Mutual Understanding
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Characters: Joey, Joey's father, Tristan, Tristan's mother, Yugi, Yugi's father and grandpa, and Yami
Warnings: Contains violence, sexual themes, and incest
Pairings: None
Summary: Both Joey and Yugi have some problems with their fathers. How do they deal with these problems? And why does Tristan like super hero movies so much?
The man's fist made contact with the side of his face. It didn't stop there. Once, twice, thrice the fist hit him, this time in the gut. He let out a groan, clutched at his stomach, and let himself fall face first to his bedroom floor. He could fight back if he wanted to. But he couldn't seem to build up the courage to strike back. Not against his own father.
Joey Wheeler was used to it by now, used to his father coming home drunk and angry and taking it out on his son. He usually managed to avoid the man and not get beat up, but not tonight. Tonight he had come home, boiling mad and screaming something about "those dirty bastards" and had, yet again, taken it out on his sixteen-year-old son.
The man gave the boy a kick in the shin as a parting gift then left his room. Joey stayed on the floor, moaning softly. After a few minutes he got up and stood shakily. He took a step, and nearly fell over. His shin was bruised and it hurt like hell to put any pressure on it.
He pulled on a jacket and slipped on his shoes. Being almost ready to go to bed when his father came home, he had only been wearing blue jeans. He didn't bother with socks or a shirt and left his room. There was no way that he was going to stay in the apartment he and his father shared with his father in this horribly abusive mood.
He silently crept passed his father's room, where he had already fallen asleep, and made it to the front door. He turned the knob and stepped out into the cool night air. It was late spring, and the nights still got a little cold. But tonight was relatively warm. Still he was glad that he had put on the jacket and hadn't just gone out there shirtless.
Walking down the steps he wondered where he was going. It was too late to go over to one of his friends' houses, so he went to a small park near his apartment complex. It was completely empty, which was lucky, because this wasn't the best part of town and the gangs and crazies came out at night to prey on people who were stupid or unlucky enough to be out there.
Joey sat down on a swing, gently swaying back and forth. He had come here a lot as a little kid. He and his sister, Serenity, had played in the sandbox by the slide and had a great time. But now he rarely got to see her anymore. His parents had gotten a divorce and now his sister and mother lived in another city. He missed them, missed them so much.
A single tear ran down his cheek. Even though he was alone, he quickly wiped it away. He mustn't cry. He mustn't show any weakness. If he did, people would take advantage of it and he'd get hurt.
"I see someone's out past their bed time."
Joey started at the voice that seemed to come from nowhere. He jumped off the swing, cringing and nearly toppling over because of his bruised leg. "Who are you?" He wildly searched all around him.
A fog had been slowly rolling in while he was thinking about his family. Now it covered the entire park, making it hard to see much of anything; but after enough searching the blonde boy finally found the owner of the voice.
"Please, Dad, this is wrong. Please stop." Yugi Moto backed up as far as he could to get away from his father. He had to stop when he backed up against the wall of his bedroom. His father didn't heed him and stepped forward, reaching out and unbuttoning the buttons on Yugi's light blue pajama top.
Yugi rarely saw his father. He was always away on business trips and only came to visit for special occasions. He had arrived at the game shop Yugi's grandfather owned and ran two days ago. His visit was unannounced, but both Yugi and his grandpa welcomed him warmly.
The last two days had been fun; he had told his dad all about his friends and the games he liked to play and got him to play as many different games as he wanted. They had played everything from Go Fish to Go. Yugi had even taught his father how to play Duel Monsters. He wasn't very good at it, but he had just started.
But then everything had gone terribly wrong. That morning he had gotten up and went downstairs to eat breakfast. He found his father and grandfather sitting at the table eating rice balls with peach jam and talking. He joined them and they had a nice conversation about hippopotamuses.
It was in the afternoon that Yugi noticed something was off about his dad. He kept eyeing him in an almost lustful way. It was creeping Yugi out and he was hoping it was just his imagination, but now here he was, just about ready to go to bed, when his father had come in.
It had started perfectly normally, with his father saying goodnight to him and wishing him a good night's sleep. Yugi had said the same back to him in reply. His father had scooped him up in a hug and given him a kiss on the cheek. Yugi thought that was all he was going to do, but he didn't stop. No, he started to kiss Yugi down the side of his neck.
