Warning: Shonen-ai, possibly progressing to yaoi (though that'll be only on affnet~). This is an eventual prideship (SetoxYami) but it starts out as puzzle (YamixYuugi).
Disclaimer: YGO is not mine. I've taken a couple of lines from Loveless as well, which does not belong to me either. I make no money of fanficcing these.
Background: Not all bg info is placed out in the open...but the basic idea is that Mokuba Kaiba is dead (killed by Jounouchi) and that Seto has invited Yami and Yuugi to live with him because they cannot afford payments on their old apartment. Yami and Yuugi are lovers at present.
Dedication: To bahen and Shadow, both of whom know exactly how and when to kick me.
Chapter 8: Chilled
-
-
-
One day, suddenly, when you least expect it…the course of your life is dramatically changed. You never think it could happen to you. Just when you decide to stop looking you meet someone.
I'll admit I'm weak. All this time, I've been avoiding the truth. I wanted to forget. But I remember everything. The things I learned from you. The things that happened that day. But most of all I wanted to forget…the you living within my memories.
XXX
He saw red, and the fierce anger, that demonic hunger that seized him in the strangest times, the anger that brought the visions –
The visions were there now. He fell to his knees, cradling his head in his hands. The visions –
"I am searching for the partner of my Claiming Rite."
"I'd rather have you guarding my secrets." A flash of blue.
"You will be my greatest friend for as long as you live – " Eyes, and a face, grim.
"What fear is a hearth fire when the city is aflame?" White robes, and the smell of incense.
"I asked Isis – "
I want you.
" – to ensure I would see you –"
I always wanted…
" – again."
Dark eyes.
"Sometimes it takes a mirror to see reflected pain."
"In some new life we – "
We. Not you and me. We.
" – a real chance."
Pain.
XXX
Yami's knees burned. They were scraped even through his pants, and warm blood gathered from the open wounds. He lurched to his feet.
Bright light appeared, lighting the way down the bank to the river. He saw the pale shape of Yuugi, caught – holding onto – a branch or a rock. Yami threw himself into the frigid water.
Mountain run-off, one corner of his mind murmured knowledgeably. No wonder it was so chill. Mountains… where snow lurked, even in the summers. He swam, fighting the current to reach Yuugi.
Yami reached the white, pale form in the middle of the rushing water. He was aware of the roar of a car engine, dim in the back of his mind. Then his heart's beating was too loud again, and his breathing. The roar of the river.
He reached the rock and grabbed on, wrapping an arm around Yuugi's body. The smaller male flopped about strangely, bonelessly. Yami tried to push against the current.
A dark figure was coming down, outlined by the car headlights.
"Yami!" He stood on the banks, a damning shadow in an already too-dark world. "Let him go!"
"No!" The water was beginning to numb fingers, legs, lungs.
"Yami, listen to me – would he have wanted you to die for him?"
"Yes!" Yami screamed back without thinking as the dead weight slipped from fingers that couldn't feel.
"Yuugi!"
The heartbroken keening of a dying creature, or the sound a soul makes when it first breaks. The heartbroken noise that echoes through time when a soul becomes one again. That's what you're hearing, Seto.
XXX
Yami was unaware of his body. He felt tired. Faces kept breaking into his vision. He saw them, and struggled for words he couldn't speak as water, icy water, flooded lungs he could have sworn had gone numb.
In the middle of an ocean of ice, there was fire. Something heated, though distant.
He thought nothing of it. He was gone.
XXX
Kaiba had shucked off his jacket the moment he saw Yami go under. Maybe there was reason to be thankful for lessons. He'd learned to make full use of his lanky frame in the water. Less time to freeze. Jumping in knocked the wind out of him.
With swift, sure strokes, he went to Yami. The current made travel difficult, but that was where the practical application of physics came in. Upstream, then in, then Yami, then further downstream where Kaiba dragged first himself, then the unresponsive King of Games from the black water. He couldn't see Yuugi's body. Either it had washed up somewhere or water-filled lungs had weighted the corpse enough for it to sink.
