Hemlock

by Ouvalyrin

[YBxB] " I found you in the tomb of my mind, angry and bitter and so, so alone. You were screaming at the world, at its injustice in imprisoning you away; and my heart twisted and writhed at your curses though I did not know why."

Hemlock

By Ouvalyrin

Disclaimer: -whistles innocently- Yu-Gi-Oh? sorry, never heard of it.

A/N: I take no credit for this…thingy. My chronology may be a bit off—damn it, I don't watch the show, k? I…read the manga. Occasionally. (-cough- -has been on page ten of volume one for the past three months-) And that's it.

~ * ~

          I found you in the tomb of my mind, angry and bitter and so, so alone. You were screaming at the world, at its injustice in imprisoning you away; and my heart twisted and writhed at your curses though I did not know why.

          I wore a gold ring around my neck with spikes that dangled from it shining in the moon-sunlight, and inside it I found my heart's desire and half my soul wrapped up into one fierce, scowling package.

          And my mind-heart-soul went giddy with delight and I stared at my other half and colors swirled all around me in a brilliant display. And you looked up and your eyes met mine and then we were whole.

          I didn't need anyone other than you. And you were so protective of me, fighting anyone-everyone who dared to look at me too long. And I was so protective of you, guarding you with the fierce jealousy reserved only for my sister Amane.

          I lay in your arms every night in the room of our mind, angel and demon, darkness and light, and I was at peace. In reality only I could see you, and I was glad, because you're mine.

          Then you took your first soul.

          I remember the doll you laid at my feet. You were shaking and surprised and half-frightened at your power, and gradually I learned that you remembered nothing of his past.

          That changed things.

          I leaned up and kissed your cheek and promised to help you regain your memory, but secretly I wondered if you would remember someone dearer to you than me.

          But I said nothing more, bottling away my fears into a corner never found again.

          You gave me another doll. Another. And another.

          Then I had a family.

          Ten families.

          A hundred families.

          And then enough to populate a world or seven.

          And all the while, I grew more and more afraid of you; afraid and awed and just a little bit flattered. I watched as your eyes grew harder with the merciless remorse of hell, your face crueler with the unforgiving kindness of angels, and I wondered what had happened to my strange, beautiful other, who played with lightning sparks and butterflies.

          You still drew me into his arms at night, but your kisses burned my lips and your touches branded red-hot letters against my skin, and your entire being screamed "Mine!"

          I wondered what I was to you now.

          I still loved you with a passion beyond words.

          My body still ached for yours and I wept if you were not near, but before you would kiss my fears away with soft and gentle and sweet kisses. Now they bruised me lips and left them swollen, and then you left me panting and begging for something I could not name.

          And, strangely enough, I didn't mind.

          I wanted to be yours, yours and only yours. I deliberately grew my hair long to watch you punish those who dared to look at me, and all the while I felt that thrill of pleasure and desire.

          And when their screams died away, you stalked to me, sitting on my bed in my soul room, captured me in a kiss meant to posses, and you whispered, "Mine" against my lips.

          I tilted my head back a little further and pulled you down on me and for the next few hours it was nothing but bliss and ecstasy.

          You lived your life like this for what felt like an eternity twice over and I wouldn't have it any other way.

          Then you remembered the Millennium Items.

          Your eyes glowed with the lust for power and you bared your fangs at the world, and I shrank away from you with my heart fluttering in my chest. You turned to me and you pushed me up against the wall of my soul room and whispered dark promises in my ear. And then you kissed me, cold and hard and swift.

          And you tasted as how I imagined hemlock would taste. Sharp and bitter and leaving behind the copper taste of blood in my mind. And I wondered if I would die from your kiss.

          Then you shoved me away and locked me in my soul room.

          When you let me out, I found that we were moving to Domino City in some obscure part of Japan. There was a strange look in Father's eyes as he said this that sent shivers up and down my spine; it was Not Right and I knew it.

          Then I found out what you had done. I didn't know what you did, but does it really matter? I remembered the fury and hate I felt towards you, and now I wonder if it is possible to hate yourself.

          You didn't understand at first, why I turned away from your embrace and refused to listen to you. But you realized—slowly—and you couldn't believe it at first. I felt your disbelief stronger than you did yourself. I could forgive you for so many things, mou hitori no boku, but not for this. Family is-was sacred to me, and you could not change that.