Right before Yugi was going to complain that he was making him uncomfortable; his father kissed him on the lips, hard. Yugi's eyes went wide and he tried to cry out, but was muffled by the kiss. He pressed his hands hard down on the man's shoulder's and jumped from his arms to the floor. He backed up to the wall and we return to where we started.
"But, Yugi, I love you. Don't you love me?" His father practically purred. He bore a close resemblance to his son; only his hair was shorter with streaks of grey and he had a beard like Yugi's grandpa.
"I do, Dad, but not like that. We're family. It's wrong for you to want to do…that." He blushed profusely at the mere thought of his father trying to have sex with him, which was quite apparently what he was planning on doing if Yugi let him have his way.
Yugi's protests didn't stop the man and he came close again, this time pulling the pajama top entirely off. Yugi shivered as his father ran a cold hand down his now bare chest. "Stop, please."
His father still ignored him and now picked his smaller than average son up and set him on the bed. He reached for his pajama bottoms, but before he reached them Yugi grabbed the Millennium Puzzle from his bedside table. The pure gold upside down pyramid shaded artifact made a small thumping noise as he pulled it over his head and around his neck.
The Eye of Horus flashed briefly on his forehead after he grasped either side of the ancient object. Parts of his blonde bangs stood straight up and his eyes narrowed into glaring violet orbs. The Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh whom he called "Yami," had taken over his body when Yugi had called him out of the puzzle through their mind link.
For a moment the room was silent. Yugi's father stared at him, wondering what had just happened to his son. "Who are you?"
Yami was shocked into silence for a second; not many people even knew that not only did Yugi's personality change, but, in essence he was an entirely different person when Yami was in control. "That's not important. What is important is having you not molest your own son."
"I'm not molesting him. I love him. I just want to show him how much I love him." He moved back from the spirit, a little afraid of what he might do.
"By raping him? Sorry, bub, but that's not love. Now get your sicko ass out of our room before I have to send you to the Shadow Realm." Yami glared menacingly at the man, his deep baritone voice likely carrying all over the house and shop. It was a wonder that Yugi's grandfather hadn't heard and come up to investigate. But then again, he slept like a rock.
"Stop getting in the way, go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and leave me and my son alone." The man raised a hand to strike the Pharaoh.
"I see that you won't back down," Yami said, not flinching at the raised hand but glaring even more darkly at the man. "So I challenge you to a game. A Shadow Game."
Joey let out a sign of relief when he saw that the person in the park was not, as he had feared, a gang of thugs, but his friend, Tristan. A German Shepherd was with him, on a leash. The dog proceeded to start sniffing Joey's butt. "What brings yous out here so late?" Joey asked him.
"Blankey wouldn't stop pestering me to go on a walk so I'm taking her on one." He pulled her back from continuing to get acquainted with Joey's rear. "The real question should be why are you out here?" Tristan could see the bruise on Joey's face, and his jacket was part way open so he could see the purple marks on his stomach. "What happened, man?" He was suspicious that Joey's dad would beat him up sometimes, but he had never asked. It was too awkward of a question and both boys avoided talking about it.
"Nothing, I fell." Joey lied, not looking at his brunette friend. He patted the dog's head and she wagged her tail happily.
"The hell you fell! You don't get those kind of bruises from falling. Someone hit you. Did you get into a fight with a gang? Your old man? Who?" From the way Joey was avoiding telling him he was pretty sure that it was his dad.
"It's late, yous should head back," Joey said, shuffling his feet and cringing again at his bruised shin.
Tristan saw the cringe. "And what do you plan on doing, staying here in the park to get mugged? Come on, Joey, I'm your friend. I'm not going to let you do that. You can stay at my place tonight."
"Really?" Joey's face looked hopeful. He really had been planning on staying at the park then going back home after his dad left.
"Yes, really. Now come on, this fog is starting to get thick." The two boys and the dog headed over to Tristan's house. Once inside they took off their shoes and Tristan put Blankey's leash on a hook by the door. Once free the dog happily ran around the front entrance, barking.
"Mom, I'm home!" Tristan called to his mother. She was sitting in the living room, reading a book. She looked up when she heard them come in.
"Welcome back. Who's this?" She had spotted Joey trying to hide behind Tristan, who was rather tall. Living in Japan it was a little hard being so tall, you had to duck a lot.
"This is Joey, a friend from school. Is it okay if he stays the night?" Tristan stepped to the side so she could see Joey.