Kaiba left speculation for when he could be sure both of them were going to live. Water dripped from Yami's mouth and nose. Kaiba tried to recall if the other male's head had gone under on the swim back. He couldn't remember. The time in the water seemed frozen, as if the sheer chill of the water itself had paused life until he and Yami had freed themselves from its grasp. Kaiba tried to stand. His teeth were chattering.
Numb legs refused to obey. Kaiba stumbled and fell on Yami. Water poured out of the young man's nose and mouth. Then Yami's entire body shuddered, and convulsed, as a shaking, rattling breath entered his lungs. Kaiba hadn't noticed he wasn't breathing. Maybe he would have cared if he could feel his own body.
Everything was cold. So very cold.
To think after everything… Gozaburo, Pegasus, Shizuka, Jounouchi –
Mokuba.
That this was the end of it. He might have laughed, if he had had the energy to do so. Instead, he just lay there, shivering, his body pressed against Yami's.
When Gozaburo's punishments had gotten too hard, Kaiba had always withdrawn into himself to weather the storm. A little crumb of ca conscious mind inside fragile walls. He could do anything in that state. Nothing else existed.
But he still couldn't move.
Cold was not punishment. It was poison, seeping in, suffocating. His mind knew what he wanted to do, but it couldn't make his body obey.
Then, after everything, perhaps this really was the end.
I said I'd watch over you. Brother, I am here now. With you. I've always been here, Seto. You've always saved me. Now it's my turn. Shh – Hush brother. I'm here for you.
XXX
Kaiba knew he was dying, or dead already. He supposed he should be more regretful, but the energy to feel emotions just wasn't there.
Seto, look at me.
He tilted his head up. He was dreaming as he died.
No, no you're not.
Pearlescent, translucent, pale and silvery and not quite solid around the edges –
"Mokuba," Kaiba breathed.
I'm here, Seto. I've always been here. I will always be with you. But brother, let me give you what I can. Let me help you.
The shining figure – if Kaiba had been even slightly religious, he might have dubbed the vision of his brother an 'angel' in spite of the ripped jeans and long sleeved shirt – knelt beside the two of them . An outstretched hand came to rest on Yami's shoulder, and one brushed against Kaiba's cheek. He couldn't meet those ghostly eyes. There was no iris, no pupil, just eyes like the sky at midnight, twinkling with stars.
The hand left a trail of warmth in its wake, then moved to Kaiba's chest, and Mokuba smiled softly.
I always loved you, Seto. Thank you, for everything.
Kaiba jolted as the warmth of life flooded into his body. His eyes must have closed, as though he were staring into a bonfire – and when they opened, it was still dark out, and Yami was still by him, shivering. But he could move.
"Mokuba!"
Something that felt like an apology echoed on the breeze. Kaiba shook his head fighting back tears. Tears… He gathered up Yami's unresponsive body and stumbled up the embankment. His car's headlights were still glaringly bright.
I must have been hallucinating.
It didn't take too long to get Yami in the passenger's side and strapped in. It took more time or Kaiba to force his body around, into the driver's seat and to get his still-chilled fingers to respond to the commands his mind issued. At least once he was moving, it was easier to stay in motion.
The car stuttered forward, and then rolled away. Kaiba closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. The car rumbled quietly on the way home. Kaiba declined to think. Thinking was too much for now. All he needed was to be warm again.
XXX
They were in the house, second floor in the guest room nearest the stairs. Not Yami's old room. Kaiba blinked, trying to recall exactly when they had gotten here.
"K-Kaiba?" that was Yami, and the first word the Game King had spoken. He looked nearly a ghost himself, skin so pale as to be nearly see through. His lips were a strange shade of blue-purple. In leather, he could have passed as a rocker wearing black lipstick. But that was no lipstick.
