11: Blind Violinist
Yuugi had never been so livid in his life.
He'd never been in a prison cell either, nor had he ever been the cause of so many black eyes or drunkards hunched over in pain. He'd also never had so much trouble discerning between the violent urge to elbow the man snoring drunkenly next to him and the desire to scream nonsensical obscenities at the vampire sitting on a bench across from him.
Fortunately, he decided to settle for a compromise of both.
"Being the fancy-pants-magical-being that you are, I thought you'd already be gone from here," Yuugi hissed at Yami, arms and legs crossed, one toe tapping. He paused for a moment to shove the drunken man's head away from his own before returning to glare at the vampire. "Didn't think you'd even bother getting caught in the first place."
One side of Yami's mouth turned up in a bitter smile as he regarded the human, "What, you think I'm here to keep you company?" There was no reason to tell Yuugi that he'd been distracted with the fight until the last moment, and by then, he'd been unable to leave as he had sensed the police waiting outside every bar exit.
At that moment, a patron from the bar suddenly vomited on the man sitting next to Yami, but before the latter could react, the vampire turned and gave him a cold stare promising terrible pain if he reacted obnoxiously. Said man nervously swallowed and took out a napkin from his pocket, pretending to ignore Yami. "Don't be so naïve, Yuugi."
Yuugi cut off a sarcastic laugh and reached up a hand to shove the unconscious man on his bench away again. "I gave up thinking you had any actual interest in me when I woke up this morning – alone, hung over, and sporting a new piercing I don't remember asking for. I may be an idiot, but you're a fucking asshole."
"I suppose you think the entire situation was my doing," Yami crossed his arms, his voice taking on a tint of sarcasm as well as something Yuugi couldn't quite define. "After all, it's not like you offered yourself to me or anything of the like. I was clearly acting like a wild beast, plundering the depths of your innocence and inexperience."
"Well there's a fucking difference between attraction and fucking - I don't know -DINNER!" Yuugi shouted as he clenched his fists and used one to punch the unconscious man's head away from him again. In a spectacular show, the man's head ricocheted off the wall and landed heavily on the other man next to him, knocking him out in the process.
However, Yuugi had eyes only for the object of his immediate frustration. "If I'd known you were just fucking HUNGRY, I wouldn't have let you SEDUCE ME. I'd have told you where the nearest diner was!"
Yami raised an eyebrow, biting back the comment that vampires didn't eat burgers.
Yuugi saw it anyway and growled in sudden anger. This was too much. The goddamn vampire was still trying to act high and mighty?
"AND I KNOW YOU DON'T EAT PEOPLE FOOD, YAMI. SHUT UP. JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP," Yuugi shouted, shooting up to stare down at the still seated vampire. He was so angry – at himself, at the vampire, at the absurdity of the entire situation. How was it possible that one person could come into his life and in just a few short days turn his life inside out? How DARE Yami make him feel so utterly crushed and humiliated!
"YOU'RE RIGHT. I'M THE ONE AT FAULT. YOU KNOW WHAT I DID WRONG? I BECAME INFATUATED WITH A BACKSTABBING, ONE-TRACK-MINDED, TWO-FACED, SELFISH ASSFUCKINGHOLE." Yuugi had been cursed all his life with the unfortunate aspect of tearing up when he got truly angry. And in this situation, he was so angry at everyone and everything, that he could barely see Yami through his blurry vision by the end of his tirade.
"Just…fuck it all," he finally bit out, feeling suddenly alone in a prison cell full of the drunken, the unconscious, and the sick. When there was no response from the vampire, Yuugi slowly sat down again and sighed, a sound suspiciously close to a sob escaping him.
"I wish I could just leave," he angrily whispered to himself. "Just leave…and forget about how you make me feel."
Yami had heard that. It was damn near impossible not to, considering his vampiric abilities, but before the sudden clamoring of his heart could distract him, he swallowed and leaned forward.
"Do you hate me?" Yami asked, his deep voice quietly rumbling through Yuugi's chest. The human raised his head to look at the vampire, his expression defeated.
