I almost wasn't able to do this update today, fanfiction was being a pain in my butt for the longest time. Anywho, we found out for sure that my mom doesn't have cancer, which is a plus.
I'm officially looking for a partner to do a collab over the summer. If you're interested, that's great. I don't care about your skill level, as long as you're willing to take criticism and change things. (I'll be nice though, I know I personally have a hard time taking suggestions. Of course, you can do the same to me- point out mistakes or sentences I need to reword and I'll do it).
I'm moving to Ohio this week, and will be attending high school there. Joy. Then again, maybe one of you live in my future school district and we will just find each other thanks to the magnetism of shipping~ XD. Seriously though, I always seem to know how to find my fellow shippers- Maybe we give off pheromones produced by prolonged exposure to a computer screen? Anywho, on with the show.
I do NOT own YuGiOh!
Suddenly, there was a brittle knock on the door. Yami perked up immediately, his eyes focusing on the door. He quickly walked over to the door, his footsteps almost as fast as the beating of his heart. He wanted more than anything to get all of this over with. He swung open the door, smiling widely at the image of Pegasus and the lovely Cecilia standing beside him. They both smiled back just as widely, and he stepped aside, gesturing for them to come in. Pegasus nodded his head in understanding as he stepped through the door.
"I hope you guys don't mind oven pizza." He said, laughing a bit. "I didn't really know how to cook anything else."
"So, this is your home?" Pegasus asked, looking around.
"No, I killed the man that lived here to invite you over." Yami said sarcastically, without thinking. Well, it was his house. What was Pegasus going to do, fire him? Plus, he took it well enough, with a light chuckle and never breaking his steady rhythm of walking.
"It's quite lovely. I expected as much from you, though." Pegasus said, smiling. He seemed to know by instinct (maybe he followed the smell of pizza) how to get to the kitchen, and he walked there triumphantly with Cecilia on his arm. He walked over to the dining room table (which Yami had cleaned off earlier that day) and put down his briefcase. Yami was slightly confused.
"What are you doing?" He asked, looking at the offending item. Pegasus gave a light chuckle and shook his head.
"Well, you were planning on helping us organize the papers, were you not?" He asked. Yami almost face palmed for not making the connection that the papers were in the briefcase, but he recovered quickly and sat down in the chair across from them, watching as Pegasus removed a seemingly enormous mound of paper from the briefcase. He didn't even know how all of that paper had fit in there in the first place!
"Okay, so how are we supposed to do this?" Yami asked, his brow furrowing. Pegasus sighed.
"We have to organize these in chronological order. We'll start by separating them into months and then weeks before finally days. We have here two years' worth of government-approval papers. Apparently, one of their employees was a conspiracy theorist and convinced them to get government approval on all of their projects up until now."
"We honestly only did it to shut her up. We didn't know it would ever come in handy." Cecilia said, giving a light chuckle. Yami couldn't help but give a light laugh, smiling to himself at the woman. Despite having all of her hard work ripped away from her, she was still here and still willing to fight for what she loved. She wasn't going to give up; that was something that Yami could respect.
"Okay. So, let's get started?" He suggested, picking up a small pile of the papers himself.
It was actually interesting work to go through all of the files. It was tedious, but fun. He got to see all of the different projects that the genetics department had funded, and took great interest in some of the projects. A small smile came across his face as he read one about a squirrel who had been given puppy dog ears. As odd as the concept seemed, the thing was actually quite adorable.
He continued sorting through them, the three of them working as hard as they could. Joey stood off to the side, silently waiting for Seto to appear or Yuugi to wake up. He could see that they were all busy working, and he didn't want to get in their way. He played with his shirt buttons, glad that he'd at least worn a fancier one for right now. Not that he cared what Seto thought or anything, but he was always condescending towards Joey on his lack of formal clothing, and it annoyed Joey.
Finally, the doorbell rang again. Joey ran to the door like a puppy runs towards the door when its owner arrives from work, but took a moment to put a scowl on his face before he opened it up. He did so slowly, and he clenched his jaw.
"You're twenty minutes late." He said, pretending to be angry. Seto rolled his eyes and strolled on in like he owned the place, smelling pizza in the air.
"Fashionably late, Mutt." He said slyly, continuing on to the kitchen. Joey pretended not to hear him, following afterwards. There was really no point in staying in the living room by himself; it would just be lonely and quiet.
"I'm here." Seto announced, grabbing a chair and pulling it up to the table. There were too many sets of arms going to and fro for him to help in the sorting; it would've been chaotic, but he still watched with mild interest.
