Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Broken Heart
Romance: Ryou x Yuusuke
Word Count: 2,500||Status: One-shot
Genre: Drama, Romance||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, E27, T rated fic; Written for GX Non-Flash Bingo, #62, truth; Written for Word Counts Set Boot Camp, #34, 2,500 words; Written for One Ship Boot Camp, #49, unfeeling; Written for the Valentine's Day to White Day Advent 2016, day #9, write a story about a random encounter
Notes: This takes place in my reversal universe.
Summary: Yuusuke has heard a great deal about Ryou's fate at Camula's hands. He didn't want to believe any of it. But his eyes cannot lie about what he's seeing.

"No..." The word ghosted off of Yuusuke's tongue. Living as they had for the last several years, he'd seen so much more than he'd ever wanted to see out of life. He'd seen comrades fall to the forces of Haou many, many times. He'd known that when Ryou sought to join Haou, for the sake of Johan more than the sake of power, that he might never see him alive again.

He knew what the reports Hayato and others had sent said. He'd read them; they all had. Edo had pointed out that while seeing Ryou on the battlefield before had been dangerous, as he could not let them escape and risk his cover, now would be even worse, as he could not let them escape. He wasn't capable of it. To protect the high-ranking rebels, they had to avoid fights where he might be involved.

Asuka, Shou, and Fubuki had not liked that. The three of them had been close to Ryou since they were children and losing him had struck a foul blow close to their hearts.

It had shattered Yuusuke's. He'd also known Ryou since childhood, and as they'd grown older, they'd simply gravitated toward one another. Neither felt the need to fill up the air with useless noise and on those topics they did choose to speak of, both of them were knowledgeable and could enjoy discussing them as long as they chose.

He hadn't wanted to believe that Ryou now walked the night as as vampire, Camula's foul offspring.

He didn't hate all vampires. He knew a few who were on their side, and who hated what Camula did as much as all the rest of them. But the evil queen had taken Ryou from them.

Yuusuke had not wanted to believe it, not in his deepest heart.

And yet, here Ryou stood, his fangs buried deep within the neck of a young man, drinking so deeply that not a single drop escaped.

Yuusuke could not look away. Fascination and fear held him in their unyielding grip.

"You shouldn't be here."

Ryou's voice hadn't changed much. A little deeper, a littler richer, that was all. But still the voice of Marufuji Ryou.

Still the voice of his lover.

Still the voice of the one that he loved.

"I could say the same about you," Yuusuke said, finding words. "This is closer to our territory." Was Ryou trying to come back? Could he come back? The other vampires might help him, if they could.

But Ryou shook his head. "I'm only ranging a little out tonight. This won't be your territory for much longer." Then he winced, pressing one hand to his head. The light in his eyes, the light that told Yuusuke that he was Ryou, dimmed for a moment.

"Are you all right?" No sooner had the words passed Yuusuke's lips than he realized how ridiculous they were. Ryou was undead and enslaved to Haou. He would never be all right until at least one of those could change.

Being undead wasn't likely to but Yuusuke refused to give up the spark of hope that one day they could free Ryou from Haou.

Ryou knew that as well as he did, which was why his only answer was a thin-lipped smile that did little to hide the sharp, blood-tinged fangs in his mouth.

"If I killed you, I'd be praised for it," he said instead. "He and she both would be proud of me."

Yuusuke knew every emotion that flavored Ryou's words. Hatred, cold and implacable, layered those two simple sentences. "Is that what you want?"

"What I want doesn't matter," Ryou said. "They would be. That's what's true."

Yuusuke didn't doubt it at all. But he still didn't move away. His eyes drank in all of Ryou, who he hadn't seen in far too long. He scrambled for some sort of words, not wanting Ryou to decide to leave instead of killing him.

Not that he especially wanted to be killed anyway, but he still didn't want Ryou to leave.

"Is Haou planning to invade this area, then?" He did not want to talk about the war, but what else could he say? Ryou would not want to talk about anything close to the two of them.

He could not forget the last time they'd seen one another, before Ryou left to infiltrate Haou's army. He'd wondered then if that would be the last time, but not because of this.

