Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh
Update schedule: Hopefully biweekly
Chapter Warnings: GRAPHIC Description of Seizures, Blood, Gore, Death, Slight Anxiety Attack
Pentobarbital is the chemical that is used to put an animal to sleep. Ketamine is used as a tranquilizer which can be dosed individually for pets (dogs, cats, horses, etc). Gabapentin is used to suppress seizures in people and dosing can be adjusted for dogs, but it's also a tranquilizer-like drug as well.
Okay, so the ice pack to the base of the spine? It's a really cool trick that totally works. I think it's because it slows down the transmitters in the nervous system and helps stops the seizures? I'm not entirely sure. But I had a friend text me one night in a panic when her senior dog was having a seizure and I told her to use ice to the base of the spine. It took a few minutes but it eventually stopped the seizure and the dog was fine afterwards.
Okay, so, Yugi uses just regular water to slightly tenderize the meat he feeds Yami as well as helping get it to room temperature. I've been reading around and all I can find is the method of salt brine (soaking the meat with sea salt and water) and using hot water to make meat defrost. Either way, for the story, Yugi doesn't use sea salt, just regular warm water, and the meat doesn't soak long. The salt brine isn't necessary because Yami isn't getting cooked food and the hot water isn't necessary because Yugi is just trying to warm the meat slightly. So that's why he only uses water at room temp.
Powdered goats milk is a very common thing for pets in Japan. Yugi uses it for Yami's immune system because it's full of pro and prebiotics.
Anyways, enjoy the final chapter of Part IV~
Chapter LXIV: Yami
Work Log Entry LVII: January, 2006
January 1
Atem's behavior has grown erratic.
He not only backs away from us when we come into the cage.
He starts wheezing and sometimes glares.
Only once has he snapped at a guard.
January 16
Atem has begun to fall beneath his strain of dementia again.
An attempt was made to feed him today and he attacked the guard so violently he wound up snapping his head off.
The boss has decided that we shall not feed him for fear of his killing anyone else.
He has proposed the idea that perhaps starving him will keep him from further sickness.
"Mom!" Yugi shouted frantically, shaking. His arms were soaked to the elbow. And Yami was thrashing harder than ever. He'd been forced to gather him up by his belly, folding his arms in front of his back legs and behind his elbows. He'd been carrying him like this despite the constant spasms. Yami had screamed and bled further and yelped and struggled and clawed and flailed. He'd let out frothy globs of bile mixed with blood and he'd stared listlessly from glazed, burning red eyes. He had grown more erratic as the seconds had passed. And Yugi had barely managed to carry him for those twenty minutes it had taken to get him back. "Mom!"
There was movement upstairs but he couldn't tell if it was her or his grandfather. And he was hoarse as he screamed again. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes once more. The wolf shook and sputtered. An immense wave of bile painted red and yellow and sloppily laced with black wasted muscle fell from his open jaws. The spasm made his back arch and threaten to fold. His back legs kicked and his front shook as if he'd struck with electricity. His breathing gargled and his blood dripped in a hideous wave. His jaw ticked and his head snapped back and forth in a rapid shake.
"Mom, I need help," he choked out, unable to stop himself. He was sobbing, screaming again, when the door opened. His mom was dressed in casual clothes, in a pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. And his heart leaped into his throat as he noticed his grandfather staring at Yami with a horrified expression on his face. His plum gaze had grown thrice as large as usual and Yugi sobbed harder. Yami was thrashing again, paws flailing and claws cutting through the air. "Mom—M-mom, please—I need… H-he was… I can't…"
Yami arched and vomited again. His eyes grew duller than before. His head tossed back and forth. Yugi nearly lost his grip, tightening his fingers and sinking his nails into the wolf's skin to keep him from writhing out of his hands. He was puking and arching his back. He was gargling for air. His eyes were glazed and darkened and dancing. And his mouth opened wider as he shuddered and spat and his back arched furiously like a pulled bow. Yami screamed and his front legs flailed again. Claws cut at cold air and his back nails caught in Yugi's arm. The boy hissed and nearly dropped him, surprised by the sudden onslaught. Blood wept from the deep grooves the wolf's struggles left on his elbow.
He stared at her, unsure of what more he could say. How was he meant to explain? And his grandfather's stunned, horrified face made him want to vomit. But his mother was staring at him as if she could not recognize him. And then her eyes flickered to the wolf. Yugi could see the thoughts churning behind her eyes but he doubted she had come to the proper conclusion in the least. She would not believe that he was a werewolf and Yugi himself knew that Yami's irises were no longer visible. His pupils had become blown too great, so immensely that Yugi could not even think to see beyond the blackness…
His mother was staring, however. And something in her eyes and the way her face grew pale made him want to sob. She knew. She knew. She recognized that Yami was not a dog. She knew that the huge black canine in his arms was not a common dog of any kind. She could see it. And he knew she would recognize the fact that his muscle mass and his straight tail and the immensity of his paws were not that of a domesticated pet's.
"H-how…?" Kasumi breathed, too stunned to even consider more than the whisper that left her mouth. She could no longer look at her blood-soaked son. Yugi was smeared with it, covered with bright red and his clothing stained in it. He was shaking in time with the huge lupine resting in his arms, as if he were sharing such tremors. She blinked. Those black eyes peered at her as the canine sputtered and choked and vomited another large mouthful of what looked like dead cells. The foam that flecked its jaws was hideous, crusting as the seconds passed. But then a new wave came and Yugi nearly dropped him, clutching him tighter to himself and waiting out the most terrible of the tremors.
"Mom, please," Yugi begged in a pathetic voice. His words had broken at the edges, desperation and despair and utter melancholic hope making them hoarse. He was almost shaking on his own now, his eyes spilling tears and his mouth opening and closing once before he gulped and sobbed loudly. "He got torn up when he went to protect me…"
"Protect…?" She repeated the word so softly that all of them strained their ears to catch it.
"There was this pack of dogs that came after me down the street and he—he jumped out and attacked them. He tried to protect me and then they started to tear him to pieces and—and—and—he's—he's hurt because of me, okay? I need—oh gods, Mom, please help me! I need to stitch his wounds up! I need to—He can't survive like… Mom, I need your help. I—I can't do this on my own. I… My hands… I…"
She looked at him for only a single second. But they fell only on his hands, the way they shook so visibly against the dark black fur that seemed so caked with blood that was still oozing in fresh waves of red. She felt sick looking at them, squeezing her eyes shut with a shake of her head. Bile rose in the back of her throat, her heart burning in her chest. Then she took a deep breath, opened her eyes again, and looked back at the wolf that peered at her so listlessly.
She doubted it would survive.
There was absolutely no way that such a thing should be possible…
But… If it had truly saved her son, the least she owed it was to try, right?
And so she took another deep breath, let out a sharp sigh, and turned immediately to lead the way into the surgical room. Yugi stared at her as if she were a creature he couldn't identify as she held the door open for him, as if he didn't know what to do more than sob as he hurried past her. The noises he choked down came second only to the heavy wheezing and violent jerks and expulsions of vomit that the wolf brought to the air.