"No."
"Do you resent me?" Yami asked again, imagining Yuugi erupting angrily again with that expression from before…Damn it, what was it of?
"Ha," Yuugi answered sarcastically, his voice slightly raspy. "I wish."
"Why?" Yami probed, knowing he was treading precarious ground, but finding himself unable to resist asking. Yuugi was such a contradiction. "Don't you resent me?"
"Why do you care?" Yuugi scoffed. "Just fucking disappear like you did this morning, and you'll never have to worry about me again."
"You expected me to stay," Yami raised an eyebrow, "given the mood you were in when you awoke?"
"A mood which was partially caused by waking up alone," Yuugi argued, looking up to glare at the vampire. Mid-glare, he blinked in suspicion. "How would you know anyway?"
Yami didn't answer, so Yuugi edged forward on his bench and observed the other's expression. "You were spying on me."
Yami still didn't answer, regarding him silently, hoping the human would say something else revealing. Talking was a human thing, after all. The silence continued. It was, wasn't it?
"Creeper," Yuugi finally goaded, an accusing look on his face that made Yami bristle in offense. Leave it to this one to turn a kindness into a perversion. "I thought you couldn't go out in the day anyway. What kind of vampire are you? The retarded kind –?"
"You know absolutely nothing," Yami suddenly shot back, his eyes flashing in irritation. There was only so much he could swallow from a human, of all things, even if it was from this particular one. "You don't have a damned clue."
"Oh yeah?" Yuugi retaliated. "What is it that I don't know?"
"You are lost," Yami shook his head, a crooked smile on his lips with his unexpected revelation. "You do not know what you want. You've never known what it is you want from this city or your life. You don't even know what you want from me."
Yuugi just stared at him, unable to think of a clever response in his surprise at this attack. His mouth hung upon indignantly.
"And yelling at me isn't going to help you figure that out," Yami concluded, his lips acquiring a condescending curve. He sat back, his back touching the cold cement walls of their cell. Maybe it was time for him to leave–
"You're wrong. I do know what I want." Yuugi managed as he regained some sense, though his expression continued to look bewildered. He ran a hand through his hair, as if quickly contemplating whether to say something, and then exhaled. "From you, anyway."
The vampire sat in silence, regarding the human sitting before him. A being that under any other circumstance would simply have been a quick meal or one of Bakura's play things. Except that in this circumstance, the being in question was this unique, intriguing human – worthy of a little more attention than that. He was Yuugi.
"What do you want from me, then?" Yami had nothing left to lose anymore. Everything that was so hopeful before may as well have gone up in flames – or was it meant to exist in the first place, this type of complicated, precarious relationship? So frustrating and so magical: the juxtaposition of the most insufferable sensations that made him wish for death even as they made him feel alive.
"You."
"Pardon?"
"You heard me, Yami. I said you."
"…I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Goddamnit. I…" Yuugi squeezed his eyes shut, counted to five, and then stared at the vampire's expressionless face. "Oh fuck it. FUCK it to bits. I just want you."
"What? Yami couldn't comprehend what was occurring. Throughout his long life, he'd come to understand the hard lesson that despite how much he wanted something, wishing did not make it so – it never made it so. And as much as he wanted Yuugi's words to be true, he knew he had probably misheard. Fucking misheard such an important thing.
"You fucking DIPSHIT," Yuugi exclaimed as he shook his head in disbelief. There was no reason to keep it a secret anymore in light of Yami's reaction, or lack thereof. "You drive me CRAZY! Despite everything – all this crazy shit that built and built until it landed us in goddamn jail – I can't help still liking you. Still wanting to fucking BE with you."
He paused to take a shaky breath and ran another hand through his hair. "So stop sitting there with that confused puppy expression and answer me."
"I do not have a 'confused puppy' expression," Yami denied irritably, trying to focus on his thoughts. What he was hearing had to be false.
"Yami," Yuugi tried to catch his attention. Yami just further furrowed his brow. "Yami, do you even care that I'm waiting for your response?"
