Puppet


"If you toss that ball enough you'll wear it out." Pegasus said.

"Thankfully my prison is puncture proof." But Seto caught it on the bounce back and held it where he had begun picking through the foam. "How long did you expect this to go on?"

"I told you, you're going to keep me company for the rest of my life."

"You realize there are a hundred ways to put a wrench in that."

"And here I always remembered the TV show touting a thousand."

"I'm not talking about ways to die." Though he could kill him easily and without remorse, aside from what would happen to Mokuba. Crawford's death would be a murder-suicide in any of a thousand hypotheticals and he knew it. It was why he'd kept so many guards. Why he had brought them to an island. "I'm talking about having anyone left even a year from now."

"I have your only reason to stay sane."

"You also have his, and he's not as strong as I am."

"Our dear Mokuba isn't as faint of heart as you think. Give him credit."

Seto started on a round of exercises out in the open since there wasn't so much as the illusion of privacy anymore.

"He's never had to be without me, he can't take years of this. Tell me what you need me to do." The unspoken word hung between them, heavy and desperate.

Anything.

"He'll just have to manage until you've earned my trust."

"I'm trying to tell you he can't."

"And I am telling you he can. We're closer now than we've ever been. For his sake, don't throw in the towel."

"Then stop leading me to dead ends and tell me what you need. What's it going to take to make you trust me? I've been honest even when I knew it would set you off. I'm doing everything I can within the limitations you set."

"You're doing everything you want to." Pegasus corrected. "You'll have my trust when you show me you've surrendered to this."

"To being your whipping boy? A murderer?"

"Without any lashes, it truly is a struggle of mind over matter."

"If I become a puppet, you'll get bored."

"So don't, just adjust to being on strings."

He nodded to Seto's breakfast, and Seto, instantly nauseated, had to pause part way through a leg lift to eat it.