"Set him down and go…go get some gauze and tape—some…sterile water, syringes…sutures, needles…"
Yugi nodded and set the wolf down slowly. The animal screamed again, blood rushing from wounds that were blackened at the edges and swollen as if the very air were somehow irritating them. It scrabbled and a tongue bleached white lolled, landing on the metal as it choked and sputtered. Vomit and foam fell from its teeth, coating its dark lips. The eyes were half-closed now, ears flicking frantically back and forth in several sweeps. His muzzle jerked back and forth. Fur shuddered and rippled along his back and neck. His legs flailed and folded and seemed almost to break beneath the touch of the metal to them.
Its head rolled and tipped to the side. Its cheek pressed to the metal. The mouth opened and shut frantically. The eyes opened wide again. The body jerked and shook and the spasm made the table vibrate fitfully. It shook and choked and every muscle in its form began to shake and tremble and simply rock beneath his fur and his skin. The animal did not cease its movements, eyes locked on her even as Yugi left them to gather what she'd requested of him from inside the equipment room where they'd been sterilized and put away again. He came back a minute later, with every tool she had instructed him to gather. She felt dizzy and sick as she looked at the wolf and then at her son again.
She hesitated as the wolf's sides rose and fell for a moment. Then its jaws opened again and another bout of vomit came forward onto the metal. Kasumi swallowed hard and choked as it thrashed again, body jerking and rolling as the head snapped back and forth viciously. The wounds were hopelessly infected; she could see it already. The blood was still soaking through each split of skin and the edges were hideously swollen beneath the dark fur. Yugi trembled and Kasumi simply stared for a moment. Where was she to begin with this?
Yugi was shaking too hard, his hands so completely plagued by his tremors that he could not so much as hold the equipment properly for more than a second. And she thanked the million times she had gone about operating on wounded animals for the fact that the fear did not swallow her away and her hands held steady upon the tools she had grabbed.
Yugi was looking at her when he noticed the glint of the stethoscope in her hand and he looked quickly at Yami again, heart in his throat for a moment. "He's still alive," he muttered softly, somewhere between his own shock and bewilderment and the mounting horror of the situation. He drew in a deep breath, shaking, and reached up to run his hands through his hair. When he could not hold back, watching his mother's face contort briefly with a grimace as she listened to his heart, he grabbed at his choker with his right hand and bit into the knuckles of his left. He was dizzy and panic-stricken as she looked him over more pointedly and began to lightly touch at the wounds facing her. He didn't have the heart to tell her that what she could see was not the worst of it. It was his stomach and the inside of his thighs, torn and split, that had the worst of the wounds.
The small teen watched his mother put away the stethoscope after a moment, instead reaching for another tool altogether. He had the impulse to simply leave the room. And he had another instinct to remain there no matter what might happen. But he was caught between the need to collapse to his knees and sob his heart out and the desire to try to help her to stitch him up. But he knew he was useless and to so much as offer seemed like an insult at the moment. So he sucked in a breath, held it in his lungs as he counted slowly to four, and exhaled in the same amount of seconds.
It took only a minute for the black wolf to pass out beneath the medication, though he choked and sputtered as she inserted the breathing tube. Immediately she administered the IV line and checked him over once more, grateful that he had already rolled onto his side amidst one of his seizures. The canine was so large that he nearly hung off the edge of the table, though his legs were draped downward and the forepaws folded to hang there. His long tail draped entirely off the metal as well and the wolf's muzzle was barely kept from falling away entirely, as his frame was large enough that he seemed to collapse away from the edges. She had never seen such a huge canine before; the thought was astounding to her.
She ignored her curiosity for the moment, quickly connecting him to the heart monitor and taking his temperature. Yugi did not make his usual quip and apologize to him, instead staring almost lifelessly as she began to look the wolf over again.
All of the fur was shaved away along his sides and back within minutes. And she froze as she realized that more of the wounds were scattered about the limbs as well. She faltered, seeing inches of fur which had cushioned much of his blood loss. But some of it was caked so furiously that she was not sure she could shave it without cutting through his skin and giving him a new gash. But one look at Yugi told her that her son recognized this necessity as well and so she turned back to do so.
"Oh gods," Yugi whispered when the wolf was shaved down to bright white skin. It was bruised hideously along his ribs and hips and puncture wounds littered almost every inch of his flesh along his flanks and legs. With the left side of his body shaved so cleanly, Kasumi felt sick upon looking at it. The wolf did nothing more but shudder occasionally, though the drugs kept the seizures at bay as his unconscious mind was unable to force any intense movement.
His mom froze after a moment, startled. Something had changed. She sensed it, long before even Yugi did. Blood was oozing from his side and she was pressing gauze frantically into the skin, trying to stifle it before she attempted to clean it and shave away the dead blackened tissues along his wounds' openings. The smell of decay was overwhelming to her for a moment. But it was second to what seemed like tension in the air. And she shifted as she glanced up at Yugi.
The small teen had moved forward a step, quaking but staring at the wolf intently. When he got close enough, he crouched down at the edge of the table. His head was tilted to the side and his eyes were glued to whatever point it was that he was staring at. And so Kasumi blinked and risked a moment of inaction to see what it was that the other was staring at.
Then she froze, horrified, unable to move as she surveyed the animal in front of her. There was not much of a change, she knew, and it was so small she was almost amazed that Yugi had noticed it. Then she drew in a deep breath, shaky, as she trembled in shock.
The eyes were half-open. They were burning, staring, into what looked like dead space. But when she came into its peripheral, the gaze slid over. And her heart hammered as her mouth grew dry with horror. They were not golden eyes or gray or even green. They were red.
And there were a million different shades which rested in them.
She nearly vomited.
Yami.
This was Yami.
"How is he…?"
Yugi didn't answer her. He didn't even glance in her direction. Kasumi noticed this with a sense of horror as the wolf stared back at her so blankly. But there was a startling clarity in his eyes as well, something cunning and vicious and incredibly strong. It was powerful and stifling as he regarded her. And she saw the way that the wolf's gaze had begun to sparkle.
That animalistic intelligence she had once noted upon seeing the other's eyes before then was brilliant as his gaze bore into hers. She had never expected to see such immense power and intelligence within those dark eyes. And the glassy exterior of his gaze made it almost somehow immortal in a way, the power there enough to make Kasumi's knees incredibly weak. And, as she continued to look, her son reached out to touch the thick muscular neck there. The red eyes flickered and slid over uncertainly towards Yugi's face, incredibly shaken in the way his fingers slowly slipped into the long strands of fur.
Those dark eyes were zeroed in on his features, facing him as if he had never known him before. Or, perhaps, as Kasumi looked at the two males, the reality of it was that Yami did not seem to recognize and know the truth of acknowledgment towards his presence.
"Hey," Yugi said in a soft enough voice that it made Yami tip his head up slightly in surprise. He blinked, long and slow, and the way his ears pricked forward seemed almost to make his entire body strain. The small teen swallowed hard, moving his fingers to run along his cheek. The skin twitched furiously beneath his touch, clearly aggrieved with some intense pain that made him pant and struggle for a brief moment. His eyes bore into Yugi's as the other male ran his fingers up and behind his ears, perhaps the only place he had not seen him physically harmed during that fight. "You should be asleep, you know?"
Yami began to open his mouth as if he might speak in such a way, as if he were desperately attempting to do so now. His jaw slid slowly across the table, the pool of his own blood making his cheek burn and ache. He blinked, his tongue feeling swollen and perhaps glued to the metal beneath his head. And, as he blinked at him, he wondered at the way the human seemed to crouch rather than stand. His eyes opened halfway now, unable to part completely, and his lids felt crushed in the corners as if he'd been weeping and fallen asleep to sand there.
