Work Text:
"Mr… Nuys. Please, take a seat. How are you doing?"
The doctor's office is small - just a cubicle, really - with almost but not quite enough space for the wall-mounted desk and two vaguely cushioned chairs beside it, the hospital bed squeezed in on the other side like an afterthought. Vanitas glances over the clutter on the doctor's desk: an ageing computer, stacks of manila folders, a blood pressure monitor, a framed picture of the doctor with a sour looking little kid next to him. The window beyond the doctor's desk is cracked open as far as the safety mechanism will allow, letting in a sliver of the car park two storeys below. On the windowsill is an orchid which reminds him of his mother. Impossible to tell if it's real or fake.
Reluctantly he lets the door close behind him.
The doctor's eyes flick over the computer screen briefly; then he gestures to the chair and asks; "How can I help you?"
Go see the doctor, Vanitas thinks sourly, forcing himself through the two steps it takes to get to the nearest chair. For a moment all he can do is grip the back of the chair, the doctor watching him dispassionately. Go see the doctor! Well, I'm here, now what?
He says, his voice faltering something awful, "It's a mental health problem." He remembers the dent in the wall from throwing the TV at it last month. And he remembers laying in Riku's arms while Riku talked about antidepressants and therapy like they were as normal as cold medicine. He grips the chair more tightly. "Anger problems."
"I see," says the doctor. "Is this a recent issue?"
Vanitas bites the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to make eye contact with the doctor. "No. But it's affecting- it's. It's affecting my relationships. Losing my temper a lot." Defeated by the doctor's patient expression, he turns to the posters on the wall, cut open human bodies and food pyramids and tight annotations that swim in and out of focus. "I think I need-" He needs to unclench his jaw if he's going to get out more than a few strangled words. "I think I need professional help."
The doctor nods. "Please, sit. I'll ask you a few questions to help me decide what course of action would be most appropriate for you."
Vanitas tries to focus on his breathing the way Riku told him to but all it does is make him realise how shallow and shaky each breath is. He finally circles the chair and drops into it, fighting back a sudden memory of being in an office like this years ago, his Uncle next to him as he sat there in silent shame, the nurse stinging his injuries with peroxide like it was a punishment.
The first leaflet on the pile is a delicate shade of lavender with a picture of people standing at the entrance to a modern church building under the title 'ANGER MANAGEMENT COURSES AT ST DONALD'S'. The subtitle, printed in a cursive font which makes it even harder to read, says 'Learn to understand and manage difficult emotions with mindfulness and spirituality'.
Vanitas smooths it out on the kitchen counter and opens it up, finding pictures of people who don't look angry at all wedged between tight paragraphs of text. He bites his lip and starts at the top, underlining each word with his thumb like he's a pre-schooler and not a thirty year old man who shouldn't still be struggling with something as simple as sentences. He's not entirely convinced about the spirituality part, but the doctor said that this course was free unless he wanted a certificate of completion, and the benefit of saving fifty dollars or so at least gives him somewhere to start.
Realising his shoulders are tense and his jaw is squeezed shut like a tofu press, Vanitas skips the rest of the paragraphs and flips to the back of the leaflet. 'Courses are run regularly', it assures him under what he assumes is a list of the course organiser's credentials. 'Check our website stdonalds.rg.org for more details.'
Vanitas glances at his trashed laptop waiting to be taken down to the recycling centre.
"Point taken," he mutters. It seems a bit on the nose. Instead he dials the listed number, listens through the answer phone message, opens his mouth, and hangs up.
He decides not to go to St Donald's. Not that he doesn't believe in God, necessarily. He's just pretty sure that God has it out for him, and he doesn't want to piss Him off even more than he already has. Besides, there are a surprising number of other courses from the stack of leaflets the doctor gave him. One at the Radiant Garden Restoration Centre, which Vanitas didn't even know existed. A couple of pricier ones run by various therapists. A lot of people besides Vanitas are in need of anger management, apparently. He works his way painstakingly through the leaflets, separating out the meditation classes to deal with later. Riku's big on meditation. Riku talks about self affirmations and deep breathing and all kinds of other bullshit. Riku's got this whole thing under control, and Vanitas still has scabs on his knuckles from the last time his emotions flooded over him, devastating everything like a storm.
"You have to start somewhere," he reminds himself out loud. "You promised. Didn't you promise?"
It doesn't matter which course he goes on. He just has to take a step. Just pick one and show up and pray to whatever God he may or may not believe in that they don't give him even more leaflets.
"Jesus Christ. Fuck. There's no way I'm touching my toes. How do you do this?"
Riku, laughing, lays one sweaty palm on Vanitas' back and the other on his thigh, keeping him balanced. "You don't have to touch your toes. Just feel the stretch."
"Oh, I can feel it alright. Fuck."
"Sweep your arms up, and hold. Okay, back into forward fold. I've got you. Now right leg back for runner's lunge- alright, left leg then. Keep it straight. Head up."
"Jesus fucking Christ."
Into downward dog, which looks totally effortless when Riku does it draped in shafts of early morning sunlight, Vanitas staring blearily at his butt from his nest of bedding. Van tries to hold the position but his knees buckle and he feels stupid and inadequate and a little bit turned on as Riku's strong arms brace him. What he doesn't feel is anything close to zen.
"I'm too old for this."
Riku laughs again. "You just need practice."
He gives Vanitas a spare yoga mat because of course he has a spare yoga mat, and Vanitas kicks enough stuff out of the way to make space for it at his place, and mostly he just steps over it on the way to the bathroom for a hurried shower before work. But sometimes when he can't sleep he clumsily makes his way through a sun salutation - not that's it's really a sun salutation at four in the morning - and the annoying part is it actually kind of helps.
He told his boss he was getting a medical treatment, which is kind of true. The seconds tick by slower than a watched pot boiling. Vanitas wishes he was in the kitchen, prepping stocks and sauces and doing the last of the inventory checks before the lunch rush. He takes a deep breath, stuffy city air in through the nose and out through the mouth. The reception is just a glass door away. The fact that he wants to hit something just proves how much he needs to be here.
But it's pointless it's a waste of time it's useless all you will learn is what you already know they can't fix you they can't save you evil little boy-
In through the nose. Bitter car exhausts, musty concrete heat rising from the pavement, bird shit and dog shit and decay and hot oil from a food truck nearby. Out through the mouth. Vanitas takes the abused leaflet out of his back pocket like a talisman and smooths out the crumples, beating back a clamour of thoughts as he heads inside.
There are things worse than leaflets, as it turns out. Vanitas stares at the worksheet in his quivering hands. He stares at the twelve other people in the circle. Mostly men, some people the kind of hulking he'd expect to see on an anger management course, but mostly just regular people he wouldn't glance at twice on the street.
He stares at the worksheet and the worksheet stares back at him. The words are lumpy and blotchy over speckled photocopy static, scattering as soon as he tries to focus on them. No thumb for guidance. He can't trace the words like some kind of moron in front of all these people. He can't raise his voice and admit out loud that he can't even fucking read. Deep breaths. Fuck. His eyes jitter over the room, searching for escape.
"Keeping a thought journal is a wonderful tool in learning to understand our emotions," says the instructor, Daisy. She's a prim woman, upright, a bit of a pout in her thick lips, her white hair swirled close to her head. "I want you all to recall a recent time you felt anger and work your way through this exercise."
The pens come round. In the din of the quiet that settles over the room the rustling paper and scratching nibs seem to echo. Every beat of the clock overhead jolts him. The tap tap tap of shoes between each row of desks and he's suffocating, the unintelligible words taunting him and the humiliation of knowing he'll fail, of knowing when he slinks home that-
"Vanitas?"
For an awful nauseating moment he doesn't know what's happening. Then he sees Daisy, crouching to face him, and he realises she's said something, but all he can hear is the roar of shame. Deep breaths, she's telling him, deep breaths, and he hears himself snap, "I didn't sign up to be given fucking homework like I'm at fucking school again-" and his voice is too loud and everyone is staring and the tension in every muscle is at breaking point and he's losing control, he's losing control, he's losing control
"How did it go?" asks Riku, handing over an only passably made cup of coffee. He looks almost offensively awake considering it's barely seven thirty in the morning.