"All the world belongs to him," Ryou replied. His head bent forward just a fraction, almost not enough to even be called a nod. "He will take what he wants when he wants it."

He is. Yuusuke would have to let the others know about this so they could move operations.

Ryou turned a cold look on Yuusuke himself. "Why are you here?"

Yuusuke considered his words before he spoke them. Whatever he said now could be repeated to Haou or Camula, or both. "I was only exploring. Scouting." It was true enough and nothing that would tell their enemies anything that they didn't know as of yet.

"By night?" The side of Ryou's mouth quirked up as he flicked the fingers of one hand upward to where the stars glimmered above them. "Have things changed all that much?"

Heat rose along Yuusuke's cheeks. "Things can be different by night than they are by day. You should know that by now."

"I do indeed." Ryou nodded. "But I didn't know you had any affinity for the night."

A quick shrug from Yuusuke. "Things change. You should know that, too."

Again, that wasn't a lie. In the last few weeks, the more time that Yuusuke spent going out at night, the happier he was about it. It wasn't necessarily going to look for Ryou – though if he admitted the truth to himself at least that was part of it – but as if the darkness, some shadow that wasn't the Haou's foul creation, called to him, and he wanted to answer. Not just wanted to, but did, seeking whatever it was that wanted him.

Ryou only gave him one of those long, cool looks, so much like the ones he'd once favored other people with. Yuusuke mentally squirmed; Ryou almost never gave him looks like that. The ones Ryou bestowed on him had always been full of life. No matter what Ryou's views on anything, he'd always been full of that life. That was one of the reasons Yuusuke loved him the way that he did.

As if reading Yuusuke's thoughts, Ryou spoke. "What we had can't happen anymore."

This time Yuusuke knew something to say. He hadn't had his fill of Ryou, as if he ever could.

"Fubuki would disagree. You don't need a beating heart to love, just one that cares."

Ryou's mouth quirked for a heartbeat. "And I don't have one that does. I'm not allowed."

"And if you were?"

There wasn't an immediate answer there. Yuusuke recognized the tilt of Ryou's head there: he was thinking about the answer.

And the answer was what Yuusuke hoped for. "If I were, I would. I would not be here." One hand gestured around in a way that didn't mean the woods where they stood, a dead body at Ryou's feet, the call of the darkness in Yuusuke's blood, or anything else.

"If we can find a way so that you can, then..." Was there still a chance for them? Could there ever be another one?

Ryou's lips pressed together. "Don't try. It would mean your life."

Yuusuke raised his head to meet Ryou's eyes, dim and remote as they were. "Do you think that I'd just leave you like that if there's any chance to bring you back? Do you think I even care if it means my life? It's already cost you yours. One more to restore you is a small price to pay, especially if it's mine."

He had few people in the world aside from Ryou. Even among the rebellion, there were few who cared to associate with him. He'd learned a great deal from mages of the darkness who worked with them, enough that he could be a shadow mage himself if he chose to. Walking in the darkness held more than enough risks even without the connections Haou had to it.

What would he do to get Ryou back? Anything.

What would he not do? Nothing.

Yuusuke almost didn't notice Ryou's hand on his shoulder, then the other one tilting his head up so their eyes met. But when he saw Ryou's eyes, shining bright with emotions that Camula's slave could seldom express, his heart skipped a beat or two.

"Whatever you do, I can't live again. I'll always be undead. No magic can truly raise the dead, Yuusuke. You know that."

He did. He just didn't care. The results of raising the dead, or trying to, lead to zombies and vampires and other half-lives, and Ryou already carried that curse. There wasn't any need to somehow make it worse.

"But you'll be free of them, at least. I can do that for you." He didn't know how. But he dedicated himself in that moment to finding out, whoever he had to talk to and whatever he had to do.

Ryou did not move his hands away from Yuusuke. Any other time that they'd touched, Yuusuke treasured the warmth that came from him. Now he couldn't feel it. Instead, a cool kind of pressure rested against him. It wasn't revolting, but it wasn't Ryou. Not that Ryou that Yuusuke remembered.

"You're going to do it no matter what I say." It wasn't a question. Ryou remembered him as well as Yuusuke remembered him.