But the boy's voice sounded so incredibly light and soft, as if he were too scared to breathe as properly as he might need to. And then Yami blinked again, the blood on his tongue burning but tasteless as the muscle remained numb from the pain. But Yami wondered if he could even find a way to speak to him, to try to attempt to explain to him that he was okay. He wanted to tell him that he would be okay at the end of it, that he was used to pulling himself out of such predicaments.
But he was exhausted.
And so he could do nothing more than blink stupidly.
His fingers trailed over his ear more pointedly, softly, with such a light and gentle touch that the wolf almost quivered. They stared at each other for a moment. Yami could not stop himself from staring at the small teen. And Kasumi, watching them now, felt sick to her stomach as they continued to look at one another. Yugi was stroking the soft cartilage of his ear as if it were something precious. The affection in this one simple movement was so possessive that it stunned her.
No friend would have done such a thing in any manner. It was far too personal and warm, as if he were trying to put all of his adoration for the wolf into such an action. And she felt sick as she looked between them again.
"See? I told you I would get you back here."
The muscles within his neck corded and pulled taut, then rolled as if with a pained swallow. Blood welled out of his jaws after a moment and his tongue twitched. But he blinked, exhausted, and stared at Yugi as if he almost did not recognize him in the slightest any longer. He glanced at Kasumi and his eyes seemed to immediately roll up in the back of his head as if he were about to go through yet another immense seizure. His mouth moved again, as if to close, then opened wider. The bile swelled and surged forward, flecked red and black as it left the barrier of his sharp teeth.
Yugi had the impulse to simply move his hand along his cheeks and to the sides of his muzzle and along the top of it towards the end of his nose. But instead he simply rubbed at his ears again, a million different words begging to come from his mouth as he stared at the other lycanthrope.
But he could not tell him the things that he wanted.
The words would not come out.
And he knew better than to speak them as it was.
He knew that it was a foolish thought to even consider doing so.
But the touch, he decided, offered the reassurance that he knew he could not give him vocally. He allowed this to give him the comfort he was so desperate to show him. And he almost sobbed as Yami's eyes began to flicker and flutter, threatening to shut again under the onslaught of the drugs he was still breathing in. How he had even woken at the moment was beyond Yugi.
But he watched his consciousness slip away, unsure of when it was that his mother had gone back to stitching his side once more. He removed his hand only when he was sure that Yami would not open his eyes again, and straightened with a grimace. The small teen stared at the wolf on the table for a long moment, then looked back to his mom. She studiously ignored him, working frantically on his side and his legs where the elbows were cleared of fur and the flesh was already exposed. Along his shoulders the wounds were hideous and his neck was littered with immense pocketing wounds like craters, as if the skin were the surface of the moon rather than smooth flesh.
Then Yugi stepped forward to help her to roll the wolf onto his other side. And his mom went to shaving Yami down again, then to suturing his flank and neck and everywhere else she saw immediate damage. But then she glanced down at his back legs and lifted them as well, making a low noise that was horrified as they stared at the wolf in front of them. His legs were all but bloodied stumps of red. And she grimaced as she went about securing these wounds as well.
When she got to his face, she hesitated.
"Is he really asleep?"
Yugi blinked, startled by the breathless question. He didn't look over at her, shaken by the idea of turning away from Yami in any fashion as he chewed on his nails. "Yeah, he's asleep," he answered uncomfortably. He licked his lips and tilted his head, watching her as she moved to Yami's face. But she still remained staring at the animal in front of her, considering the huge canine with a somewhat suspicious expression. He watched her as she turned on the razor once more. It hummed loudly, furiously, and Yugi shivered as he stared at it. She was shaking slightly but she had enough focus to steel her resolve and keep herself going.
Yami was shaved entirely along the neck and cheeks, almost to the point of removing every hair on his body but for his ears. And then she began to sew away wounds that Yugi had not even considered might have existed formerly, for his dark fur had covered them completely. The wolf was covered in craters of bloody wounds, his entire face littered with bites and split skin.
When she'd finished, she had laid the tools aside on the counter and was staring at Yami pointedly. She was not sure what it was that she had expected from him. But the wolf did not move in the slightest. And his entire body was almost hairless but for his muzzle and the very tops of his large paws and those two soft ears and long bushy tail. Yugi was frozen now as well, staring.
But his heart was not beating at regular intervals. And he still sounded as if he might be crashing. How he had not simply slipped away was beyond Kasumi now. He'd been stabilized for the most part but for his heart rate and the way his fever remained prominent. She had felt it in every inch of his skin when she'd gone to stitch it. After scraping away the dead flesh, the new muscle and blood was too hot to be of an average temperature. She almost thought it was the heat necessary to boil water.
She stared at the wolf.
And Yugi felt sick to his stomach as he stared as well.
When nothing changed, the small teen cursed under his breath and moved away from the wolf entirely. He had begun digging through the drawers, was preparing a syringe of something that she blinked at in bewilderment towards. She did not think there were any drugs that she had in this clinic that might help to reduce a fever of such heights. And so she stared, faltering, as Yugi grabbed a single bottle of dark black and gray plastic. And then she stiffened.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Yugi blinked, startling. He had clearly forgotten her presence there. But then his eyes flickered and he looked at her from beneath his lashes. His mouth pulled downward into a visible grimace. And then he looked back to the needle syringe in his hands. "I'm going to restart his system."
"You're going to what?"
"I'm going to restart his system. I'm going to make his heart restart and his organs begin again," he answered in that same deadly calm tone. She shook her head slowly, eyes wide, and her mouth opened and closed twice. He flicked the needle to make sure that there was no air within its sharp surface. And then he moved to circle around Yami again. He reached down, removing the tube gently from his mouth. Blood and bile and that rotten flesh that he'd vomited sloshed with the movement. When the monitor blared furiously as it was disconnected as well, Yugi simply pressed the power button on it and turned back to Yami.
"Yugi, you can't do that."
The small teen glanced at her sideways as she moved closer to him. "I know what I'm doing."
"No, you don't. That's the pentobarbital!"
He didn't blink. "I know. That's why I grabbed it."
"You're going to kill him."
Yugi nodded. "And then his organs will restart themselves and—"
"Are you insane? You're going to murder him!"
The boy was silent for a moment, as if he were struck by that second to last word. He blinked at her, stunned for a single moment, and then narrowed his eyes into a glare of pure aggression and growing distress. "Mom, I know what I'm doing. I know a lot more about this than you do, even if you might think otherwise. And I'm going to do exactly what I need to."
"Say this doesn't work, Yugi. What are you going to do after that? What are you going to do if it just kills him and his organs don't…restart like you're claiming they will?" she demanded in a heated tone, eyes wide and cheeks slightly flushed. When had Yugi become so reckless? How had she missed the signs before then? How was it that she had not recognized that he was so…utterly estranged to her? He wasn't that same boy she'd raised, though he wore his face.
She felt sick as they looked at each other now. She could not believe how much she'd missed. She could not believe that she'd overlooked it at some point or another, hopeful perhaps that he would change back and she would not have to worry as much as she did now. She drew in a deep breath.
"What would you do if he doesn't wake up again?"
