I don't own Yu gi Oh. Please put your lawyers away now.
Correction made to a name in this chapter.
Warnings: Foul language, mature themes, shounen ai (Seto/Jou, mild Honda/Ryuuji…and later Y/Y and B/R [in this chapter or later ones] and maybe M/M…we'll see how well I can grasp their characters), and one more character that starts going off the deep end.
Events are basically intact until episode 49 of the anime and then it goes all downhill from there.
The Things We Cannot Change
The sun peeked over the horizon of Domino, bathing the city in warm beams of light. The solitary figure at the river bridge didn't notice however, too lost in his own internal thoughts. Jounouchi cradled the golden ankh in his hands…so much of the confusion and pain of the few weeks could be attributed to this. It was the key.
He had accidentally picked up one of those bloody Millennium Items.
Fuck.
He groaned. Trouble seemed to follow those things like rabid fangirls after movie stars. Everybody was after them and would do anything to get them. Case in point: that bastard Pegasus and the psychopathic spirit that possessed Ryou time to time. When he thought of the hell they had put Yugi, and to a lesser extent…him, through, he wanted to retch. Nuh-uh, no WAY did he want be in the direct line of fire this time. Gangsters were bad enough; he didn't need overpowered magical creeps after his ass now.
This brought everything around nicely to point number two – the yami. The very lethal yami residing in the item.
He had burnt his clothes from last night. They had been drenched with blood and unrecoverable. And when the inevitable search for the missing men happened, why leave around things that would fingerprint him for the crime, even though he wasn't the one who had technically committed it.
Oh yes officer, I didn't do it. No, not I; my spirit or yami as he likes call himself, killed them in the gory manner. The nutbag and I sorta share a body here and yeah, I guess I had a part in it, since the gang members wanted to kill me and rape me and stuff I really don't want to think about, but I didn't do it…
Sheesh, that would go over well.
Jounouchi shivered, and not because of the cold coming up from the water. He had a murderer living underneath his skin…Who would suspect?
/I didn't have a choice, you know. They were coming at us to kill. 'Sides they were thugs, a waste of air, and a waste of my time. You should be grateful; you're a target for ten less people now. /
Couldn't you have at least scared the wits out of them, or just knocked loose a few teeth. Once their families report them missing, the police are going to start looking and we are going to be in trouble.
/Humph…really. They won't be throwing a big celebration? Fools…They should be grateful that that trash is gone. /
Grateful?! Do they mean nothing to you at all? For Godsakes, you just killed ten men!
/No. /
Jounouchi seriously doubted the spirit would be remorseful if anyone else who crossed them ended up dead. That was the way of the ancient world, kill or most likely be killed. He scowled; this was most definitely not the ancient world though. And the yami couldn't just go around killing people anymore.
Something had to stop.
Jounouchi looked down at the ankh, and then drew back his arm.
/You can't get rid of me that easily, you know…/ The voice sounded amused. Most likely the spirit was. That would change however. Jounouchi smirked. The spirit would find it very hard to do anything without a body to infest through the item.
"Watch me."
The ankh flew in a sparkling arc to the water and disappeared under the surface.
Jounouchi turned and walked away…he had school to get to and he didn't want to be late.
Seto Kaiba strode into the classroom; his bored gaze sweeping over all of the room's other insignificant occupants. He so didn't want to be there. There was a mountain of paperwork waiting for his signature in his office and a new virtual dueling system that was begging to be tested. And of course there were those scheming directors to deal with. He hated to let them out of his sight, he knew that they were stealing money from him and trying to oust him from his position as CEO every time his back was turned. If it was not for their connections to the business world at large, connections he desperately needed to keep his competitors at bay, he would have fired them all on the spot. Ah well, better the devil you know…At least he knew the thought processes of his current directors…it would take too long to learn the ones of new directors, and in that time unspeakable damage could occur, leaving him…vulnerable.
Ah, no use dwelling on that here. Seto decided to turn his mind to other things, like how to spend his time in this purgatory called school.
So the gang's all here…Seto smirked. Bothering the little group was always amusing.
Anzu and Honda were quietly chatting about something that had Honda slightly blushing, and had Anzu giving Honda little shoves toward a boy with jade eyes and long dark hair drawn up in a ponytail. He noticed that the embarrassed boy was holding a pair of die, die that matched the dice hanging from the other boy's ear. What neither of them noticed (but Seto did), was another classmate, this one a girl with long purple hair tied back with a yellow ribbon, was grinding her teeth as she stared at Honda. So Miho is jealous that Honda's affections are now for Ryuuji Otogi. Hmph, I can't say I feel too sorry for her. After all she never indicated anything when he was fawning all over her.