Vanitas thinks sourly, you're fucking psychic probably, why even bother asking? What he says is: "Fine. It was just introductory stuff. Relaxation techniques next week."
Riku sits next to him, the bed sinking under his weight, drawing Vanitas toward him like gravitational pull. The hardest part was forcing himself to go back to work after the humiliation of screaming at the instructor in front of all those other angry people who could at least manage to get through an hour without blowing up. It should be the bare fucking minimum. But God it reminded him so much of school that for a second he forgot he wasn't thirteen and yelling at his classmates, yelling at the teachers, coiled up so tight with shame that any tiny thing could push him off the edge.
He glances at Riku. He looks older with his damp hair swept away from his face, the water darkening the silver to grey and drawing out his startling eyes. Why bother going to the ocean, Vanitas thinks, when he could drown just the same in those eyes of his?
Riku said once that he had a hard time at school, but Vanitas finds that hard to imagine. Riku who goes out for runs at dawn and breathes deep and slow and is just about the most disciplined person Vanitas has ever met. He tries to imagine Riku ever losing control the way he does, kicking and screaming like something barely human, and the thought is so incongruous that for a second he feels sick.
Riku says, "Want to join me for yoga?"
"No. Ugh. Fine." Vanitas puts his mediocre coffee on the bedside table and reluctantly unfolds himself from his cocoon of bedding. You don't have to work miracles, he thinks to himself as he lets Riku manhandle him into position, biting back laughter at the wonderful feel of those warm damp palms against his skin. Because a miracle is what it would take to make him into anything that Riku could love. You just have to take one step at a time. That's what Daisy said. You just have to fool him. You just have to fool him long enough to-
To what? He feels the stretch as he folds towards his toes, still impossibly out of reach. He won't think about it. He can't. He just has to survive each day as it comes.
The universe, Vanitas is pretty sure, is actively trying to spite him. It takes everything to show up at the Radiant Garden Restoration Centre and even more everything to actually go inside, and that's only to take the fifteen torturous steps to the reception desk and fumble an excuse about wanting to know what to expect before each session as he asks for the anger management course materials in advance.
The receptionist asks for his email address and he almost screams. He gives them the one for work and prays nobody thinks to check the computer in the back office in the time it takes to rush across town, practically running, and arrive at the restaurant. The printer jams halfway through because of fucking course it does, and then he can't even find the spare paper, and at least all it takes is a glower for one of the waitstaff to immediately retreat from the office. He deletes the email, crams the print outs into his bag, and gratefully finds a cut of meat to butcher.
A few plates might have ended up broken in the process of muddling through the worksheets for session two, but at least by the time he's sitting in a plastic chair counting the rather thinner crowd he doesn't feel like he's about to fail an exam. Just skin-crawlingly embarrassed, but he can handle that, probably. Daisy talks about mindfulness and centres of calm. She takes suggestions, working her way round the chairs - gardening, DIY, walking the dog, running, that kind of thing - and when it comes to him he even manages to look up and say, "Coffee."
At home he has a manual grinder that's stiff to operate. It takes about two minutes to grind the beans, about as long as the water needs to get to temperature, and then there's the crisp filter paper and the steam that rises and the rich dark scent of the coffee and the splash of milk and clink of the spoon and the heat in his palms. There is no situation that can't be improved, even if only very slightly, by making a cup of coffee.
Daisy hesitates, and then says, "Well, I wouldn't recommend over-consumption of caffeine," and writes 'coffee (decaff)' on the flipchart.
Vanitas, managing his anger quite admirably, only mutters: "Oh, fuck off," as the circle of suggestions moves on.
(The baby arrives. After regular text updates throughout the evening that Vanitas barely reads, Riku calls at 3 AM to share the news. He sounds like he's been crying, despite the fact that it's not even his baby. 'She's beautiful,' he says, as Vanitas fills his cafetiere for the second time that night. 'She's so tiny - healthy tiny, I mean, the tiny babies are meant to be - do you want to come by tomorrow morning? To meet her?'
And Vanitas thinks about a lot of things he doesn't want to think about and the coffee burns his throat and he buys himself a little more time with, 'maybe when Kairi gets home.'
They call her Naminé. Riku sends a picture to Van's phone and there on the tiny screen is an incongruously pale little thing swaddled in blankets, and the phone leaves yet another dent in the wall but through some miracle of engineering doesn't break.)
"So how was this week's session?"
"Fine," says Vanitas, guardedly. His attention is on Naminé, her pink skin and pinker eyes and whisper of white hair. Riku's been mistaken for her father several times already, which even Vanitas has to admit is kind of hilarious. Everyone agrees she looks just like her parents - albinism aside - but as far as Vanitas is concerned she just looks like a freshly scrubbed désirée potato.
"How are you finding it? The course, I mean. Is it helpful?"
Naminé is half awake, suckling quietly for now on a pacifier, watching Vanitas with an expression he swears is judgemental. Riku doesn't seem aware that he's bouncing her gently. His hands make her seem even smaller, so very fragile, so breakable.
It hadn't even really occurred to Vanitas that Riku could be paternal. He'd never thought to ask. If Riku wants kids it's all over.
It's all going to be over sooner or later regardless, imagine thinking they'd even get as far as-
"Yeah," Vanitas lies. "Yeah, it's good. I'm breathing so fucking deeply now."
Session Three: Childhood Causes of Anger. He's such a piece of shit. He didn't even show up.
"This is stupid."
"I know," laughs Riku, "But it works." He angles Vanitas' shoulders back to the mirror. Vanitas scowls at his reflection. If facing himself in a mirror is bad enough, it's nothing compared to when Riku's leaning over him in all his flawless smooth-skinned beauty, accentuating the bags under Vanitas' eyes and the scuff of badly shaven stubble on his cheek. He looks like a mess compared to Riku, and the only self-affirmation coming to mind is 'you are way, way out of your depth, and any fucking minute this gorgeous sweaty idiot is going to realise it'.
"Go on," says Riku. "Five positive things."
Vanitas' horrible yellow eyes stare incredulously back at him.
"You can cook," he affirms. He's starting to consider the possibility that Riku's actually a sadist. Floundering, he adds: "You can bake pretty well." And: "You're passable at butchery."
"No. Positive things. And those all come under cooking."
"Fantastic at blow jobs."
That makes Riku roll his eyes, but it also makes him smirk.
"Funny."
"You're supposed to be telling yourself, not me. I already know you're great."
Vanitas manages to keep the disbelief out of his face. If Riku's dumb enough to think that there are even five whole positive things about Vanitas he's not about to pop that particular bubble. He meets his sneering reflection and lies transparently, "You're funny. You're smart. And you're a great boyfriend."
Mountain. Forward fold. Half lift. Forward fold. Runner's lunge, plank, downward dog-fuck- upward dog, downward dog again? Downward dog again. Dog hacking up a furball, more like. Or is that cats? Runner's lunge, forward fold. Mountain.
Yoga? It should be called torture by contortion. Jesus.
The problem is all this relaxation stuff only works when Vanitas is already calm. When the anger takes over he doesn't want to pretend he's a tree, he wants to break things. It's fucking infantile. The fourth session comes and goes and Vanitas lays on the floor struggling to even breathe, let alone breathe deeply. At least Riku doesn't see the worst of it. He doesn't know how much crockery Vanitas cycles through, although he sees the bruises on his knuckles and feels the bumps on the back of his head where his hair's beginning to thin, and that's bad enough.
The course runs every three months. He can catch up, and in the meantime he's got the worksheets. The fucking homework. Maybe starting from scratch would be beneficial: he'd get off on the right footing this time, be prepared for words on a badly photocopied page, actually manage to listen to anything the instructor said. In the meantime he can go to one of the meditation classes, get in touch with his inner zen, master the art of going five whole minutes without thinking something awful. He's even got Riku's self help books to work through (or at the very least their contents pages). Riku doesn't need to know the details. It's just a logistical delay.