Joey's head had been down before, but now he raised it to look at Tristan's mother. "Of course, dear. Oh my, what happened to you?" She could now see the bruise on the side of Joey's face. "You poor thing, let me help you with that."
She got up and ran a hand lightly over his face. He backed up and turned his face away. "Come now, don't be shy. We need to get that treated, young man." She looked him up and down and saw that he had more bruises than just on his face. He was also swaying slightly.
"Tristan, be a dear and go fill the bath, this boy needs a good soak. He's practically fainting from exhaustion." She was, of course, exaggerating. But Joey did feel like he was going to fall asleep on his feet. He was so tired, and still in pain from the beating he had taken earlier.
Tristan went to fill the bath. The bathroom was a Japanese style bathroom with a large bathtub that was deep and could hold up to three people. As he turned on the water and adjusted the temperature he thought of how he had used to bathe in it with his parents when he was really little. The memories were a bit blurry, but he could still remember splashing around and having a great time.
When he got back he found that his mother had managed to get all of Joey's clothes, except his underwear, off and was dabbing cotton swabs on his wounds. Blankey was standing on her hind legs with her front paws planted on Joey's bare chest and was licking his face. Joey was both laughing and trying to get her off at the same time.
Tristan couldn't decide whether he should be embarrassed that this was happening or glad that Joey seemed to have cheered up. "The bath's ready," was all he said. "I'll be in my room if anyone needs me." He went to his room to set up a bed on the floor for Joey to sleep on.
Joey limped into the bathroom and slipped into the hot water. It felt good to just soak in it and to forget about all the bad things that had happened that day. He just wished that they would stay gone.
"A Shadow Game? What's that?" Yugi's father was intrigued, he'd never heard of such a thing.
"A Shadow Game is a game with much higher stakes than a regular game. The loser must suffer a Penalty Game. The rules to this particular game are very simple." Yami glanced around Yugi's room and spotted a pair of dice sitting on the bedside table. He grabbed them, then took the opportunity to put Yugi's pajama top back on. "We each roll these dice once. Whoever gets the lower number wins." He handed the cubes over to Yugi's father.
"Is it really that simple? What happens to the one who loses?" He jiggled the dice in his hands, wondering if there was a way to cheat and make the dice get Snake Eyes.
"What's in your heart will decide your fate," Yami said cryptically.
This made Yugi's father nervous, but he felt that he couldn't back down now. He shook the dice up, and then rolled them onto the floor. He got a one and a three, four in total.
Yami got off the bed and picked the dice up. He cupped both hands over the dice, shook them a little, and then dropped them without even looking at them. He got both ones, Snake Eyes, the lowest possible number to get with two die.
"It's time for your Penalty Game," Yami said with an almost psychotic grin on his face.
"Yami! Don't kill my father!" Yugi screamed from inside the Puzzle. He didn't like what his father had done to him, but he also didn't want him dead. Sometimes Yami killed people in his Shadow Games.
It seemed that Yami was going to ignore him, and then he paused and rethought what he was going to do to the man. He reached his right arm out at full length, the Eye of Horus appearing on his forehead again, and shouted, "THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE DOING!"
Suddenly Yugi's father clutched the sides of his head and let out a scream. His mind was assaulted with images of himself brutalizing and torturing Yugi to the point of killing him. He couldn't stand it anymore and ran out of Yugi's room. They could hear him running through the house until he got to the door and ran out of the house.
"Did you really have to do that, Yami? He'll likely be insane the rest of his life." Yugi said, very quietly, from inside the Puzzle.
"Do you realize what he was going to do to you, Yugi? You'd likely have gone insane for the rest of your life."
"Yes, but he just loved me."
"Yugi, he was messed up in the head. Don't be so nice all the time, it will get you hurt."
"So you want me to be a cruel bastard who traumatizes people for life or kills them?" Yugi was angry. He rarely got angry and when he did there was no stopping him. "Get back inside the Puzzle and think about what you did." His tone brooked no argument and Yami did as Yugi had told him.
Tristan and Joey were eating the breakfast that Tristan's mother had made. It was an American style breakfast consisting of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. It was a rather large meal, but Joey was managing to polish it off almost by himself.
"Geeze, man, how much can you eat?" Watching Joey eat so much was making Tristan lose his appetite.
"I dunno, what cans I say? Imma bottomless pit!" He grabbed another pancake.
"You're going to explode if you eat much more." Tristan set down his fork, pushing his plate away.
"He's a growing boy. You used to eat that much too," Tristan's mother put in.