Ryuuji turned and winked at Honda, and Miho looked like she was about to strangle someone. Honda just turned redder as Anzu pushed harder and sent her friend stumbling towards the smiling boy.
Seto chuckled, well; I can't say I saw that one coming. But then again, he really wasn't in the mood for soap operas so he let his attention wander across the room once more.
Yugi was sitting at his desk, glazed eyes staring at the middle of the blackboard. He seemed to be in the middle of a deep conversation with himself and thus was lost to the rest of the world. No fun there…perhaps later when he finally decided to return to the land of the living.
Well that left only one person…
He spied Jounouchi sitting quietly at his desk, reading something. Seto frowned, why is he sitting alone? Shouldn't he be socializing with his friends? Shouldn't he be making some noise?! I've never seen the pup this quiet. He was reading, but then again Jounouchi and books weren't known to be on the friendliest of terms.
Something was fundamentally different with blonde now, this at least Seto knew. He was quieter, more reclusive…he was prone to staring off at nothingness at times, just like Yugi did. Could being in that coma have caused such a major change in the mutt's personality?
Somehow he doubted it.
Brown snapped up from the page they had been looking at and fixed themselves on Seto's face. "Don't look so surprised. I can read you know." Jounouchi growled. "What do you want Kaiba?"
Seto smirked and slid into a chair next to him. "I just want to see what could hold your interest so well. Usually you and your friends are making a din that could wake up the dead in the cemetery down the street."
Jounouchi grumbled under his breath and pushed the magazine over to where he could see it. Seto raised both his eyebrows, shocked. Usually Jounouchi would make some sort of token protest before giving in to his demands, like trying to tear off his head or yelling insults until he succeeded in deafening the brunet. This settled it, the blond was acting weird. Curious, he looked down and nearly fell off his chair.
"I didn't know you were interested in computers."
"Just putting them together," Jounouchi sheepishly admitted. "I never got the hang of the software programming side of it. Anyway dad kept breaking all our electronics when he was out of it, and it got so expensive I had to learn to fix them myself. Anyway they're fun to play with, and sometimes I can even make them better than they were before…" he trailed off blushing.
"Perhaps, sometime you could come over to Kaiba Corp. and take a look at some of the robotic systems we have there." Seto said, not really considering what he was saying to someone he really needed to keep at arms length.
"Yeah, I'd like that…" Jounouchi said dreamily. Suddenly his eyes snapped open with horror. "Wait a minute?! Why are you being so nice?"
Seto stared at Jounouchi in equal horror. "Me nice? Why are you being so friendly to me?!"
The silence stretched awkwardly between them.
What am I doing? What am I doing? WHAT am I DOING? Seto gulped as he studied his hands. It seemed like the mutt wasn't the only one who needed his head thoroughly examined.
And that's when he noticed it.
A scent, very subtle, was rolling off Jounouchi. He probably wouldn't have even noticed it, except for the fact he was a hair away from the other boy. The aroma was sickly sweet, and a bit metallic and it was…
Blood? What the…
"Kai-Seto…"
"Yes," blue eyes stared into gold.
"For what you did for me…in the hospital, ya know. Thanks, that meant a lot."
"You're welcome."
Thus ended another day. Jounouchi sighed as he splashed water onto his face. His encounter with Kaiba in the morning had been extremely confusing. He had actually been kind. More to the point, Jounouchi groaned loudly, Jounouchi had actually enjoyed the company. God, what's wrong with me? How could he do this? Kaiba had sworn to break Yugi one day for the humiliation from that first duel long ago. And that should have made him Public Enemy #1 in his eyes. And for a while Seto had been. But now…now he didn't seem so bad.
Damn it, I resolved to be polite to him, not act so…ugh…friendly to him. If I didn't know better, I was kinda flirting with him. And he was flirting back! No, no…must not go there, bad thoughts, bad thoughts…Cool it Katsuya, your imagination is running away with you again.
He idly reached down to scratch his suddenly itchy neck and froze. There was something there…Jounouchi's face paled to a sickly grey…a leather strap.
"Noooooooo…" he moaned.