Yugi stared at her as if he could not comprehend the thought in and of itself. Then he opened and closed his mouth, glancing at Yami slowly. His voice was hoarse when he answered, "Then I guess there will be hell to pay for a certain person who told me otherwise." Then he shook it off, eyes sharpening, and turned away to face Yami again. But she noticed the smallest tremor in his fingers now, the point of her question making it across to him now.
But it did not stop him in the slightest. She did not have so much as the chance to blink before Yugi plunged the needle into the IV line that she'd been running for him. In an instant he'd emptied the syringe into the black wolf's blood. And Kasumi found herself nearly puking. It was a sense of bewilderment and the smallest hint of hatred that came over her then. Had she just wasted those two hours it had taken to meticulously shave him down and clean and sterilize and stitch those various wounds? If Yugi had planned to simply do this, it was a wonder to her that she had bothered now to do such a thing as it was.
He swallowed thickly as the seconds passed.
Seconds changed to minutes. Minutes seemed to stretch into hours.
Yami did not stir in the slightest.
Yugi let out a violent curse, heart shattering in his chest.
He'd gambled wrong, he realized. Slifer had been lying when she'd said he was a Pure-Blood. And Yami had been telling the truth formerly when he'd said he was a Full-Blood with a strong bloodline. There was no other explanation.
But the realization was devastating.
His knees gave out beneath him and he crumpled onto the floor into a ball of limbs and clothing. His stomach was burning with pain and his heart was in his throat again. There was not a breath that came through his lungs that failed to be strangled. His throat was tight and his stomach was writhing within him.
He let out a lone sobbing noise which sounded much like he was choking on his own breaths.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck—Yugi—oh my gods, grab him!"
The scream fell on deaf ears at first. And then the words rattled in his head, ricocheting violently in his skull. He blinked and jerked himself upright immediately, confused. The tears that were burning his eyes were unshed, his lashes clumped with them. And for a moment he could not understand her screaming. But then he saw that she was trying to grab at the black wolf.
Because the canine was thrashing again. He was not breathing but he was thrashing. His entire body was shaking and throwing itself. The examination table vibrated and crunched beneath the immense pressure. His body rolled and his back arched. His paws shook and claws scrabbled at metal. And then he rolled and his legs kicked at the air as Yugi sprang forward in a panic. His heart was in his throat again, mouth opening and closing. But he could not think to speak.
And the wolf in his arms shook so fitfully it threw them both to the ground.
Yugi couldn't hold him for long. Yami seized up so forcefully that he threw Yugi backwards. Where they had landed in a heap, now the small teen was thrown onto his back. And the wolf took only a moment to open his jaws wide and spit forth black sludgy vomit and bloody foam. The animal collapsed into a sprawled formation, eyes wide and staring blindly. His mouth opened further and another fit of vomit sprayed forth. Yugi was shaking as he noticed the black rot of decayed cells and blood that was too shiny and slick. When the wolf tried again for his paws, a new tremor wracked him.
He flailed and his claws caught Yugi in the cheek. He rolled and his back arched and snapped and popped. And then he landed heavily on his side, screaming. The noise was so agonized that Yugi nearly sobbed in despair. But the seconds passed and he narrowed his eyes. The wolf lay there, gasping and gargling and sputtering moments later. And then, finally, as the small teen thought to shift forward and try to crawl towards him, the grief struck him full force.
A panicked sob left him again. And Yami's body contorted, spine popping up and outward as if it might burst from his skin. His claws scrabbled and clicked. His head snapped back and his mouth opened wider. And the small teen forced himself to struggle forward. His heart was in his throat and he was shaking. But he forced himself to crawl to his side, panicked.
The wolf jerked and sputtered and screamed again. Then he thrashed harder when Yugi reached out. His fingers had barely touched his shoulder when the canine seemed to fold his body as if he were a fish that was stranded outside of the water and wanted desperately to go back. He jerked and spat and vomit sprayed from his jaws just as it had formerly. Yugi managed to grab him behind the elbow, pulling him back. The blood made him slicker than before. And he could feel the fresh waves of it as it began to seep through the sutures and onto his skin, soaking him.
Yugi let out a strangled noise, unsure of what more to do. He could not think of another way to express the pure panic and hideous terror which gripped him at the moment. And so he tried to pull Yami closer, to bring him almost into his lap should he have been capable of doing such a thing to begin with. His mouth was far too dry for him to think straight for a moment and he closed his eyes tightly.
"Jesus," the small teen cursed before he could stop himself, holding the trembling frame closer to him. But the wolf did not move beyond this and Yugi felt sick. He shot a desperate look at his mom, mouth dry and heart in his throat. She was still standing a few feet away, eyes wide and horrified as they regarded the two of them. "Mom—f-fuck, what do we have to stop this?"
There was a long moment of silence as they stared at each other for the smallest of seconds. Then Kasumi looked quickly away. "Ketamine, gabapentin… I don't know any others off the top of my head," she hissed. "And if he's just been given pentobarbital I don't know how effective they'll be."
"Then what do I do?"
She looked at the wolf and then to Yugi and back. And then she hurried out of the room before Yugi could ask her again, but she heard the frantic noise of protest that he let out. He sounded much like a dog, one that had been stolen from as if a bone had been withdrawn from its grasp. And so she simply ignored it to get up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Yugi could track her movements had it not been for Yami's baying. The wolf was shaking and seizing harder than ever. He had begun to thrash every second, head rocking back and forth. His legs jerked. His eyes stared blindly ahead. He let out harshly gargling cries of agony and seemed to all but die within his arms again. And then the wolf panted and the smell of death and decay that made up his breath was enough to cause Yugi to flinch in a panic. He wasn't going to heal properly, was he?
He wasn't going to be able to do that, was he?
Because Yami was bleeding all but to death in his arms and he doubted for even a moment that the black wolf could cease such pain and recover to the fullest. And, should he be capable of such a thing, Yugi felt that it would be with months or perhaps even years. And he did not know if they truly had those to count on at any rate.
There was no way that the war would take so long.
He could feel it in his bones.
His days were numbered.
His days were so slim in quantity that it was truly amazing to him to behold such a thing to begin with.
When his mom returned, Yugi had lost his grip on Yami. The wolf was thrashing too hard to contain any longer. And every time he moved, the blood would trip him so that he skidded slightly. But with the blood that he continued to spill it was amazing to him that the wolf was not dead. The room was all but bathed in it, the floor was smeared in it. The air was harsh with its scent.
"Here." He blinked and turned almost lifeless eyes towards her. She ignored the haunted expression he wore in order to instruct him with a quiet, "Put it on the base of his back and hold it until the seizures stop."
The small teen did not have to be told twice. He snatched the bundle of ice wrapped within the kitchen towel she'd carried to him and moved to the black wolf again. Yami lay there simply, panting now. He gargled out a deep breath, whimpered in that high-pitched scream he knew he would emit, and then lay there again. When his legs folded and stretched, then snapped straight outwards again, the tremors were fine enough that Yugi felt he might puke upon seeing them. But then he shook it off again.
He moved the bundle of ice to the wolf's back, a few inches from his tail. And then he pressed down on it, forcing himself to hold the struggling canine down on his belly. The reaction was an instant cry of pain and panic from the wolf. But then the thrashing intensified along his head and his muzzle snapped to and fro in a hideous formation. Yugi swallowed hard and kept the ice there.
