The Open-Mouthed Night:

Part 2

Thanks for the reviews!

This part includes a lot of information about Kaiba and Avril's pasts that matter later, so try to follow as best as possible. Of course, if you don't follow it now it's okay--you won't miss anything in the next chapter.

Also, I won't necessarily stick to canon, so if you see anything that makes you say, "Hey--that's not right…" it was intentionally made this way.

--

Avril woke up eleven years old. Her eyelids opened very slightly. She thought in bewilderment, But wasn't I sleeping on my couch? Where am I? Someone was talking above her. She recognized the voice, even after all this time--it was her mother's sister, Titi Pené lope.

"Pobrecita, poor little girl…"

"I just don't have the heart to tell her about Monín and Jean-Pablo," said another voice, her mother's other sister, Juanita. "No tengo bastante coraje."

The third and fourth voices were a little more distant.

"Shhh, cállate, you might be telling her right now." Who is this? Avril thought. It was either her mother's brothers Cristó bal or Martí n.

The fourth voice was clear enough that Avril was sure it was her mother's younger sister, Gabriela. "Martín is right. Even in deep comas people can hear others speaking…"

Avril kept her eyes closed and didn't open them fully until the voices were gone. When she was sure, she shot out of the bed. To her shock, she was in the hospital. There was a mirror on the dresser. Avril stared at her reflection intently. She was eleven years old, all right. Back then she still so skinny that her brown, bony shoulders were invisible underneath her abundant, curly blonde hair. From everything she had seen so far, she could deduce that she was nine years in back in time, a few days after her parents died.

For whatever reason, she couldn't stay awake for long. She felt too drowsy. Avril turned back to the bed and covered herself in the sheets. Maybe if she went back to sleep, this weird dream would be all over, and she would be on the couch where she belonged…

--

A deluge of rain gave Kaiba a rude awakening, but he was not in his bed. Where am I? He thought tiredly. Then the rain stopped, but Kaiba was still uneasy. He was not in his bed, but somebody's arms; this realization startled him out of sleep more than the rain did, and he was even more shocked to see who was holding him.

It was…it was…himself! Didn't he have dark brown hair and dark blue eyes? Kaiba couldn't believe it. How the hell can I be in two places at once? What the fuck happened in the world? He studied the face a little more and noticed it had five-o'-clock shadow. But I shaved this morning. And I don't have a cleft chin. Or a birthmark on my temple. Was this even him? Was this some psycho who drugged him? Furious, Kaiba struggled against the psycho's hold. "Put me down!" he demanded angrily in the high, boyish voice of an eleven-year-old. "Now!"

Kaiba's "other self" stared back and laughed in amusement. His voice was deep and pleasant. "Seryozha, don't talk to your papa like that or he may decide to discipline you." He spoke Russian, not Japanese.

What did he say? Seryozha? Papa? Kaiba was even more bewildered. No one had called him "Seryozha" in years. "Seryozha" was a nickname of his Russian name, "Sergei," which was an alternative to his Japanese name, "Seto" (or the reverse, whichever you prefer). If he wasn't wrong, the psycho had to be his father…

I'm having an ugly dream, Kaiba thought, immediately resisting this scenario. Wake up. Wake up. Nothing happened. Wake up! Nothing. This is what you get for not meditating before dinner, he chastised himself. He almost never gave thought to his past, especially where his biological parents were concerned. Why should he be an eleven-year-old kid carried in his father's arms, anyway?

"Where are you taking me?" Kaiba stuttered. "I--I wanna go home!"

"We are going home." A pleasant female voice said. She also spoke Russian, but with a strange accent. Kaiba didn't recognize her until she came beside "Papa"; she was a stunningly beautiful woman. Her thick black hair was pulled into a bun, and her wide eyes were a beautiful shade of violet, like Elizabeth Taylor's. Kaiba's biological mother. This new realization made him feel more uncomfortable than before, because while Kaiba all but looked exactly like "Papa," his Mokuba was the female version of their mother, down to the delicate structure of their cheekbones. Kaiba wanted to go home, now.

"Is he still sick?" she asked "Papa" with concern. "He doesn't look too good."

"No," "Papa" answered, "just tired. I'll drive, Anoush."

"Here are the keys." Clink-clink.

They approached a car in a driveway. Kaiba felt washes with indignity as "Papa" lowered him the backseat, and even worse than that, a car seat! After he was buckled in and the door was closed, Kaiba thought he was trapped in a perverse level of hell. He couldn't wake up. He couldn't at least dream something else. What the devil is happening? If he was sick before, according to Anoush, it wasn't anything as bad as what he felt now.

The car pulled out of the driveway. The rain outside fell harder, almost like a flood. Kaiba felt lost.

Anoush said, "Do be careful, Georgy."

"I won't go too fast," "Papa" told her in an assuring voice. "And don't worry; hardly anyone's on the road at this time at night, anyway."

Kaiba looked towards the other window and almost cried out. There was another car seat, in which sat Mokuba. Mokuba! Maybe his brother was stuck in this whacked-up scenario, too.

Then disappointment fell. "Look, Mama, look!" Mokuba threw up his hands, which looked startlingly small. He giggled childishly. Anoush laughed, but Kaiba felt defeated. Even if Mokuba was trapped in this hell of a dream, he was trapped in the body and mind of a three-year-old boy.

Anoush reached over her seat and stroked Mokuba's black hair, which was spiky even back then, Kaiba noticed. He moodily watched her play with Mokuba's hands, calling him "Misha," short for his Russian name, "Mikhail." Nine years had passed since this time was Kaiba's life, but even time made it no less easier to remember. He would do anything to erase it from existence.