He shakily drew the ankh out from underneath his uniform shirt and swore. No, it was back…but he had thrown it in the river, hadn't he? He began to sweat as another thought occurred to him; they had stripped him of all his clothes when they had taken him to the hospital, they should have taken the ankh as well. But when he had woken from his coma the ankh had been with him, hanging around his neck as it had been since he had found it. Was there no escape?
/Well I told you it wouldn't be easy, didn't I? /
Yami Katsuya peered at him from the mirror.
"Oh SHIT!"
The yami snorted. /Well, hello to you too. /
"How…?"
A shrug. /You're my hikari, my reincarnate if you will. Like it or not we're connected. And that's why the ankh keeps coming back. You're a part of me and I am a part of you. Nothing can change that, no matter how much neither of us likes the arrangement. /
Jounouchi raised an eyebrow, "So you're not mad?"
/I don't care…again, I'm not happy about this either. /
The ankh glowed suddenly and Jounouchi jumped as a figure began to appear in the room. Katsuya in the flesh looked almost exactly like him, except of course for the eyes.
"I didn't know you could do this…"
"Now you do." He walked over to Jounouchi and stared him in the eye. Jounouchi felt himself shrink back a little under that intense glare. The yami was an intimidating force. But as soon as he began to shrink, a surge of defiance welled up in him, and he began to glare back. Katsuya gave a pleased smile, "Well at least you have courage. I suppose I could have gotten worse." Jounouchi shivered internally, the smile wasn't a warm one.
"So Jounouchi, where do we go from here?"
Ryou was sitting quietly in a corner of a small café he enjoyed to frequent. A glass of 7-Up was resting in hands, half empty. He moaned and thumped his head against the tabletop.
"I hate jetlag…"
Soft footfalls coming in his direction caused him to raise his head. Yugi was approaching him. Only the expression on his face was too hard for the innocent boy, and what was he wearing? Leather? The clothing certainly looked like it came from a fetish shop. Oh no…this wasn't Yugi.
Yami scowled down at him.
"Damn it, not now…" groaned Ryou as he felt himself being pulled into his soul room. Yami Bakura growled as Yami loomed over him…the Pharaoh was so in his personal space.
"What do you want Yami?" he said frustrated, shoving the drink away from him and halfway across the table. "I'm not in the mood for one of our…chats."
"Get in the mood. I want to know what happened last night. Why did you open a gate to the Shadow Realm?"
Short and to the point. Bakura doubted he could be blunter. Or more rude.
"Is that all you want to know about Pharaoh? It wasn't me. Now get out of my face."
Yami smirked, "My, isn't someone touchy today." Bakura narrowed his eyes. Not only was he dealing with the unpleasant effects of jetlag (a horrifying condition he'd thankfully hadn't had to deal with back in Ancient Egypt), but now he had to put up with the annoyance of Yami. By Ra, if someone didn't get this tricolor jackal of his hair soon, a whole lot of people would find themselves blasted to the shadow realm.
His millennium ring began to glow, and briefly a golden eye flickered onto his forehead, and just to add insult to injury, Bakura flipped Yami the bird. Yami clenched his fists, as the puzzle began to respond in kind. The people in the café chatted on, blissfully oblivious to the fact that their world was about to go straight to HELL.
NO!
Bakura gave a choked gasp as he was forcibly pulled back into the ring. Seconds later Yami did the same thing as Yugi ripped control from the spirit. Ryou was fighting with all his might for control, and for the moment, he'd won.
"Not here," gasped Ryou as sweat poured down his face. He would lose control again to Bakura any second now.
"Run. We have to get them apart. Before they kill somebody… I'm losing control here…"
"…Me too…" Yugi looked as badly off he was. The Game King was gaining the upper hand then.
"Go then!" With a clatter of chairs, Ryou flung himself out to the street and towards anyplace that was currently not within spitting distance of a currently enraged Yami, jetlag all but forgotten.
Where am I? What is this place?
It is so hot here, in this room of mud brick walls and carvings etched in stone. There are tablets all around me, each with a picture of a creature engraved on it. They look like the Duel Monster cards, but why would such things be in a place like this.
The heat is choking me now.
There is a scepter in my hand, or maybe a rod of some sort. I raise it and a monster appears before me.
Blue-Eyes? What are you doing here?
Why are any of us here?
The man facing me summons another creature that Blue-Eyes promptly blows to dust. He has the strangest eyes; a blue violet lined in kohl that streaks back and then slashes down onto his cheeks. He has the history of the past burnt into his back.
Why am I fighting you?
This world doesn't make sense. It is illogical.
Madness rules here.
