Angel's Grace
By ElveNDestiNy
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! No copyright infringement intended.
Seven: Heaven and Hell
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet (I, v, 166-167)
It was hours before I could even steel myself to think rationally about what I was going to do. By that time I was shivering, even with the added advantage of my not quite human, heated blood. I had stayed away all night, shutting him out so firmly that it almost felt as if our bond had been severed. It was excruciating—almost a physical sensation, only worse. But no matter what pain it caused me, I was sure it would be worse if I could actually feel what he felt.
Over and over again, I saw that look in his eyes as we had broken apart, the flicker of denial, the rejection. I was past the point of tears or perhaps too stubborn to give into something so weak. Instead, I ended up sitting at the foot of a tree, curled and head resting on my arms, trying valiantly to feel numb and to stay that way.
By the early hours of morning, a little bit of reason had returned to me, mainly with the realization that I was on a mountain with no real way to get back home. I was somewhat shocked to find that 'home' in my mind now was the Kaiba mansion, rather than the place I had shared with Varon and Raphael. I'd denied it for so long and yet it still came so naturally in my thoughts.
The point was, I was choosing to strand myself on this mountain. Kaiba didn't know where I was, and might have left already, if he were angry enough. The thought made me suppress a painful shudder, but I couldn't ignore this bit of common sense forever, no matter how much I wanted to. Still, it was only a few hours before dawn before I finally forced myself to stand up, stretching stiff and wearied limbs, and told myself to return.
It didn't help that my wings were bedraggled and that my muscles were finally aching from their flying exercises, and from doing whatever unnatural things I had done with them to pull out of that dive when Kaiba had jumped off the cliff's edge. I was getting soft. During the days when Dartz watched over us, I wouldn't have ever ended up in this miserable condition.
Even now, I couldn't think of Dartz without some bitterness. In some odd way, he had been almost like a father to us. He'd taken us as young children, and we had grown up with him, believing all his lies. Disillusionment was painful and the knowledge that he had been behind everything in the first place…well, what could I do now? Nothing could bring back Miruko, or give Raphael his sister and brother back.
Even Varon—no, that wasn't being fair to him. Raphael and I had our reasons for joining Doom, but Varon had been the closest to Dartz in many ways. Now Dartz was gone, and the three of us struggled along, but I didn't expect to be separated from them, either.
I wondered what they would do if they were in my place. Then I wondered if I could go back to live with them after all, defying this angel's bond, betraying the oath I had sworn. What was I protecting Kaiba from, anyway? I knew it hurt to be away from Seto, but surely I would grow used to it. It hurt just as much to be near him and I preferred the uncomfortable tug of the bond and the guilt of abandoning my duty to protect him, to the ache in my heart.
Even as I was thinking, I was finding my way to a ledge that I hoped was steep enough for me to jump off from. I had no idea how to launch myself from the ground, although presumably there was a way, so ledges it would be. I beat my wings slowly back and forth to renew the circulation in them, and winced as sore muscles protested.
The numbness was wearing off and I didn't want it to. I finally reached the edge of the ledge and looked down. The sky would begin to lighten in a couple of hours, but the night was still dark. I closed my gritty eyes and wondered if I could keep the bond shut down so tightly if I were near him, facing him and watching his expression. I could test it first, of course – relax my control of it now, and see how he was feeling, or if he was even near. But my courage failed me at the thought.
Best to deal with that only when I absolutely had to, or I would talk myself out of even returning to the cabin. For all that I tried to keep my mind blank, it continued to replay my memories over and over. I remembered how I had stumbled over the words I had forced myself to say, and the way it had hurt so much, as if pain could be magnified.
It doesn't mean anything. It's just an effect of the bond.
Had he truly believed it? Had he felt anything from me from the bond when we'd kissed? After all, I had been such a fool…he couldn't have missed what I'd made so blatantly obvious. With his looks and his money, he was probably used to having people throw themselves at his feet.
So. He knew I felt strongly for him, even though I'd tried to explain it away. Saying that I didn't want to kiss him when I had just done it wasn't exactly an excuse that would hold up. Even the thought stole my breath away and I concentrated on ignoring the deep ache inside my chest. Why had it been Kaiba, and not anyone else, anyone with even a possibility of returning my affections? It was all his fault in the first place, or at least his employee's fault. I wouldn't be an angel now, I'd be singing, as I had been, with Kaiba safely far away, out of sight, and hopefully out of my mind.
The confrontation that I had so feared had come at last, Emerson's lyrics come true. Just as I had sung, it left devastation in its wake, and I didn't know what to do now. I rubbed my eyes hard, took deep breaths of the cold night air, and told myself that self-pity was stupid. I was stronger than this, and I was wasting time thinking too much.
The flight back was dismal, to say the least. It wasn't hard to find my way back; oddly enough, my flight to escape him was etched into my mind, as if memorizing flight patterns were perhaps another side effect of being an angel. The night had turned chill; we were high in the mountains, after all, and even my angel's blood could not completely cope. I beat my stiff wings determinedly, reminded that I'd pay for this three times over in the morning, because I was already aching from the previous exertions.