Kaiba became aware that the implied question necessitated an answer. He shook his head, completely unable to think of one. There was silence, then Kaiba pushed Yami forward, in the direction of the bed. The touch of skin brushing against skin – bone-chilled skin. Ice seemed to have settled into Yami. The unnatural chill made Kaiba shiver. He felt frozen himself, if just from that brief touch. The air felt like fire against a too-cold palm.
He won't make it through the night if he doesn't warm up. The ideal solution was to have another living creature take up residence with the hyper chilled Game King, at least for the night. Kaiba wasn't the kind to keep pets though. Not four-legged ones, anyway.
Trying to warm Yami up with a hot – or even middling – shower could send him into shock from too extreme a temperature change. Kaiba's shower at its coldest was a hundred times warmer than Yami.
And from the look of it, Yami was about asleep on his feet. He stumbled, even from the small shove and his eyes were less alert with every passing second.
Kaiba scowled. Unbidden came the though, I fucked him before. May as well sleep with him. Not quite angrily, he pulled off his outer coat and left it on the floor before going to Yami who had collapsed, only partly on the bed.
"Strip," Kaiba ordered roughly. Yami only gave him a blank, not-there look. Kaiba sighed and began to peel Yami's garments off as impersonally as if he were peeling a banana. Or an onion. Yami wasn't even shivering anymore, though his skin was still much too cold. He made small sounds of protest which Kaiba steadfastly ignored.
With the Game King bare, Kaiba Yanked down one corner of the blankets and nudged Yami. He fell onto the bed and Kaiba immediately re-draped the covers. Then, before he could make himself reconsider, Kaiba stripped down as well, throwing all his wet clothing into a pile. The air was chill, though not nearly as cold as the water had been, or as cold as Yami was.
He climbed into bed.
Yami finally said something. Or stuttered, more accurately.
"B-b-b-but – "
"It doesn't matter," Kaiba snapped. "We're both frozen, and might catch something if we don't warm up. Shared body heat is the best way. Lay back-to-back if that's easier for you. I'm not letting your idiotic actions make me sick."
Yami was quiet then. Kaiba flipped onto his side, facing away. Cold seemed to radiate from Yami's half of the bed.
The tense silence felt like Yami wanted to say something else. Kaiba shut his eyes and stubbornly ignored it. The light in the room was still on, but he was too tired to consider getting up to turn it off.
A sigh escaped Yami. Kaiba just lay there, listening to the breathing and the sound of heartbeats…much too loud. He was nearly asleep when freezing skin pressed against his back. Kaiba bit his lip to stop the gasp that threatened to escape. Yami's breathing was deep and even. He was asleep. Kaiba concentrated on not shivering. He didn't' want to wake Yami by accident. The cynical part of him demanded to know when he started caring.
Kaiba closed his eyes and forced his body to relax. Slowly chill began to ebb out of him, and his eyes began to see things that didn't' exist in the real world. Visions. Places.
Dreams.
I bet no one in class has ever done this. How does that make you feel? Like something good? Or something tainted?
XXX
The city was on fire, but only in the distance, in the future. The present was perfection. Painful, slick, filled with deceit from both sides.
---
"Don't go."
"I don't want to cause you any more pain." Hands came for him then, to spite the words. One to his shoulder, and his tunic began to smoke gently, until it had burned away and the fire-in-skin rested against his own flesh. He heard the ragged breathing: his own, and...his, out of fear, compassion, shared agony.
Don't touch me, rested on his lips, yet he dared not speak the words for the rejection and the price of loss. He could not bear to be parted. Not now. Not when everything in the world was crumbling down in a wall of fire.
---
The city was on fire, but it wasn't near enough to make a difference in the stables. On a horse, dressed in leather armor was the leader of the army, the country. And then there was him, standing on the floor, staring up in open fear for what the next hours might bring.
