A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I love you all. Now, on with the story!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my plots and OC's.
Chapter 3: Broken -- Yugi
I am grateful that neither Tea nor her husband seem very talkative. Tea just says that Joey's been frustrated lately and that me not getting the photos was just bad icing on a bad cake. I shrug. It isn't my fault the photos never got to me. I don't control the fucking mail. I'm angry, yes, but I'm beginning to think leaving Yami with Angry Joey is probably not the best idea. I reason with myself: we all used to be friends, how bad can it be? Besides, I had more important things to worry about: like my father for instance. And whether my mother would be there, which made no sense.
When I was seven, my parents separated. It had been mutual, but up until that point, it had also been war. I can't count how many times they had a fight. How much shit got broken. How many times the front door slammed. How many times I covered my ears so hard they hurt. I hated it. For two years before they split, it was like living in a war zone: you had to watch out or the enemy would sneak up behind you and bomb the hell out of your market place. Meaning I had to watch out or my parents fighting would get the cops called, or make me late to school, or make dinner just a small glimmer of hope.
The next year, I was eight, and my parents told me that they were getting a divorce. And that it didn't change anything. And that they still loved me. Oh, and as a side note? We're dropping you off to live with your grandpa while we go have real lives. Bye!
Well, fuck that shit. I mean, I love my grandpa, I really do. And I miss him now that he's gone. But when you're eight, living with your grandpa is probably one of the cruelest things you could do. Sure, he owned a game shop. Sure, he wasn't that old. Sure he used to be this really kick-ass explorer in Egypt. Or something like that. But when you're eight, other kids want to know that you're like them. And since most kids who lived with their grandparents had dead parents, not stupid parents, I wasn't welcome there either. I wasn't an orphan. But I didn't have a real family.
And did I mention I was short?
Like, until I was eighteen, I was about five foot one? And that I was that height between the fifth grade and senior year? No one likes short people. Short people who are old enough to drive get made fun of. And that, my friends, is the honest to God truth.
Now I'm taller. My grandpa is dead, my dad is dying, and my mother and I don't get along. If my life had been like this when I was eight, I have a strange feeling I would have fit in more. Call me crazy, but fucked up family structures win big points with kids.
As we near my father's house, my pulse rate quickens. I haven't seen him since I left, but before that, our meetings were sparse. I think about running. Think about standing in the rain for four hours and watching the cars pass. I think about pretending that he's dead and telling Yami and we can just go home now, back to the desert where it is dry and simple and beautiful. Where no one is dying but Sayra and her heart, where I am allowed to fix things and am forgiven if they must remain broken. I must remain broken. This rift between me and my father must remain broken.
But I go in anyway. I knock three times. And when it looks like no one will answer and I'm about to turn away and lie down in the middle of the river that is the road, a man opens the door. He's stooped and thin and has deep purple eyes. And I don't recognize him. But it's him.
It's my father. And he's more broken than I could have imagined.
I don't know what else to do other than wrap him in my arms. He seems so cold. So thin. And my heart is breaking while I look at him.
"Yugi," he says quietly. And lets me in. The house smells of sickness. There's a humidifier in the living room and tupperware bowl of medication in the kitchen. He walks with a cane. He seems so old. Older than I remembered. I know he was a good twenty years older than my mother, but even now, he should only be in his fifties. He looks eighty.
"Where's you guy, that kid, what's his name?"
"Yami."
"Yeah, where is he?"
"With Joey. It's just us today dad. You can see him later."
"I like him." Great. One point for Yami.
"He knows. I left him with Joey, but that may not have been a good idea."
"No? Why?"
"I don't know. Joey's upset about something." He shrugs, sits shakily on the sofa. "How are you?"
"Dying, but that's been going on for a while."
"I know that, but, you know, I mean-"
"I'm fine, Yugi. Better, now that you're here. I know a couple hours won't ever make up for all the lost time but, I can sure as hell try, can't I?"
"Yeah, you can," I say, smiling. I've always loved my father. Always. And I always knew he loved me. There was just something there. Something was always broken. And it will always be broken. This is obvious from the way we talk about our lives. How much I've changed. How much he's changed. He looks at me so strangely, like he's seeing right through everything. Like he knows how much I'm afraid of this trip. And he understands.
We talk for an hour until I hear a honk outside. I peer through the window. "Mom," I say quietly. He nods. Pushes himself off the sofa. I hug him lightly. He's fragile, sick, and breakable. He's falling apart in front of me and I don't know what to do about it. I'm crying. He wipes the tear away.
"This is life, Yugi. We live, we get sick, we die. But the most important thing of all is that we never regret and ever look back, you understand?" I nod. "I don't regret your childhood. It's made you stronger, hasn't it?" I nod. "I look at you, and I don't see that little boy anymore. I see a real man. And not only that, but I see a man who knows where his bliss is. Who has found true happiness. With the person he loves. Go now. I'll see you later." He gives me a light kiss on my cheek. I can feel his tears, too. And I can feel how broken he is. How broken we all are.
"Well?" my mother asks when I get in the car.
"Well what?"
"I see you didn't bring him."
"Does everything always have to be about how much you don't like Yami? I'm here to see dad. Not listen to you bitch about my personal choices, alright?"
"I was just saying."
"Well, stop saying. I've got a headache," I lie, closing my eyes and leaning against the window. It's cold. Does it ever fucking stop raining here? I glower at the sky.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In retrospect, I should have known it was a bad idea to leave Yami with Joey. I really should have. Because when I enter the house, Joey is on a small rampage, methodically grading papers from the academy and bitching to Hannah about what an ass Yami is.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" I ask, spooking him.
"He hid those pictures! I know he did! First he comes back here, sweeps you off your feet. Then he drags you back to Egypt-"
"No body was dragged to Egypt Joey. I went there. Of my own free will."
"Then he hides things from you!" he finishes, as if I've said nothing. "I know he hid those pictures! I know he did."
"Where is he?"
"In the room upstairs. Probably laughing his ass off at me."
He's not. He's upstairs trying to sleep. He's exhausted from the week before with work and the time change. Jet lag is written all over both of us.
"Come downstairs." He nods, pushes himself off the bed, follows me. When we're back in the kitchen, I stand between him and Joey. Look right at him. "Did you hide those pictures?"
"What pictures?"
"You know what pictures you fuckin-" Joey begins. I shush him.
"The pictures Joey sent." Yami nods. "Did you hide them?"
"No," he says without hesitating. And I know he didn't.
"Alright then, that's settled. Now both of you are going to get along, or I'm moving you in with my mother," I say to Yami. "And I'm getting a hotel room, got it?" They nod.
I don't know how everything got this way. How everything around me became so broken. My best friend, my lover, my father, my mother, my family. I don't know how it got this way. But as I walk back upstairs, I realize something: it's not my job to pick up the pieces. It never was. So I won't dwell over Joey's newfound hatred of Yami. Or of my mother growing hatred for him. Or over my dying father. Or my homesick lover. I will not dwell at all. I will rest. Because I don't need to fix these things. If I've learned anything over the years, it's that, eventually, these things will fix themselves.