Flying at night was different in so many ways. The shadows seemed menacing and I half expected to crash into some unseen, tall black wall, breaking my wings and thus breaking my neck in the process when I fell. There was a moon, but sometimes it was cloaked by clouds, and then the night would turn even darker, so I felt as if I were flying blindly into a trap.
I couldn't help but reflect rather bitterly that I should never have agreed to this in the first place. Sure, Kaiba had given me the greatest gift of my life, but he might as well have also stripped me of my wings. He'd taught me to fly, and grounded me at the same time. My eyes burned, and I thought it was from exhaustion. It wasn't until a wet drop splattered on my hand that I realized that I was silently crying all the tears that I had successfully held back. I wiped them away angrily and told myself that I wouldn't give Kaiba the satisfaction of seeing how much he'd shaken me.
I might have laid out my feelings for him to see, but I had given a perfectly plausible reason for it, and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to stick to the story. With those grim resolutions, I landed hard, nearly falling to the ground. Walking felt strange and somehow clumsy, as if I had forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.
The cabin was dark when I stealthily stole up to it and for a frightening moment I thought that all my worst fears had come true. It was deserted. Kaiba had been so angry, so disgusted by what I'd dared to do, that he had left. I was here in the middle of nowhere on a mountain and I was abandoned.
I don't know what I would have done, but I think my knees were just about to give out, so I probably would have ended up as a miserable feathered heap in the little path leading up to the front door of the cabin. The cabin door opened before I could give way to my despair though, and then he was there, standing, faintly illuminated by the moonlight.
We didn't speak, just looked at each other for a long moment, gazes unwittingly meeting and somehow neither of us could look away. My breath caught and I clamped down on my side of the bond with even more willpower, sure that he was doing the same with his. Those blue eyes were unreadable and I hoped that mine were as well.
Just an effect of the bond. The kiss meant nothing to me. I tried to imagine what I'd look like, how I'd respond to him now, if that were true, and did my best to act that way. I don't think I could have succeeded in full daylight, but the night was kind to my poor parody, and after the first few intense moments, I looked away. It was hard enough to bear the moonlight soft on his pale skin and to resist the urge to brush the messy, stray strands of silky hair out of his darkened eyes.
"I suppose you're back to stay," he said at last, voice rusty as if from disuse. I nodded, closing my eyes for a long moment to hide any welling tears. We were going to ignore it, then, and pretend that it hadn't happened. This was what I had wanted, right?
A part of me was relieved beyond belief that he had agreed to overlook my mistake, and that I wasn't about to be scorned or rejected. I wasn't about to lose him. We could return to the status quo.
But another, larger part of me was shattered, knowing that my unintentional act would be as close as I'd ever come to admitting anything to him and that this opportunity had come and passed, with little left in its wake. I hadn't realized that I'd held onto that last irrational sliver of hope until this moment.
"We'll head back tomorrow," he said abruptly, after I made no move to get any closer to him. I was acutely conscious of the way his eyes raked me up and down for a long moment, taking in my disheveled appearance and slightly shivering form. No doubt they would reflect an aristocratic scorn, if I met them.
"Kaiba—" My voice was choked, and I broke off. I don't know what I would have said, anyway. For some reason, I wanted to apologize. To my horror, I realized I was perilously close to tears.
We'd reached a breaking point tonight and both of us knew it. One wrong step, and whatever fragile peace we had developed over the last couple of months would have disappeared. Granted, we had ignored each other for much of that time, but something had developed anyway, enough so that we could continue our lives separately, but slightly overlapping, just enough to satisfy the bond.
It wasn't friendship, not even close. But although it went unnamed and unnoticed, it had almost been irreparably damaged tonight, and all because I had lost control and kissed him. I think both of us had valued that vague relationship more than we realized. I had my own obvious reasons, but Kaiba…well, I had observed him for a while, and I think it was true that sometimes he was just human after all. It was only his pride that kept him from reaching out to people. The more he pretended not to care, the more he pushed people away, but it was a lie. And because of the bond between us, because I was his guardian angel, he couldn't push me away.
Maybe it was the direction of my thoughts, or the volatile tension between us, but our control over the bond had weakened. I had a flash of memory that I would have given anything not to have seen.
It was rather ordinary, I suppose. Kaiba, sitting alone in a classroom with a book of Kafka's philosophy in his hands, while around him all the students crowded over to Yugi, who was dueling some green-eyed guy with a thing for dice. A die even dangled from his ear.
Seto stared at the page as if deep in concentration, but he wasn't reading at all. Over the excited chatter and the giggling of a few girls, he could hear Yugi and his friends. I felt his anger that he was the better duelist, but Yugi got all the attention anyway, and beneath that anger, loneliness so profound it took my breath away.
He had concealed it so well that he almost believed it himself. Seto had told himself that he wanted to be alone, in fact preferred it, and that it was his choice. No doubt the students around him wouldn't have seen past the façade he had put up, but it didn't correspond with what was going on inside of him at all.
