Abandonshipping (Kaiba Gozaburo/Kaiba Mokuba/Kaiba Noa)

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((warning for discussion of child abuse))

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"Do you miss him?"

"I don't...I don't need to talk about him with you. I don't want to do that to you."

Mokuba shook his head, arms still clutched tightly around Noa's chest. Noa had heard him crying, and when he came into the room, Mokuba had been tangled up underneath the covers. Nightmare, he had said. Noa didn't need to ask the details to know what the nightmare had been about.

Noa sat with his legs dangling off of the bed, holding Mokuba close to him as he ran his hand slowly through his hair in an awkward soothing motion.

"I don't want to upset you," Noa said again.

"No, I...I wanna know," Mokuba mumbled. "I wanna know what...what you thought of him."

Noa looked down at the floor.

He had not spoken of, or tried to think about, his father in several years now.

He ran his tongue over his dry lips and tried to pull his thoughts together.

"I loved him," Noa said. "He was my father. It was what I was supposed to do."

He felt tears pricking at his eyes. He didn't want to think about this. He knew, now, some of what his father had done to Mokuba and Seto. And he knew, in hindsight, what his father had done to him.

"Yes," Noa said. "I miss him. And I hate myself for missing him."

Mokuba's hands tightened into Noa's shirt.

"It's okay," he mumbled.

"No," Noa said. "It's not."

He rubbed quickly at his eyes.

"He gave me almost everything I wanted," he said. "He took me places, he praised me for good grades, he taught me how to read. He did all the things that parents are supposed to do."

He almost choked on his own tears.

"He took everything away from me when I messed up. Told me it would teach me how to do better. He never hit me or mother anywhere that people would notice the bruises. I hacked and stole documents from child services to prevent him from getting arrested. I protected him because—it was okay, I thought. It was okay that sometimes he screamed so badly that I thought he was actually going to kill me. He was my father. I was supposed to do what he said. Right?"

Mokuba's hands tightened a little bit more around his chest, and Noa couldn't see anymore for the tears in his eyes.

"Do I miss him?" he mumbled again. "Yes. All the time. Even though I know I shouldn't. Even though I know what he did wasn't okay."

Mokuba hugged him close as Noa began to cry.

"I'm supposed to be comforting you," Noa mumbled.

Mokuba shook his head.

"We're supposed to be comforting each other."

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A/N: Oh my fucking god we're done