Warnings: Mild Cursing, Referenced Violence/Blood/Death/Wounds, Referenced Stress Overload/Breakdown
Prompt XXIV: Heresy
"Sorry." Yugi reached out and rubbed gently at his arm, thumb tracing his pulse along his elbow. He couldn't stop staring at it. His mom had initially panicked when she'd seen the extent of damage Bakura had done to it. The bone had been mere fragments, shattered entirely from the wrist up. How Yami had been walking on it had been a mystery altogether. She'd had him hold the limb when Yami had begged not to be put under with anesthesia, and they'd been forced to break it further up along his shoulder and move it out of alignment. Yami had—amazingly, in fact—remained awake throughout and barely uttered a peep but for mumbling to himself something along the lines of, I'm okay, I'm okay.
He hadn't known why Yami insisted on staying awake throughout, but some small guilty part of him wondered if it was because he was there. Had he not been so scared, Yami might have just let his mom do it. She could have put him to sleep and he'd wake up later with his leg and jaw reset. But he'd insisted. And he'd stayed awake through the obvious pain.
Resetting his jaw had not even been a problem. He'd held still where he could, allowing her to poke and prod and grind his teeth and push on the bones and force them back into place. He'd let her clamp his jaws in place with a rod and muzzle and stitch the muscle into place to hold the form until she could break it again and press it back in shape.
Yami had blinked, eyes agonized, but never so much as growled. When they'd finished, he'd whimpered and asked Yugi to take him back to their room so he could change and lay down. And Yugi had been with him since then, laying beside him and holding his hand and wondering at the endurance he'd displayed. And then he'd wanted to scream.
Because how had Yami lost?
How the hell could he withstand that much physical strain and drop like a fly beneath a force as small as Bakura?
His heart hurt.
What had distracted him?
"Why are you apologizing?"
"I didn't mean to brush up against it." He swallowed hard, guilt making his mouth dry. "And because I know I put a lot of pressure on you. I didn't… I never wanted you to get hurt. I wasn't expecting Bakura to challenge you so quickly for the beta position. I thought we'd have more time. I didn't realize he'd come for it so fast. I thought I'd be able to talk to you about his fighting methods and… I'm sorry."
Yami blinked at him. "My fight with Bakura wasn't your fault. Sugoroku's death was untimely and destructive and he took advantage of the situation. He knew you'd stick to your word and set an example in doing as you'd told us in regard to school and he knew it would be a while before you got back. So he challenged me. It didn't have anything to do with you."
"I told him you'd be my beta. It has everything to do with me."
The other boy blinked, then sighed and shook his head. "No, it doesn't. Everyone knew that would happen. Just like we all knew Bakura would eventually come for the rank. It was inevitable and really…poor timing." He hesitated. "And, honestly, I knew he'd come for me as soon as possible. I just… I couldn't think straight. I was distracted."
Yugi watched his face for a long minute, then twined their fingers together. "By?"
"You know what by." Yami shot him an irritable look, then quickly looked away with what almost seemed like guilt. He fidgeted with the front of his shirt, left hand balling the material together tightly. "You say you think Atem is alive then threaten his life and I… I don't disagree but if he crosses paths with me, I… I can't do that."
"And I would never ask you to. I don't want you to feel that responsibility, Yami. I just…I will kill him if we ever cross paths again. But I don't expect that from you and I don't care if the others assume you a traitor for not doing it. I… Fuck, Yami, I love you. You know that, r-right? I'm not going to let you hurt yourself for me. That's not…"
Yami blinked at him, at first with frustration and then surprise. His eyes stretched wide for a moment before he looked away again. Yugi watched his fingers loosen for a single second before tightening again as he exhaled a rattling breath. "I think, for the time being, maybe you should focus on someone else. I couldn't beat Bakura and I'm still acting as omega. No one is going to look at us favorably."
"And do I care?" Yugi snapped before he could stop himself. He hated it when Yami flinched and moved slightly to expose his neck. "If I cared you never would have come to live with us. I don't care what the pack expects of me. I care about keeping them alive and well. But I mostly care about you."
He was silent for a long minute, scratching at his formerly injured wrist before dropping his hands into his lap again. His feet kicked for a moment and Yugi couldn't help it when he grabbed him, holding him in a tight embrace and sighing quietly against his hair.
"I just wanted you to be okay. I wasn't mad about you losing to Bakura. He's an asshole. He's violent and he plays dirty and I always knew that about him. I don't care that he won. I care that you got hurt. I care that he broke your jaw and your arm and he would have kept going. I know he would have. He would have killed you. That. Is. What. I. Care. About. You got hurt because he's ambitious and I didn't think about it. I overlooked it because I was upset and—"
"I'm okay."
Yugi flinched, eyes pricking with tears. "You're so young," he whispered, voice cracking. "You're only thirteen and I forget sometimes how impressionable you are. I put too much pressure on you and you got hurt for it and then I made you feel like you had to stay awake because you didn't want me to worry and I…"
He'd forgotten.
It was such a simple thing.
And yet he'd forgotten.
Yami strived to be as close to perfect as he could for Yugi. He tried his hardest. He wanted Yugi to think he was perfect because Yami didn't want him to think less of him in any way. And somehow he thought Yugi wanted him to be perfect, even when Yugi teased him otherwise and laughed and loved him just for being stupid sometimes.
He ran his fingers through the nape of Yami's hair.
He'd panicked for failing a test. He'd panicked for losing a rank fight. He flinched and hunched down until he was almost impossibly small so he could avoid attention sometimes. He didn't want the pack to notice him when he failed and he couldn't bare to let Yugi down. Because, somehow, when he messed up, he seemed to think he was failing him.
He wasn't like Yugi. He didn't have to try to hide himself when things got too hard. He wasn't raised and groomed to be alpha from the moment he could change. He didn't have to worry about everyone else's perception of him and how favoritism could be taken out of context. He didn't have an entire pack looking to him singularly for decisions because his grandpa had just died.
And, yet, somehow…Yami had convinced himself he needed to do exactly that. He'd decided he had to act too strong, to hide it when he was in the worst of pain. Yugi's heart hurt as he buried his face in his collarbone and exhaled roughly.
"I don't…want you to be someone else, aibou. I don't want you to act tough or try to be someone you're not. I know you're scared because of what happened with Atem and I know I freaked you out when I told you I wanted him dead. I know. And I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking when I did it. But I don't need you to feel like you have to support the decision and I don't want you to think you have to try so hard. I love you. I love you. I love you."
Yami didn't answer, and Yugi almost hated himself for wishing he would.