Logistical delay, Vanitas' practically non-existent ass. What it is is a lie, another fucking lie stacked in a trembling tower that could crush him at any moment because Riku doesn't have the decency to take him at his word when he says that he's fine. Because Riku cares too much.
(Because he cares at all.)
He wakes to Riku's alarm, to the delicate pastel swirl of ocean on Riku's bedspread, to Riku's hair coming undone from its braid and Riku's tender little kiss on his forehead and he squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a groan that makes Riku laugh, and when Riku carries him complaining to the kitchen he thinks his chest could burst from the wonderful, incomprehensible thrill of it.
He doesn't know if he believes in God, but he believes in Something, a Something that saw him cycling meaninglessly through days filled with work and little else, and offered him one last chance in the shape of an unreasonably beautiful if also digestively challenged man, and he swears on whatever may or may not be Holy that this time he won't fuck it up.
It's Sora who says it, ever so gently, which makes it worse. Kairi's in the other room with Naminé, who's screaming like she's being caned. Riku's arm is around Vanitas' shoulders, a gesture which is probably supposed to seem comforting, but Vanitas can feel how tense his muscles are. Ready to wrestle him back under control at any moment.
Sora touches the back of Vanitas' hand tenderly and says, "Van, I really think you need to go back to the doctor. The anger management course is a great start, it really is. But I think this is more than just anger."
What it is, Vanitas thinks, is fucking psychotic. But they'd never let him near them again if they knew that for a moment he didn't even know where he was, that the room was suddenly cavernous and the smell of cotton air freshener was overwhelming and his body was crawling with cockroachlike terror. Even now the memory of it seems to pop and splutter at the periphery of his consciousness like a pot coming to boil.
"Deep breaths," says Sora. "One... Two... Try again, in through the nose, one... Two... Three... Four... That's it, that's it."
Fuck Daisy and her fucking decaff, Vanitas closes his eyes and imagines the motions of each step of making coffee. The loud crackle of the grinder, the kettle rattling, the crisp paper and pungent coffee beans and steaming water. He feels a little calmer. The pain across his lower back subsides, replaced by a dull ache in his forehead and his left knee. He doesn't even remember hitting them against anything. He barely remembers anything at all.
Coffee.
"I'm." His mouth is dry. He licks his lips and tries again. "I'm not good with babies."
"Oh, Van," says Sora, impossibly kindly. "You should have told us."
The gong chimes, a long resonant sound that lingers at the very edge of Vanitas' hearing. He cracks an eye open surreptitiously. Everyone else seems extremely meditative. Vanitas wonders how they manage it, when half of his thoughts are furiously attempting to catalogue everything he did wrong this week/month/life and the other half are doing an incredibly bad job of reminding him to sit up straight, on account of being distracted by the chaos of the first half.
He picked the Radiant Garden Buddhist Centre because it's within reasonable walking distance of his house, the website had a video that saved him the struggle of several paragraphs on the 'about' page, and they do communal meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He doesn't know the first thing about Buddhism, except that maybe reincarnation is involved, which doesn't make him feel especially spectacular. If he's reincarnated that raises the possibility of his life being punishment for something he doesn't even remember, and that means there might not be anything he can do in this life to prevent it.
Or is that Hinduism?
Vanitas hopes it's Hinduism.
He is absolutely not managing to pay attention to the meditation.
After The Incident With Naminé, Riku sat him down on Sora and Kairi's spare bed and told him that he loved him, no buts. Then he paused for a very long time, and Vanitas braced himself for an except or an although or a however. But in the end he sighed and said, "Look, I get it. I know you don't want to talk about how bad it is. I didn't either when things were really bad for me. I didn't want anyone to realise how much I was struggling. But. You need to talk to someone, Van. If not me, then Sora or Kairi. And Sora's right. You need therapy."
The gong sounds again and the instructor says something about fingertips and breaths and Vanitas doesn't really listen. He just tries to keep his breathing deep and steady. He's supposed to be letting his thoughts arrive and leave as they happen or something, acknowledging each in turn. Except the problem is they tumble over each other in a mad crush and he can barely separate them. The sound of Naminé screaming taking him back a decade and a half to a place to a beating to an awful resentful silence to just silence empty and deafening to he's got to get Xaldin to find a better supplier for shallots because last week half a dozen of them were no good to lunch for Riku maybe this week he'll try making onigiri with salmon pâté Riku's fine with salmon as long as it's cooked to shit he's supposed to be meditating to coffee, at least his thoughts slow down enough to think about coffee. He'll have time for a cup when he gets home and the golden Buddha in the shrine stares calmly down at him and he realises he's slouching again.
The saving grace of meditation is that nobody knows he's terrible at it and nobody tries to talk to him about his feelings. He drops ten dollars in the donation box and avoids someone who looks suspiciously like they're trying to approach him and walks home in the soupy summer weather.
He goes to another meditation. He makes an appointment with the doctor and misses it. He feels so awful he thinks he's going to put his head through a window and then Riku texts to ask if he wants to come over after work, he'll leave the deadbolt open, and as Vanitas creeps through the dark apartment he thinks fiercely I can do this. I can get help. I can get treatment. I can earn this relationship.
If you want something badly enough, if you're willing to do whatever it takes, if you work hard enough, what's stopping you?
Riku sleeps like a brick. He doesn't even budge as Vanitas climbs in next to him, rearranging his arms so one is tucked under a pillow and the other is draped across Vanitas' chest. Apparently Riku still takes antidepressants. He says they can help a lot with mood swings.
'Mood swings' is an understatement if Vanitas ever heard one. He feels so safe and protected and out of nowhere he remembers a time when he crawled into bed with someone else wanting to feel safe and protected, not knowing they were so close to the end of everything, and even though Riku snorts in his hair and pulls him a little closer to his chest Vanitas wants to howl like he's been ripped open, he wants to feel the crush on his throat and it be the last thing he feels, he wants to die so fervently his heart might just give out from wanting.
And then... and then, like they always do, the floodwaters recede. And he's just lying in his boyfriend's arms again, drained and exhausted and wondering when the hell all of this will stop.
"The jackfruit's fine, I guess, but don't fucking call it vegan pork is all I'm saying," Vanitas says, after five minutes of saying a lot of other things about the jackfruit besides. Kairi nods understandingly, although Van doesn't think she really listens to anything he says. "Anyway, the barbecue eggplant recipe is better. If you want a pulled pork taco don't be a god damn vegetarian."
He's missed meeting Kairi in the plaza for lunch. Not that he doesn't love getting lunch with Riku, but Riku can only eat about five different things on a good day, and besides Vanitas cares more about accidentally poisoning him than Kairi. Before the chaos of Naminé they were visiting a new restaurant or food truck almost every week, reminding Vanitas how much he used to enjoy trying new dishes with someone else to bounce his thoughts against.
"I think the jackfruit was good as its own thing," is Kairi's diplomatic assessment. "Over seasoned, if anything."
"The seasoning was fine. They didn't marinade it long enough."
The heat is beginning to subside, only a faint haze left over the plaza's brickwork. Van will still need to shower before work, though. There's plenty of time. Maybe he'll even do some yoga. He finds a trashcan to stuff their napkins in. He paid his fifty five dollars for the next anger management course. The print outs are crumpled somewhere down the back of the sofa, but he's got time to go over them before the course starts again. He'll be prepared and he won't freak out and he won't skip any sessions this time and he'll manage his anger and then the guilt that Riku loves him under false pretences will finally start to subside.
Except. God, he doesn't know if he's strong enough to do it.
"I guess I'd better go pick up Naminé," says Kairi, glancing at her watch. "You're still on for next Tuesday? It's just Aerith, Tifa, and the kids. Cloud can't make it. No pressure to cook, of course."
"I can cook." It's easier that way. Vanitas is thinking about making a bulgur wheat salad, maybe with flatbreads again so he can stay in the kitchen as long as possible avoiding talking to Sora and Kairi's friends.
"And if Naminé's too much you can step out at any time."
