Straightjacket~Deathshipping

Chapter SIX

In the weeks that followed, I allowed Ryou Bakura to think we were getting somewhere. I myself even found a childish delight in the doctor's visits, having gone so far as to drop my attempts of playing mind games with him. Our communications were exchanged in that if he wanted me to tell him about my past or anything else I didn't like speaking of, he had to tell me about Yami Bakura.

"He was my first patient," Ryou said, pose relaxed into his chair. "Bakura was actually in this asylum, just as you, but because of a case of schizophrenia no medication could beat out of him. It took me two years, no, thirty months, for me to get him cured and out of here. After that we. . .stayed in touch. No big deal." His second-to-last sentence came with a pink flush and warm smile.

I could only imagine what sort of touches they were, as he didn't tell me more after that on that particular day.

Currently, I was glowering at fifty-or-sixty-something Bartholomew Stone and his struggling sandy goatee. In several hours, I had another session with Ryou, leaving me with no patience for my typical routine. Goatee and all, I was mentally murdering Stone.

"You've seemed distant lately," he croaked, one gnarled hand stroking his prosthetic knee. "Over the past two weeks, you've been moody, impatient and just quiet the rest of the time. Very unlike you, Mr Ishtar. Do you mind telling me exactly what you're thinking?"

"The fact that you get paid too much for your job," I fired off instantly. The old man sighed, body creaking with the motion.

"Do you think it has anything to do with the new medications Dr Bakura prescribed you?"

"I don't know." I bit away a grin, thinking fondly on the "medications" I'd been on for five weeks, since I'd told Ryou about the not-taking-my-pills thing. That Thursday, he'd come in late, clothes in quite a state, a rattling, mid-sized bottle of pills in one hand.

"I have a friend in Domino City, who also had another personality and he's an actor. Still had these." He shook the bottle. "Sugar pills, from a bit roll of a teen who overdosed. Since you aren't taking your pills, I don't want them illegally handed off when you get out. So." Then he bubbled on about what a blooming mess he was in.

"On that topic, how do you like him?" Stone asked, rusty lungs wheezing out, sharp, pungent bursts of air.

"Well," I said, clicking my tongue and fluttering my eyelashes, "he's such a little charmer! Oh, he's so totes daaaaaaaaaaaaarling, don't you know? What a sweetie!"

"Sarcasm aside, Ishtar." He "humph"ed, watery blue eyes glowering at me.

"That aside, I want to take him to bed," I said. The burning scowl I got from that was at least an acidic second-degree. But wasn't this the man that told me to speak honestly? While I only said it aloud to piss him off, I did want to lay Ryou, at least once for the pleasure of his thin body and innocent face. In this respect, I liked him, much unlike all previous therapists. Dr Bakura was unlike the rest.

That could be why I held such an affection for him beyond appearances.