Disclaimer: Ok, if I owned YGO, I would be some brilliant Japanese dude with a mansion and be practically rolling in money, and if I owned the lyrics to 'Sold me' by Seether, it would be pretty much the same thing.
A/N: OMG GOMEN GOMEN GOMEN ON UPDATING SO LATE! But I have reasons - fist writers block was kicking my ass, then I had an argument with my parents and they called the cops, and the cop saw me cutting myself in the bathroom and took to the psychiatric ward and I was stuck in there for an 48 hour observation period. Not fun, but anyway I'm writing now, and I really hope that this chapter makes up for it. Anyways, shout-outs:
Sakura Trees: Yes, because with broken wings ceases to fly. You'll understand what I mean later on in the fic.
Ralphiere: Here's teh next chapter, and don't worry, I don't plan on quitting this fic anytime soon!
Cymoril Avalon: # Blushes# Thanks, and yes, Yami does pretty much everything cutely! Don't worry, you'll find out about Marik in this chapter!
suicide-greeting: She'll probably get her stuff in the next chapter, I need her to have something with her anyways, you'll see whatI mean!
serpent-vampfreak: Wow, that's a lot of questions, ok first off, no, Sekka's not even close to being out of the woods yet, and yes, Yami will try to help her. I would answer more questions, but I don't have a lot of time, so you'll just have to keep reading to find out!
loathed wolf spirit: Thanks for the happy birthday, and yes, I love that song too. Anyways, hope you like this chapter!
Deceptive-Innocence: Sure......... ok.......... whatever. Love ya!
odd little leprechaun ): Thanks for reviewing at least one of my fics! Ya, I suck at grammer, I'm more of a plot person. Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
peachi goddess: Of course Sekka and Yami get togther! This is a romance fic, and thanks for your encouraging review!
Ok, on with the fic!
Like Petals From A Rose
Chapter 8
Sins of the Past
I awoke the next day, and for the first time in a long time, wasn't hoping that I was going to be hit by a fucking mac truck.
If anything I felt……… hope? Was that it?
I didn't know seeing as I had forgotten the feeling of hope a long time ago.
I rolled over, not wanting to leave the sweet oblivion of sleep, and his words from last night came back to me.
"why are you helping me?"
"because a bird with broken wings ceases to fly."
Were my wings broken, leaving me as a helpless bird, an vulnerable bird that could easily be killed by the cat across the street?
Maybe.
Probably.
After a few more moments I forced myself to get up, finding my way to the shower before undressing. The shower was large needless to stay, kept sparkling clean by the servants.
I habitually kept my gaze from the large full length hanging on the wall and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water roll over my skin. It felt great to not have to worry about how much the water bill was going to be or other things of that nature.
"because a bird with broken wings ceases to fly."
I couldn't get those out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
I was too afraid that they were right, but also afraid that they were wrong. I didn't want to be helpless, frail, and totally dependent on anything but myself, but what was I going to be if I wasn't?
The same whore that I was now?
Shaking my head I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around me before I opened the door.
And froze in a crimson gaze.
I couldn't move, and my heart was pounding in my chest so hard I thought it might explode. His eyes were roaming over me and I instinctively hid the bottoms of my slashed arms, but I realized only to late that he wasn't focused on my arms but on my shoulder.
Far too late I threw my hand over the scar, but I knew that it was to late.
He had seen the initials.
"I have to go." Was I said as I shouldered past him, all but running back towards my room, the towel clutched to me tightly.
I didn't look back.
I didn't dare to look back.
Reaching the room I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it. The towel was slipping off my body and I reached the grab it before it fell.
Slowly I went into the bathroom, letting the cloth fall to the ground and expose my nudity. I was still far too thin, nearly all of my ribs showing through my skin, but I wasn't looking at that. Like his had been, my gaze was locked on my shoulder, and the scarring that was still there after two years.
His initials.
M I
I closed my eyes and turned away from the mirror, not baring to see that he was still with me.
A knock on the door grabbed my attention. I didn't need to ask who it was. I knew it was Yami, coming to see if I was alright.
"Sekka? Sekka it's me open up."
I slung the towel around me again before stepping out of the bathroom.
"Go away." I muttered back. I couldn't explain this to him, or more to the point, I wouldn't. Not now, after all the shit that went on. The knob turned and the door opened, and he stepped in.
I turned my eyes from him, not wanting him to see to see what they might be revealing.
"Are you ok?"
"Fine." I answered coolly before sitting on the side of my bed. No-one said anything for what seemed like years, but I knew that he would ask soon, and I would have to back in time to a place that still haunted me.