"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
His enraged shout brought me back to myself, and I slammed my side of the bond shut again, reeling from what I'd seen and aware that I had just violated one of his most private moments. My eyes prickled with tears, but I didn't know whether for him or for me. He was angrier than I had ever seen him.
"Kaiba," I blurted, panicked. But his gaze had turned as cold as ice, glittering a deadly blue, and I saw that his hand was clenched into a fist by his side. "I didn't mean to. God, Kaiba, I—"
"Spare me, Amelda."
Three words in that precise and even tone, and I fell silent, feeling as if I had been slapped. But if I was wordless, he wasn't.
"You've explained enough, don't you think?" He paused. "I don't care what it takes, but I'll break this bond if I have to kill you myself."
I opened my mouth to say something, to frantically try to defuse the situation, but I couldn't get past his words. I knew he was angry and I knew I deserved it, but it was an agony to hear them all the same. I had never truly been on the receiving end of this cold anger.
The silence stretched on as I watched him and saw how he fought to get back his control. So much anger, and for some reason all I could think of was how he was such a master of illusions, so skilled at acting, until he'd almost fooled himself. So much anger now, but as a cover for what, this time?
We stood on different sides of the cabin door and I studied the ground. When I looked up an indeterminable time later he was almost calm again, the expression in his wintry eyes implacable.
"I'll always be Kaiba to you."
It was just a statement, toneless as usual when he was being his most difficult except for the slight stress on his name, but I thought about all that it could mean, as I stood there. I didn't think that I could feel any worse, but those words somehow achieved the effect.
The sky was finally beginning to lighten. I was tired beyond belief and I just wanted to get away from him. Almost subconsciously, I turned from the cabin door, finding it funny that I'd never even stepped foot inside. There was nowhere to go, of course, but I wasn't thinking so clearly, and I didn't care.
I took a couple of steps, shivering a little, and heard a choked kind of sound escape me, just as a hand clamped down hard on my arm. I froze, realizing that he had followed me. He turned me to face him and studied my face, no doubt reading the misery written all over it, and insistently pulled me back to the cabin, shutting the door behind us. I didn't resist; I think at that point if someone had tried to strangle me I would have stood by and let them.
It was noticeably warmer inside and I stopped shivering, but the blessed numbness had returned in full force. He'd turned away from me and I stared at his back. I was so exhausted it was almost dreamlike, so when he faced me again I simply continued to stare. Even with his lips compressed with unhappiness or distaste – I couldn't tell without looking up, and I wasn't about to do that – his mouth was attractive. And reminded me of how this unfortunate chain of events had started…with a kiss. A stupid, stupid kiss, but one I didn't regret, not if it was the only one I'd ever get from him.
With a sigh, he pushed me towards the bedroom. It was small and held only beds on either side, with four or so feet separating them. I noted that his was untouched. Of course, he hadn't been flying around all night as I had, but like his statement, knowing that he hadn't slept either brought up a welter of confused feelings in me.
Whatever his reasons, Seto's voice was just slightly gentler when he spoke again. "Get some sleep, Amelda."
With that, he disappeared back into the other room. I needed no other invitation to curl up on the bed, although I forced myself to stay awake for another few minutes. Waiting, although I don't know for what. I remembered the other times I had fallen asleep in his presence.
I thought that he needed the sleep as much as I did, and the thought wouldn't let me go. I finally got up to check the other room, but hesitated, maybe hoping that when I did go in, he would be occupied, preferably already sleeping. I supposed it was too much to ask from Kaiba, though, for him to pretend to be sleeping.
He wasn't, of course. He was sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the flames, but at least he didn't see me. I left him alone, stumbling back to the bedroom, and fell asleep on my side, looking across the four feet to his untouched bed.
o o o
It was rather amazing how two people could spend an entire morning together without speaking a word. If the silence hadn't held an underlying chill, I would have appreciated the way we managed to pack up everything, completely without the need to communicate, more. Nor were there any slightest accidental brush of hands or bodies, although the cabin was small enough, and we stood close enough several times. In fact, I was concentrating hard to keep my wings insubstantial, although this weekend had ostensibly been planned so that I might be free to be what I was, an angel.
After two or three hours of deep slumber, I had woken up with a start, facedown on my narrow bed and aware that something was wrong. It didn't take me long to figure out that in my sleep I had stretched out my aching wings and that my left wing had effortlessly spanned the four feet between his bed and mine, to drape over him.
He was awake already and trying to get it off him without waking me up.
I withdrew my wing immediately and scrambled back until my right wing protested from being smashed against the wall in an unnatural position. He stared at me, hair tousled from sleep and eyes soft and endlessly blue for a moment, before I saw him remember.
We were about half an hour from the Kaiba mansion when he spoke and it was softly, not even addressed to me. He was driving, of course, and rather than taking the passenger seat, I was sitting behind him. Kaiba had pointedly left a bag in the seat, which I took to mean that he most definitely did not want me sitting next to him. Since I was behind him, he could almost pretend that there was no one in the car with him and had proceeded to do so for the first two hours of the long drive back to Domino City.