"Tell me again – why exactly do you have to lead this charge?"
"I've got the fastest mount, the surest aim and a weapon no one will be expecting. Why shouldn't I lead?"
"Just remember, that creature takes no prisoners."
"Do you forget Ra –"
"If you get yourself killed – "
" – won't do anything – "
" – not good enough – "
"I promise. I'll come back."
He was standing on a balcony, watching the city burn. IT was truly on fire, actually glowing in the non-light of the hour. No moon, a new moon. Even the stars seemed to have taken shelter. The fires had begun about an hour ago. Just an hour. What use was time when he had been gone for that time? Somewhere along that time, he'd felt someone else, but like a gnat's presence, the interruption was miniscule. Almost forgivable.
---
He stood on the balcony and watched the city burning. There were screams, or there must have been, but he could not hear them. Instead, his mind was filled with memories and different sounds. Breathing, a heartbeat just out of synch with his own. Beautiful eyes, the color of the flames in the city, if a darker hue. Those eyes haunted him. Hunted him. There was power in that gaze, and intense desire. But more than that, more than needing someone in body, was the need for a soul and all the difficulties that came with that particular search.
In the distance, a huge grey-purple shape loomed. If it hadn't been moving, he would have assumed it was nothing but a cloud of smoke. It had the same color, the same texture, but moved. A creature, then. That terrible being that he had gone out to fight…
---
You could be killed.
It's been so long. Do you honestly think death frightens me anymore? At least I might do something good this time.
I don't –
What? Don't want me to die? Believe me, I don't want to either. Some things just happen, though. Whatever happens, I swear I'll find you, whether in this lie or the next.
Don't make promises you can't keep.
But I will –
It's time for you to go.
Se –
Go.
---
Had he really sent him away so coldly, so callously? 'Go' and nothing more. No explanation, no emotion, just a command and they parted ways as his prince rode away on a hose, head held high. He watched his price ride, and caught the slight hesitation at the gate, as though he were about to turn, to look back…and never did.
---
The city was burning: a small model, carefully crafted in the image of Egypt as it once had been, before the Final Rites of their late prince. The city was on fire, and burning as he watched it smolder. In hours, hours, and hours, the carving, which had taken months for artisans to create – was gone. Mere ash, spread across the altar of the sun god.
He whispered prayers, and said the Final Rites again. Yet again. He knew them by heart after months of visiting, months of repeating, day after day after day, always a something burned to dust, as his prince had burned, and had taken the Lord of Darkness with him.
The people knew the sacrifice their ruler had made. They understood the solemnity, and the desperation. For the first month, the city had cried with him, and each day the altar of Ra lay filled to overflowing with ashes as each man and woman displayed his or her dedication. But long though memory might have been, the patience of people wears thin quickly. By the end of the month of mourning, he made his sacrifices alone.
No longer did priests and acolytes scuttle about, sweeping extra ash from the floor. It was as it had once been: just the two of them, and a god as witness.
His prince had wanted once to do the Rite here. To be claimed beneath the stares of the gods' effigies, as tribute to passion. He never knew if his prince's wish had ever been fulfilled, indeed, never knew even if his prince had spoken such wishes aloud to the one who had become his partner.
Months and months. The chief builders asked four years to build a resting place worthy of his prince. Four years with no rest or delay. He granted it; what else could he do? The most magnificent of the pyramids at Gaza had taken upwards of a decade! Four years for a wandering soul…
His hands rested on the altar, amidst the ashes and glowing, smoking coals. One burned his skin. He closed his eyes, remembering the man whose touch could have killed. Loved by the gods? Or hated? Tormented into throwing his life away? There were so many questions he had for his prince, and answers he knew he would never have. But still…human curiosity. He could not help but wonder.
A door opened – closed? – and he turned, drawing his hand from the ashes, one of the glowing coals dropping to the floor. He put his sandal over the red, smothering it. An acolyte bowed into the room, went through the motions of cleaning the already clean floor and then bowed back out.