"Are you planning on attaching pictures of the animals to the file? You have no other way to prove that these were the approved projects." He said, raising an eyebrow. All three of them stopped to look at him. Yami shot a panicked glance over to Cecilia, hoping that this wasn't a vain attempt to get everything resolved.
"I have a large stack of pictures back at my house; I'm pretty sure I have pictures of every animal we've ever engineered or tampered with." She said, nodding her head. Yami breathed out a sigh of relief.
"Okay. We still need a backup plan, don't get me wrong, but it would help to have those." He mumbled, looking down at the ground and frowning just a bit. Cecilia just smiled a bit, and all of them continued working in silence.
Soon, the pizza was ready, and Joey came over, holding out a steaming hot plate to each and every member. Except for Kaiba, that is.
"Where's mine?" Kaiba asked, his brows furrowing. Joey stood there with his eyebrows raised for a moment before deciding that he was bored, so he might as well dignify that with a response.
"Your legs aint broken; go and fix it yourself." He shot back, biting into his pizza. The warm and gooey cheese burnt the roof of his mouth and he let out a high pitched yelp, tears springing to his eyes.
"Karma." Kaiba mumbled, smiling slightly. Joey sent a glare his way, scraping the hot food out of his mouth and into the garbage. Kaiba got up and grabbed a plate from the counter, putting a piece of pizza on it and setting his plate down next to Joey's on the counter instead of going back to sit with the rest of the people in the room. Joey blushed a bit, tilting his head to the side.
"What are you doing?" He asked, looking at Kaiba in a peculiar way. Kaiba gave a shrug and stayed right where he was, unmoving.
"Those people over there aren't the best options for me to sit by right this second; I need conversation to think, and they're all being entirely silent. I think it would help me if you were to talk to me; maybe I can come up with a backup plan faster that way." Seto said smoothly, reaching over and taking a drink out of Joey's pop.
"Hey! That's mine!" Joey exclaimed, reaching for it. "Give it back, ya big jerk!"
Kaiba merely chuckled, lifting the pop out of Joey's reach for a moment, causing the blonde to jump to try and reach it. Joey jumped a few times before he gave up and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring hatefully at Kaiba.
Kaiba set the drink down on the counter, and Joey snatched it up immediately, taking a big swig of it. Yami watched this all, slightly amused by the show that the two who claimed to hate each other were putting on. It seemed awfully playful for the amount of spite they both claimed to have obtained.
"You know, that's technically an indirect kiss." He put in, really only half paying attention to the conversation that they were having. He had to concentrate more on saving Yuugi; this would be the easiest way to make everything better. With this, he could take Yuugi out, he could show him the world, he could give him what was best for him. Really, for both of them. Yami knew that he'd never be quite so happy again if Yuugi was gone. Sure, he'd push on, but he didn't even want to think about that option right now. Yuugi meant so much to him.
Joey spit his pop into the sink promptly, growling in the back of his throat. He didn't want to have Seto's germs all over him! That was a fate worse than death! At least, that's what he would act like. He couldn't think to do anything else without having suspicion aroused. He finished and turned back to his food, crinkling his nose as if he was disgusted. It didn't have quite the effect that it would have before, seeing as how he had a light blush covering his face. He looked back to see that Seto was entirely calm, and even had begun to eat his pizza as if nothing had happened.
"How can you be so calm about that?" Joey spat, making a disgusted face at how absolutely chill that Seto seemed.
"What's done is done." Seto said flatly, walking over to the fridge to grab a pop of his own. Joey didn't really have a way to argue with that, but he could still be slightly frazzled and a little bit upset about it. How come nobody looked at Seto funny when he did stuff like that, but if Joey were to comment about this, or even had not reacted how he had, someone would've said something. It might have been teasing, but it would still bother Joey.
Yami continued to leaf through the papers, sorting them by date the best he could. "Where's the pile for September of 2012?" He asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked around the table. The table top was entirely full, and some of the piles had even ended up in various places on the floor. Pegasus leaned over to the side of the chair, glancing at the piles on the floor and then moving on to the ones on the table. Finding none, he shrugged.
"Start a new pile." He suggested. Yami glanced at his feet, finding a small, uncovered area and setting the paper down himself.
"How have you guys managed to escape criticism before now?" Yami asked, looking around. There were so many experiments!
"What do you mean?" Cecilia said, tilting her head a bit to the side. Yami noted that her smile never left her face. He leaned forward a bit and saw that her and Pegasus were holding hands underneath the table. He had a sudden pang of longing for Yuugi to be down here instead of upstairs, so that they could hold hands underneath the table.