So when he spoke to me, head perfectly still and seemingly focused on the road, I didn't even catch what he said. It did have the effect of snapping me out of the trance I'd fallen into and before I could stop myself, I spoke up. "Sorry?"
Blue eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror and met mine for a surprised second. "I said, Mokuba will want to know how our trip went. I don't want him to be disappointed."
In other words: I will be acting, as usual, and you better play your part, too.
"Mokuba'll be fine," I said lamely, to let Seto know that I understood. "After all, I did learn to fly." Somehow it hadn't given me as much pleasure as I would have expected.
"He's going to notice if we don't speak to each other." There was an odd hesitancy to his voice and for a moment I wondered if the silence had bothered him as much as it had bothered me. But Seto had been the one that started it, right? Well, not that I'd said a single word this morning, either.
"Then we'll talk," I said finally. "Look, if you're worried, I'm sure he'll be delighted if I tell him that I can take him flying."
I shut up immediately after that, regretting my words when I realized how absurd of an idea it was. After all, Domino was a crowded area, and it wasn't like I would ever have the chance. It was back to pretending to be normal, for me.
Expecting him to say something to the effect of pointing out my idiocy, I turned my head to resolutely stare out of the window. Granted, things had never been comfortable between us, but we'd almost reached the point of friendliness, what with all the dinners we'd shared together, with Mokuba presiding over the table despite being the youngest. The memory brought a faint smile to my lips and then I realized Seto hadn't replied at all. Instinctively I looked at the rearview mirror again and found that he was watching me.
He looked away and then turned on the radio, catching the end of a song. I started to relax a little, closing my eyes to block out Seto's presence in front of me, and letting myself sing inwardly with the music. A bunch of commercials came on, and although annoying, I was grateful for the noise. The silence had a way of eating at me. I think even Kaiba had felt a little of the strain, because he made no move to change stations.
"The number one single from the hit band's self-titled first album, Devastation. It'll be out in stores in a week and anticipation is building. As you may have heard in the news, the band's attractive lead singer was attacked by an overzealous fan a month ago, but thankfully escaped with no serious injury. With this kind of music, it's no wonder that everyone wants to be devastated!"
I'd almost forgotten about the date set for our album's release, with all that had happened. In a completely surreal moment, I heard the beginning chords of the first song we'd done together as a group, and moments later, my voice filling the car. It was so familiar, I experienced a sudden sense of déjà vu.
And you and I,
We're a disaster waiting to happen
Do you realize I won't compromise?
Angel, dare to defy—
The music had built from a slow croon to an exultant, almost angry cry. I knew what was coming, and wished the radio station had chosen to play any other song. I was so tense that when I made my hands uncurl from their fists, I saw deep crescent moons on my palms, courtesy of my fingernails.
Confrontation! Devastation!
Kaiba's hand reached out and turned off the radio.
The cessation of music was both unexpected and welcome, right up until I realized that at least it had covered up the almost audible hum of tension in the car. I sat stiffly and tried my best to ignore him, to no avail. For some reason, I wanted him to know that I'd written the song long before I had actually become an angel. The lyrics were just coincidence. But when I opened my mouth to speak, my throat was dry and scratchy.
The car slowed and for a second I thought he was going to do something drastic, like stop the car and tell me to get out. It was hard to gauge his feelings when he was so shut off, but I was fairly sure that he wasn't happy. I finally found my voice.
"Kai—" catching myself just in time, I went on. "Seto, that was the first song we ever made together. The band, I mean, not you and me. It was before I actually knew there were angels around." At least part of it was passably coherent.
"I know."
Which left me wondering what he knew, but I was relieved he hadn't told me not to call him Seto. Names seemed to have a special import with him and he'd proven touchy about it. Last night's statement about how he'd always be Kaiba to me was fresh in my mind. Except…I know…I remember when we had first met each other again, the night I was attacked. Kaiba had been at the club Paradise, where the band and I had performed, and I had been worried that he'd recognized me. So, presumably, he had heard the song there too.
I was so caught up in my thoughts, the car had come to a full stop before I finally noticed that we had arrived back at the Kaiba mansion. I got out and started to help Seto haul the luggage out of the car, only to find that there was already someone there to do exactly that. A butler or housekeeper or something like that; it's not as if I actually know the proper titles of servants, being closer to that class than to the class that employed them.
Seto disappeared inside and I followed, sure than he was looking for Mokuba. I was almost surprised that the kid hadn't been there to greet us, but even that was expecting a bit much, I suppose. I knew that Seto had brought a cell phone up to the mountains with us, but I didn't recall hearing him use it, and if he had called, Mokuba probably would have wanted to talk to me.
Sometimes I think he was the best thing that happened to me as a result of becoming an angel. It wasn't that I was using him to replace Miruko, but I did feel as if I had become a second older brother to him. I was eager to see him, even if it meant that Seto and I would have to be careful to act as if nothing had happened. My face burned at the thought of Mokuba finding out that I had kissed his brother. It wasn't so much fear that he wouldn't approve, because I had the feeling that he would, but just the idea of it. My thoughts toward Seto weren't entirely innocent, after all.
