychopath, and a whole lotta craziness (no, the puns are still not intended). I really liked writing Anti-Cosmo here, because I could be as repetitive as I liked, and make him as creepy as I wanted. The creepier the better!
Oh, and the whole hospital name thing? Well, I did some digging, and found this: Mallory: An English surname, but derived from Old French malheure, meaning 'unfortunate' or 'unlucky'. So, the 13th Mallory Hospital is a very unlucky place ̶w̶̶h̶̶e̶̶r̶̶e̶̶ ̶̶I̶̶ ̶̶c̶̶u̶̶r̶̶r̶̶e̶̶n̶̶t̶̶l̶̶y̶̶ ̶̶l̶̶i̶̶v̶̶e̶̶.̶ that I created. Heh.
Again, I really can't tell you how sorry I am. Life's busy, and writer's block sucks. On the bright side, I think I may have cured this particular case of writer's block.
I don't deserve the reviews, but I love them anyway.