It seemed to take forever for the effects to fully come over Yami. It was exhausting to see the way that the wolf kept shaking. And he had almost given up any sense of hope that this remedy might work. But then, as he thought to sob and simply collapse, the wolf stopped. His shaking began to melt away. His ears flicked and his head slowly lifted and turned. The screaming failed to leave his lungs. His eyes blinked blearily at Yugi and then at Kasumi. Then his head lowered and his eyes shut tightly. There was a single shiver that went through him. And then the wolf failed to stir again.
When Yami's breathing seemed to even out for the moment, Yugi slowly looked over his shoulder. His face was smeared with blood. His clothing was soaked in it. Black sludge stuck to his fingers when he pulled away from the wolf entirely. His hands were shaking. His eyes were nearly vibrating with tension. Then he blinked, staring up at her. And the way he smiled broke her heart.
"Thank you."
Yugi had not changed his clothes and he did not seem inclined to get up from the floor. He'd been leaning against the kennel behind him for the last two hours that Yami had been inside of it. His eyes were only half-open and his head was tipped back to rest against it more pointedly. He looked as if he might be sick at any moment, yet there was still that small grin on his face that said he was amazed and so terribly happy that he could not do more than simply tremble. Whenever she looked at him, he had his head craned all the way back to rest more comfortably and he seemed as if he might simply fall asleep at any moment.
But it was as she looked at Yami one final time and tried to make her escape up the stairs that her son finally spoke again. He had not done so since the moment that he'd thanked her for helping Yami. And when he did now she almost did not hear him because his voice was hoarse and he seemed exhausted. "I, uh…" He cleared his throat and did not look up at her when she paused and turned her head to glance at him over her shoulder at the staircase door. "I wasn't with Anzu that night that I didn't come home from school—before the festival, the day before Tomoya's body was found. I had stayed after school to make up for some of the classes I'd missed when you told me to stay home after Miho's body was found. When that happened, I thought that someone was following me and I found out that there really was someone doing just that."
She blinked, then released her grip on the doorknob, stunned by the words that were leaving his mouth now. Was he truly going to explain it all to her now? Did he value Yami so much that he was willing to tell her everything as she saw necessary? But she wondered how truthful he might be now.
"Ushio had followed me when I ran from the library and tried to make it home. He found me and cornered me when I ran off. And then he and Tomoya… They were fighting and I was in a panic so I tried to run. But Ushio attacked me and nearly killed me and I…" He trailed off. "I'm not entirely sure when Yami found his way there or how soon he bit me. But I do know that he did and I got infected. It didn't really cause me to change until a month later, that night at the festival—w-when Anzu covered for me again."
Kasumi stared at him blankly, eyes darkening considerably.
"Yami found me when I ran off from the festival but I didn't meet him until the next day. And he wouldn't…talk at the time. He was…basically mute. He wouldn't talk and he played charades with me to make fun of me when I got mad at him. But it doesn't really matter about that…" He hesitated and looked at her from beneath his lashes now, drawing in a deep breath. "What matters is that Yami saved me that night in the alleyway and he's saved me after that a few more times. He's taught me everything I needed to know about this entire situation until recently."
Recently?
She narrowed her eyes. There was something in the way he told her about these events that made her stomach churn. Something in his presentation of it was so direct and simplistic that it almost made her wonder if he was perhaps lying to her in turn. But the way he looked at her with such tired eyes told her otherwise and her stomach burned as they watched each other.
He was gauging her reaction, she knew. Because he would turn tail the moment that she grew angry enough. He wasn't one for a direct confrontation with her. He tended to be far more self-conscious than that when it came to potential fights between the two of them.
"There's…a war…" He hesitated again, tilting his head and frowning at her rather pointedly. She was not talking, which clearly unnerved him, but she could think of nothing to say to him for the moment. "That's going on with the werewolves. It's lycanthropes—the classic werewolves—against hellhounds. We're going to war soon and Yami and I are basically at the forefront of it."
"And that would be because of what exactly?" Kasumi snapped. "What puts you at the forefront of it?"
Yugi blinked and stared at her for a single moment. He would not tell her that he was Atem, because now that he considered it, the truth of that statement seemed far too bleak. He did not want to explain to her that she'd most likely never given birth to him in the first place and what memories she had of him as a child had been created for the sole purpose of breeding attachment in her in order to ensure his survival by way of implanting false images and thoughts regarding him. He did not have the heart to tell her that his childhood had been dreamed up by the gods, implanted in her head as it had each of his friends and family members and all of those he had interacted with prior.
The very thought of speaking those words in the first place made him want to sob.
He shook his head instead. "I volunteered," he answered after a long moment. "I did it because I thought that there was something important enough for me to try to protect."
She blinked and shook her head slightly. "And that's that, huh?"
Yugi shook his head in response. "No. It's not that simple."
"Then what else is there to say about it?"
"Please don't be so upset with me," he pleaded pathetically. "I was scared and I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't want to have to… I'm sorry."
"Didn't want to have to what, Yugi?"
"To change in front of you just to make you believe me."
"To make me…believe you, huh?"
"You would have thought I was crazy and called for a psych evaluation if I just randomly told you that, now wouldn't you have? You would have had me taken to the hospital before I even finished telling you about it! That's always your first reaction! You never just listen to me about something like this!"
"I wasn't aware that I was such a terrible mother, Yugi. Why don't you tell me again?"
"That's not it and you know that," he spat, trembling with anger. "You know that just as well as I do! I don't mean that the way that you've decided to take it. If you would just listen to me for a minute you'd even admit that you wouldn't have reacted very well to the news! And what was I supposed to say anyways? 'Oh, yeah, hey Mom, so guess what? A werewolf bit me the other night and now I'm pretty sure I'm changing into one too?' I can just see how nicely that would go down."
She was bristling now. "So help me…"
On another day, in a different situation, her anger might have made him flinch and look away. Now he simply stared back at her, furious. "The point is, I volunteered to lead the pack because I knew that I could do it and it meant a lot to. There are a lot of things riding on the success of me doing this. And I don't care what you have to say about it. This isn't why I'm telling you this. I'm telling you because you helped me with Yami just now and I thought you deserved an explanation."
"I think I deserved that a long time ago."
"Yeah? Well, you're getting one now instead." He glanced over his shoulder when Yami shifted slightly in his sleep. He turned all the way around after a moment of silence and then leaned against the metal cage pointedly for a handful of seconds. When he turned back he looked slightly unsure of himself before he locked eyes with her again. The emotion drained from his face then and he snorted softly as if she were a mere annoyance. "Anyways, the point is, the hellhounds have a couple of tricks that make it hard for us to keep up—like how apparently their saliva is extremely poisonous. That's why Yami is hurt like this. He got poisoned and now he's going to have to…wait it out until he can get healed, I guess."
"Their saliva…is extremely poisonous…" She shook her head slowly, expression one of sheer disbelief. Then she turned away with a scowl. "So you've been running off like that for no other reason than to parade around as a fucking dog."
Yugi flinched. "No, I…" He fell quiet again. Then he drew his lips back to show off his teeth. "Fine, you know what? If that's what you want to think, then sure. Why not?"
"Great. I almost wish I didn't know." She rolled her eyes and turned away. "I'm going to bed."