Speaking of the brunette, Seto had come back with a slightly perplexed look on his face, the first non-angry emotion I'd seen from him in a while. "What is it?" I asked. We would have to talk sooner or later; this could be regarded as good practice. A voice in the back of my mind told me that my intentions hadn't anything to do with practice and everything to do with my own selfish wish for him to stop cold shouldering me.
"I can't find Mokuba."
I raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. "You just looked through every room in this place?"
"Of course not," he snapped. Then, as if seeing my sudden wariness, he sighed. "I tried calling him on Saturday, after we got to the cabin, but he wasn't picking up his cell phone, so I just left a message."
I walked alongside him as he ducked into a rarely used section of the mansion. I had privately split up the place into North, South, East, and West, not to mention Levels One through Four, plus the basement. Occasionally, I still got lost, and I had been living here for over a month. Kaiba actually looked worried as we explored the rooms belonging to South, Level One.
"Maybe he went out?" I suggested, although I knew better. Kaiba didn't even take issue with it.
"He knows that we're coming back today," he said tersely.
"Did you ask the…hired help?" I just didn't feel comfortable calling them servants, and I didn't know if it would be a bigger insult to call, say, a housekeeper a butler.
"They're useless. They mind their own business. I shouldn't have left him alone."
"He's a mature kid, I'm sure we'll find him." But my voice sounded concerned rather than reassuring.
"Amelda, you don't know how many people would hate him just because he's my brother. We had a lot of threats before, fake ransom notes—" Seto broke off, as if he'd said more than he had meant to.
It was really no more than I'd expected, but I was surprised by how vulnerable his expression was. I shoved the thought out of my mind, focusing on one thing that was quickly becoming apparent: Mokuba was missing.
"You guys have pretty good security around here, right?" I unlocked another door and flicked on the lights, to reveal more covered furniture. I was starting to hate the size of the place.
Seto's muffled voice came from the room across the hall. "Mokuba has to be in here."
"Maybe he wandered into a room and fell asleep," I said. It wasn't plausible, but it was possible.
"Whatever."
Together, we combed through South Level One, as well as North and East. West had already been covered earlier, because Mokuba actually hung out there often. It took at least a good thirty minutes, and this was with us checking as fast as possible. I contemplated Levels Two, Three, and Four with a sinking heart.
"Wait, Seto, why don't you get the people to help?" I said after we met in the middle again. "We need more searchers."
By this time, he'd dropped all pretenses. His eyes were a little bit wild, but his voice was calm enough. "I've contacted Kaiba Corp and he was in touch earlier this morning."
"So he couldn't have been gone long. What about getting help?" I reminded him.
"I've sent them home. I don't trust them."
I could've punched the wall in frustration. "Kaiba, you do realize—" But then I broke off, because I realized he was right. For all we knew, one of them had helped spirit Mokuba away, or had drugged him, or had overpowered him. For all his maturity, he was just a little kid, after all.
We split up again and covered Level Two in less time than Level One, although we were both a little breathless for it. As with this morning, we needed no words when we met again on the third floor, which was where we had our bedrooms. This time, urgency spurred us, and I was grateful for whatever ability we had to seem to read each other's minds.
I could see the panic in his eyes and without thinking, I reached out to take his hand in mind. I squeezed it hard for just a moment and watched the desperation in his expression soften a little, as he looked at me as if he had just really noticed me standing there.
It wasn't a cold silence now, but rather, a silence of understanding. I couldn't let anything happen to Mokuba. I just couldn't, and I knew Kaiba felt the same way.
o o o
About twenty minutes later, I crashed into Kaiba as I came out of a room. We got up hastily, not even really noticing the contact, although he had ended up sprawled on me. "No sign?"
"His room," he gasped. "The computer was on, so I was going to check if he'd made any recent emails or chatted online, but the cup of hot chocolate next to the mouse was warm."
I clung to that little piece of information as if it were a clue that would tell us where Mokuba was. "Do you think he was kidnapped?"
Seto shook his head in denial. "The security's too good, and even if it had been breached, I'm sure it would have triggered at least one alarm."
"Anyone besides yourself know the password?"
"Not even Mokuba. We'd talked about it before; if they somehow managed to get hold of him, they can't force him to disable the security. He has to be here."
"We should move onto the fourth floor, then," I said grimly. "You've covered everything here, right?"
"Yeah." He swept past me for the stairs, moving at something close to a run. He had been running earlier, but even at his most panicked, I think Kaiba would have tried to appear to be in control. The fact that he seemed so shaken only told me how bad the situation was, and I was halfway up the stairwell, following him, before I cursed and dashed down again.
I'd checked every room on my side of the third floor except for my own, of course. Mokuba had spent plenty of time in it, but I'd locked it before Seto and I had left for our trip, so I hadn't even thought about looking in it. I twisted the doorknob, finding to my satisfaction that it still was locked, and fished out the key from one of the many pockets in my trench coat.