"But we're the same age."
"Some people just age at different rates."
"Are you saying that I'm more mature than he is?"
"Pretty much."
Joey almost choked on his mouthful of pancake. "He is not!"
Both of the Taylors ignored him.
"Did you have any plans for today, Tristan?" Tristan's mother asked.
"I was thinking of going over and visiting Yugi. Wanna come, Joey?" He intentionally waited until Joey had his mouth full to ask the question.
Joey glared at him and chewed and swallowed his food before answering. He just knew that Tristan was trying to accuse him of being rude and talking with his mouth full. "Yeah, it's not like I has anything better t' do's today." There was no way he was going to go back to his apartment just yet. "Maybe he has some video games or something we's could play."
"Or you could play outside. Video games rot your brain," Tristan's mother informed them.
Both boys rolled their eyes. "Yeah, sure, Mom."
After Joey had eaten yet another pancake, he and Tristan walked over to Yugi's house. Along the way Joey suggested that they stop by Téa's place and ask if she wanted to come along. Tristan had already called her while Joey was still asleep and had been told that she was busy today, going shopping with her mom.
"Ah well, we's can have a Guy's Day where we do manly things!" Joey punched a fist into the air and scared away a nearby cat that was walking on a fence. He was still limping a little from his bruised shin, but was doing better than he was last night.
"Like shake up soda and have it explode?" Tristan was uninterested. All he wanted to do was watch the superhero movie he had slipped in his coat pocket before leaving.
"No, man, things we can't do's with a gurl around." Joey wrapped an arm around Tristan's shoulders conspiratorially.
"Streak naked around the house for no reason?" Tristan had an idea where Joey was going with this. "We aren't watching porn, Joey." He pushed Joey's arm off his shoulders.
"Then I got nothing. Wonder what's Yugi's doing." He crossed his arms behind his head and walked in an odd waddling fashion.
"Stop that, it's embarrassing." Joey continued to do it just to annoy Tristan. Tristan glared at him until he stopped.
They arrived at the game shop, waved a hello to Yugi's grandpa, and headed upstairs to Yugi's room. They found him sitting at his desk, doing a crossword puzzle. He wasn't wearing his usual black leather clothes, or his school uniform, but plain blue jeans and a red t-shirt. Yugi was still angry with Yami, and hadn't talked to him since their fight the night before; even though he still was wearing the Millennium Puzzle.
Yugi glanced up at them as they came in without knocking. "What's a ten letter word for the natives of Australian?" He was almost done with this really hard puzzle and only needed a few more words. "It starts with an A, ends with an S, and has a G in it."
"Aborigines," Tristan blurted out of the blue.
"How do you spell that?"
Joey interrupted them. "Instead of playing word games, let's play video games! So much less strenuous on teh brain."
Yugi and Tristan ignored him until they had solved the entire crossword.
"So, Yugi, yesterday at school you mentioned that your dad was over. Is he still here?" Tristan asked. He had never met Yugi's dad and wanted to.
"Yeah, he, uh, left, last night." Last night, while ignoring Yami's pleas to forgive him, he had realized the true gravity of what had almost happened to him. Yami was right; he really might have gone insane if his own father had raped him. He really should forgive Yami, but he didn't know how; he'd never blocked him out like this before and he was likely still sore with him.
Now that he was reminded of the event, he started to think of all the horrible things that his father might have done to him. He started to shake, his eyes becoming glassy and distance. "My father…he…hheee." He started to cry, great sobs racked his small frame and he almost fell out his chair. Tristan caught him before he did.
Joey, who had been poking around Yugi's room in boredom, rushed over. "What's wrong, why's he cryin'?"
"I don't know! Go get his grandpa, maybe he knows." Joey rushed down the stairs, taking them two at a time, to do as Tristan had suggested.
When he reached Solomon Moto, who was helping a customer, he gasped out, "Yugi….something…wrong….help."
"I'll be right back," he told the customer, who was a teenage girl. "Joey, could you please try to help her for a bit?" He ran, as fast as an old man could run, up the stairs to help his grandson.
Joey was left with the girl. "What's wrong? Did something happen?" The girl asked.
"Yeah, I dunnos why, but my friend started shaking and cryin' for no reason." He looked very worried and glanced around nervously, impatience to go back up and see how Yugi was doing.