"Yeah, yeah." He hates that Kairi thinks he doesn't like Naminé. She's right, but that only makes it more shameful. Yuffie's easier to handle - six, so she doesn't scream, just asks him dozens of questions and tells him incomprehensible stories and doesn't seem to mind that he doesn't do much in the way of replying. Denzel is younger and mostly just stares at people. The hardest part is honestly the challenge of not saying fuck within their range of hearing.
Kairi gives him a hug and he lets himself sink into it. How did he ever survive three years without being hugged?
"Take care of yourself, Van."
"Yeah, whatever." But as she's turning to go Vanitas blurts out, "I need a favour."
"Of course, hun. What do you need?"
"I need you to not tell Riku."
Kairi takes his hand. Her nails are pink, chipped. Her skin is awfully soft.
"Of course," she says again, and Vanitas believes her.
"I missed a couple of the anger management classes," he admits, which is half true. "I want to make them up and the course is running again in a couple weeks. And." He regrets saying anything. It's the simplest thing in the world, just fucking showing up, and if they know he's failing at the first hurdle what hope will they have left for him? She'll warn Riku and he'll cut his losses, find a boyfriend who isn't deranged, it's not like it would be hard with Riku's gorgeous looks and his tender little smile and the way he moans during sex, at least when he manages not to make himself anxious enough to throw up, and Vanitas will go back to feeling nothing and kind of hoping that he gets hit by a streetcar-
"You want me to come with you?" asks Kairi.
"God," Vanitas whispers. "Please."
She hugs him again and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop his breath from hitching as she murmurs that little nickname of his. "Van," she says, "Don't ever feel ashamed to ask for help. We're your friends. That means we're here for you. Okay?"
What Vanitas almost says is that all he ever feels is shame, but then he would have to tell her what he's so ashamed of, so instead he just counts out a deep breath and replies wholly untruthfully, "Yeah. Okay."
Meditation again. Vanitas definitely isn't getting any better at it, but he thinks he likes the routine of it regardless, the walk along the overgrown old canal where the rumble of traffic seems faraway and the feeling of serenity that doesn't exactly seep into him but does at least make its presence known as he steps through that worn red arch. He likes the golden ornaments and the decorative scrolls in a language nobody expects him to understand, and the clear, precise sound of the singing bowl like a fresh citrus note sounding each section of the meditation.
He always comes in a couple of minutes late so he doesn't have to be part of the mingling crowd, just slipping into the back of the room and finding a spot a little set away from everyone else. He can't avoid being accosted by Buddhists on the way out though and over time he accumulates various leaflets and newsletters and flyers. He doesn't really want to learn about Buddhism - he'll leave religious study to people with a modicum of intelligence - although he does buy a little Buddha statue in the gift shop. The statue's eyes are closed peacefully and one arm is raised in a gesture of welcome, or something, and in front of his crossed legs is a little dish, presumably for incense or offerings. For a few days Vanitas uses it for his keys. Then he moves it onto the kitchen windowsill and gives it pinches of whatever he's cooking with: rice, flour, salt or spices, and at least once a day a coffee bean. He thinks of it as a little grace, because although he could take or leave Christianity and definitely leave church he likes the way Kairi and Sora give thanks before every meal, even if Riku rolls his eyes and only goes along with it because he loves them.
He books another doctor's appointment, this time actually making it to the office. Riku told him to ask for a psychiatric assessment, which are possibly the hardest two words he's ever had to say. The doctor asks him a long list of questions about his mood and his soul sinks deeper and deeper into the pit of his stomach with every answer. The doctor tells him he'll get a letter in a few days about the referral and gives him a leaflet for a crisis helpline, which isn't especially encouraging. He adds it to the ever-expanding pile at home without reading it.
"Thanks for waiting," says Vanitas, as Kairi claps her paperback shut and rises from her seat. "You didn't have to."
"It's nothing," Kairi assures him, patting his back. They break out into the thick, heavy afternoon air, Vanitas breathing a sigh of relief. Despite his failure the first time around, Daisy was encouraging, even going as far as congratulating him for attempting the course again. One session down, five to go. He feels almost like he can actually do it. "You wanna talk about it, or go get a coffee?"
Vanitas grimaces. "Coffee."
"I really should be thanking you," says Kairi as they fall into step on the sidewalk. "This was the perfect excuse to have an hour to myself. I can't remember the last time I actually sat down to read anything." Vanitas hums noncommittally: the last time he sat down to read a book was probably under duress in sixth grade. "I love Naminé more than the whole world," Kairi continues, "But ooh, sometimes when she's being difficult I just wanna..."
She mimes a choking gesture, and then she laughs.
"Thank God for Sora and Riku. It takes a village, etcetera." Vanitas must be making a face, because she adds: "Don't worry, I'd never actually hurt her. All Moms feel this way sometimes."
Vanitas swallows, his mouth suddenly dust, and manages a choked agreement: "Well. Thank God for Sora and Riku."
For a fraction of a second he considers opening his mouth and admitting: I had a baby brother, and sometimes when he was being difficult I wanted to...
He doesn't say it, but he lets himself think it, and for the first time in years all he feels is sadness.
Movie night at Sora and Kairi's, half asleep in Riku's arms and Kairi completely asleep on Sora's shoulder, the two men talking about something or other in quiet tones. Vanitas has no idea what's happening on the screen, the subtitles moving by too fast to pick out more than the odd word.
He sits in the comfortable warmth of Riku's body and chews over something Daisy said to him. He was frustrated, at his difficulty keeping up with the session despite having attended once already, at the endless struggle with all those shapeless formless words, at Daisy and the other participants and mainly himself. And she said: "You have to meet yourself where you are, not where you think you should be."
She followed this up by saying a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, which she'd said before, and which Vanitas resents. He doesn't want to think about the thousand miles when each step is already a marathon. But she has a point about meeting himself where he is. He can't take any steps at all if he doesn't acknowledge where he's starting out.
He peels himself off Riku's chest and glances into those beautiful eyes, dusky in the low light. Riku kisses his forehead wordlessly and Vanitas feels the automatic quirk of his lips into a smile.
Let him take care of you, he reminds himself. Meet yourself where you are.
He holds Riku's hand on the walk home, which Riku probably doesn't care much for, but he needs the grounding Riku provides. Round the back of the apartment building and up the stairs and into the stuffy gloom. Riku cracks a window, letting a little of the evening inside.
As he puts the kettle on the stove for coffee (decaff, ugh), he runs over sentences in his mind, getting accustomed to the shape of them. Where he is is alone and afraid, protecting the rotten core of himself from harm - and from help. He won't say all that to Riku yet, though. One step at a time.
He brings the coffee into the bedroom, waiting for Riku to finish brushing his teeth. He comes out in boxers and a sleeveless shirt that stretches over the curve of his chest and stomach, which he flexes into tautness without seeming to realise when he notices Vanitas noticing him.
"Show off."
Riku snorts a breath of laughter. "Shush." He pushes Vanitas across the bed even though he could easily have climbed in on the other side, and then they're laying together in a lazy embrace and Vanitas thinks tomorrow, I'll say something tomorrow, there's no point breaking the spell when he's about to sleep anyway, and then he thinks, the thing about tomorrow is that it's always a day away, and he thinks meet yourself where you are, not where you think you should be.
He says: "Riku."
"Uh huh."
Not everything. Not even close. But somewhere closer to the starting line, beyond which he's barely even begun to inch. He distracts himself with a sip of too-hot coffee. Let him take care of you.
"This is really hard," he admits, flinching at how weak his voice sounds. He feels that familiar anger crawl up his throat and perseveres through the acrid taste of it: "I got a referral from the doctor. About a diagnosis." He realises his hands are gripping the coffee cup so tightly he half expects it to break. The discomfort in his palms distracts him from the discomfort in his chest, though. "I think I need to call to make an appointment." Riku is stroking his hair, not saying anything. How many times has he said if Vanitas needs help all he has to do is ask? Why is it so hard?