Silence.
"Do you even care at all?"
"What a stupid question," Yami looked up, his expression surprised.
"Probably," Yuugi muttered. Wow. Apparently Yami really did have such a low opinion of him. Great. Fantastic. Not every day one gets judged by a lovely, mythical creature and found wanting. Yuugi felt an inexplicable urge to bang his head on the wall behind him. Or cry. Or both.
"Isn't it obvious that you've bewitched me?" Yami asked quietly. He calmly gazed at Yuugi's slumped form across from him until the other looked up.
"What do you mean?" Yuugi blinked, unable to understand what the vampire was saying.
"I was watching you this morning," Yami admitted with a small smile, "but that's only because I didn't want you to truly wake up alone after the previous night, even if you never wanted to talk to me again."
"But why would I?" Yuugi interrupted. He coughed self-consciously, "Last night was amazing, even if I wasn't expected to enjoy it."
"Did you?" Yami's lips twitched upward. "Bakura always tells me that for a human, the paralysis in our fangs is like an aphrodisiac. I was, well, hoping you'd enjoy it."
"But you fed on me!" Yuugi exclaimed, confused.
"Not because I was hungry," Yami replied, one eyebrow raised. "But I can't help it if your blood is my aphrodisiac in return. I've never tasted anything like you before."
"What's so special about me?" Yuugi scratched his head, brushing his bangs out of his eyes in the process and exposing the most vulnerable expression that Yami had ever seen. It was that very vulnerability made the vampire realize that he had to answer honestly…or ruin any last chance of what he wanted.
"Your blood sings to me," the vampire replied with a slight shrug, as if to deflect Yuugi's questioning stare. "I feel it in my veins, on my tongue, down my spine. When you are close enough, it's"– Yami hesitated for a brief moment and then gave in – "all I can do keep from pulling you into my arms and flitting away somewhere with you."
"But why?"
"To be alone," Yami answered, as if it were obvious.
"Why?"
"Because I want to be with you too."
"…Why?"
"Because I want you too."
"Ha!…Why?"
"Because," Yami faltered, searching for an answer that would explain the inexplicable, describe the indescribable, answer the unanswerable.
Because I want you t– Because I want you too?
Suddenly, it all made perfect sense to the vampire: they liked each other. They fucking wanted each other.
Why the hell were they fighting again?
"Come here and I'll tell you," Yami suddenly grinned, the smile reaching his eyes. "I need to whisper it."
With a slight roll of his eyes, Yuugi slide of his bench and took two steps towards Yami, bending down so the vampire could whisper in his ear. The vampire leaned closer, licking his lips and smiling wider.
"You're such a compliment fisher, Yuugi," the vampire chided, and then grabbed the human around the middle before he could react, sitting him down on his lap. "You know exactly why."
And with that, Yami's mouth found Yuugi's soft, upturned lips, and consumed him in a blinding, all-consuming, passionate kiss. And then another, and another. And then two more. The kisses melted into one another, overwhelming sensations racking Yuugi's body as the vampire pulled him closer.
"Because when we kiss," Yami murmured, "I don't need anyone else."
Yami's hands found their way under Yuugi's shirt to caress his smooth chest and send shivers down his spine, while Yuugi entangled himself in Yami's hair and pulled him closer, crushing them together until Yami groaned slightly.
A smug smile on Yuugi's mouth, he broke away long enough to wink at the vampire, "And here I thought it was because of my shining personality."
"You're hilarious," Yami responded, his sharp teeth grazing Yuugi's lower lip and making him whimper while he sat on the vampire's lap. He chuckled quietly, "I could not have imagined any worse miscommunication than we just created between the two of us. How absurd."
"Honey, we're still suffering from the consequences of it," Yuugi gestured at their cell, surprised that the rest of its overnight inhabitants hadn't cared to pay attention to the drama at the back end of it. Probably because they had their own problems to deal with, being so ill and beat up, he thought, answering his own question.