I flicked on the lights, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, and was about to run back up again when I heard a muffled thump from the bathroom. Not sure if it was just my imagination or really something worth checking out, I opened the door and hit the light switch at the same time.
Since this was a bathroom in Kaiba's mansion, it was luxurious indeed, and had both a shower and a huge bath. The place was a mess, the mirror glass on the walls cracked into spiderweb patterns, as if something huge had slammed into them. Thankfully, there was no blood that I could see.
Then I felt it, and it was hard to describe exactly what I had felt, except it went contrary to everything inside of me and everything that I was. For a second, it felt as if my head had exploded, and golden, streaming sunbursts filled my vision. I bent in half, hands to my head, and heard the sound of space being ripped as my wings burst forth.
Seto—! I wasn't aware of it, but my wings weren't the only things out of my control. The bond was terrifyingly open on both sides in a way that it hadn't been since the very first time I had become aware of it.
The shower curtain was drawn around the bath and I felt it resonating from there, as if it were distorting the air around it. Hardly aware of what I was doing, I charged towards it and ripped the curtain down.
"AMELDA!" Mokuba's unmistakable voice rang out and drew my attention to him, before a paw slapped him brutally, the force of it turning his head to one side.
I followed the paw up the hairy arm, and then stared for a moment without realizing what I was seeing. It—no, definitely a he—was unclothed except for what looked like a loincloth around his waist, and at least a good seven or eight feet. The first ridiculous thought that entered my head was that he looked exactly like what I had always imagined a classic Greek minotaur to be, except his head was somewhat more human and less like a bull's. The twin horns were there, and his deformed hands and feet ended in what looked like eagle talons, which is why I had thought that they were paws.
His furred arm had come up to wrap around Mokuba's neck, and the muscles bulged in his effort to strangle Mokuba. I punched him in the stomach and then swore as his other arm easily threw me to the floor in a clumsy mess of wings and too-delicate bones. I was stronger than a mortal, but my bones had hollowed out, like a bird's, probably to reduce weight so that I could fly.
The minotaur must have outweighed me by close to 200 pounds, and I knew without a hope that I would lose if I tried to fight him directly. Seto was coming, but it might be too late. Any extra pressure and strangulation would turn into a simple snap of the neck.
I looked up to see that Mokuba was turning blue and then I lost it. Abandoning reason, I tackled the minotaur around the waist, hard enough to push him back. The marble of the tub was slippery and he fell, thankfully releasing Mokuba enough for the kid to take in a starved breath and start coughing. But he hadn't released Mokuba, and he regained his footing, stepping out of the tub.
I needed some kind of weapon to fight with, and there was nothing handy around. His fist came swinging towards me and I ducked, knowing for certain that if any single one of his blows landed on me, I was done for. My bird bones would snap like toothpicks, Mokuba would die, and when Seto got here, he would too.
He was fighting one-handed, the other still clenched around Mokuba's face, although probably not tight enough to cause too much damage—for the moment. His fist came back, aimed lower this time, and I dodged to the right. Too late, I forgot my wings, and his punch connected solidly with the delicate mesh of feather, tissue, and bone.
I stared at his feet, and realized that I had to use his size against him. He was too strong, I would have to trip him, but he didn't seem like the clumsy type, for all his bulk. I crouched down low, cowering close to the floor purposefully, and waited for his fist to come down on me. It wasn't entirely an act; I was stunned from the force of his blow on my wing and it felt as if something had broken. It gave me a moment to recuperate.
When the attack came, I was ready. To reach me, he had hunched over so that his bestial face was close to mine, reeking of rotting flesh. I had a second to look into red eyes that were surprisingly intelligent and not crazed at all, as I would have expected. The next moment, I rammed into his legs as hard as I could, and rolled to the side as the minotaur fell, unbalanced by his own momentum.
Or at least I tried to roll to the side, because with my wings, I didn't get very far. The minotaur fell as planned, his size and weight suddenly used against him, except he came crashing down on my already injured left wing. I heard a surprisingly delicate sounding crack, accompanied by a bolt of white-hot pain that had me crying out.
"Amelda? Are you all right?" Mokuba's raspy but blessed voice washed over me. I bit back the string of curses on the tip of my tongue and watched as he struggled free from the minotaur's grasp.
It wasn't moving, which was just as well because I was pinned underneath him. I could only hope that it had hit its head. It was hard to even breathe with the weight, and for a moment I wondered if my ribs would crack under the strain. I tried to shove him off, and Mokuba helped, but even the slightest movement made my wing feel as if it were on fire.
The minotaur shifted, to my agony, and my vision started to blacken. When it cleared, my world was still dark, and I thought someone had spread something to cover me foul-smelling leather, until I saw it for what it was.
Wings. As large as my own, but until now they had been folded behind the minotaur and well hidden by the mass of flesh and hair. Only these wings were brown and covered in a wrinkled, membranous tissue that was oozing slime over me. It smelled like rotting squid and I turned his head to the side, feeling nauseated from the combined smell and the pain of my surely shattered wing.