He waited until the acolyte had gone before turning back to the altar. He said the Final Rites again, hurriedly. In a whisper, as if assuring himself they had been said. And then he bowed before Ra, the emblem of his prince –
Have you forgotten that Ra lives within my skin?
- and left the temple, feeling heavier than when he had entered.
Priests lied. He was one, so he had known that, but the most important part… Confessions and rites freed one's mind, one's soul? If anything, he was more tied to his prince now than when they had both been alive.
One day I will find you. We will be together again. His prince had promised. Isis said –
Not Isis, but Isis, lover of Osiris. If anyone would know anything about finding someone, the goddess would. She had reconstructed her lover after Set had torn him to pieces. Isis knew. Isis approved.
So all he had to do was trust…and wait.
The waiting was the hardest part.
---
The streets were drowning in people. Hundreds, thousands – all of Egypt had come and even some from neighboring countries with family who lived in Egypt. They came for the man they called as one of their God-King. Everyone knew the story. Everyone knew how their prince had taken up a pact with the Sun and the two of them had destroyed the Lord of Darkness. Then Ra had lifted the prince into the Heavens to make him a god as well. Back on earth was left his perfect shell, dressed only in leather armor.
The story and the truth… So far away. Worlds apart. Five years later – not four – and now he was burying the remains of his prince. Common knowledge claimed that the prince had been embalmed by the gods before he was taken up. False, of course, but the people held to their petty truths as though there were no other version. Even eyewitnesses swore Ra himself had come, appeared out of thin air, to take their prince up in a blaze of glory.
If only.
He watched the masses. The alter of the Sun god again overflowed with incense and burned offerings. The people parted as the wagon bearing their God-King's casket passed down the street, drawn by a matched set of black oxen. There were shouts and prayers. The people threw themselves to their knees, begging their dead leader to bless their country, to bless their sons, their daughters, their lives.
Through it all, he watched, walking along side the wagon, disguised as a priest. Not a high priest, but just a priest. A young man, doing his duties, simply walking, watching –
A hand gripped his arm and he stopped. An old woman clung to him.
"Is he dead? Is he dead?"
He nodded, and pulled away as the woman's wailing filled the streets. Heartbroken, but when he looked for her again, she was gone, leaving only the sounds of her cries in her wake.
---
The tomb waited for them. The procession went in, despite the oxen baulking, and having to be led. They knew the smell of death unlike any others. With their handlers pulling them in, however, the oxen went, though their nostrils flared at the scent of old rocks and the sacrifices the priests had already made in the entryways.
There was a chill inside, the cold of stones which had not seen the light of the sun for half a decade. The rocks were waiting. The oxen were waiting. The priests, the people, the very sands of Egypt herself were waiting for her God-King to be put to his final rest.
The carriage and coffin ground to a halt inside. Wide eyed, the two oxen stood, staring about in the torch-illuminated hall. There was a dead end before them, a vaulted ceiling above, and chambers, awaiting the final touches of the prince's story before the pyramid would close entirely. Then, and only then, would the once-ruler of Egypt finally rest, entombed.
The oxen lowed, their cries echoing strangely amid the stone walls. Then their sounds were cut off by a low gurgle, and two dull thuds as the creatures fell to their knees, throats slashed and blood gushing out onto the floor.
He watched dispassionately. Everyone began to withdraw from the room. He stayed behind, and touched the coffin, rested his hand on the cold golden surface.
"A--"
"Pharaoh." The voice called for him, and he looked up. "My king, you mustn't linger. They are closing the chamber shortly."
Even now, he couldn't steal a few moments alone with his prince. Silent, he nodded, and followed the chief of his guards out of the main tomb, only to turn and watch the final barrier drop into place. Only death between them. Death, and a few tons of stone.
