He sighed, twisted fretfullly in the wadded up sheets of his now extremely wadded bedding, and gave up another weary, futile attempt to sleep. His head and ribs throbbed, his hair was tangled in a strange array of frayed spikes that complimented the state of his fraying nerves. It was all too strange, too alien, too.
wrong, this strange world, this strange place, these people. He often felt as if he really were nothing more than a mistaken fragment of history, torn from the pages of where he should have been and so casually flung away to drift where ever fate decided to force him to be.

His weary eyes fell on Yugi, who lay curled in sleep, and softly breathing, the moonlight haloing his face in shadow, and his arms and legs splayed out with such reckless ease. He envied being that inocent, that carefree, that...normal.

Even in sleep, he was instinctively coiled up tight and defensive in the horrible waiting for the inevitable.
His rib ached in bitter reminder, and his hand gently fell protectively against his side, as he sighed again.
Yami curled arms above his drawn knees, draped them over the pajama bottoms that Solomon had given him. He startled when he heard the soft hitch of breath, as Yugi muttered something in his sleep and rolled to his side.

The dark scowl that lit Yami's face at the sound was ominous as he grit his teeth in disgust, and shook himself, as he glanced at the digital clock that showed the early morning. He hated nights like this.
where there was no distraction to soothe his increasingly troubling thoughts, or ease some of the growing, gnawing ache inside that he tried to force down, or ignore, or seperate himself from. He could feel the rage surging through his veins, the hunger of the beast's lapping in such teasing torment, urging him onward to indulge in the darkness, and the chaos and the pain. Release the vicious instinct inside to the outside,
throw away the restraint, abandon all morality, and be free, free, free!

And the most horrific thing that made him shudder was the change in Yugi. Yami only had fragmented memories of the entire event...the Puzzle so cruelly using Yugi as a means to punish Yami, the confrontation that almost killed him, Yugi screaming at him to let him have the pain...Yami shook his head at the disconnected thoughts that drifted through his mind and melted and merged independent of his will, and so hopelessly mutilated, he had no way of knowing what was truth, or lie, or some strange version of both.
He remembered Yugi standing over him, hurting him, the rib curling against his touch in futile protest, the calculating, satisfied look in those eyes after Yami was provoked to helpless weeping from the blinding anguish...and the way that Yugi had forced him to endure more for his own curiosity, and eventually led to Yami fainting from the pain, and waking up in the hospital. Even his recall of those events were uncertain at best. He had spent most of his time there under the influence and the haze of the heavily medicated, and while it got him through the worst of it, it clouded everything over with the same confusion he had now with Yugi.

The smaller boy had lost his innocent friendliness towards Yami. Yami was not sure if Yugi was resentful of the sudden intrusion that had disrupted his life, or if he considered Yami to be prisoner, or property, or plaything. But, ever since the Puzzle's vicious attack, something had been poisoned between them.

It was horrible. Before all this mess started, Solomon treated him as a rational person, capable of making sensible choices. But now, that had erroded. Between his own experience of seeing Yami break down and crumble, and babble about ancient Egypt, and Puzzles, and whatnot, and Yugi's veiled suggestions about Yami's mental state, the old man was forced to conclude that Yami was teetering on the brink of collapse.
The old man treated Yami with wary, restrained kindness, always watching him with worried eyes, and frowning as he insisted that Yami "stop exerting yourself, young man," or that Yami "take these pills so you can sleep, and heal." It was annoying at first, but confining now. Yami found himself imprisoned by the blind good intentions, fueled on by paternalistic regard, and degrading treatment meant for a lost, unstable child.

And Yugi...he shuddered. It was the subtle torture, that was designed to erode, and confuse, and hurt, rather than a direct attack. It was the sort of madness that Yami feared, and knew he could not fight well.
Little things that were hidden, and just as wounding, because Yugi somehow knew exactly where to strike Yami where it would inflict the insidious damage, and not the gaping, raw and obvious.

Yami had managed to convince himself that the incident where Yugi had "accidently" aggrivated his broken rib was a thoughtless accident, but was unable to maintain the lie in face of what had happened since.