The small teen hesitated. Then his eyes flickered to Yami again, his resolve strengthening before he turned back. "Mom?" She paused, hand turning the knob halfway, and turned to him again with that same scowl on her face. He wished she wouldn't stare at him like that but it was not worth the potential argument that might come out of it to comment on it. Instead he licked his lips and steadied himself mentally. "Will you help me take him upstairs? I don't want him to wake up like this in a cage."
She stared at him as if perhaps she had never seen him before in her life. Then she narrowed her eyes and turned away with a more furious expression than before. "Right… Because I'm sure he'll care so much." But she had started towards him and Yugi felt dizzy with relief at the realization. He didn't have to explain that he was asking for his safety, that he was scared Yami might panic and hurt himself by opening his stitches and bleeding out.
It took ten minutes to get Yami all the way up the stairs, as he was forced to walk backwards and his mom had to support Yami's immense head and shoulders at an odd angle. It was not like moving furniture, where the structure remained consistent enough that they did not have to worry about what way they carried him. She was far more worried about the odds of his head falling out of her arms and hitting the wall. She didn't know enough about Yami's health now to know if he might concuss from the simple action or if his neck might somehow potentially snap or something of that nature. And so she moved as slowly as possible to keep him from any sudden jolt or mild action that might perhaps cause him some kind of harm.
"Okay, okay," Yugi muttered under his breath, a constant mantra from the end of the staircase to the top now. She ignored it and shook her head slightly but the small teen did not seem to notice. And she remained focused on the head in her hands, the way that Yami's mouth was slightly parted and his breath came in small huffs and puffs of air. He smelled as if he was decaying from the inside out and it was horrifying to take note of such a thing as it was. "Okay…okay…"
"I should have asked Dad to grab a blanket or something to lay down for him."
Yugi blinked and looked up at her. "Once we get to the living room I'll make a little spot for him with some blankets and a pillow."
"You're missing the point, Yugi."
He paused and then reached back behind him with an awkward fumbling grip for the doorknob. When he grasped it, it took him a moment to fully twist it and start to walk back again. The wolf in his arms did not stir in the slightest, he noticed, which only mildly surprised him. "You're saying that because of the potential blood stains on the carpet. I get it. And I'll clean them out when he's up and moving around and I can find a time to do it."
She narrowed her eyes and shot him an annoyed look. "Great," she hissed at him. "Then I suppose you do that quickly so that we can get something figured out for him. I'm assuming that you don't want him to eat out of a dog bowl or drink water out of one either so I'm hoping you have some kind of idea as to what you plan to do with him after that, yeah?"
Yugi blinked. "No, he's going to be eating and drinking out of regular dog bowls. He's hurt so I don't think he could make a trip down to the river or anything like that. And he's obviously not going to be hunting anytime soon considering." He hesitated and shouldered the door open, then helped her to lead the way back to the living room without a second glance. "Plus, fuck, he's going to need to grow his fur out before I'll even think of taking him outside. I don't want him to freeze or something crazy like that."
Kasumi shot him a furious look. "You're not going to walk him?"
"He can't walk in the first place!"
"So what do you plan to do is he uses the bathroom in the house?"
"Obviously I'll clean it up." He paused; he couldn't remember if Yami had been so starved before that he hadn't been able to eat enough to excrete or if his body had truly been so malnourished that it had digested everything and left nothing to waste. But he could not remember him using the bathroom at all in the cavern. And those few times Yami had gotten up while in his room, it had been to pee rather than to poop. The realization made his skin crawl. "I don't think he'll have enough muscle mass to have to worry about it, though."
"What? What the hell does that mean?"
Yugi blinked at her. "It means that Yami is so unhealthy right now—especially after being poisoned—that he probably won't have any waste to put out. The last time I saw a wolf this bad off, they hadn't used the bathroom at all for days because they were so malnourished that their body took all of the food they'd eaten and forced it to become something useful."
"Forced it to become something useful?" his mother echoed incredulously. "How the hell would that work?"
"I don't know, honestly. I think I'd have to look into researching it before I could try to explain it."
She snorted loudly. "I don't think I care that much."
Yugi ignored her for a moment, finally finding the corner furthest from the television, nearest the couch, to be the best place to put Yami for the night. So he crouched down and slowly lowered his hindquarters, scared for a split second that perhaps doing so in any other manner might cause the wolf to go through another violent seizure. The very thought was enough to make him nearly sob and he forced it away after a long handful of moments, mouth dry and heart in his throat.
"Okay, so then I guess you don't need to ask questions about it." He dusted off a few stray black hairs that had clung to the blood that had crusted his clothes up. He looked himself over, feeling as if he had been part of a butcher shop rather than anything else. He almost thought he looked as if he were part of a horror movie on top of it. He would have been the first to die most likely.
Or, actually, perhaps he would be the last.
The virgins never tended to die.
And there was almost always a male lead who survived to the end.
He'd pretend that would be him to survive. It wasn't too terrible an idea to hope for. Even if it was inconsequential, if he could survive in a movie of all things, he felt his odds of living through the war might be raised rather drastically. And so he licked his lips and shook his head slightly as he turned away again and thought briefly of the concept that perhaps he should wait to consider anything so close to death when he was hoping for the opposite for the wolf in front of him.
"I'm going to bed now." She gestured to him almost dismissively. "Change your clothes and do whatever you want after that. But you need to get out of those and get into something else. He's not likely to take kindly to you wearing clothes that are covered in blood."
He nodded slightly. It would seem far more threatening to Yami than ever if he were to smell his own blood on Yugi's clothes. Because the small teen was certain that Yami would not remember what had happened. He'd seen the defeated, horrified glint in his red eyes when he'd glanced at him and his mother before he'd fallen unconscious. He had seen it and known it well. Because he knew that Yami must have come to a conclusion that consisted of his capture within the underground labs.
Because he'd realized that Yami had not recognized him then.
And he highly doubted that he might wake up later and realize himself again.
There had been nothing of Yami in his eyes. There had been only raw instinct, pure and panicked, with a desire for survival which made it impossible for him to even reconsider. Yugi closed his eyes tightly for a moment, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.
"Right, I'll do that in a minute." He said it mostly to make her feel that it was safe to walk away again. But there was a part of him that was relieved to be able to speak in the first place and he swallowed hard as he shook his head slightly. It was exhausting to think about this now. It was so late in the night, almost midnight, and he was sure that she would not be happy to see him in the morning. Of course, that was only an option if she did not immediately flee to the main clinic instead. "I'll go and get him blankets and everything and get him settled into them and then I'll change my clothes after that."
She didn't respond to him, but he hadn't expected her to.
He found red eyes staring at him a few hours later. He'd turned on the TV to be able to cast light across the room without one of the lamps. And he'd been seated at the edge of the couch, waiting impatiently with the hope that perhaps Yami might wake up at some point. Now he realized that the wolf was staring at him, gaze wide and horrified and bewildered. But when the wolf would try to gather his limbs beneath him, they would shake and he could not even so much as lift himself a couple of inches from the nest of blankets he'd made for him.
"It's okay, aibou," he whispered in a soothing tone. The wolf blinked, pricking his ears towards him. He wished he was covered in fur again, because his naked body at the moment, in its hideously malnourished form—as the hours had passed, Yami had begun to further waste away—was not a fun sight. He wanted to reach out and run his hands over his fur or to ruffle his scruff. But there was nothing but for along his muzzle and very bottom of his legs on his paws and that long tail which was bundled so tightly around his back limb. "I'm not going to hurt you. And you don't need to move."
