savetheearth | (no subject)

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Who: Bakura and those he gave his address to
What: An unofficial 4th party!
When: 7/4, after 3 pm
Where: Bakura's back yard.

The Bakura home was an older house in the older part of the city that had been kept up quite well, a pair of well tended flowerbeds flanking the porch steps. But it was the gate off the driveway that the partygoers had been directed to, leading to a fenced in backyard that was half taken up by a large deck and in ground pool.

There's a UFO grill set up, as well as a small stereo [that's really just Bakura's ipod plugged into a set of speakers] that's playing an odd assortment of pop, jpop, anime soundtracks and Jonathan Coulton. There's also three different things of sunscreen and three pictures of water, lemonade and ice tea set up on a small table, as well as various snacks.

[OoC: Subthreads will be set up, but feel free to make your own! Mingle about, threadjack, have fun!]

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Bakura smiled in an oddly warm fashion. "Don't need to thank me for that. Wouldn't be fair if you couldn't come hang out, right? Solves all problems," he nodded, leaning back in his chair. "...and it's stupidly lonely being solo," he admitted, twirling a soaked bit of his hair around his finger idly. "Kinda weird to realize it."

For years he had cut himself off from people, declaring quite firmly and angrily that he didn't need anybody but his family... after all, everyone was just going to leave him, why should he bother with them? But this was different... The easy bonds formed...

It was weird to reflect on, but the dread he always had felt coming back from Japan had vanished the instant they had come into Locke's airspace, even if it had taken until he stepped out of the plane for the flashbacks to hit.

He had people here now. People he actually was connected with and cared about.

It was weird.

The thought caused another swell of gratitude; in deference, Anthony left it verbally unexpressed.

He hadn't ever liked the principle of being alone, and since the first call to the network the scope of feelings of company and connection had crept in and focused narrower and narrower. The pulse in June had happened, and abruptly it had been drawn in scarce and acute as the light of a laser point.

Pity, too, was isolating. He wouldn't give the notion of rejection another thought, now, at least - even respect for the resolution of things that he'd understood to begin with aside, that sensitivity weakened, and invited further pity.

Today was a relief.

He understood inherently that "not knowing what one is missing" is a facet of in fact missing something, and taking the same relief in its return.

" - I'm sure..." he said gently, and set further comment down to rest. If even in a simple and essential sense, he assumed them to be in agreement. It would stilt rather than help.

What would be of further use on the other hand - with a sudden widened-eye blink something caught his memory, and his hand darted into his pocket for a slip of paper, found it, pinched it between two fingers and drew it out - this was far overdue!

It was neatly folded; less-neatly written, he knew.

"...Also -- er - Egyptian..." Turning slightly back to Bakura. " -- I tried remembering as much as I could about anywhere I could have read anything about it, but it's not much... -- I - can't - get to any... of my old books, to be sure about anything."

And so he'd written down whatever had come to memory with hilarious inconsistency - one title and author set, one title and an author's last name, an author name and notes of cover design, for seven possible books.

Bakura blinked at him. "More book of the dead stuff or...?" he asked, cluelessly.

" -- Some of it - perhaps." All at once he was mentally floundering. Getting to this had been too slow of him to be of value. He was embarrassing himself. "...I've had plenty of books; I remember some of these had -- passages - written. Transcribed or translated. I can't remember where they were taken from. Still. ...In case there might be - anything you haven't found yet. -- To help more with the reading."

To be honest, it had utterly slipped his mind that anyone else was looking up stuff. His own efforts in looking up things from Egypt and broken off swiftly when he realized he couldn't read the hieroglyphs that represented the language he had gained from the flashbacks. It'd pissed him off far too much for him to continue...

"Eh? Aaa!" he rubbed the back of his neck a bit sheepishly. "I haven't... actually been looking anything up for a while. Kinda got pissed and stopped," he admitted. "Thanks."

His expression blinked deer-in-the-headlights neutral once Bakura's reaction began - and then cracked slowly, steadily, into a beam.

As if to grab onto complete safety - "Again I hope it's - something! -- I can help you try to find these -- but I have to warn you that I can't tell which ones would - be the most good. ...Or any... I wish I could have checked myself and brought the right ones, but all my books are -- " He faltered. He meant "home", which for the time being, at least, it mustn't be. "...back -- with my family..."

Bakura nodded. "Library at the college is pretty good with tracking things down. A lot of the teachers do research so they're pretty used to it."

He paused, blinking over. "...Back with your family?" he repeated, head tilting slightly. Did that mean....?

Anthony took his turn to blink in cluelessness.

"Right." Small nod.

Where else would they be?

"...As in your house in the country or something?" Bakura pressed, frowning slightly.

Anthony's first thought was that that was a rather odd thing to say.

He opened his mouth slightly, to say "No - just at home" - when Bakura's look set in.

And he slowly froze, again, dead in the open.