--

Another dream? Avril thought. She was still eleven years old, but in backseat of a car, not the hospital. She looked at the streetlights, which streamed past her window like comets. It was raining pretty hard. Her eyes blinked slowly. Where am I? She looked at the front seats. Are these people my aunties and uncles? No, she realized. Her eyes caught sight of the woman in the passenger seat through her side-view-mirror. The woman had a beautiful long neck, and watchful eyes that stood out against a long face the color of a hazelnut. She wore her hair natural and pulled back in a puff. Beside her, in the driver's seat, was a man. The back of his head was made of loosely-curled blonde hair. His hands were strong. Wherever she was, Avril felt safe.

"¿ Mamita? ¿ Papi?" she ventured cautiously.

"¿Mami?" the man said, glancing over his shoulder. Avril felt relieved. She was with her parents for sure. Nothing could make her smile more.

"¿Dó-dónde vamos? Where are we going?"

Papi said, "Home, mami."

"How long will it take?"

"Fifteen, twenty minutes," Mamita answered, looking a little puzzled. "We've gone this way before. You should know that by now."

They were close to home, too! Avril felt jittery with excitement. "Hey--hey--can we play some music?"

"Yeah." Papi turned on the CD player to a romantic song Avril recognized but could no longer name. Mamita clapped her hands and laughed in amusement. "This is why they call you the lover poet,Jean. It's the French and Cuban and Puerto Rican and in you. Un recipie de raices."

"Soy lo que soy," he told her. "I am what I am."

Avril closed her eyes in relief. She wished this wasn't a dream. She wished for the days when she never had to worry about rent and school and rude bosses. She wished everything that had troubled her life never existed. She wished this because she knew there was no better place to be than in the backseat of your parents' car.

--

The car reached the highway. Mokuba was sleeping. It was dark, and just as "Papa" said, not many cars were on the road. Anoush was speaking very softly, so that Kaiba could barely hear: "I'm worried about Nikita."

Kaiba almost snorted at the sound of his uncle's name. Nikita was "Papa's" younger brother, who held temporary custody of Kaiba and Mokuba before dumping them in the orphanage. If Kaiba was going to be stuck in this hell, he might as well stay for a chance to beat this bastard of an uncle to a pulp.

"Yeah," "Papa" said. "I know. It's just one of his…difficult spells again."

"Not this time. Ilena"--Nikita's wife--"is very worried. He's been drinking heavily and disappearing for days at a time. Sometimes he can't even recognize her and Lara." Lara, Nikita's only child, and was the Kaiba borthers' only surviving relative. To this day Kaiba had no idea of her whereabouts.

There was quiet surprise in "Papa's" voice. "She said this?"

"Yes."

"I can't believe it; he sounds so far gone. He's never done anything like that before. I'll talk to him."

Kaiba noticed two bright, pinpricks of light through the wind-shield. The wind-shield-wipers jammed all of a sudden.

"Also," Anoush added, "until Nikita improves, it would be best--for now--"

The lights got closer. Kaiba noticed they were swerving a little. He felt uneasy. The Mitsubishi driving next to them seemed to feel the same way, because its driver switched to the right lane rather quickly.

"To do what?" "Papa" asked, adjusting his rear-view-mirror.

"Take Nikita and Ilena's names off our w-i-l-l," Anoush whispered. "About the children's guardianship."

"Papa" looked uncomfortably at Anoush. "We will talk more about this later. Look, Seryozha is listening to us."

Kaiba's attention went from the swerving lights to the back of his father's head. So what if I am listening? He thought bitterly. If you had any sense, you would have pulled your fool brother's name from the WILL years ago!

The car was suddenly flooded with light. There was a car straight ahead of them, plunging into the highway at seventy, maybe eighty miles. Anoush screamed. Mokuba jerked awake. Kaiba instinctively reached for his brother's hand but was jerked against the window as "Papa" pulled the steering wheel as far right as possible. Kaiba tried to warn him that the Mitsubishi was there, but it was too late.

Then came the loudest sound Kaiba ever heard. He could never forget it, even if he didn't want to.

--

Not long into her little peace, Avril felt violent shakes all over. The explosion of noise and movement was so brutal she went deaf and couldn't hear anything as she was tossed around. She might have been pitched forward through the wind-shield if it weren't for her seatbelt. Eventually the car stopped spinning and landed in its original position, although the front was so mangled she couldn't find her parents. Avril screamed, but heard nothing. She smelled gas. Her little hands pushed against the door, but the handle was broken. The only way she could get out was through the open sunroof. She unbuckled her seatbelt and managed to stand up, despite the pain in her legs. Her calves felt like they had been sliced. Avril cried out, but she wondered if anyone was even around to hear her. Her arms pulled her up, just as she remembered. She rolled off the roof and into the grass.

Even if this was a dream, Avril cried. She hoped she would wake up soon. God, give me peace.

--

Kaiba woke up to the sound of crying. He was lying face-down in the grass. He knew he was hurt but couldn't feel the pain, probably because of shock. He looked across the grass and saw a little girl--probably from the other car--sobbing, but he wouldn't help her. Over her screams he heard Mokuba's. Kaiba got to his feet and ran to find his brother.

--

He woke up. It was morning, and he was still wearing his boots and clothes. Kaiba rubbed his forehead and calmed down. That was a hell of a dream. But there was another day to live and another reason never to think of his past again.

--

She woke up. It was morning, and she was still in her sweatshirt and jeans. Avril rubbed her forehead and calmed down. That was a sick dream. Total mierda. Total shit. But there was another day to live and another reason to thank God she was alive.

--

Expect more buffers in the future, most likely not soon. :D

But DO stay tuned for the next chapter...