"That's horrible, is it Mr. Moto's grandson, Yugi? I hear that earlier this morning they found Yugi's father, Mr. Moto's son. He's gone totally insane and keeps on yelling about stuff like 'I only wanted to love him, not hurt him,' and stuff." She barely paused before saying, "But could you help me find this one Duel Monsters card? It's my little brother's birthday tomorrow and this is what he really, really wants."
She gave him the name and he managed to find it in the large collection of Duel Monsters cards the shop had. He tried to figure out how to use the cash register but before he had to he was saved when Mr. Moto came back. He took the girl's money and gave her the card.
"How's Yugi?" Joey had almost sprinted back up the stairs the instant Yugi's grandpa came back, but waited to hear what had happened.
"We put him in bed and he seemed to calm down a little. I think he fell asleep. I can't for the life of me tell what's wrong with him though."
Joey ran back up the stairs. He found Yugi tucked into bed with Tristan hovering worriedly over him. "Is he any better?"
"He's stopped crying, but he's still shaking. And now he's muttering under his breath, something about his father."
"Funny thing, there was a gurl downstairs who said they found Yugi's father earlier and he's was saying something about how he hadn't meant to hurt him, but love him. Do ya think it was Yugi he was talking about? What the heck happened around here?"
"I can tell you what happened." Both Tristan and Joey jumped when Yugi suddenly sat up and spoke. But it wasn't Yugi, it was Yami. He was taking the opportunity of Yugi being asleep to come out.
"Yugi, wait, you're Yami, aren't ya? It's so hard tellin' you apart. How cans you be awake if Yugi isn't? Isn't he sick?" Joey was the first to start asking questions.
"There is nothing wrong with Yugi, physically, anyway. His problem is with his emotions and mind. He got messed up last night, by his father."
"What happened?" Tristan asked.
"His father molested him, tried to rape him even."
"Holy hell! Did he?" Joey was reminded that last night his own dad had messed him up, but physically.
"No, I stopped him and played a Shadow Game with him."
"Is dat what's made him go all crazy?" That seemed to be going a little far, making someone go insane.
"Yes, Yugi's still angry with me about it." Yami really wanted Yugi to forgive him, but he hadn't even acknowledged him since last night.
"Why's would he be angry at you? You saved his ass." Joey didn't see the bigger picture in this matter.
"It's because Yami messed up his old man's head, probably for life, you doofus." Tristan got why Yugi was upset.
It took Joey a bit of thinking about it to finally see. "Oh, even though Yugi's dad is a totally lame jerk, he's still his dad, and he doesn't wants him hurt." He didn't say it out loud, but he thought the same about his own dad. He just wished that things could go back to the way they were before his parents had split. His dad never beat him and things were fine. Except the fights, his mom and dad were always fighting, screaming at each other. It scared Serenity and Joey so much that they would leave the house and hide somewhere until they stopped fighting.
"Hey, Yami, cans I try to talk to Yugi, in private?" He wanted to talk to Yugi, but what he wanted to say to him wouldn't look all that good with his tough guy attitude and he didn't want anyone else to hear.
"If he's conscious, then yes." Yami lay back down, closed his eyes, and went back inside the Puzzle.
Yugi blinked and opened his eyes. "What's going on? What happened?" he said blearily.
"I needs to talk to yous, alone. Stay here, Tristan." Joey took the Puzzle off of Yugi, tugged at his hand, led him out of the room, down the stairs, outside, and to the back of the shop.
By the time they got there Yugi was awake but still very confused. "Why'd you bring me back here, Joey?"
"I needs to talk to ya." Joey gulped, not sure how to word what he wanted to say.
Yugi tilted his head to the side, listening. "Yes?"
"Wells, we both have these dads, who are assholes, and we, well, what I'm trying to say is, we, we understand each other." He was stumbling over everything he was trying to say.
"So what you're saying is, is that we have a mutual understanding of what we're both going through?" Yugi prompted.
"Yes, yes dats what I'm trying to say. We understand each other, and we're friends. We needs to stick together. Protect each other." Joey was a little embarrassed to say something so mushy sounding; which is why he didn't want Tristan, or Yami, to hear it. They'd probably make fun of him.
"That's really sweet of you, Joey." Yugi gave him a hug.
Joey returned the hug. "Let's go back inside befores Tristan hijacks your TV to watch that VHS I saw him put in his pocket. Though it's probably just a super hero movie."
Yugi grinned broadly. "Okay!"
The two friends when back inside, where Tristan had indeed taken over the TV in the living room.
The End