Title: Broken, Beaten, and Damned

By: Aina Song

Fandom(s): Final Fantasy X/ Yu Yu Hakusho

Genre: Yaoi

Rating: PG-15

Warning(s): Crossover; Slightly AU; Language; Some OOC; Direct Quotes; Altered Quotes; Altered Scenes (and other such subtle storyline changes). Italics = thought bubbles, Fayth speech and/or telepathy, and Al Bhed.

Pairing(s): Yusuke x Tidus

Reviews: Yes, please! For the love of God, someone give me a cookie!

Author's Note: Standard Disclaimer. This story was not written for money. Would you believe someone dared me to do this one?

Teaser: When Yusuke finds himself in a world far unlike his own, the most pressing questions on his mind - how he got there, and how he might get back home - gradually take a backseat to the sacrificial urgency of his new friends' seemingly futile crusade…

Chapter Eleven - Intermission

Late that night, Yusuke was idling about the temple grounds. Glancing up at the stars' unfamiliar constellations, he allowed himself to finally wonder what Hiei and Kurama were up to. He had been in Spira for a week now, which meant he had been absent from his own world for perhaps longer. Had they been to visit his ancestor's lands in that time? Did they yet know he was missing?

Kurama was a tactician, calculative and precise. Yusuke had every confidence that if his absence had been discovered, then the silver fox would be thinking of ways to recover him. It was Hiei that worried him. The fire demon had always been the embodiment of vengeance where Yusuke was concerned, especially after witnessing the ex-detective's second death.

He would probably storm into Spirit World itself and threaten Koenma within an inch of the demigod's immortal life to find their tattooed comrade-

Yusuke interrupted his own thoughts with a cutting profanity. Had it really taken him this long to think of it?

Koenma.

Spira was a world like any other. The laws of life and death applied here, as they did anywhere else. The people here referred to the afterlife as the Farplane, but it should still count, right?

But, just as quickly as the inspiration had hit him, Yusuke found himself setting it aside with a heavy sigh.

He was needed here. Even if his role in the defeat of Sin was to be a small one, Yusuke had given his word. He knew he would strive to keep it for as long as he could.

Heavy footsteps caught his attention, and Yusuke turned to find Kimahri approaching. The blue feline paused, cat-yellow eyes gazing at him through the dark, and it took nothing at all for Yusuke to read that look. So when Kimahri turned away without a word, the tattooed demon wordlessly followed him back into the temple.

Tidus and Yuna had been exhausted when they'd left the Fayth's chambers, but then they had taxed themselves even further by healing the wounded that had sought sanctuary within the temple. Some few could not have been saved, however - souls that had been Sent to the Farplane so that they might know peace. In appreciation for the twin summoners' efforts, the Djose priests had let out a few rooms for their entourage.

The door of one was currently guarded by Auron, who looked very intimidating even without his claymore. The middle-aged warrior arched his eyebrow as Yusuke approached, but said nothing when the dark youth quietly let himself in.

Almost immediately, he found himself assaulted by a weeping brunette, as Yuna had attached herself to him the moment the door had shut behind him. Pushing back his shock, he carefully held her to him. He had known something was up, or Kimahri would not have been sent to retrieve him. As he waited for her to calm down, Yusuke glanced over her head to the beds across the room. One was vacant, as Yuna was presently clinging to the front of Yusuke's tunic. Upon the other lay her brother, covers kicked down and away, trembling in his sleep and smelling faintly of sweat and hopeless fear.

Sighing, the dark youth set his hands to Yuna's shoulders, gently urging some space between them. Tear-glistened mismatched eyes looked up, and Yusuke clenched his jaw as he passed his thumbs over her dampened cheeks. "Never stop pretending," he gruffly whispered. "Remember?"

Biting at her lip, she drew a shaky breath and nodded her head.

"You can't let them see you cry," Yusuke added, softly quoting words she herself had spoken to him. "They can't carry the burden for you. Show them that you're strong enough to be their guiding light."

Sniffling, she swiped at her tears and nodded again. Drawing in another great breath, she finally calmed enough to speak. "H-he couldn't sleep. I asked him to try; I-I didn't want him to stay so exhausted when we set off again tomorrow. But now I think he's having nightmares, a-and he wouldn't respond when I called to him…"

Why, on top of everything else, do you suddenly have to remind me of Keiko? Shaking his head, Yusuke leaned forth and placed a brotherly kiss to her brow. He then led her to her own bed, waiting until she sat down before turning to her twin.

Tidus was groaning in his sleep now, tossing his head to the side with a pained cry. Beads of sweat peppered his hairline, and the hollow of his throat was clammy with it. Yusuke sat on the edge of the bed and set his hand to the blond's arm. Tidus seemed to recognize his touch, for the tortured expression his face had been locked in cleared and he immediately ceased trembling.

He trusts me that much? Disbelieving, the tattooed demon moved his hand to Tidus' shoulder and shook it.

Flame blue eyes blinked open, but they were hazed and unfocused. Swearing under his breath, Yusuke slid his hand down along the blond's arm and lightly gripped Tidus' fingers in his own. Eyes slowly clearing, the blond eventually awoke enough to focus on him. Tidus gave a weak, apologetic smile, hiding nothing. "Thank you, Yusuke…"

Nodding, thinking he had done what he'd come to do, the dark youth stood. But the fingers around his own gripped tight, stalling him, and he looked down again. Tidus had turned his head slightly toward the wall, perhaps to hide from Yuna that his eyes had clouded again, remembering the pain that had darkened his dreams.

His lips moved almost soundlessly, but Yusuke's quick ears picked out the whispered request: "Can your powers take away what I know?"

Clenching his jaw, Yusuke silently shook his head.

Tidus saw his answer, eyes clouding further. "Don't leave me…?"

His core pulsed with a sudden flush of warmth, and Yusuke cursed himself for being too weak to resist its call. Leaning forward until his mouth hovered over the blond's ear, he murmured, "I'll be right outside that door."

The blond's fingers squeezed around his, but then let him go. Straightening, finding that those blue eyes had closed as though to shut out the rest of the world, the dark youth pushed to his feet. As he turned toward the door, he caught Yuna's gaze. The brunette gave him a tremulous smile. It was obvious she knew that they'd shared words, and that such words had been deliberately kept from her, but there was no hurt or suspicion in her pretty eyes. She seemed calmer, though, and ready to return to sleep. Yusuke let himself out.

Auron and Kimahri regarded him in silence as he closed the door behind him, but no questions were asked. The tattooed demon quietly insisted upon taking over Auron's shift to guard the door, but only after seeing that he was unmoving in his decision did the red-robed warrior finally agree. He and Kimahri retired to their rooms.

Yusuke moved to the side of the door and leaned his back to the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and scanning his eyes over the emptied prayer hall. Minutes slipped into hours. When Wakka (and later, Lulu) came to relieve him of his post, he firmly shook his head and stayed where he was. The light from the windows eventually grayed and then brightened, warning of the approaching sunrise.

It was then that Yusuke heard it. Something which called both to his core and to the primal beast buried within. His own name, softly whispered from the other side of the door. And he knew, with that reluctant yet trusting plea, that the battle had been lost.

Sighing, he shoved away from the wall and soundlessly let himself back into the room.