          At first, you pretended nonchalance. You told yourself that you didn't need me, that I was nothing to you, and for a while you fooled yourself into believing that. But the truth came out as it always does, and you could not deny it any longer.

          You needed me.

          So you lay doll after doll at the foot of my door and waited impatiently, telling yourself that I had to come out someday. But I didn't, no, because souls weren't what I wanted. And maybe I was being cruel as you are, but I didn't care.

          You realized the souls weren't working. So you gave me jewel after jewel from God knows where, stealing them from rich men and women with no need for them at all. You stole them all and you gave them to me and you prayed for deliverance.

          You realized what I wanted, yet you refused to give it, because it taxed not only your soul but your pride as well. I wanted two words and a promise from your lips, not souls trapped in dolls or jewels soaked in blood.

          The light is stronger than the darkness.

          You came to me finally, furious and bitter and hating, but you needed me like I needed you. And you said "I'm sorry" and I did not forget, but I forgave.

          We moved to Domino City and Father left for the sands of Egypt, and I could not hate him or blame him or feel anything but the strange apathy.

          I went to school and you became interested in the small boy with the lightning hair—or, more accurately, at the trinket that hung from his neck. It had the same symbol on it as the one on our neck; the eye of something, from what Father told me.

          You whispered dark schemes in the shell of my ear and I shivered with delight and horror and the strange mix of them both. I liked Yuugi-kun, but you were my other, and I would lay the world at your feet if you asked me to.

          "Don't," I said. "Do," I whispered.

          You smiled at my confusion, called it charming and gave me another hemlock-flavored kiss.

          "I will," you said, and I was in my soul room again. But I could see, and I had to admit that you impersonated me wonderfully, and I became caught in your web, and I almost thought you really were me. Which is an odd thing to think, but then again, you and I were-are oddities, so it doesn't really matter.

          Then I was on my way to Duelist Kingdom, hunched up in a cabinet with you at my side, half in a wall and half out. I wondered what would happen if someone saw you, and you raised an eyebrow at me. But you shimmered into translucency, and I could barely see you, though I felt your presence. You told me of your plans, though it was unneeded, and I began to understand you a little more.

          You were an angry, bitter creature, and you still are, but you are human, more human than I am. You felt and you hurt and you cried, though all this was done in the darkness of the night, when no one could hear or see you. And you had your desires, your obsessions, and I happened to be one of them. But it had been so long since you could act on what you saw and felt that you had almost forgotten how. So you fell back to the way you had practiced three thousand years ago, a time that you had almost forgotten and remembered nothing of except a faint sense of identity.

          You drew invisible arms around me and I felt your heart beating faintly, and I wondered if you were alive. There is something about boats and nights and stowing away that make me curiously introspective, and it wasn't like you were immune to the effect either.

          "Yadonushi," you murmured into my hair. And I smiled a little at that, more proof that you were human.

          The night passed this way, and I heard Yuugi-kun and Jounouchi-kun speaking more than once. You listened, snorted in disgust, and called them "pathetic fools." I didn't agree, but I didn't defend them.

          We arrived at Duelist Kingdom. You told me to wait until nightfall, and I listened, because you were more experienced. You were older, and you knew more, but you couldn't remember your life.

          But you were right. No one noticed, no one cared, and I think I saw Honda-kun and Anzu sneaking off as well.

          We hid ourselves in the forest. You took over then, and cursed when a bee immediately stung you. I winced in sympathy.

          You looked at me with cold, angry eyes one starry night, and said that I would betray you. I didn't understand, denying it with all my heart and half our soul. You sneered, and you retreated to your soul room, and you shut me out.

          The next day, you imprisoned me in the Change of Heart.

          I remember the burn of hatred in me, and for the first time, I understood how it was possible to hate yourself. How to hate you, mou hitori no boku.

          So I betrayed you. Fought back, and said, "Fuck you," and turned the attack.

          And oh God, I remember your anger.

          I laughed even as you faded away, until I realized you would no longer be with me. Until I realized you would never come back. Until I realized the other Yuugi-kun had taken you away.

          So I hated more. I turned that hate against Yuugi and Anzu and Jounouchi and all the others, and I missed you.

          Then, one day, you came back.