---
The decoration of the story wall began within the week. The story of the God-King's birth, changed from the original, embellished out of recognition. The son of Ra, raised by a mortal mother, brought up by the god himself in secret. Apparently their young God-King also rescued small animals, brought the dead back to life and spoke with the heavens.
More bashing about than the tip of a rattlesnake's tail. Yet, if those were the stories he people wanted about their ruler, then those were the stories they would have.
He combed through every inch of the halls, watching the tributes rise. Then, one wall, and a pair of workers. What he saw filled him with pain. He watched as they worked, until the day they were done. Then he came from the shadows.
"M-m-my Pharaoh!" the one exclaimed.
He said nothing in reply, just examined the bas relief. A picture of himself, across from his prince, their hands extended, nearly touching. The prince's double rested between them, his hands out, holding them apart. Never to touch.
"May I see that?" he questioned of the second artist, pointing at the chisel the man held.
Slowly, shakily, the man extended the object. "This is a beautiful tool," he commented tithe artist, bouncing it slightly in his hand. Then, he drove its point into the stone between his hand and his prince's.
The stone cracked, and a chip of rock dropped away. "Smooth that out, and leave it at that," he said.
In his rooms, alone, he watched the ceiling. His rooms had changed when he had become Pharaoh. Not the same rooms as his prince had had, but across the palace, in a mirror hallway.
Not in the same rooms as his prince had had, but across the palace, in a mirror hallway. The room appeared backward to his senses, the way one half of the palace echoed the other, and once one was accustomed to one side of the palace, navigating the other drew on a sense of having been before. Navigating backwards.
The ceiling glowed, marked with constellations. With stars. He stared up at them as they began to move, to morph, reforming into faces, people and places –
Not in the same rooms as his prince had had, but across the palace, in a mirror hallway. The room appeared backward to his senses, the way one half of the palace echoed the other, and once one was accustomed to one side of the palace, navigating the other drew on a sense of having been before. Navigating backwards.
The ceiling glowed, marked with constellations. With stars. He stared up at them as they began to move, to morph, reforming into faces, people and places –
XXX
Kaiba awoke, feeling his eyes wrenched open by his dream self, trying to see something just beyond reach. His pulse was not racing. It was no nightmare that he had woken from, but a memory, one of his memories… Whatever that man had been. He had heard a name before, but never recalled. Now the names eluded him entirely. Priest. Pharaoh. God-King. Prince. Only titles to know those people by. So who had they been? Or was it just the product of an over active imagination?
Beside him, Yami stirred. Kaiba's breath caught in his throat as he watched his rival. Yami looked so vulnerable, so weak. Kaiba stretched out a hand to rest against the other's cheek briefly before drawing back when Yami's eyes fluttered, showing he was waking.
"K-Kaiba?" Yami sounded lost. Kaiba didn't blame him. The two of them stared at one another, for what felt like an age. Then Kaiba rolled out of bed and went hunting for clothing in the spare closet. The wet clothing they'd left on the floor last night remained, wet and messy. Nothing worth salvaging.
"Yeah," Kaiba answered, tossing a pair of boxers and a long shirt onto the bed. "Get dressed." The gentleness of his words confused him. He remembered another time, the same set of orders and a totally different demeanor.
Yami obeyed, though his movements were stiff and jerking as though he were still frozen. Kaiba watched, his arms folded, not liking the uncertainty and hesitation. When he finally stepped forward, it was to catch Yami. The young man was still cold. Nearly as frozen as he had been the night before.
But in my dream he was on fire – Kaiba growled and cut off that train of thought. A dream. A memory if he felt like being generous. But someone else's memory. Another man's dream. Someone long ago. The emotions weren't the same. The times were different. Things weren't…the same. Not even close.
"You're cold," Kaiba said, righting Yami and pulling the shirt around the other's shoulders before he buttoned it. "Too cold," Kaiba added. "You're probably getting sick.