After everything that Yami had endured, and told them about, and suffered, Yugi had insisted on "guarding" the Puzzle. Yami reacted with repulsed horror, loudly arguing in his stern, insistant manner that the Puzzle belonged to him only. It had been the first argument that passed between them, and it was a frightening experience.

It was a few day's passing after Yami had come home, and he was comfortably perched on the couch, with his legs draped over the side, and his injured rib protected by a cushion he tucked under his elbow. He was leafing through a magazine, raising an eyebrow at the glossy advertising, in curiousity.

A warning ripple squirmed in his gut, and he felt the strange hands on the Puzzle even before Yugi emerged from the stairwell. Yami craned his neck to see Yugi. His face was hidden by the shadows in the stairwell, while fragments of sunlight that made their way through the blinds spilt white slashes across his guarded expression. Yami paled visibly when he saw the Puzzle, as Yugi casually swung the trinket from its chain, like a pendulam. Yami swore he heard a grunt of satisfaction from Yugi, as he rose in horrified outrage, but almost swooned from the pain that broke like a wave against his side. Indeed, Yugi's lips drew back, bitter, wise, showing the glint of teeth bared like that of a beast. When he caught his breath, Yami struggled to rise from the couch, and carefully strode to the bottom stair.

"Yugi! What do you think you're doing?! Give me the Puzzle at once!" Yami spluttered, extended a hand forward, barking at Yugi as if he were a child that could be easily scolded into submission. Yugi only cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowed, and cold, as he gave Yami a scathing once-over. "I don't think you're in any position to tell me what I should do with my own property, Yami." Yugi's reply floated down the stairwell, as he drew up the chain in a wide, threatening arch, and raised the Puzzle back to dangle between them.

Yugi then swung the Puzzle, and almost smashed it against the wall, as Yami shrieked, and fell to his knees, quaking. The cruel chuckle sliced through his fear, reverberated to his core, as Yugi so casually strolled down the stairwell, stooping to bend towards Yami, as he lay a condensending hand over the tense shoulder to pat, like he would a wounded pet...

"You really need to relax, Yami. If I really planned on smashing the Puzzle, what would have stopped me from doing it by now"
Yugi closed the gap between them,and Yami found himself staring up at Yugi as he tried in vain to slide away from him, as his spine collided with the trapping wall behind him. Yami trembled, too stunned to do anything but cower for long moments. Yugi waited patiently for Yami to regain his speech, as he swung the Puzzle so casually, just out of the reach of Yami's outstretched hands.

"Why would you torment me by even pretending to do such a vicious thing, Yugi? What have I done to you to deserve this treatment?"

Yugi stared down at him, saying nothing, as his arm suddenly flew out, arched wide over Yami's collar, and snatched Yami's neck. Yami yelped in suprise at both the strength and the suddenness of the crushing grip on his throat as Yugi only considered him for a long moment, before abruptly releasing him. Yami was flung to the floor, and sprawled out and hurting again from where his injured rib had been jarred. Thankfully, he had not actually landed on it, but he had no time to count his blessings, as Yugi only regarded him with a sneer. "You tried to kill me, Yami. Do you really think I'd be so blind, and forgiving and stupid to forget that?!" Yami had no time to reply, and soon, no breath as Yugi's boot suddenly landed against the injured rib, and he stomped down with all the triumph and indifference as if he were crushing a cockroach. Flesh and bone yielded with a sickening crack, as Yami squealed at the blinding pain, and shuddered at the agony. Yugi watched as Yami writhed beneath his boot, fingers arched and latched onto the boot, trying to push it away, as Yami squirmed and wept, and begged in broken heaving pleas for Yugi to stop, before he felt the crushing weight grind into the injured bone again. Yami shrieked, and collapsed. His head lulled, his eyes rolled back, the whites of his eyes glistening with the tears that streamed from the torture, and Yugi smirked to see the blood pooling around Yami's lips dribbing in a bueatiful puddle of scarlet by the Pharoah's open mouth.