What was it that Yami had been blathering about, back then? Oh yes, a DEMON. Not a minotaur, after all. I should've known—after all, if there were angels in heaven, or Above, then it made sense that there were demons in hell. I supposed they called it Below or something. Down There. Heck, even Underground.
I wasn't making much sense even to myself, making me wonder if the stuff I was inhaling actually was having some sort of effect on me. And where the hell was one lousy Seto Kaiba anyway? I'd shut down my side of the bond again, out of habit, as soon as I could, which coincided with the time that the demon had been knocked unconscious. No wonder it had affected me like that, causing the bond to be exposed and my wings to substantiate despite my control.
"Mokuba," I got out, trying not to inhale. He was struggling to lift the wing from me, but apparently it was quite heavy, because it slipped out of his grasp and fell on me harder than before. I tried not to retch at the stink of it. "Hey. Go get Seto."
Who at that moment decided to come waltzing in, judging by Mokuba's sudden rush to hug him while poor Amelda remained pinned under an enormous, heavy demon while suffering from a broken wing. Yes, I was just about at the end of sanity. I'd had three hours of sleep after a day of flying and broken hearts, then had a morning of riding the emotional roller coaster, only to come home to a missing and presumed kidnapped Mokuba. Who apparently had been taken hold of by a demon, which I'd barely succeeded in fighting, all without the help of that arrogant jerk named Seto Kaiba. My mortal, the one bonded to me, who might have been expected to help out, just a little.
Sadly, I began to laugh uncontrollably. Even the exhausted-sounding laughter renewed my pain, but I couldn't seem to stop. Seto hauled the wing away from me, causing the unconscious minotaur to apparently wake up enough to twitch and roll around a little. This was while it was still on my wing, of course, so naturally instead of laughing I switched smoothly over to screaming in pain.
"God, Amelda, he really did a number on you," Seto said, not even sounding too concerned to my ears. Where were you? I wanted to retort, but chomped down on my lip instead when the demon twitched again, sending fresh waves of pain. Supposedly after a certain amount, people simply pass out. Unfortunately, I was beginning to think that angels were a little tougher than that. Not tough enough to avoid the pain, of course, but I didn't seem to be about to slip into unconsciousness anytime soon.
Seto ran a hand through my hair and cradled my head for a moment, which sufficiently cleared my mind enough for me to regain a little equilibrium. Even the goo from the demon, which was currently sliding nastily down my neck, didn't seem as bad.
Together with Mokuba's help, Seto managed to roll it the rest of the way off my wing. For some reason, it only made everything hurt worse, probably because the weight of it had actually served to numb it. My eyes teared uncontrollably.
"Mokuba, are you hurt?" Seto asked, still looking at me.
"I'm fine. But what are we going to do about Amelda?" Mokuba said, his eyes round as he looked at me. His neck was already beginning to bruise from the demon's attempts to strangle him, and looking at it made me feel a little better about my own situation, since it reminded me of the oh-so-heroic intentions I had had when I had decided to engage in a fight with the demon.
"I don't know," Seto replied.
Coming from Kaiba, that was a staggering admission. It was true though; they couldn't exactly take me to the hospital. I lay there and tried to remain calm, while less than two feet away my opponent peacefully enjoyed his oblivion. It was beyond unfair, but as I was pondering this issue, I had the sudden hope that perhaps I'd heal naturally. Angels weren't mortals, right?
Anyway, it was better than lying on the cold floor. I felt faint from the pain, and my voice sounded pitifully weak when I spoke. "Seto, can you please just help me to bed?"
He looked at me and summoned up a ghost of his usual smirk. It was a measure of how pathetic I was feeling that even that made me want to smile back. "What, no quips about helping you take off your shirt this time?"
I realized what I had unwittingly said and closed my eyes in embarrassment, pleasantly surprised to find that heat hadn't crept up my face. "Fine, let me lie here then."
I blindly turned my head enough to press my cheek against the floor, not caring if it was dirty, although knowing Seto and his insistence on perfect cleanliness, it probably wasn't. The cool marble felt good anyway and I had demon slime on me, after all.
I felt, more than saw, Seto shake his head above me. "Do you think that maybe you can, you know, with your wings?"
"You know?" I repeated in puzzlement, opening my eyes. He gestured to my wings, and I finally understood what he meant. "I don't think I can concentrate well enough, but I'll try."
I closed my eyes again and willed my wings to disappear, although it was hard to ignore their existence when they were throbbing with pain. It took me a few minutes to realize what was wrong. "If I open the bond, will you promise to keep your side shut down? I can't focus on both my wings and on blocking you."
"All right." The slightest inflection of his voice made me want to look at his eyes to see what he was thinking, but I told myself to focus on the task at hand. My control must have gotten stronger with practice, because I heard Mokuba let out a small gasp a few seconds later, as well as the strange whoosh of sound that happened when my wings were no longer there to take up space.
I knew that if I were to look at them, they would be faint, semi-transparent and barely noticeable outlines, shadows of what they looked like when they were solid. Nevertheless, it didn't change the pain one bit, I was sorry to discover. I tried my best to look as if it had, because Mokuba was peering at me with traumatized eyes.