The statement was revised: "No, -- I... I -- haven't been home," came out with a slight hitch in the middle and tense at the end, to tip out flat into the open to await judgment; he was already beginning to wince - would no one let this fact not be trouble...

Bakura's shoulders slumped and it was all he could do to keep from facepalming. "Are you seriously trying to hide this from your parents?" Of all the stupid...

" -- Shouldn't I?" In Anthony's tone was another despondent rise and drag along the fringe of a crack. There at the edge, on even Bakura was going to reproach him, awaiting the fact to break through to anything more.

Edited 2013-07-13 04:09 (UTC)

"Look..." Bakura sighed again, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Family is important. They're there to support you no matter how horrible shit has gotten and when shit is going down, the last thing you want to do is run away from them!"

Because you never knew if something horrible was going to happen and you'd never get to see them again....

One more sigh, the hand on Anthony's shoulder mover to push back Bakura's unruly bangs. "Where've you been staying anyway? And if you say you've been on the street I'm going to smack you upside the head for being an idiot," he warned.

A gentle reaction.

The hand on his shoulder settled Anthony back down into graveness. On its removal he picked back up.

"I don't know if how -- strange - this is will stay secret with them... I know -- it'll get worse."

Not "know", of course - but anticipated. First the statue in the Dead District had sparked that burn of yellow light that had driven him shaking to the ground - and then the statue at the gallery. Without any visible exception, there were patterns, and they, for everyone, held.

He stuck himself on that thought for a while to stay off of Bakura's second question. " -- I haven't been far away from the clinic," he said, in a resigned move to press against the wall from the full and, as of a certain apparent discovery by Dr. Strider, shamefully bastionless answer - with a minute anticipation for the knock on the head, simultaneously.

"Worry about it being worse when it gets worse," Bakura returned, frowning slightly as Anthony continued.

"... one moment." Bakura turned to look over at where his grandmother was. "Ne, Baachan? Kono baka no koto... boku no mae no heiya o yadoru?"

"Eh?" The woman blinked. "Ii kedo..."

"Ato de, ne? Arigatou, Baachan!"

Bakura turned back to Anthony with a grin.

Go ahead, Anthony. Ask him what that was all about~

That was not a denial that it will get worse.

But that second - was also a gentler reaction than expected. Assuming it was a reaction.

Anthony perked straight into alert curiosity. A look between Bakura and his grandmother, as she responded, and he responded back - feeling instinctively, gingerly for clues without understanding anything but a word of it in Japanese and knowing better, well enough that he didn't - the instinct of the nosy, on hearing words kept covered by comprehension.

Bakura had turned back grinning.

About what?

"...What is it?"

What was that all about?

"Spare room's open. You can crash there so you're not camping out on a cot in the dead zone."

Anthony stopped. Nothing more reactive, because as far as he was concerned he still did not no what had been said.

He looked over after Bakura's grandmother again. And blinked, with a slow dawning, back at Bakura.

" -- Is that what you asked her - ?" Another string of tumbled and dogpiled pressing behind that question, and were then pulled tumbling away again off into scattered-thin vacuum.

"No, I asked her something totally different, of course that's what I asked her. What, did you want a transcript?" Bakura nearly laughed.

"But what -- "

A break-off. The thoughts started to cohere again, and the "right" thoughts caught, and were reeled back in, one at a time.

" -- ...For tonight...?"

One night would be fine - in fact it would be excellent, the thought rang in the second he asked that, and he wasn't going to say no to that - but don't get ahead of yourself...

"If you wanna. No one's staying in it. I think you'll just have to move some of Grandma's yoga mats into the closets and change the sheets cause hell if I remember last time we had someone in that room, they're probably kinda dusty."

"If you're not going to be in your home, you should be in someone's."

...Should he, necessarily?

"Just for one night -- ...I don't - have to do - ...all that..." Half-insistence and half-asking, searching, it is only for one night, isn't it? He didn't want to presume, and in a self-scolding knot he did want to think he was presuming, just his own momentary awkward little fault, more than that he was letting things get harder - but that last sentence did sound bigger than that.

"Until you either find some place else that isn't a cot in an office or you actually go stay with your folks again," Bakura insisted. "And don't go worrying about being an inconvenience or anything else, I'm sure Grandma will find you chores or something to do," he added before Anthony could protest again.

Protest again he did anyway.

"But what -- will they think about my not - just going home? -- What were you going to tell them?"

A flat-out "No!" had swelled enormously in his head, and had been subsequently shocked stunned, paralyzed, and mired, pulling itself in the most ineffectual and imperceptible little twitches to get said. He did not actually want to say no.

"That's something for you to explain, not me~" Bakura grinned.

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pardon my mangled Japanese :D

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Pfeh how did I write "know" as "no" in that last tag. X_X

The magic of mental autocorrect!

Ma-a-a-a-agic...

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