          I didn't know until you shouted at me, "Shut up!" I fell silent then, frozen, and thought maybe I was dreaming. You came out then, half-dead as a dead man could be, your nails freakishly long and your eyes glowing red. Your hair flew in every direction but down, your skin smudged with dirt, and there were stains on your clothes that I didn't want to think about.

          "What?" you snapped when you noticed my stare. "Do you think it was easy to escape the Shadow Realm?" Escape. That meant the Shadow Realm wasn't all-powerful, that you could leave again and again.

          I make it a rule not to cry, but this time was an exception. I felt your impatience, and you kissed me, and you still tasted like hemlock.

          I stopped hating the other Yuugi-kun around then, though I did not forget and did not forgive. You forgave, or maybe you simply forgot—either way, neither of us mentioned my betrayal again.

          Kaiba dueled Pegasus and lost. Honda-kun forced me to climb up a tower blindfolded because Anzu was above me. We were sucked into the Shadow Realm because of Pegasus.

          You did something, though I don't remember what. You wiped it from my memory, or maybe it was Pegasus who did that. You never told me, and I never asked.

          Yuugi dueled Pegasus. He won.

          You tried to abandon me for Kaiba's younger brother, Mokuba. The rejection hurt, and I clung to you fiercely, like the Man-Eater's Bug to its prey. And I knew that this was revenge, but I didn't know if you would truly-honestly leave me.

          Honda-kun threw away my Ring. Our Ring. It flew, a gleaming golden disk, landing somewhere in Duelist Kingdom where someone would or wouldn't pick up the necklace and place it around their neck.

          You came back, spooked Pegasus, and I found his Millennium Eye, still encrusted in blood, deep in my pocket.

          I didn't ask, and you didn't answer.

          I didn't want to know, and sometimes, I dreamed of Pegasus bleeding to death, missing an eye and screaming when no-one could hear him. You snorted, kissed me, and fucked me so hard the springs broke.

          We stayed inside for a while, and Yuugi-tachi seemed to forget I existed. But you—you made sure I forgot they existed.

          Then, someone else attacked, and I defended. That fool, Bandit Keith—tried to steal Yuugi's Puzzle. And so, you reacted. We reacted. And then we left, the trail markers distorted and Yuugi-tachi unsure of where to go. Later, I heard that Yuugi had almost died, trapped in a fire with the Puzzle shattered into a million pieces. You were furious, but because the Puzzle had almost been destroyed, not because Yuugi had almost died.

          You heard of the Battle City tournament, and the entire time is just a blur to me. I met Malik though—I remember him, because you were attracted and jealous and nervous. There was something not right about Malik, and later, we found out why through the others.

          But it was in Battle City when I first understood why Yuugi and Jounouchi and Malik would base their entire lives around a card game. There was a certain thrill in seeing monsters under your control, coming to life with the simple placement of a card. The magic was coursing through our veins, and I lost myself in the excitement, the—bloodlust, according to you. You hit my head, called me an idiot, but you didn't disagree in the happenings.

          I heard that Yuugi-tachi had been sucked into a virtual reality to face a digital human. You laughed yourself sick at that and called it "divine justice." I don't think you really hated Yuugi and his other very much anymore by then.

          But what I remember most about you and me is after all that—when things had settled down and everything was comfortable and peaceful for a while. You didn't say it with words—I don't think you could have, actually—but with the look in your eyes.

          Your eyes whispered it to me one night, as we lay in bed in our soul rooms. I think Yuugi was discovering how to give his other a corporeal body of his own around then, and I debated asking Yuugi to tell us how. You corrected me almost gently, said that "the Pharaoh would never agree." You laughed, not one of your hard, angry laughs, but with a slightly cruel amusement tingeing the sound, and said I was the stupidest person in the world. If you had a corporeal body of your own, then your actions would be freer, no longer limited down to only what my body could take.

          But when you called me stupid—your eyes said "I love you."

~ * ~

Complete

~ * ~

A/N…: -pokes fic- You're an odd one, and a long one to boot.

Fic…: ­­­­­. -whap-

…Owchies. Anyway, the ending may or may not be a surprise—but lately, I've become a sucker for happy endings. .; But there's one more chapter, this time from Yami no Bakura's POV, called Poison Ivy. Yeah, I have a plant thing going on. Sue me. :p

Anyhoo…Review?