No answer. Yami was just watching him, eyes wary. Kaiba met that gaze, not in challenge but because he had to. There was no other explanation. He had to meet Yami's gaze. So he did, and he waited until the silence had stretched before he looked away. It was as much an apology as he could offer, conceding defeat of his own accord.
Two souls, split apart and reworked, too many times to count. The error of love, of lust, of faith and friendship and belief.
XXX
The moment passed. Kaiba moved away from Yami. Yami lurched towards the wall and leaned against it, his hands balled up into gentle fists. "I'm not," he whispered, but in the silence the words felt as though they had been shouted.
"Not what?" Kaiba muttered. "Not cold? Not sick?"
Yami's eyes opened, and Kaiba met them again, but instead of crimson irises, he saw a city ablaze, smoking in the distance, and heard the high shrieks of loss and grief.
"Not home," Yami said, closing his eyes again. The fires were gone, and Kaiba blinked as he came back to reality, to the present. "I'm not…" He seemed to be struggling for words. "Not there." He gestured and Kaiba took that as a time to give Yami space.
"I'll be downstairs," Kaiba said. He stepped away from Yami, figuring that the other duelist would be a little more relaxed if he left. Instead, Yami took a step forward.
"You – can't, no…" The words seemed twisted, almost forced.
"Yami, what's wrong?"
Yami held his head. "Memories," he whispered. "The memories." Kaiba hesitated, not sure how he was supposed to respond to that. Memories – he had had the memories as well. He knew what Yami meant. His memories hadn't hurt though. Maybe recalling a past he didn't believe in was odd, strange – but not physically painful.
"It's all there," Yami whispered. "The city, the sky – " Yami's eyes opened, and Kaiba saw the fear in them, the guilt. He read sorrow, and hope and pain. Mostly pain.
"You promised – "
But what he might have promised never left Yami's lips. The young man fell to his knees, shivering. Kaiba knelt and put a hand on Yami's shoulder. He was still cold. "That's it, you need to go to the hospital," Kaiba muttered, hoisting Yami in his arms. "You're going to kill yourself like this."
By the time they had reached the hospital, Kaiba's hand was numb from resting on Yami. That kind of unnatural chill… By all rights, Yami shouldn't have been moving, breathing. The glacial chill was unnerving.
XXX
Kaiba waited in the waiting room, but he did not sit quietly or patiently. He had no patience. He annoyed the staff, demanding to have updates on Yami, no matter if the person in question knew anything about the duelist at all.
The lobby filled and emptied. Children, adults – broken bones, car accidents, burns and lacerations. Kaiba saw none of them.
He spoke only four words – "Yami – how is he?"
Hours passed, or it might have been days. Kaiba slept when his body refused to remain awake, ate if there was something to eat, and made infrequent trips to the water fountain in the hall.
And then his waiting broke. A doctor came for him. "Are you the one who brought him in?"
Silent, Kaiba nodded.
"You any relation of his?"
An impossible reply came to mind, but instead of explaining three thousand years, a bit of magic and whatever other details might muddy the water, he resorted to a lie. "His boyfriend."
The doctor raised an eyebrow. "And his family?"
"Dead. He lives with me. We're the closest thing to family we've got." As he said it, he realized it was true. Without Mokuba… Without Yuugi… They only had each other, as a faded reminder of better days.
The doctor pursed his lips. "I see. Well, usually it's family only – "
Kaiba frowned.
" – but if you can verify that you're his only – "
"Show me where he is so I can see him," Kaiba said, each word hard. "Or if you're too hard-assed to do that, tell me where he is and I'll find him myself." Either Kaiba's presence was imposing enough or the doctor really wasn't all that concerned about policy.
"Come with me," he said. "We aren't sure if he's going to make it."
Kaiba gnawed on those words, worried them to death in his mind, like a terrier with a rag. He might not make it.