"Sekka, how did you get those scars?" He asked, sitting next to me so that I could feel the warmth of his skin through his clothes.
"Your not going to leave me alone until I tell you are you?" I asked, and his silence was enough of an answer. "Goddammit." I stood up and stared out the window at the city below. "Why do you have to fucking know everything?" I shot at him, but it didn't unnerve him.
"How can I help you if I don't know anything?" I bowed my head, the floor suddenly becoming fascinating as I tried anyway I could not to look at him.
"What are you making me do this?" I whispered. "It was a long time ago ok? It's over."
"But the past can still hurt you." I don't why I lifted my head and gazed at him when he said that. Maybe it was the way he said it, like he knew that the past could swallow up someone's future, maybe it was because I somehow sensed that there was more to this perfect picture then met the eye, maybe I was just fucked in the head……….. who knows, but I did.
His eyes were what hit me first…….. those crimson eyes that seemed so distant and hurt. Something was hurting him, anyone could see that much, but I didn't know what.
# Sold Me by Seether starts #
"Yes." I answered. "The past can still burn you." I turned away and sat on the bed, he didn't follow, but I could tell that he was waiting for me to start. I took a breath that I hoped would calm my rapidly beating heart and closed my eyes, willing the memories not to return before I dared open them again.
"It's ok." He replied, sensing my fear, frustration, my reluctance to live through all I had a second time. I took another breath, and, almost against my will the story of how I came to be what I was poured out.
"His name was Marik." I started. "Marik Ishtar." He nodded and glanced at my shoulder again. "He was one of those people were always into trouble, but never seemed to be bothered by it, and never paid much for all the shit he caused. I ran away when I was fourteen, and some of my friends knew him, that's we first met - at a rave.
He asked some questions, we got talking, got drunk, got high, and seemed that everything would just slip away when I was sitting next to him, higher then a kite without a care in the world.
Here I stand before myself
I see something's out of place
Things went on from there until we finally hooked up. He was nineteen, a full 5 years older then me, but that didn't matter, at least in my eyes. I moved in with him shortly after, and that's when all the shit began.
He always wanted sex, I mean like every night, and, being the dumb little bitch that I was, gave it to him thinking that he would 'love' me even more.
You tasted all my purity
Now there's nothing left to waste
How stupid.
Then, the beatings started………….
"get down bitch!"
"leave me alone, what the hell did I do?"
"Stupid cunt with a big mouth."
I shook my head to clear away the memories of his words, our fights, and everything that came with them, but they wouldn't recede, and I forced myself to continue. Yami stayed quite, just listening and paying attention to what I was saying.
The feeling gets so in my way
It's getting lost in my delivery
"He did a lot of drugs, bad ones too. Cocaine, heroine, stuff like that. He would usually come home from wherever either drunk or high, and anything that went bad that day would be on my head, not matter what it was.
It started as just arguments at first, and then, they began to become more then just that, until the point where he would backhand me across the face to shut me up, and if I didn't, well he'd find other ways to silence me, either through sex which was more like rape, or by beating me down so that I didn't have the energy to fight back anymore.
The feeling gets so in my way
I'm getting lost in your periphery
That's how the cutting started.
I hated myself because I hated him, and one day I just started cutting my arm. After that I always wore long sleeves to hid it, and I always try and find some excuse not to have sex with him, but finally I ran out excuses and he saw them.
He asked me what they were, and when I didn't answer, he beat the answer out of me. You have no idea how much make I had to wear to cover up the bruises he made on me.
I was fifteen by this time, and starting to realize that I had to get the hell out, and away from him. But I was helpless, he was bigger, stronger, meaner, and I was so small compared to him, not to mention, afraid of what he might do to me if I tried to leave.
And you sold me up the river again
(I don't want to be open)
And you made me start it over again
(I don't want to be open)
So, like a cowardly fool, I stayed with him, pleasing him anyway I could and hoping that he wouldn't turn his rage on me.
It didn't work, and everyday he found some reason to hate me, beat me, hell maybe even kill me. And the next day he would always apologize claiming he didn't even remember what he did.
And you moved me, and you sued me, and you fucked me
(I don't want to be open)
I bought for awhile hoping against hope that he wouldn't hurt me, not just physically, but emotionally too. He made me want to cut myself more because he had drilled it in my head that I was worthless, unneeded, and only good for a cheap thrill when ever he wanted.
This went on for another 6 months before things took another turn for the worst.
He got fired for getting high on the job, whatever it was, and he was flat broke. Seeing as he had some things on his record, he couldn't get another job, so he started to look at me.
I was pretty developed by then, he had made me mature faster, and face the world faster and I suppose that's why I looked 18.
And you left me wondering what the hell
What is wrong with me?