Yami turned back Yuugi's chin to dive into another kiss, a deep, slow penetration of the latter's mouth that left him breathless and docile. The vampire was clearly enjoying his dominance, one hand rubbing slow circles into Yuugi's back just above his waist line, and the other tracing patterns up the inside of Yuugi's thigh.
"That consequence," murmured Yami as Yuugi attempted to turn and seduce him into another kiss, but the vampire suddenly reached a hand up and grabbed the other's hair, pulling his head back and making him grimace in slight pain. The vampire rumbled his answer against Yuugi's exposed throat, "is easily rectified."
At that moment, a man who had been calmly sitting further along the bench – a man that Yuugi had only noticed earlier because of his striking blond hair and charcoal-outlined eyes – stood up and walked over to Yuugi, his face expressionless.
"Uh," Yuugi swallowed, "Can I help you?"
"We need to leave," Yami told the man from where he sat under the human, his voice apologetic. "Please see to it."
As the man walked away, Yuugi could only think of two things. "One, those are the most interesting violet eyes I've ever seen – and I've seen some pretty cool shit in the clubs – and two, if he's your servant, why didn't you leave with him before?"
Yami licked a trail up Yuugi's jaw line and circled his ear, making Yuugi moan with unexpected pleasure. "How could I leave such a delicious snack?"
Yuugi snorted, "Very funny."
"In all honesty though," Yami corrected, feeling guilty, "Malik is a slave, not a servant, and I'd do anything to reverse the process that made him so."
"Why don't you just set him free?" Yuugi asked slowly, brow furrowed as he turned to look at the vampire. "It's not like it's that difficult."
"Vampire nature, unfortunately," Yami brought one of Yuugi's delicate hands up to his mouth and gave it a tender kiss, as if in regret for his answer, "is a little more binding. And though I have a fully compliant slave, I have no need nor want of such a being."
"Then how did you find him?" Yuugi continued to be skeptical of Yami's explanation. "Bad deal on Ebay?"
"Violation of vampire code," Yami answered before thinking. The word 'secret' wasn't placed in front of 'vampiric code' because it was supposedly obvious, but here a single human was getting him carried away.
As Yuugi opened his mouth to ask another question, Yami seized it in another fervent kiss, sealing off any more conversation while they waiting for Malik's return.
When they inevitably came up for air, Yuugi shuddered in Yami's arms while he tried to catch his breath. The vampire, having no need of such things, took advantage of the moment to cradle the human in his arms affectionately. Such a strange love, the vampire thought absently.
"Out of curiosity," Yuugi eventually asked, reluctant to encourage the vampire to move seeing as he was more than comfortable on his lap, "How exactly are we planning on leaving? Last time I checked, vampires can't go through cement without considerable visible damage to said cement."
"Says who?" Yami chuckled, squeezing Yuugi a little tighter as he felt the human nuzzling his neck with a smile. The vampire contemplated the thought that he was making Yuugi happy, and felt an answering smile spreading on his own face.
It had been such a stupid fight.
"Says me," Yuugi responded playfully, grasping the collar of Yami's black leather jacket – the worse for wear after their fight – in both hands and tugging his face down for another kiss. However, he snorted in the middle of it. "That bar fight –"
"I know," Yami groaned, grimacing at the indignity of it all. He'd acted like an actual animal in the bar, giving in to his baser instincts, almost giving away his long-hidden identity–
"Was epic," Yuugi finished in awe. A smug grin made its way onto his mouth, something Yami found momentarily bewildering. "I've never done anything so- so absolutely legendary in my life!"
"Even though the entire episode could have been avoided," Yami responded dryly, "had we not each decided to mope in our own world out of our self-centeredness?"
"A blessing in disguise then," Yuugi nodded knowledgeably, patting Yami on the shoulder in mock-sympathy.
"How so?" The vampire couldn't resist asking while mentally remarking that Yuugi's thought process was always much too amusing.
"If we hadn't had our fight," Yuugi explained as if it should have been clear to the vampire, "then I never would have been able to experience one of life's gifts to the utterly bored: an adventure!"