The red eyes blinked at him, confused and glazed over. There was something primal within them, vicious and uncertain and estranged to Yugi himself. The small teen grimaced and shifted a little closer. The movement made Yami's head jerk back, muzzle pointed away and eyes glued to his face. It was clear in his expression that he did not want him to so much as think to reach over. He could see the whites of his eyes, brilliant against the dark lining of them and his dulled irises. When Yugi shuffled the smallest bit closer, the wolf tilted his head further away.
And, when he reached forward regardless, the wolf gave him one look.
It was a warning, full of trepidation and bewilderment, and it took only a second for it to pass completely from his face. In an instant he turned on Yugi, that outstretched hand his prime target. His teeth snapped shut a millimeter from his fingers when he jerked the limb back. The noise was so sharp that it made Yugi's head ring for a split second.
It had sounded like a gunshot, it was so powerful.
The wolf glared at him, ears flattening against his head. And he did not do so with hatred, but rather with clear defiance. Yugi smiled faintly, amused by the way he retained his ferocity even in his wounded state. It was amazing to him, how much the wolf relied on such an instinct and show of power so naturally. The small teen shifted away again, then leaned back against the couch. He glanced at the wolf from the corner of his eye as Yami watched him for a few minutes, then slowly took to examining his surroundings. He looked first, then risked the task of immersing himself in his olfactory sensory.
For a long minute he remained doing this. Then, finally, as the seconds passed, he exhaled and flattened his ears against his skull. He tilted his head, watching Yugi again, and peeled his lips back furiously to show his teeth. His gums were a healthy pink color, with stray veins of black which he knew existed simply for the color of his lips.
Yugi drew in a deep breath, offering him an awkward smile. "You don't need to worry so much," he snorted, smiling in amusement. "I'm not going to hurt you. None of us are going to hurt you, okay? I swear that's not going to happen."
The wolf pricked his ears forward and then flicked away again. Then he curled his lips back further to show off each of his large teeth. His canines were oddly straight and powerful, his nose pulled away with the power of his snarl. But then he relaxed again, his growl cutting away with a pained noise. He was clearly unable to remember the area he was within and it made the smaller teen almost sick as he watched him for a moment. But the red-eyed wolf did not do more than watch him in turn with a sharp stare.
"Is he awake?"
Yugi jumped slightly when he heard her voice, spinning around with wide eyes. "Yeah," he squeaked out, still startled. Then he cleared his throat awkwardly when he realized that she was staring at him with a raised brow. "He's awake right now. I was about to feed him and then see if I could get him to walk or anything like that."
Kasumi stared at him as if she could not recognize him. And then her blue eyes shot to Yami and the wolf who watched them both with such extreme caution. His red gaze was glittering with unease and she could tell that he had no sign of recognition within him at all. The realization was startling to her. What was Yugi going to do if he never recovered enough to remember him? Would he be able to move on in time? Or would he simply wallow in it?
"What are you planning to feed him?"
"I've got to mix some of the goat's milk up and then I think we have a steak in the fridge, right? I could soak it in water until it becomes soft enough for him to eat it." He paused, staring at her. She didn't know if he was searching her for something or perhaps if he was simply curious as to what she thought of his plans. But Kasumi could not find it in herself to give him any bit of advice. It was stunning to her that her son still even thought it was a good idea to deal with this entire situation as it was. Why was he so involved with this stupid boy in the first place? When had he changed so damn much? "And then I guess I'll see if I can get him to take his medicine."
"Do you have a plan to give him his medication or not?"
"Not really. I think that he's…going to fight me any way he can."
Kasumi rolled her eyes, looking to Yami again. The black wolf was staring at them, face seeming sunken and small as they looked at one another. "Clearly," she bit out. "And what do you plan to do about it? Do you not have any idea how you're supposed to actually get him to take it?"
Yugi frowned at her and then looked back at Yami. His voice was quiet and soft when he spoke again. "I was going to crush it up in his food and hope that he eats it. If he won't, then I'll mix it into the milk and hope he goes for it. If that doesn't work, then I guess I'll try to get an IV hooked up and mix it into a saline solution or something. I don't know. But I'm going to make it happen one way or another. I don't care how I have to do it."
His mother snorted loudly. "Yeah, good luck with that," she scoffed softly, shaking her head. Her eyes would not pull away from Yami, however, and some part of her felt as if she were staring at a creature that could kill her at any second. The reality of it was enough to make her nearly snarl. Her mouth felt dry and she could not stop staring as the red eyes bore into hers relentlessly. "So, you've actually known about this since the moment that you met him, huh?"
Yugi blinked and turned to her with a confused expression. "That he was a werewolf?" he asked. "Well, yeah, considering he bit me and I survived, I think it definitely kind of made me suspicious that he might have infected me. I mean, I saw Ushio and Tomoya change that night so I was kind of certain of it, yeah."
The blue-eyed woman shook her head slowly. "And what if he doesn't recover?"
"He will. I'm going to make sure that he does."
"How?"
"By taking care of him like I originally planned to do." He was bristling now. "Especially now that he's awake and pretty pissed and tired. I mean, he doesn't seem to know half of what's going on right now so it'd be pretty dumb of me to leave you and Grandpa to do anything with him. He'd probably try harder to bite one of you than he already has me."
She scoffed. "So he's dangerous then, good to know."
Yugi hesitated, head snapping towards Yami and then back again. "He's a werewolf," he commented slowly, as if she were missing a rather crucial point. "Of course he's dangerous. He can bite through flesh like it's paper and he can break bones with his teeth. You want to hear about a wolf with a bite which goes beyond three thousand pounds of pressure, you look at him."
Kasumi's head turned immediately back to the wolf that was lying behind Yugi. The red eyes were still expressionless, boring into her face as if in direct challenge. She looked slowly back to her son and then to Yami once more. "He has that bite pressure?" she asked slowly. "He's the one who's been killing like that?"
Her son shook his head immediately. "No," he answered rather harshly. "It wasn't him to do it. But he has that jaw power. Both of us do, actually, if you'd like to measure it at some point. Besides, Yami was already living here by the time that you and Mazaki had that conversation about the incidents and the new theories for what was going on."
"He was already…living here…?" She narrowed her eyes, bristling as well now. Kasumi shook her head furiously, amazed by the sheer stupidity her son seemed to possess now. "Are you retarded? Do you honestly think that just because he lived here doesn't mean that he never left the house? He could have killed them all without a second thought if he'd so wanted to!"
Yugi shook his head. "He's not a killer," he insisted shortly. But he felt cold and tired now and he wondered at the thought. A small splash of water, cold and icy enough to stun him, seemed to cross his insides and he felt dizzy. Yami was capable of doing those things, he knew. He had, after all, witnessed his various killings. He had seen him decapitate wolves and humans alike. It was not hard to imagine that he could have done such a thing. It was the fact that he trusted him and didn't believe for even a moment that he might have done it that kept him from agreeing with her. He knew that Yami would not kill without reason and those victims had been hardly anyone his alpha might have turned on in that manner.
"He's not the one who did that."
"And you're so sure why exactly?"
"Because, as much as you might want to think otherwise, Yami isn't that kind of person. He wouldn't have hurt someone like that for no reason. He wouldn't kill like that just for the fun of it. He's dangerous, yeah, but he's not a piece of crap like that."