"Now what?" he whispered. He turned his head to look at the downed demon, and Seto did the same. "And what if that thing wakes up?"
"Demon," I corrected him without thinking, effectively bringing the attention of both Kaiba brothers back to me. It was distinctly unnerving to have two pairs of eyes, sapphire and slate blue, fixed on you from above. Seeing that they didn't have a clue to what I was talking about, I almost sighed. I would have thought Kaiba, at least, was intelligent enough.
"Remember what Yami warned you about? That there was a demon loose or something? Well, I'm pretty sure we just met him."
"That's ridiculous though. Demons don't exi—" Kaiba cut himself off, looking at me, and made a gesture of futility with his hands. "I suppose demons don't exist the way angels don't exist."
"Of course," I said irritably. I struggled to a sitting position, unsurprised that although intangible, the pain was neither ghostly nor muted. "Are we going to sit here all day discussing the existence of angels and demons, or are you going to help me up?"
The sharpness of my voice seemed to snap Seto out of whatever daze he had been in. "Mokuba, why don't you get cleaned up? I'll take care of Amelda. As for the demon," his eyes flicked over the gigantic prone form, and he sounded as if he would rather not say the word, "he can wait."
Now that I looked at Mokuba, he had even more of the demon's gunk on his clothes than I had, and he looked terrible. I saw Seto put a hand to his brother's shoulder and squeeze it gently, and like that, the floodgates had opened. "He just came out of nowhere, and I was on the computer, and he just grabbed me from behind. I couldn't fight him off, Seto. I mean, I really tried…"
"But it's not as if you could have gotten away anyway," I said, to forestall the torrent of words. "Mokuba, why don't you take a shower, change, and find something to put on those bruises?"
"But what about you?" He looked so lost that I wanted to give him a hug. To my surprise, Seto rose to his knees to do exactly that, slime covered jacket and all. His fingers brushed over the bruises on Mokuba's neck and trembled just slightly.
"I'll be fine." I wasn't so sure of it, but Mokuba took one last look at me and then left the bathroom, ushered away by Seto. Once he was gone, I permitted myself to drop some of the act, although there was no way in hell I was going to admit to Seto that I was in major pain. I turned to see what he was doing with the demon, but he appeared to simply be examining it. Without saying anything, he strode from the bathroom while I watched with disbelieving eyes.
"Hey! Where are you going?" I forced myself to my feet and staggered over to the counter, then leaned against it and the wall, craning my head out into my room to see where he'd gone. He came back soon enough and handed me some pills.
"Painkillers," he said briefly, and gave me a dubious look. "So, how bad are you off anyway?"
"I'll be fine. I think angels heal on their own." My words were clipped, but more from the pain than from any antagonistic feelings towards him. I was too tired to pick a fight.
"You think."
"Well, these wings didn't come with a handy manual, you know."
He replied with a soft hmph and slipped an arm around me before I even knew what he was doing, causing me to sputter with shock. "Oh, shut up," he said almost good-humoredly, and proceeded to guide me out of the bathroom and into my room. Thankfully, it wasn't far, and I collapsed onto the bed. Making my wings insubstantial had been a good idea; wherever they went when they were ghostly, it seemed to preserve their state, and his arm around my shoulders didn't further injure them.
I let my wings solidify now that I comfortably sprawled on the bed, and I gratefully shut down the link on my end again. Not that I didn't trust Kaiba, and certainly he had kept his emotions shuttered away from me as promised, but I had grown used to the habit and felt oddly vulnerable knowing that if he had wanted to, he could have shared my thoughts and feelings.
"The demon," I reminded him when he took a seat on the edge of the bed.
"Amelda, go to sleep. We'll talk more about it when you wake up."
I hadn't realized that I was fast falling asleep until he said it, but evidently even my angel endurance could only take so much. He sat on the edge of my bed and started stroking my wings very gently, checking for the extent of the damage. Satisfied that everything was going to heal straight if, as I hoped, angels did heal fast and on their own, he let his hands rest on the arch of my wing, next to my head.
"I hope I do heal," I prayed to no one in particular.
"I hope you do, too." He said it sincerely and quietly, and with a trace of remorse. Not the usual caustic and cold Kaiba remark at all. I tried to think of why he would be sounding so, well, soft, but gave up after a few moments.
"You should go check on Mokuba…"
"Shh. I will, soon. I think Yami will be getting a long overdue call from me, too."
The demon was still in the bathroom. I knew he should be getting back to it, but I didn't seem to have the will to send him away. Seto's mention of Yami sent varied emotions through me, but I was far too tired to try to sort through them. It wasn't fair, he had seen me to sleep more times than I could count, lately, and I wished I could say the same of him.
I fell asleep only thinking that it was nice he was sitting next to me and that his hands were all too pleasurable on my wings, and that, wasn't it odd…because one had shifted to my shoulder, and the other to cup my face.
o o o
A/N: I'm sure I still missed a bunch of typos – this was a full sixteen pages. So, please review.
I'm not kidding, that was a lot of work, so take a couple seconds to give me some feedback, will you?