Because he should be able to read a letter. He should be able to book a fucking appointment and show up and answer their questions and get a bunch of acronyms telling him what's wrong with him, he should be able to make it to anger management classes at the very fucking least, he should be able to-
"You're doing really well," says Riku, softly. "It is really hard. When I was first trying to get treatment, I-" Vanitas recognises suddenly the way his voice catches. "Well, at first I couldn't afford therapy, not with my deductible being what it was, so I was trying to work out of self help books and... sorry, you were talking."
Vanitas breathes, imagining the sound of the singing bowl during meditation, the way it resonates like a slow exhale.
"No," he says. "Keep going."
Riku doesn't reply right away. He looks around the room, as if unfamiliar with the mismatched furniture and the tidy laundry basket and the water bottle and charging phone on the bedside table. Then he says, "Honestly, Sora and Kairi had to drag me to appointments to begin with. I felt like... It felt as if all I was doing was listening to people telling me all these things that were wrong with me. Things I couldn't imagine having the strength to fix. But it does get easier. Once I found a medication that worked, and a therapist who charged scaling rates that I could actually afford. And I would never have done it without Sora and Kairi."
That surprises Vanitas. He knows the three of them are close - closer than Vanitas had imagined friends could ever be - but Riku is... "But you're so self-sufficient."
Riku actually laughs. Not just his usual little snort - actual all-out laughter, his stomach tensing and his free hand reaching first to cover his mouth, then run his fingers helplessly through his hair as if Van's words have swept him off guard like a sudden gust of wind. It takes him several breaths to compose himself.
"Oh my God. Van. You've got it all wrong. I'm totally useless on my own. Without them, I'd be-" he stops suddenly, looking at Vanitas with an expression that's impossible to place.
"You'd be what?"
Riku doesn't answer; instead he says, "I don't want you to think you have to do any of this on your own. I know it's a lot. I've been through it, and..." he falters, glances away, his slim eyebrows furrowing. "Sorry. I still find this really hard to talk about."
Vanitas lays with the silence. Beneath his palms Riku's skin is warm and delicate. Finally he admits in a whisper, "I don't know where to begin. Talking about it."
Riku pulls him close, leaning over to put the half-finished coffee on the bedside table, his chest for a moment pressing against Van's. He doesn't know if he's ever felt so vulnerable, and he's terrified, but Riku kisses his cheek and before he has a chance to say anything Vanitas kisses him back, Riku submitting like he's irresistible. Several kisses later Riku murmurs into Van's lips, "Are you trying to distract me?" and Van murmurs back, "Not trying. Succeeding." as he rolls onto Riku's chest and kisses him some more.
He's not ready to talk about his feelings. But admitting that he's not ready is meeting himself where he is, or something, and more importantly Riku's making that sound in the back of his throat again as Van's hands trail lower underneath his shirt.
He tells Kairi he couldn't get off work for the session on childhood causes of anger. He says there's a big group coming in for lunch and he has to be there to prepare the specials. He says it was one of the classes he did the first time, anyway.
But he does admit to Daisy that he's not ready for it yet, and that he'll be back for the following session. While she does try to encourage him to attend anyway, she doesn't chide him or get angry or threaten to kick him off the course completely.
At work his thoughts buzz like flies around the scum of his past. Childhood causes of anger. He gets it from his Mom, his Mom with the smile that can disappear in an instant and a temper whose hair-triggers he never truly managed to decode, and she's as much of a bitch as she was when she signed them over to their Uncle. He can't bear to sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair and hear Daisy politely explaining to him that there's no escape from genetics.
He knows he's on edge and the other cooks know and they mostly steer clear of him. He focuses on cooking, counting his breaths as much as he can, dragging his thoughts back to pork cutlet and roasted aubergine and pan-fried noodles every time they turn, like bloodhounds seeking weakness, to all the things that could pull him apart.
"I can do Thursday," Riku says, looking at his phone. "If you don't mind Naminé being with me until eight."
Vanitas almost snaps then don't fucking say you're free! But he manages to catch the fury rising in him before it's more than a bubble. Step one, distraction: he counts a slow breath, focusing on relaxing his jaw and unclenching his fists. Manifesting calmness. The fact that Riku's on the other side of the picnic bench, sipping his iced tea and blatantly waiting for Vanitas to wrestle himself back into the form of a reasonable person makes it harder, but eventually Vanitas manages to progress to step two: revisiting. Why is he angry? Because Riku's asking too much, because he can't meet Riku's expectations, because he's a piece of shit who can't even tolerate a few hours with anything that reminds him of-
Hold up. Scale back. Be rational about this. He knows you're not great with Naminé. If it's too much you can just leave the room. It's only for a couple hours. It's only for a couple of hours you should be able to manage this it shouldn't be a big deal if you weren't so fucking- wait. Fuck. You're getting off track and he's still waiting for you to answer.
"Hang on," Vanitas manages to say out loud. Riku nods and touches his arm gently, which helps a little and also a little makes him want to curl up and die in a pool of his own embarrassment.
The theory is that by stepping back and considering the sources of his anger, he can combat them. That's what Daisy said, anyway. Not reacting to his racing heartbeat or tensing muscles or burning chest, but to the insecurities lurking underneath. And he's working on it. God, he's working on it. The problem is that he still sucks at doing any of it in real time.
It makes sense that Naminé puts you on edge, he reminds himself, trying to dig past the tangles and get to the heart of the anger, given your general anxiety around things that are loud and precious and breakable and remind you of your childhood. That doesn't make you a monster (probably). Riku doesn't hate you for it (yet). He isn't sure if he believes any of that, but he repeats it mentally anyway, because Riku swears that if you tell yourself something enough times it eventually sticks. And Riku is a functional person who tells himself he's capable and talented and handsome every morning in front of the bathroom mirror, probably not realising Van can hear him, so maybe there's some truth in it, even for someone like Vanitas.
"Okay," he says finally, cringing at how much time must have passed. "Thursday. I can pick something up and get to yours by seven."
"Great. I look forward to it." Riku smiles and squeezes Van's arm and miraculously he feels calm enough to smile back.
Of course he's not great at it yet. He's had thirty years' practice at getting angry and only about six months of learning not to. You don't get good at cooking by attempting a Thanksgiving banquet for three dozen people. You have to master the basics first. What he just did is the anger management equivalent of soft boiling an egg.
If nothing else, Daisy's course has helped him get really good at food-based metaphors.
On the kitchen counter there is a bottle of pills, a sheet of paper tight with medical language, a handwritten dosing regime from the psychiatrist, and a dark blue booklet that says in large, accusing letters: BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
They've been sitting there untouched for a week already. The problem is he's supposed to read the supplementary information before starting the antidepressants, and every time he even thinks about looking at the tiny dense text the monster inside him begins to stir. Besides, it's the start of the unstoppable slide into the holiday season, and juggling increasingly long hours at the restaurant with Riku is challenging enough, let alone trying to do anything about his mental health as well.
As for the booklet, he can't bring himself to open it. He hasn't told Riku. The psychiatrist didn't give him a formal diagnosis. She said something or other about treating it not as a judgement, but a tool for understanding - the first step towards treatment. But Vanitas looks at the words 'personality disorder' and wonders what part of him isn't supposed to feel judged by them. Not that he didn't already know it, but the name makes it more real somehow, more immutable. The psychiatrist said that she would only give him a diagnosis if he'd find it helpful, which is some kind of bullshit. A broken thing is a broken thing whether you admit it or not.
Vanitas picks up the pill bottle and rattles it distractedly. He should probably go back to bed - he needs to be at work at eight sharp tomorrow to take the other cooks through the seasonal specials, then somehow find time to rush across town for the last anger management session and get back before any of the new line cooks burn the kitchen down. The psychiatrist said he'd likely experience side effects for the first few weeks of taking the pills. Tiredness, headaches, nausea, and most ironically: mood swings. She told him to read the supplementary information for the full list of potential side effects, and he should have told her he couldn't read, but he didn't. Coward.
He climbs back under the covers, but sleep doesn't come.
"I can't always control it," Vanitas admits in a voice close to cracking, his knuckles white and palms prickling with pain from his nails. "Sometimes I just. I see it coming and I just have to walk out."