"You are bored?" Yami tried to clarify, losing track of the conversation as he received a mental encryption from Malik, who was walking down the hall back towards their prison cell, key in hand. Even the forewarning sounded robotic, Yami thought in disgust. How the hell was he supposed to fix this other vampire?
Yuugi noticed the slight glazing of Yami's eyes, and stopped mid-sentence in his response, knowing it was falling on deaf ears (or drunken ears, if he counted the rest of the people in their cell, but they didn't really matter, if he thought about it). Yuugi gazed at the vampire's face for a moment, and then reached up to kiss his cheek tenderly.
"What was that for?" Yami looked down a moment later, pleasantly surprised.
Yuugi shrugged. "Just wanted to tell you that I'm grateful to not be picking up pieces of my heart from the cell floor right now."
Yami briefly looked at him in silence, calculating something. Then he kissed Yuugi's cheek in return and smiled, "As am I."
They both looked over as the cell door swung open with an obnoxious creak, a stone-faced individual holding it open with a bow, his blond hair falling haphazardly around his face.
As both Yami and Yuugi stood up and picked their way over sprawling bodies and limbs, they shared an amused glance at their luck for being placed in the cell full of the half-comatose fighters from the bar. It had been almost too convenient.
"Do you speak?" Yuugi asked Malik as the former stepped out the door. When the latter didn't respond, Yuugi added, "Like…English?"
"I'll introduce you when we leave," Yami interrupted, placating the aggravated human by reaching one arm around him and pulling him closer to his side. "Our next problem is walking out the front door without being noticed."
"Can't we go out the back?" Yuugi scratched his arm, thinking back to all the movies he'd watched on the subject. There'd always been some hidden place the characters had escaped through…
"This is a prison, love," the vampire squeezed the other's arm in affection, continuing to find him inexplicably endearing. Malik just watched both of them without expression, motionless. "There is no back door, by design."
"Oh," Yuugi answered, feeling dumb. "Can't we just, I dunno, pull a damn fire alarm or something?"
"It…" Yami paused in thought, "would have to be real…" –Yuugi mentally rolled his eyes for saying something stupid again–
"But that can be arranged." Yami concluded with a twinkle in his eye. He nodded to the other vampire, "Will you– ?"
Malik immediately bowed and turned to walk off in the opposite direction, leaving Yami feeling resentful and Yuugi baffled.
"If he's a slave," Yuugi tilted his head sideways in question, looking up at the vampire, "why do you treat him so politely?"
"Because I'm not a 'fucking asshole'," Yami answered wryly. "And I told you, I didn't mean for this to happen."
"But it's your fault," Yuugi concluded, watching the vampire knowingly. "You fucked up, didn't you?"
"Thanks," Yami muttered, feeling the weight of the accusation bear down on him again, when all he wanted to do was grab Yuugi and do something reckless and satisfying.
"I'm not saying that to piss you off," Yuugi forced the vampire to look him in the face, and then softly cupped one of his cheeks. "I'd just like to point out that, being an expert in fuck ups myself, it's never too late to fix them."
Yami just sighed, pulling the other's hand down but holding on to it as they made their way down the hall after Malik. "I wish you were right."
"I am," Yuugi nodded, swinging their joined hands slightly, "You'll see."
I…am…aaalllliiiiiivvvvve! I come back from the dead to bring you THE NEXT INSTALLMENT IN THIS GODDAMN FANFICTION. And yes, I know it's been a long time in coming. But we all are, so hey, don't bite my head off, kay? I love each and every one of you who reviewed and asked me to continue. Thank yooou!
Anyway, I know this chapter took place in one location, which to me is typically boring (hence why the location switches up in other chapters) but I felt like Yuugi and Yami just needed to have a damn talk to sort their shit out. And believe me, in the first two drafts of this chapter, they continued to dig themselves even deeper into their misunderstandings and it was SO DAMN ANNOYING. But hopefully I finally managed to force them to make up in a reasonable and believable manner. You be the judge. Let me know!
Also, who can correctly interpret the title of this chapter? Free words of praise to the winner! :D