She narrowed her eyes, looking at the wolf again. Yugi had the stunning urge to step in front of him and shield him from her sight entirely. But another part of him wanted her to take a good, long look at him, and perhaps to see what he meant in his denial. But another part of him knew better than to hope such a thing. And so he simply watched her as she stared at the canine and Yami remained watching her in turn.
"I'm pretty dangerous too, Mom." He was quiet as she blinked and looked over at him in surprise now. He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled softly and narrowed his eyes into near slits. "You forget that I'm a werewolf now too. Doesn't matter if I'm human or if I'm a wolf at the moment. I am a werewolf too. And that means that I'm just as capable as he is of just killing whoever I decide."
Kasumi was quiet for a long minute. Then she shook her head slowly, closing her eyes tightly. "I don't even know you anymore," she hissed, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "And I don't even know why I'm standing here talking to you right now. You wouldn't even ask him to be your alibi against the accusations Mazaki has been throwing at you."
"I'm not going to just risk upsetting him unnecessarily," he bit out angrily. "And I'll tell that same thing to anyone stupid enough to ask me."
She shook her head. "I'm going to bed. If he makes a mess, it's your responsibility."
He sneered at her silently, feeling guilty a moment or two later, and then looked over at Yami. The black wolf had been watching her go but now he turned towards Yugi again with wide eyes, staring for a brief moment before baring his teeth at him. He did not seem even slightly upset with the small teen looking at him, though he did not appear impressed either.
"Well, I guess it's just you and me again, huh?" he muttered. He had the smallest urge to reach out and pet him. But then he remembered that he'd probably need his hands at a later date and so instead turned and headed into the kitchen. "Let's see what we can get you to eat, okay?"
He made a bowl of goat's milk, mixing the powder until it was a smooth consistency that he could see Yami truly drinking. Then he put the steak he pulled out of the fridge into a metal bowl with warm water, put some pain and nausea medicine into the small pockets he created with some shallow cuts to the meat, and wondered about the idea of getting something like marrow bones. He could give it to him to make sure that when he was awake he was kept busy. He would only have to worry after that what to do with them. Because he was sure Yami might splinter and eat them instead. Then again, from what he knew, bones and marrow were extremely beneficial to wild animals. It kept their own bones healthy and free of deficiencies.
Yugi put both bowls down after a minute of hesitation. His initial thought was similar to his mother's in that the wolf would refuse and turn his nose up at the food. But, either Yami was truly starving and could not fathom missing out on a potential meal, or he was drawn to the smell of the raw meat and the sour tang of the milk itself. Because he leaped at the food, struggling to crawl forward slightly and stretch his neck out. He drank the milk down first, licking his lips hungrily afterwards before turning to the meat itself.
He wrinkled his nose slightly in disgust as the black wolf dug into the steak. It was amazing to him when he saw him swallow away the medicine as well, licking the metal bowl clean. He whined when his paw tipped it over completely onto its side and it remained empty. Yugi watched him for a long moment before slowly reaching for the bowl. He pulled it away from him when Yami snarled and glared at him with burning red eyes. But he could already see some of the drowsiness coming into his gaze. It was hard not to notice as the wolf blinked and lowered his nose slightly towards the ground.
The wolf breathed out rather heavily, closing his eyes tightly and flicking his ears once or twice. Then he shivered, a rush of pain making him yelp from the action. Yugi came back from the sink immediately, startled and horrified by the sound that he'd released. The wolf blinked wide eyes, then attempted to raise himself to his feet. The smell of fresh blood was enough to make both of them falter. Yami's eyes flickered and his head turned, his nose twitching. His shoulder and side were bleeding, he realized just as Yugi himself did. The wolf whined and moved to brace himself to get to his paws.
His claws sank into the carpet and blanket and he gripped at it. Then he tried to move his hindquarters enough to shift to lie on his belly. But the effort was enough to wind him. And his eyes were struggling to stay open. He opened his jaws, yawning with stress and exhaustion. Then he attempted to move again.
Something grabbed him.
The pain was so immediate that he yelped.
Then he spun on the source of the touch.
His teeth snapped shut on soft flesh. And he snarled, panicked. The human had grabbed him. The human had grabbed him. The small male was holding his hips. His grip did not slip in the slightest. The wolf glared up at him, snarling more furiously. The boy ignored him, instead helping to shift his weight. He moved his spine enough to allow him to lie on his belly. Yami screamed and snapped his jaws harder. He bit down further. His eyes blazed. His ears pricked forward.
The boy snorted at him, then helped him to move his hips to lie on the other side. The action made Yami yelp and snarl again. And then he bit at empty air when the boy pulled his arm away. It was bleeding heavily, the red leaking away and dripping to the carpet. Yami stared at it, eyes wide. Then he snarled, lowering his head. His fur was in a bristle. His tongue began to flash over his nose. His ears were pressed against his skull.
Yugi snorted. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you," he scoffed. But he paused and watched Yami regardless. The red-eyed wolf stared up at him. His darkened gaze bore into Yugi's for a moment. And then the small teen looked at his hand again. "I need to wash this and then I'll give you some more food."
The wolf did nothing more than stare for a long time. His ears flicked about and his eyes searched the small teen's for a moment. Then he yawned and lowered his chin to his paws. He was exhausted, Yugi saw, and a small part of him felt sick with the idea of the sight. Yami was not going to be comfortable moving in the slightest. He would not be able to move himself in any way throughout the night.
Yugi shook his head and went to the sink. He turned the knob for warm water and ran his hand beneath the faucet. He sighed softly, shaking his head again, and narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered the deep wound. Yami had torn downward to his bones. The fact that he had not broken his wrist was amazing to him. But he shrugged it off and cleaned his bowls out before making another meal. He mixed the goat's milk again, then selected a packet of chicken. He soaked it in warm water again, allowing it to become room temperature when he poked it.
Then he took both bowls to the wolf again, relieved to see that Yami responded with the same vigor as he had the other meal. The smaller teen moved in order to place the food down in front of his paws. He did not want to have Yami stretch himself out again and pull his stitches further. He would need to clean them again later when Yami was passed out and he could get an IV started on his leg again.
The thought made him grimace, a sense of unease coming through him after a moment. It took him only a moment to realize that the wolf had stopped gobbling down the chicken. His head was raised and turned and his eyes were burning as they stared up at him. Yugi blinked, startled, and the moment he forgot the idea of drugging him again, Yami turned away. In an instant he had emptied his bowl again, tipping it over with his paw and moving his head just enough to poke his muzzle in completely and run his tongue over the metal pointedly.
At first Yugi wondered if he had somehow sensed his thoughts. He wondered at the possibility that perhaps Yami had known to consider that he was thinking of fixing his stitches again. But then a new realization struck him. Looking at Yami, the thought crossed his mind that he was, in fact, far more wolf than Yugi had ever quite known him to be formerly. It occurred to him only then that Yami was far more likely to sample his emotions than he was anything else.
He was more likely to respond to his emotional state than he was his voice or hand movements or anything of that manner. Yugi could talk to him in a sweet voice all he wanted. He could sit there next to him and promise he would not hurt him. He could do any and everything he wanted as far as speech went. But it would do nothing for Yami in any manner.
Because he was far more likely to react to his emotions than anything.
Yugi reached a hand up to run his hands through his hair and closed his eyes tightly.
This was going to be a long recovery process.