"Leaving a triggering situation is a very positive step," says Daisy, using once again her miraculous ability to find a silver lining in any cloud. "Since we're talking about interpersonal relationships today, does anyone have any advice for Vanitas about how to communicate his needs with his partner when the anger feels too much to manage?"
There's an awkward classroom pause that puts Vanitas' teeth on edge; then the only woman in the group - an army veteran, Vanitas vaguely remembers - says: "Sometimes I get so pissed off I know anything I say will come out wrong. So my husband and I have a code word I use when I need to let off steam. That way he knows I'm not angry at him, I just need to step outside to cool off."
"That's a fantastic idea, Tamora," says Daisy appraisingly. "It's always a good idea to come up with strategies for managing your anger together when you're feeling calm. It's important to make sure your partner never feels like you're punishing them with your behaviour."
Vanitas nods, not wanting to contribute anything else, and after a few more interjections the flow of the conversation moves on. The whole thing is excruciating. Practicing breathing exercises at home after sweeping up broken crockery is one thing, but the thought of explaining to Riku that even after sitting through all these anger management classes he still can't actually manage his anger makes him want to climb into a preheated oven.
He tunes out of the session, his mind wandering to his previous (tumultuous, short-lived) relationships. They always ended in fights. Vanitas always escalating. Saying a stupid code word and leaving the room is better, surely.
Daisy is talking about the importance of honest communication again. Vanitas feels unmoored, a sudden panicked realisation spreading through him like nausea that in twenty five minutes this course will be over and he's barely made it off the front porch on his journey, and staring out ahead of him at the end of the yard is the roaring highway of BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER. And how is he supposed to honestly communicate any of this with Riku, Riku who still thinks he's wonderful, who thinks he has value, Riku who doesn't understand that some stupid breathing exercises and a few trips to the doctor won't ever fix this?
He pushes his eye sockets into his knees and tries to focus on anything other than the clamour of cruel thoughts in his head, and when Daisy touches his shoulder he almost screams.
Foregoing the supplementary information, he washes one pill down with his first coffee of the day and throws up an hour later at work. Catching his breath out by the dumpsters and feeling as drained of blood as a freshly slaughtered pig, he almost calls Riku. The thought of the leaflet shoved under a box of durum flour at home stops him. He staggers on until after close (nobody offers to finish cleaning the kitchen so he can go home early, although they must have all heard him retching up half his intestines earlier), gets home, cautiously eats a bowl of leftover root vegetable soup and throws up again. The coffee also comes back up, by which point he has a ringing headache from caffeine withdrawal.
He smooths out the stupid bit of paper and scans down the list of side effects, using the edge of an envelope to guide him. He finds nausea under common (1 in 10) and vomiting under uncommon (1 in 100).
Great.
Vaguely he remembers the psychiatrist saying that most side effects pass within two weeks. Two weeks! He doesn't have two weeks, not when the Thanksgiving rush is practically on his doorstep. He throws the bottle at the wall; all it does is bounce harmlessly off and roll back to his feet.
You've survived worse than this, he chides himself, throwing a clean change of clothes into his bag. You're getting complacent, expecting things to be easy. Down the six flights of stairs lit by dull halogen bulbs, then into the cooling night. He kicks a trash can and a fence and smacks the side of his head a few times, which makes him feel a little better. Thirty-five minutes to Riku's, running stretches of it to feel the burn in his chest and his legs. In the darkness of Riku's flat he trickles water down his throat, manages not to throw up, and finally drapes himself against Riku's sleeping back, sleep only gracing him with its presence in brief snatches.
"Maybe you should take a few days off work."
"I don't have time! It's three weeks from Thanksgiving!"
"Surely someone else can-"
"If someone else could do it, I wouldn't have a fucking job, would I?"
Vanitas knows he shouldn't be snapping, but his head is throbbing and his digestive system seems to be taking tips from Riku's the way it's refusing to digest anything he tries to put in it. "I'm just going to stop. I feel like shit. Fuck this."
"It's not going to be any easier if you try again later. You may as well push through."
Maybe in January, after the last of the new year celebrations are over. Maybe at any goddamn point all summer, it wasn't like Riku hadn't already told him by then to try medication, or even three weeks ago when he actually picked up his prescription, if he had been smart enough not to put off the inevitable. It shouldn't even be possible to fuck up 'take pills' but somehow with his spectacular lack of intellect Vanitas has managed it, and now he's gone three vile days without even managing to keep down coffee.
"I'm going back to the doctor," he announces. "I'm a fucking chef, I can't take pills that make me want to fucking puke every time I look at food."
"Van-"
"Don't fucking Van me!"
Riku's hands are on him, straddling that hair-thin line between comfort and restraint. "At least try to make it two weeks-"
"Two weeks! Jesus fucking Christ! I barely have time to see you, let alone sit around feeling like my brain's gonna leak out my fucking nose, I'm not doing this, I'm not-"
"I'm calling in to say you can't make it. You need to go back to bed."
"Don't you fucking dare-" but Riku is already wrestling him back onto the mattress. It's kind of scary how good he is at burritoing Vanitas with blankets, and once he's under Riku's weight there's only so much fight left in him, especially when what he wants to do more than anything is sob. He turns his face into the pillow and emits a long groan of despair, which does improve his mood a little, or perhaps that's just Riku stroking his hair.
"These pills better fucking work, Riku."
"Well," says Riku, navigating Vanitas' little brick of a phone uncertainly. "They might not. Antidepressants can be kind of a crapshoot."
Vanitas doesn't actually make it out of the burrito, but considering that he's barely kept anything down in the last three days his attempt is extremely admirable.
The gong sounds, tinny through Vanitas' CD player. Eight seconds between breaths is an age. He straightens his back and tries to focus on the way his hands rest in his lap. He is at least no longer feeling nauseous, but that doesn't mean he's anywhere close to zen, either. He's been doing this for months and he still doesn't really understand the meaning of the word.
It's four o'clock in the morning. The guided meditation CD he spotted in the Buddhist Centre gift shop seemed like a good idea at the time. He's not sure if it helps. He's not sure if any of this is helping.
If a journey of a thousand miles, etc, etc, he's still on the doormat. In the sunshine of summer taking those first faltering steps had felt achievable - or at least, they'd been starting to feel achievable - but now it's drizzling, the slightest disruption of a few drops of rain sending him scurrying pathetically backwards.
Riku will be so disappointed when he realises. What kind of a weak-willed, moronic, worthless waste of space can't even get through a few weeks of side effects without feeling like he's going to vibrate apart? Can't even schedule a follow-up appointment with the psychiatrist, let alone actually show up to it, let alone get treatment for oh god oh God- he's slouching again.
"Oh Van," says Kairi when she sees him, in that tone of voice that means she thinks he looks like shit but is too polite to say it. Vanitas scowls and grabs his coffee almost before she offers it to him.
"Holiday season," he mutters by way of explanation, flopping down next to her. The fountain's stone edge is cool under his fingertips. The plaza is an undulating hum of noise from gaggles of lunchers enjoying the clear autumnal day. Kairi pats him on the shoulder and starts telling him some story about Naminé, her usual topic of conversation these days.
He brought this on himself, of course. He shouldn't have waited so long to get on medication - it wasn't like he didn't know things at the restaurant were going to get intense. He should have been more organised, more committed, more dedicated to such a small, reasonable demand as get better.
Kairi pauses, perhaps expecting Vanitas to interject, but he just waves at her to keep going. The medication makes everything feel off kilter, too sharp and too sour and with a weird clayey aftertaste in his mouth that won't go away. If he'd actually read the fucking leaflets - if he'd done more than just sit there barely taking in anything the psychiatrist said - if he'd done anything in the last six months other than just sit on plastic chairs or sit cross-legged on the floor or sit on Riku's yoga mat then he'd have got further off the front porch, he wouldn't still be spiralling with every other thought, he'd be-
Kairi asked him a question.
"What?"