Movement at my side. There are two men on a dais; one is sitting on a throne, in shadow. But the profile of the hair he sports is familiar still. The other steps forward into the light…
Too hot…
Jounouchi?
Seto gasped as he snapped out of the daze he had sunk in while working on the contracts for distribution of Kaiba Corp. merchandise at local game and tech shops. He glanced suspiciously at the cup of steaming tea at his side but then decided poison was too blatant a method of killing someone, at least in the minds of his directors.
"Yukino, I'm leaving now."
"Already sir?! You just got here."
"Yukino…"
"Sorry sir. I will have your driver bring up your limo."
Seto massaged his temples with his fingertips. What a strange day.
"Why did you stop me Ryou? I had the Pharaoh there; I could have rid the world of the tri-colored freak for good…"
"…And done it in front of over twenty people…" Ryou shook his head exasperatedly; really his yami had no clue sometimes. "Did you notice the video cameras? Could you have made our fingerprints vanish into thin air? Yami and you would have made that place a smoking pit. People notice little things like that…" He sighed; he had long found out it was practically impossible to deter Bakura from something once his mind was set, and quite painful too. He had settled instead for damage control, trying to keep the casualties to a minimum.
It was not working real well so far.
"Who cares what people saw! They're like mindless cattle; they'd dismiss anything their little minds can't comprehend as harmless nonsense." Bakura roared, towering over Ryou. He flinched and braced himself. What was to come probably wouldn't be fun.
"And you know video cameras don't record anything when Shadow powers are in use, so don't give me that bull shit!"
"But you would have killed so many in the process," Ryou whispered, eyes turned to the ground. And despite what you say, we would have been caught…And God help me, I have to keep you…safe. No matter what it costs me. I'd kill for you Bakura…and you know it.
Bakura smiled suddenly, and his strong fingers cupped Ryou's face gently, lifting it to meet his eyes. "You worry too much Ryou. I'll be fine. 'Sides getting rid of Yami is worth a little risk. I told you what he did to me and the other five at the…end. I owe him for that…"
With that he leaned in and captured his hikari's lips in a kiss. It was feather light at first, but little by little he and Ryou deepened it, until it seemed they were melting together. Neither of them noticed the single tear that slipped down Ryou's cheek, and fell to land on the Change of Hearts card gripped securely in his hand.
Sterile. That was the only word that could describe the rehab center where his father had been placed, Jounouchi mused. Cold white walls seemed to crowd around him, while the scent of the chemicals used to clean this place stung at the inside of his nose slightly. Yet even the sharp smell of bleach couldn't cover the underlying aromas of blood and urine. He promptly decided that this was a twisted version of hell. Complete with the sobs and moans of the suffering to go with it.
He was sitting with one of the damned now.
"Dad…you doing well? Are any of the docs hassling you or something?"
"I'm…okay. They're starting me on therapy soon. But they say…" The man began to sob, tears leaking down his salt encrusted face. The years had seemed to pile upon him, and lying in that bed, looking up at his son, he seemed like an ancient. And he was just as weary. Weary of the fight. Wanting it all to end. To be finished.
"What do they say Dad?" Jounouchi gently pressured, not wanting to hear the answer, but needing to all the same.
"They say I'll never be cured. I'll be like this all my life. The crave…the crave won't stop!" He tugged fitfully at the restraints keeping his wrists immobile. The docs had told Jounouchi it was for his own safety. He had had violent fits during his withdrawal, hurting himself. It hurt looking at him now, the shell of a vibrant man he'd once known. In a way, his father was dead. The alcohol had taken most of his mind with it.
"Oh dad…" Jounouchi couldn't bear to say he'd be alright in the end; to sugarcoat things would be cruel. All he could do was to be strong for the both of them.
"Jounouchi, could you do a favor for me. One last favor for your father…" There came a shine to his father's eyes that sickened Jounouchi to the core. Such desire, such wanting…there was only one thing that he would ask.
"What is it dad?" he desperately tried to sound neutral.
"One last beer, that's all I ask. I need it so badly."
"You know I can't do that dad…"
"Please! It hurts so much. Please help me deaden the pain…" Jounouchi almost sobbed there. His father reduced to begging…for a drink of all things. He couldn't stand it. His father, his proud father…there was only one thing he could to help. And it would kill him.
He stood up and left the room.
"Jounouchi! JOUNOUCHI! Come back, for the love of God COME BACK! JOUNOUCHI…"
"I love you dad…" he whispered as he staggered down the hallway.
