(no subject)

[shiromadoushi]

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!]

Comments

[scramasax]

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.

[shiromadoushi]

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

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

[scramasax]

"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...

The magic of mental autocorrect!

[shiromadoushi]

"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."

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

[scramasax]

...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.

[shiromadoushi]

"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.

[scramasax]

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.

[shiromadoushi]

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

[scramasax]

"But I can't -- ..." His voice wavered on attempt to push it to meet insistence with insistence.

There were no explanations that were not pathetically thin, or further tangling up the lines tied of existing excuse and evasion, none coming to mind assuming that this offer was acceptable - but of course it was, it was downright honorable!

[shiromadoushi]

"Can't what? You don't want to go home because you're afraid what you're parents are going to think seeing how far your illness has gone," Bakura pointed out. "That's it in a nutshell, isn't it?"

[scramasax]

"I've been gone for almost a month..." he said, as if, on this pattern, it had the faintest ghost of a chance of being taken to matter.

That was close to the truth. Bakura's point was the stronger and the less arbitrary.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura covered his face with his hand. "Goddamn Anthony you giant idiot..." he muttered, shaking his head before letting out a deep sigh. "Do they even know where you are? Or should I expect to see you on a milk carton?"

[scramasax]

"I call them often," Anthony, likewise, muttered, thick and effectively cowed and towed into weariness - with the matter and with himself - nibbling little holes in this occasion's layer of defense into which seeped stomach-knotting remorse.

Sorry that Bakura had to be hearing this, sorry that he'd been too weak and baffled not to let things become complicated, sorry on it crossing his mind, far closer to the middle in conscious sight, that whatever he had told them in any of the increasingly humming-tense and patience-thinning calls, in which he assured he was in medical care and - just as Bakura had said, in fact! - that they shouldn't have to see him like he was, couldn't know what they had or had not done or said without him.

[shiromadoushi]

"That's at least good..." Bakura sighed, leaning back in his chair. "A frigging month, holy hell..." he shook his head again. "How do you stand it?"

Annnd here I am five days later!

[scramasax]

"I've -- had to get used to it." The response came out fairly automatically and in a tone that was blank - one part reassurance and one part admittance, the former aspect one he found some thought to press. "It's not - like -- no one's understood; that helps."

*pat pat* Least you're here!

[shiromadoushi]

"But still.. it's your family. I turn into someone you don't wanna be near when I have to be away from mine," Bakura admitted, tapping on the armrest of his chair with a finger. "There has to be something you can do so things can work out..."

[scramasax]

At an internal tug, Anthony's shoulders shifted back; he trained his focus on the spot on the arm of the chair at which Bakura tapped. " -- I don't think that there is," he managed to say, cadenced and thick, shaking his head. "...I probably have to find a way to tell them that - I - can't go back... sometime."

A snag and quiver that he didn't even mind, through the swoop in his head. He wanted to go back. Nearly every force in him pulled him back and was pulled, and called, and demanded to by all thought and feeling that they knew very well he knew he consciously defied.

"I'm turning into a zombie." His eyes moved back to Bakura's face on that - it was the most frankly he'd expressed it, as well, and he did not want the point of it to go to waste; to not force his mother and father to know was surely the lesser of two, both quite painful, evils.

[shiromadoushi]

"But not the brain eating type, right?" Bakura countered, easily meeting Anthony's eyes in return. "As long as you're still you in your head, no matter how rotten the rest of you gets, as long as your head and your heart are in the right place, it shouldn't matter."

[scramasax]

"That's not the point -- thank you, but they can't -- see - " Eyes flicked away, and back. " -- 'how rotten' - I'll get." He was already tired, talking about this matter, but not daunted, at least not any longer. It was a weighty thought, but was being aired. "It's bad enough that everyone else will."

At least their collective, seeing what they had been seeing, taking what they had been receiving, could expect and take it for its meaning.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura sighed, leaning back in his chair again. "If families can deal with people with cancer and chemo and all that other crap, they should be able to deal with this," he half grumbled, almost sulking. "Worry about how bad it'll get when it gets that bad and go see them now while you can, you idiot."

[scramasax]

Anthony held the thought that this is not a similar situation. He left it quiet with little to follow through after it. It was another understood point, he figured, and one that was nonetheless being resisted for hopefulness - he bent to the "idiot" bit, as well; it was all well-intentioned, he was in perfect frame of mind to comprehend. "I'll think about it -- ...I'll see what I can do."

It was already difficult not to think about. It was not a promise that he would indeed determine anything that he with any nerve could do.

[shiromadoushi]

"Good. And if there's anything I can help with... you let me know, okay?"

[scramasax]

" -- Okay - ..."

Anthony took a wandering look away, and back. "Already -- ...I mean it - really - thank you, for everything you've been doing."

It came out ironed-out - smothered down, pressed thin, still tired, and with a component of desperation. It didn't matter how many times he swore assistance was unnecessary. The fact of the closeness of others at hand, affirmation of unity, was, through and beyond pride, something to take comfort in.