Kairi pats his arm. "Oh, Van." 'Oh, Van', shut up- "The meds are really doing a number on you, huh?"
They're doing something, at any rate, but Vanitas isn't convinced any part of that actually involves antidepressing. How is he supposed to get control of himself when this stupid drug is somehow making everything hazy and too in focus at the same time?
"I was saying we're doing a Friendsgiving meal after Thanksgiving and we want you to join us," says Kairi, and before Vanitas can reply that he's working, obviously, of course he's working, she continues: "When's the closest day to Thanksgiving you're off work?"
"Uh." He's honestly barely even keeping track of the days. It's just one manic rush all the way into the new year, because otherwise-
Oh my God. It's the thirteenth today. It's our thirty-first birthday in a month.
His heart is clamouring against its cage and his palms are wet and no amount of imagining coffee or singing bowls or downward facing dog can keep his breathing under control. "Oh, Van," says Kairi yet again and it's only when her hands are on his that he realises he crumpled his cup and there's coffee all over his lap what is wrong with him in front of all the people milling in the plaza in front of Kairi his fucking disordered personality, borderline borderline what borderline even a fucking human being he can't do this he can't do this again he can't and he's crying, like a little lost kid into Kairi's shoulder and her arms are around him and he hears himself confess through choked sobs, "I need help."
Meet yourself where you are, not where you think you should be.
That advice is all very well, Vanitas thinks, sitting on his decrepit sofa in a stolen pair of Riku's sweatpants while Kairi makes one of Riku's peppermint teas. But what are you supposed to do about meeting other people where they think you should be?
He can't admit to Kairi how badly he's struggling. He's barely even done anything. Scraped off the sharpest edges of the anger, perhaps, but God there's so much rot underneath that he can hardly even see the shape of what's left of him.
"This Buddha is sweet," says Kairi. "Where did you pick him up?"
Vanitas accepts the cup she offers him. His hands are still shaking violently. "The Buddhist Centre in second district," he says, and it sounds like a fucking joke, someone like him showing up in a place like that. He balks at explaining the meditation sessions. Can't even meditate by himself, can barely even do it in a group-
"You went there for meditation?"
Van's voice catches on his embarrassment. "Sometimes."
"That's really good," says Kairi, finding a nickel in her pocket and laying it gently in the dish. "And you enjoy it?"
That stumps him.
"Sometimes," he says finally, after some thought. It hadn't occurred to him to consider whether meditation could be enjoyable. But he supposes there's something about the way it slows him, even if only for a brief hour, and if that's not enjoyment then at least it makes things for a little while feel lighter.
Kairi nods. "That's good." She claps her hands together, a gesture of determination she shares with Sora, and plops down onto the sofa beside him. "Okay, Van, I didn't want to cross any boundaries before, but I'm officially going into pushy mode." From her bag - which seems to contain half the known universe - she pulls out a notepad and a gel pen. "You've done really well to get this far. Now let's make a plan. When's your next psychiatrist appointment?"
Vanitas looks everywhere except at her. The answer is last week.
"I need to book one," he lies.
"Got it. Have you talked to her about diagnosis and therapy options?" Kairi makes a note in glittery pink, then glances at Vanitas, her expression impossible to interpret. "If I remember right, Riku ended up with about two hundred different leaflets."
Vanitas balks. "I didn't get any leaflets."
"Alright, that's something we can ask about."
"We?"
"I'm coming with you, of course." Kairi lays her hand on his knee. "There's no shame in finding any of this hard. That's what we're here for, to make things a little bit easier." When he doesn't reply, she continues, "It was the same with Riku."
But it isn't the same, not even remotely, because underneath the anxiety and a sometimes snappish temper Riku is a genuinely good person, and Vanitas is just... worthless. But if he admits that to Kairi she'll tell Riku and he'll leave and when his birthday unavoidably arrives he'll find a bridge and jump off it.
"Your work schedule is obviously busy the next few months," Kairi is saying, "But you need to make time for self care. I'll be checking in. When do the meditation sessions run? I think you should be trying to make it at least one a week..."
He doesn't say anything in the end. His hands shake violently as he pulls the crumpled leaflet out of his bag. He could be on the first day of his meds he feels like he's going to puke so badly. He gives it to Riku and if his legs hadn't seized up he might have made a break for it then and there.
"Borderline personality disorder," says Riku, his tone excruciatingly neutral.
"It's not a formal diagnosis," Vanitas mutters, as if that makes it any better. It's bad and there's no sugar-coating it. He can't even bring himself to look at Riku. Desperate for something to hold onto, no matter how flimsy, he adds: "The doctor said it's treatable." Maybe.
Riku flicks through the leaflet, eyes scanning the paragraphs effortlessly, and Vanitas thinks this is it, this is the end, but all Riku says as he gets to the back page is, "Does it feel like it makes sense to you?"
"I don't know. I guess." Vanitas hasn't got that far through the leaflet, more from dread than illiteracy. Riku, sensing his discomfort in that supernatural way of his, wraps his arm around Van's shoulders. Vanitas breathes in the smell of his aftershave and below that his sweat, wanting him to never pull away.
"This is a good step," says Riku. "I know… I know it can feel scary. But this is progress."
Vanitas doesn't feel like he's making progress. He feels like he's trying to learn to swim as the water is rising around him and his head is moments from slipping under. He looks at the leaflet, a condemnation in purple and blue, and wonders how long it will take for Riku to change the locks to his apartment. He swallows, tries to sound out a word, chokes.
"Hey. Hey. It'll be alright." And then, softly: "I love you."
Meditation again. His thoughts feel like a train wreck. He spent several hours working his way through the BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER pamphlet, and it felt like someone had looked at his life, seen into every painful secret he had fought so fiercely to hide, and typed it all out in impartial bullet points.
And Riku's read every single one of them.
The gong sounds. Vanitas tries to slow his breaths, unsuccessfully.
And… Riku's still his boyfriend.
Riku, whose love Vanitas wants so badly it's pathological. His chest hurts and each time he focuses on relaxing one muscle all the others seem to snap tight like a cage and his thoughts are a whirlpool, a storm, a hurricane. He's so bad at this. He's so bad at all of this.
Breathe in
Hold
Relax
Breathe out.
Riku loves him and Kairi held him tight and said she was proud of him for getting help and Sora- well, he'll never admit it to Riku, but Sora would probably be friends with anything regardless of how many diagnoses they get. He has to meet himself where he is, and this is it: at borderline personality disorder. Not evil. Not necessarily worthless. Just sick. Just in need of help.
He excuses himself from the meditation. Out in the garden, crunching through the gravel, maples a blaze of gold overhead. He finds a bench and lets himself cry.
Vanitas doesn't know why he agreed to Sora's stupid Friendsgiving dinner.
Actually, he knows exactly why, and it begins and ends with Riku's beautiful saltwater eyes. He can't resist them, even when Riku's asking the impossible, and now here he is staring at the jumbled spread of dishes on Sora and Kairi's dining table. Including Vanitas there are twelve people in total, which is just about eleven too many to handle. He hid in the kitchen as long as possible but finally once all the food was on the table - buffet style, everyone finding space to sit wherever they could - Riku dragged him out into the living room, sliding his arm around Van's waist to prevent him from escaping.
"We don't have to stay long," he promises in a low murmur as Sora hands them plates piled high with food, and it rankles that it's so obvious Vanitas is uncomfortable. "I'm not leaving until I get a slice of pumpkin pie, though."
The kids - Yuffie, Denzel and... Marly? Marlene? Vanitas forgot almost as soon as they were introduced - are running about pretending to be ninjas, using the sofa and the seasonal tablecloth and any standing parents' legs for cover. Kairi is laughing with Tifa and Aerith, probably something about motherhood. Sora's already a little bit tipsy. The big guy Barret takes up most of the rest of the sofa, launching into a conversation with Riku that Vanitas listens to with only half an ear. Instead he focuses on eating without making any comments about the hodgepodge of dishes squished onto his plate. Sora insisted on a potluck, citing Friendsgiving tradition, which means nothing is cohesive and half the food is cooked passably at best, although Vanitas does have to admit that Sora's abomination of a potato salad is actually pretty tasty.
