Stained
Disclaimer: Not mine. Be grateful.
They're the first thing that catch your eye when you step into the room. Dark stains of crimson red splattered against off-white, screaming: look at what he did. Look at what he tried to do. There are too many of them, and it scares you to think about how old some of them might be. The pocket knife lies abandoned on the floor and you pick it up and slip it into your pocket without knowing why, but you hate seeing it just lying there, a careless reminder that still smells like his blood.
You feel nauseous already.
It's stuffy and hard to breathe, and you know it has nothing to do with the air. You leave the room anyway, just because you hate the sight of (his) blood. Isis is still here, of course; she asks you to go see him, please, see if you can make him talk. The last time you all visited, he barely acknowledged your presence, spent the whole time staring blankly at the ceiling, and you realized the only thing worse than seeing him distorted with anger and hate was seeing him with nothing at all.
You hate him for that. For pretending he didn't care, pretending he didn't just cut himself up so badly that he could have died. Hated how he could lie there so calmly while you were stumbling over yourselves.
But you agree to go because she asks you to, and you can't say no to her when she's (so desperate) like this. And you want to see him again too. You want to make sure he's breathing and seeing and hearing and smelling and feeling, even if he ignores you. You want to make sure he's alive, because even if his arms have healed, you think he might still be dying anyway.
Visiting the ward is awkward. Personality disorders, drug abuse, attempted suicide. He's in there. You wish he wasn't. The building feels like it's rotting, sick with the bitterness and anger and sorrow of the people inside it. Everything is white and it's so wrong you almost want to rip it off, tear at the walls until chipped paint buries itself under your fingernails.
(Malik's carpet was white. But you told yourself you wouldn't think about that anymore.)
You give your name, Ryou Bakura, and his, Malik Ishtar, to the nurse in the empty waiting room, and she leads you through a long hallway. The door you stop at looks no different from any of the others; she knocks on it gently, announcing your arrival, and gets no response, so she opens the door herself, and you shift beside her, suddenly uncomfortable in your skin.
You catch the faint flicker of his eyes as you step inside, and they stay a second longer than before, enough to make your stomach clench, and maybe, maybe–
You hate how you're not surprised when he looks away.
The nurse goes on her way and you close the door louder than necessary, just to snare his attention. This time, his eyes linger longer, following you as you take a seat on the edge of his bed and start talking. Because this is what you do. He listens and you talk and hope and pray for him to talk back. Saying – we all miss you, Yuugi-tachi sends his regards, something-something happened yesterday, Isis is so worried you know, it's killing her inside. Are they treating you well here, what about the nurses, are the psychiatrists helping any, why won't you talk to us – to me?
He's silent.
And you, you're tripping over your own tongue and ready to give up or break something in frustration, because god, you don't think you can take this anymore–
"You're not acting normal today," he says.
And suddenly you can't breathe again.
"You aren't either," you say, because he's talking, and you feel like crying.
You scramble for topics, anything, and he plays along, indulges you with quiet answers until you finally run out of things to say, and then you sit in heavy silence and watch him and try to sort out all the questions catalyzing a train crash in your head.
There's one that's always been there, lingering at the tip of your tongue until it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, and you bite your lip but that doesn't stop you from asking."Why did you do it?"
He looks at you – really looks at you, sends spider legs crawling up your spine. And he says, "It felt good."
And then you're angry, desperately angry, and you hate this, hate him. Asking – don't you know how much this hurts us, don't you know how it feels, do you even care?
No, you think, almost wildly. No, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't understand at all.
You fumble with the pocket knife you stole from his room, pressing cold metal to skin, and he's suddenly the most alive you've seen him since It happened, and he's alive with fear.
You press down and it hurts and he screams and there's a blur of motion, then the same nurse from before is dragging you out of the room, the knife in her pocket now. He stares after you with wide eyes that hurt to look at, and they stay there even after you've closed your own.
"Did he tell you to do this?" she asks as she bandages you up. She's mad, it's obvious. Her eyes are narrowed, and she reminds you of a cat.
But you're not a mouse. You glare back. "I wanted him to feel what I felt when he tried it."
"That was a very stupid thing to do."
But she still lets you see him again, except this time she stays in the room, watching you like a hawk. He's curled up around himself on his bed but looks up when you enter, and it's those eyes again, betrayal and confusion and regret and a storm of fuzzy emotions that you're afraid to try and untangle because you know you'll get lost in them.
You hate this, and you hate him, and you think you might hate a little of yourself, too.
His eyes follow you as you move to sit beside him on the bed. "Hello," you say.
He's quiet.
"I'm sorry," and your throat stings even though your eyes are dry. "I didn't– I shouldn't have..." You leave your words incomplete because you don't know how to finish them. Please, please pleasepleaseplease, but you don't know what you're asking for.
He takes a shuddering breath. "I know. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry; so, so, so sorry–" His knees are pulled up to his chest, hands fisted around pant legs until his knuckles turn white as he chokes on his apologies. It's the most you've ever heard him say since It. You wonder why the thought makes you sad. "I didn't mean to. I was never going to–never wanted to–I just–please–it felt good and it helped me forget and–"
"Shh..." you whisper, and pull him close, whispering sweet nothings and wondering who you're promising, him or yourself. "It's okay. It'll be okay. You'll be okay, you're strong and you can get through this and we're here and... Malik? Malik. It's okay to cry."
He leans on your shoulder and cries – quietly. The first tears roll down sun-tanned cheeks, and from where you're sitting–
–from where you are–
–they look like blood.