Disclaimer: I, The Mad Poet, do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or associated characters. I am poor and suing me is a waste of money. However, I do own the proceeding work of fiction and all original concepts presented therein; steal and I will hunt you down and beat your silly ass.
This goes out to Sukaigetsu, fellow writer of the emotionally numb Ryou.
Even if I wrote this before viewing their work, I think they must have been my inspiration.
Go read their fic 'Pleasantly Numb'. Now.
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At that time, I am not sure I knew what I wanted.
Looking back it seems strange, in a distant way, if only because now I am not sure I want, ever wanted, anything at all. But back then I believe that I wanted, and I wanted something distinct. I did not know it then, holding the bright ring of gold, listening to the gentle music of each tine drifting against the next in a breeze that existed only in its own world; but he did. It did. I knew the moment it first touched my skin that it knew me, the first moment it rest against my heart that it knew everything. He told me once, as he dragged our short broken nails through our pale broken skin, and I believed him because I always believe him. He has taken everything, hidden everything, but he has never lied. Not to me.
At that time, I was not sure I knew what I wanted. But I did want, and it was that wanting which brought us together; less a want, I think, than a need. Something primal, something fundamental that pulled me to him, and him to me. By now I don't even notice the line anymore, except for sometimes. Sometimes when he locks me away, or when he laughs that laugh and I realize briefly how horrible it really is, and I want to cry and hide away. Except that there is no place to hide, from him. He is I, and I am he.
I see him in the mirror even now. His eyes are darker than mine, not in color but in. . .everything. His hair is more wild. His smile, more wild. It shows off his teeth and they are sharper than mine, almost honed points though this is not from practice. Perhaps teeth simply grow that way, like the teeth of an animal, when one eats as animals do. Rare meat. Raw. Blood clogging in the throat, running down the chin only to be wiped at, lapped up desperately. It makes me sick, always made me sick when we ate like that for him. When he gnawed at our stained fingers, jaw twitching, as if he starved anew in every moment. But I did not lose my own appetite. I never lost my own appetite, because. . .
At that time, I did not know what I wanted. But now I want nothing. Since he came to me, or came back to me as it sometimes seems, I have wanted nothing. Now and again there are brief moments, lapses in what feels so much easier than apathy or even the cloistering grip of medication; and I am struck by a wild impulse, a vagrant desire. Even these, though, I believe to be his. He wants so much. Dead, dying, unalive forever he still lives with such furious passion. I think it will burn us out, dry our blood into ashes, but I do not mind. Now and again there are fleeting sensations, a momentary vision of something I once had. Something like feeling, something more than this waking slumber. I am sad--I think is the word I once used--and I want to cry. But I have no more tears, and no more wants, for he has taken these away. He takes everything away, and makes it his own, until I have nothing. Until I am nothing. I sit on the inside, in his gilded prison around my, around our neck, and while I am nothing he wants the world. Everything. It would make me lonely, but he is here. And he takes that away as well.
He tells me it is better this way. At that time I did not know what I wanted, and now I want nothing. So this--maybe this is what I wanted. Maybe him, with his hateful heart and his passionate want-needs and his ravenous hunger.
I stopped fighting him a long time ago. He tried to hurt people, then, that I cared about. He has not stopped. But I stopped fighting him because he stopped me. He took my fight away, he took my care away. I hated him then but he took it away; held my ugly rage in his hands and showed it to me with his eyes shining, teeth shining in the not-light that followed us, there in his precious prison. He pressed it into his heart and he told me it made us one. When I opened my eyes there was blood on my hands, on my white shirt across my chest. Our chest. My heart. Our heart. I tried to cry but I could not, and for that I scratched my eyes until they bled. He held my wrists and with his tongue he took the blood away. It was all mindgames then. It still is--it is all in my mind. But perhaps that is where the blood was, as well.
I did not feel, I did not hate, I did not want to cry, after that. I think, mostly, I slept in my sleep. The feeling he left me with--the feeling, the wonderful feeling of not feeling--was so much better. So much easier. So much less painful. I am still sleeping, still not-feeling, except in this moment. Now I am awake, in our dark ringing prison, listening to the chiming windsong of gold on gold. There is another here, now. A voice that is not his, not mine, not ours. A flash of purple, lavender. A flash of copper and cream. Beautiful, he thinks. Mine, he thinks. He lives, he dies with such passion and such hunger. Without him, I would not have known it. Without him I would have known nothing. Our hand on the beloved curve of metal, the cage and the collar. The thing which makes I he, and he I. Our hand on skin, darker than our own. I might be jealous if I could care. I think he would take my jealousy away though. I think he would like that, in his collection. His treasures.
At that time, I am not sure I knew what I wanted. At this time, I am sure I do not care. But looking back I think that even then I wanted him. Here. With me, forever. For my entire life I think I sought him out, that savage shadow of myself. The me in the mirror, with the black soul and bloodstained smile. But when I wanted, I did not know. And when I learned, I felt only regret. Now that I know, I do not, can not, care. He promised that he would not leave me. That no thing would hurt me. He told me that I was too important, for that.
In this moment I wonder, is it worth it? In this moment a silent scream slips through me, and I want it all back. Want my wish back. Want my self back.
It makes him laugh.