"They're expanding the solar farm next year, so that's gonna be a big project - Marlene, be careful round the table! - and hopefully means less travelling."
"That'll be good."
Vanitas shouldn't be this on edge. Apart from Barret he's met everyone here - although admittedly not all at once - and all he has to do is sit tight and not voice any of his opinions about the food until Riku lets him go home. It's just a small gathering between a few close friends, nothing formal, nothing like the kind of gatherings Vanitas went to as a child before they decided it was better to pretend he didn't exist. Vanitas watches the children out of the corner of his eye while he eats, shuddering at the memory of a hand gripping his shoulder uncomfortably tight.
"So how's the karate going? Sora said you're working freelance now."
"Yeah, that's right, I've been-"
It all happens almost instantaneously. Barret jumping forward suddenly, his voice rising sharply above the chatter, the shatter of ceramic barely missing Marlene as he jerks her out of the way, the other parents rushing in like a tide, the little girl crying and Naminé crying and Vanitas braces himself for a strike, but all Barret does is hug his daughter and ask if she's alright.
He can smell cotton and urine and a ringing silence seems to drape itself over the commotion. Vanitas grips his plate and tries to control his breaths, but the Buddhist Centre is a world away and when he dares glance up for an awful moment he sees Ven watching him be beaten- letting him be beaten-
He's losing it. He's losing it. He's at Sora and Kairi's Friendsgiving dinner and Riku is kneeling on the floor with the dustpan and brush he is not back there again he is here he is sitting on the plasticky sofa covering gripping a plate of overcooked turkey he is breathing in the smell of pumpkin pie he is screaming he is not screaming he is breathing breathing breathing, breathing. breathe. Breathe.
Riku's hand on his arm startles him, the touch seeming to sting.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Vanitas snaps, brushing Riku away. The last thing he wants is pity. He makes some excuse and flees to the kitchen, needing the distraction of dirty plates.
He makes it past midnight, the last of the clientele being drunkenly shuffled out the door by the waitstaff. He makes it through cleaning out the stoves with a thoroughness that borders on violence, then through double checking the inventory for tomorrow and testing his pomegranate gravy recipe one last time and making sure everything is in its proper place and locking up and stepping into the bitter night.
He doesn't go home straight away, instead taking a back street to the disused canal. The air is clear, a few pinprick stars visible even through the city haze. He wishes it would rain instead. He wants a storm.
Thirty one. More birthdays without him than with him. The cold bites through his jacket and makes his teeth chatter. He trudges through the weeds and broken bottles, feeling hollow. Part of him wants to go to Riku's, although Riku definitely wouldn't appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night to let in his bedraggled, moping boyfriend. Part of him wants to find the nearest high roof and jump off it. It's like this every year.
Ven knew. He always knew. Borderline fucking personality disorder. There was always something horribly wrong with him. He ducks under a bridge, past a clump of cardboard and sleeping bags, and climbs the steps back up to the road. Ven knew, and he did what he had to do to protect himself, and for all the appointments and medication and deep breathing if he doesn't stem the rot then eventually he'll destroy whatever love Riku has for him too.
Past jarringly bright Christmas lights, past pools of darkness, past the occasional group of late night revellers. He's so broken. Ven knew that too. He wishes the sky would burst but all it offers him is a sliver of moon hanging in a great cloudless infinity. His cheeks hurt and the dampness in his eyes stings in the cold night air. He feels sick and he hates himself and he misses his brother.
Riku looks at the checklist on the fridge - in all its glittery, sticker-covered glory - and says, "This looks awfully familiar."
"It's a bitch," says Vanitas. He's putting the finishing touches on two bowls of ramen. Really he should be at work by now, but there's only so much in the festive menu for the sous chefs to fuck up while he makes time for lunch with his boyfriend. It's called self care. Probably.
"Kairi goes all out when it comes to stationary," says Riku. "She's evangelical about bullet journaling."
"The fuck is bullet journaling?"
"Advanced procrastination, as far as I can tell. Anyway, having synced calendars is much more convenient."
Vanitas figures Riku would look at him like he's stupid if he asked what a synced calendar is, so he just shrugs and heads to the dining table, where he's even managed to make enough room in amongst the chaos for a pair of reasonably serviceable - and very cheap - thrift store chairs.
"When we first moved to Radiant Garden, Kairi made me a bunch of those stupid checklists," Riku says as he sits down. "This smells amazing, by the way."
Of course it does, but Vanitas preens anyway. "Made some improvements on Kairi's recipe. Did she put vegetable stickers all over yours too?"
"Stickers yes, vegetables no. She went with a celestial theme for me. Honestly I kind of felt patronised by it, but it helps. The check-offs and goals and stuff."
Vanitas prods a bit of pork belly with his chopsticks. Maybe the medication is actually helping, because he glances back at the fridge and admits in a low voice like he's half-hoping Riku won't hear him, "I'm kinda missing most of them." After fourteen hour shifts at the restaurant the last thing he wants to put his exhausted body through is yoga, and when Kairi asked what an achievable goal for reading a self-help book would be he lied through his teeth so she wouldn't think he was retarded. As for calling potential therapists...
"If you're managing some of it, that's a success," says Riku. Vanitas looks at him disbelievingly, thinking you can't possibly believe that. But the expression on his face is almost unbearably sincere.
The new year breaks the way it always does, on the other side of the swing doors. Van pauses when he hears the countdown from the restaurant floor, then the eruption of cheers. He listens for a moment, then starts the year the way he ended the last one: degreasing an extractor fan.
A few minutes of ruckus later one of the bar staff pops his head into the kitchen.
"Happy new year, chef."
Any other year Vanitas would have rolled his eyes, but this time he smiles. "Yeah, you too."
He finishes cleaning the kitchen, locks up, and heads into the bracing cold. Overhead fireworks are bursting in the stormy sky; even from the service streets he can hear tinny loudspeaker music and whoops of drunken laughter. The air is alive with the oncoming storm and soon the clouds break open with a guttural roar of distant thunder. By the time Van gets to the dark, inviting warmth of Riku's apartment he's soaked through and his teeth are chattering. He strips off and scrambles into the shower, wondering which of Riku's excessive collection of toiletries to plunder this time, and is just about to reach for a particularly fancy looking bottle when he hears a click of the front door.
"Riku?"
Riku's face appears in the doorway, ruddy from the cold.
"Happy new year, Van."
"Yeah." Vanitas grins. "Yeah, you too."
"Happy new year from Sora and Kairi too. We tried to call at midnight."
"You know I don't keep my phone on me."
Soon Van's in his favourite place: Riku's bed. Riku holds him close and kisses the parting of his hair and Vanitas presses his face into the crook of Riku's neck, and swaddled in blankets and tucked under Riku's arm and halfway to falling asleep, Van feels… kind of zen.
"Mr Nuys?"
Kairi gives his arm a squeeze as he stands, willing his hand not to shake as he takes his coffee. He hears her murmur "You've got this," as he begins the torturous path across the waiting room. Jesus fucking Christ, he doesn't. He follows Dr Mouse down the hallway and into an office cluttered with knick-knacks, including a row of little toy mice that he isn't sure how he feels about. An effort to make it look more homely, he imagines, but actually it just reminds him of the impersonally minimalist house he grew up in.
"Please, take a seat."
The chair is plush, if worn. Vanitas resits the urge to curl into it. The therapist sits opposite him, her feet not even touching the floor, and rummages around on her desk until she finds a notebook. Vanitas' skin itches restlessly. It's one thing to sit in a circle and barely pay attention to anyone else; here there's nowhere to hide.
"Now then. Vanitas. May I call you Vanitas?"
"Sure, whatever."
He thinks, you don't have to do this all at once. It's about small steps. It's about meeting yourself where you are. He also thinks: oh God oh Jesus Christ oh Buddha Of The Kitchen Windowsill save me I'm not ready for this.
Dr Mouse leans forward on her chair and smiles kindly.
"So, Vanitas. How can I help you?"