"Did you ever think it would be different?" How long had Ryou suffered in their dungeons before Haou finally chose this method to ruin him? Yuusuke didn't know if it had been an hour or a day or a week or a year but somewhere in there, Ryou despaired. He had to have. Nothing else made sense for why Ryou wouldn't think he would do something to help him now.

This smile didn't show Ryou's fangs. It still didn't show much emotion, but it was there all the same.

"Watch what you do. Not everyone who you think can help you will."

He stepped away from Yuusuke, his hands dropping to his side. "And I cannot help you, at all. If I see you again, I have to fight you." A moment of silence. "I should fight you now. They would want me to."

Yuusuke wasn't even surprised. After what Ryou had said earlier, there wasn't any way that he would've been. "But you're not."

"I have some control. Not much." Ryou shrugged. "I can't keep it from them forever, though."

No, he wouldn't be able to. No matter what he tried, Haou and Camula kept their slave on a short leash. Sooner or later, Ryou would tell them of this conversation and what Yuusuke wanted to do. Whether or not it could work wouldn't matter.

Yuusuke remembered everything that had been in those reports. He'd never wanted to believe them, until now, when it all came flooding back in. Reports from spies who had seen Ryou and Haou and Camula with one another, seen how Haou controlled Ryou with little more than a word or gesture, how Camula had taught him how to feed and how to hunt, and how he had to accept those orders and those lessons whether he wanted to or not.

No, Yuusuke had never wanted to believe any of them, and seeing Ryou in the flesh had made him not want to believe.

But believing or not believing didn't change the truth, and the truth that worked its way into his mind against his will was that Ryou was a vampire who served Haou and Camula and his own choices on the matter didn't exist.

"I won't ask any more." Yuusuke raised one hand, wishing that he could touch warm skin again. But he dropped his hand and steeled himself even more. "I miss you."

He'd never wanted to say those words out loud, either. It would mean that he was saying good-bye to Ryou, and he did not want to do that. He still refused to say it now. This wasn't good-bye; he wasn't going to give up on Ryou.

His fingers trembled with the force of his emotions, especially as Ryou began to turn away. He wanted to promise again that he would find a way to free Ryou. But the words stuck in his throat and he could only watch as Ryou picked his way out of the clearing they'd spoken in.

The reports spoke not just of a vampire's strength and speed and how they numbered among the greatest hunters of the world. They'd read also of how a vampire could blend into the foliage and be gone from sight even while they were still there. Yuusuke could confirm all of that as Ryou, for all practical purposes, vanished.

He watched for another few moments before turning on his own tracks and finding his way out. The others would need to know about this.

Well, some of it.

Camula perched on a tree stump as if it were a throne. Haou lounged lazily against a near-by tree. Both of them wore the same expression of smug satisfaction.

Ryou knelt in the center of this clearing, a mere stone's throw away from where he'd met Yuusuke. Every line of his body spoke of mixed rage and submission.

"You did very well," Haou praised him. "I'm quite proud of you."

"As am I," Camula agreed, reaching out to run her long fingers through Ryou's hair. "You could've tried to warn him and you didn't. Now he'll waste his time searching for what doesn't exist."

"Giving us more time to crush all of them." Haou nodded in satisfaction. A smirk flickered across his lips. "You'll have him for a reward, my vampire."

Ryou's shoulders tensed and he tried to shake his head. But all movement had been taken from him the moment he'd dropped to his knees here. They always did that to him.

"I don't think he wants that," Camula said. She could read him better than anyone now. "He 'loves' the mage."

Haou leaned forward, eyes gleaming gold in the starlight. "I know. That's why I'm going to do it." One hand tilted Ryou's head upward so their eyes met. "You understand that, don't you?"

The direct question unlocked Ryou's lips. "Yes, Haou-sama." Yes, he did. Haou gave him what he didn't want, because Haou could. He had to deal with it, regardless of how he felt.

"Stand up." Haou moved back. "We're going home."

Ryou fell into place behind the two of them and with what small freedom he had still, hoped Yuusuke would learn greater wisdom, and find someone else that he could love.

The End

Note: Thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story. Please let me know what you thought of it if at all possible.