When had Yami become important? Then they were at the room, and Kaiba's questions melted away. Yami lay there, on his side, curled up, shaking, even with the objects of warmth arrayed around him. The room was easily 100 degrees.
"If it's a fever, it's nothing we've seen before," the doctor said softly. "He's been colder than ice since he got here. If it keeps up, his body systems are going to shut down on him, and he'll die." The verdict was so flat, so…uncaring that Kaiba stared at the doctor.
"You can't do anything?" he demanded.
"There are no medicines to cure hypothermia," the doctor shot back. "He needs warmth, and we brought him up gently on it, but he is still much too cold. Even going into shock from overexposure would be an improvement." The doctor glanced at Yami. "I'd give him another twenty-for hours if nothing changes." He coughed. "Can you behave if I leave you two alone?"
Flipping the doctor off probably wasn't the best thing Kaiba could have done, but the man did leave them alone. For a long time, Kaiba stared at Yami from the other side of the room. He was sweating in his trench coat. After he was soaked, Kaiba finally took it off and put the coat on the floor. Yami had changed sides and was still shivering.
"Yami, are you awake?"
No reply. Kaiba crossed the room in three purposeful strides, but dithered beside the bed, not sure if he should touch Yami or not.
Finally he did, setting a hand on the sleeping duelist's shoulder. Yami was icy to the touch, colder perhaps than when Kaiba had first brought him here.
"Kaiba?" Yami's voice was groggy, as though he had just been roused from a deep sleep. The circles under Yami's eyes spoke a different tale – insomnia, aggressively sleepless nights.
"It's me," Kaiba answered, not quite sure how to respond. He wondered if there were cameras in the room to monitor Yami and guests.
"What did he say?"
"Who?"
Yami twitched. Kaiba assumed that in a normal person, that would have been a gesture of sorts. "The doctor." Yami's voice was soft, hoarse.
Kaiba saw little reason to sugar coat the truth. "He said you have about twenty four hours to live if you don't warm up soon," the brunet said bluntly.
Yami shook his head and Kaiba realized he hadn't opened his eyes. "He's wrong," Yami said. "M'not fine, but I've got longer than that."
"You're in denial." Kaiba tried to be gentle. It was hard.
"No," Yami answered, as forceful as Kaiba had ever heard him. "Isis – "
Isis. Kaiba stepped back as though he'd been hit. Two images came to mind, super imposed over one another. A woman, dressed in flowing white robes. Then there was a woman with braids, dark eyes and a permanent frown. The faces, the times, overlapped. "Isis," Kaiba repeated.
Yami nodded, seeming to bleed into his sheets as though the white was bleaching the color from him. "Isis said this would happen. I remember her."
Kaiba highly doubted that the Isis he knew in person had been in this room. It had to have been memory then, cropping up with the express intent of annoying him. "What did Isis say?" Kaiba demanded.
But Yami just shook his head, seeming infinitely dazed. "That was all she said," he murmured. "That…that was all."
Kaiba couldn't find it in himself to question further.
Companionable silence passed the time until the doctor returned. A few times, Kaiba nearly broke it with words, but one glance at Yami, shivering, so white the sheets looked almost yellow in comparison, was enough to make him close his mouth.
XXX
"You said he only has twenty-four hours." Kaiba had to work not to sound accusing. "He disagrees."
The doctor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. His meaning was clear: did Kaiba take the word of the patient over the certified professional?
"What will you do when he's still here, a week from now, shivering and so cold that water freezes when it touches his skin?" Kaiba challenged. "If he doesn't die of cold, he'll die of thirst. What are you going to do to stop that?"
The doctor shook his head. Perhaps he thought Kaiba an over reactive boyfriend. "If it comes to that, we'll deal with it."
"Not 'if,'" Kaiba corrected. "When." Then he walked out, leaving behind the doctor and Yami. Kaiba wanted answers to questions. Questions about the past, questions dealing with the present, questions whose answers could shape the future.