He figured I was plenty old enough to…… to start working on the streets to pay for his habits.
I didn't want to at first, but I had no choice in the matter after he held a knife to my throat and threatened to slice it open if I didn't.
So, I ripped my clothes to make them the most revealing pieces of clothing I could, and started working the streets. He would take my pay at the end of each night and go out to bars and shit with me to get drunk and high.
He could two hundred dollars on cocaine a night, and be almost out by morning. Someone, he managed to save enough for our food and rent, but that meant I had to work EVERY night.
And that wasn't all.
I never felt like I had felt
Until the day you came undone
He came at me sexually a lot more too, forcing me to do all of things for him, all his dreams, and whatever, and if I wouldn't……he would tie me to the bed and torture me with fire until I would obey him.
'fucking do it you bitch'
'get away from me you fucking psycho'
'psycho huh? tell me babe do you like fire?'
It was a living hell.
I started to want to die, really die. I thought I had no other way out, and I cut myself even more, often hitting veins and just watching the blood pour, until one day I got a little carried away and ended up slitting a main artery.
I can still remember how all of my blood seemed to pour out all at once, and how suddenly, I didn't care about anything at all, everything was suddenly fine.
I never felt like I was lost
Until the day you killed me again
I woke up in the hospital, and remained in 2 south until they thought I was stable again and released me. But I would have been happier there.
He was angry at me, so angry at me for not working, that he hadn't gotten high in two weeks. He beat me until I was sure I was almost dead. Every bone in my body hurt, and it seemed like I was going to fall apart at the seems if I was to move.
The feeling gets so in my way
It's getting lost in my delivery
The feeling gets so in my way
I'm getting lost in your periphery
When I was healed from that, it was back on the streets for me. Working as a prostitute the same way that I was up until a few days ago.
Yes, I got raped, but it was all worth it. He didn't know that I was saving up money to try and get myself the hell out of there, I was sixteen, I could make it on my own.
And you sold me up the river again
(I don't want to be open)
I had nearly five hundred dollars saved up when he finally caught on to what I was doing and tried to take the money from me.
I stabbed him in the shoulder, took my money and ran without looking back.
A few months later he caught up with me again, and broke down my door to get to me. He had a knife with him, and he said something about marking me the way I marked him.
That's when he carved his own initials into my skin as if I was some sort of cow on the market.
And you made me start it over again
(I don't want to be open)
And you moved me, and you sued me, and you fucked me
(I don't want to be open)
Somehow I managed to get away from him again, and ran to another city, hoping to start my life over in a place where no-one knew me.
And you left me wondering what the hell
What is wrong with me?
That was ok for a little while, until he finally tracked me down again.
'fucking little whore! Think you can get away from me!"
Needless to say, he beat for what seemed like the hundredth time.
'don't worry bitch, I'll do more then just fuck around with your this time. You'll got what's coming to you, you worthless little whore'
That time, he pulled out a gun and shot me in the stomach, but he was too high to make a fatal hit.
Are you stronger
For cutting me open
Are you stronger
For leaving me broken
I called the hospital, and spent some time getting treated and shit. Last I heard of him, he was arrested for attempted murder and doing time."
I stopped, shocked with myself that I poured out that story that not another soul knew so willingly to someone I barely knew to begin with.
My second surprise was that my face was wet. I hadn't noticed that I had been crying.
And you sold me up the river again
(I don't want to be open)
And you made me start it over again
(I don't want to be open)
Yami said nothing, but he eyes traveled my exposed skin, and I was sure that he was noticing the burn marks that littered my arms and other parts of my body. Silence hung in the room for what seemed like forever until he finally spoke.
And you moved me, and you sued me, and you fucked me
(I don't want to be open)
And you left me wondering what the hell
What is wrong with me?
"Thank you." My head snapped up.
"For what?"
"Trusting me." He replied, then he did the oddest thing. He placed his hands on my shoulders and gave me a light kiss on the head before he got up and headed towards the door. He stopped and looked back me. "You better prey that he never crosses my path. I'd show him a thing or two about fire." And with he was gone, leaving me staring at the door.
He was protecting me.
Really and honestly protecting me.
Closing my eyes I leaned against the wall, letting the cool material calm me.
"Sweet god not again."
A/N:
Well, there you have it people, the 8th chapter is FINALLY done! Anyways, there's Sekka's path in a nutshell, and things should start to get romantic from now on until well……… until I feel like fucking my characters over. Anyways, again GOMEN on updating so horribly late, but please understand that it was beyond my control! And you wonderful people know what to do……….. please review and I'll my hardest not to let another chapter EVER come out as slow as this one again!