"I mean, PETA is all over stuff like this, right?"
"PETA is a joke. If you're referring to animal rights groups, then it's simple." She said, laughing a bit. She threw the paper in her hands across the table to Yami, and he glanced at it. It was permission to give a mole the seeing abilities of a human being. "We don't do anything that won't help the animal in some way." She said.
"Care to elaborate?" Seto asked, intrigued. He walked away from Joey to come and sit with the rest of the group, taking interest in their current conversation.
"Well, like what Yami was holding, we gave a mole, a typically and naturally blind creature, the eyesight of a human. You can't honestly tell me that that wouldn't be a useful adaptation. We'd never do anything to an animal if we believed that it would hinder its ability to survive or decrease the animal's quality of life. We also avoid any kind of operations that involve long recovery stages, preferring to do most of it in their actual genetics, before they're out of the womb." She clarified, smiling. "I love animals, and none of us at the company would ever do anything to hurt them; I make sure of that personally." She said, shaking her head lightly. Seto nodded his own head before looking down, in thought again.
"That's useful information." He said, nodding a little. "We have to use anything we can possibly get that paints you and the company in a good light because without that, we might not have a strong enough case. I actually have an idea for a backup plan." Seto said.
Upstairs, Yuugi opened his eyes slowly, adjusting to the world around him slowly. He blindly reached out beside him, expecting to find the warm body of his partner, but was disappointed when his hands instead brushed against the cool, soft sheets. As refreshing as they were, they weren't what he was looking for right this second.
He stretched a bit, his tail twitching and letting just a little bit of refreshingly cold air ghost over his bare chest. He still had on pants, but he had managed to somehow pull off his shirt in his sleep. He looked around groggily for the piece of fabric, hoping that he could find it fairly soon. He wanted to get downstairs to where Yami was.
He stood shakily on the floor, grabbing his shirt and slipping it back on, the leather lightly tugging at his skin as he got dressed. As an afterthought, he reached for some deodorant and put that on, along with some of the cologne Yami like to wear, just along his neck. He smiled and blushed a bit; he'd done it intentionally to try and get Yami to smell him. If Yami liked the way he smelled, the chances of kisses were higher. At least, he thought so. That was why people wore that kind of stuff, right?
The carpet tugged on his dragging feet as he made his way downstairs, his feet softly thumping in a rhythmic pattern as he walked. Luckily, thanks to his cat parts, he was stealthy and light on his feet, so he didn't make much noise at all. He slunk along and peeked into the kitchen, seeing that they had company. He decided to wait for the right time to go in, not wanting to startle anyone. He knew that nobody else knew he was here; Yami had told him that much before he'd gone to bed.
"I'm thinking," Seto said, placing his hand under his jaw, "That Yami here and his dear cat boy could draw some sympathy from the media. If we were able to find Yuugi, we could try and push it to everyone just how human he is. Once we had the hearts of the people, it would be much easier to get the government to relent. It has a certain amount of control over the people, but not enough to prevent an uprising if enough people were against the idea of them doing something." Seto said, nodding to himself.
"How, exactly, would we get the attention of the media?" Yami asked, his eyebrows crinkling together. The government typically stayed quiet about affairs like that, even he knew this. "It's not exactly like we could just wave around until a reporter showed up."
Seto glared at him. "I have some connections. If I pulled a few strings with the right people, the whole media could be waiting at town hall in two hours."
"Wait." Yami said flatly, his eyes filling with worry. "Won't that be dangerous for Yuugi? If they find out where he is and they decide to go through with it, then they could go ahead and euthanize him along with the rest of the animals." Yami said.
"Yes, it is dangerous. But how else are we supposed to pull this off?" Seto asked. Yami remained silent, looking down at the ground. He didn't—no, he wouldn't take that risk with Yuugi. He loved him too much to take that risk. He'd find some excuse not to let this happen.
"The first question would be how are we going to find Yuugi?" Pegasus inquired, raising an eyebrow at Yami. Yami remained silent, still looking down. He was mortified that everybody seemed just fine to go along with this plan.
"I don't know." Kaiba answered for him, shaking his head back and forth as if deep in thought. Pegasus frowned at this. "All I know is that without Yuugi there, those other animals will most likely die, and some of them are more human than they even are animal."
Yuugi's eyes widened—that was why Yami had been so upset? They wanted to kill not only him, but all of the other animals that the facility had created? That was cruel! That was wrong! Yuugi made up his mind right then and there that he would do anything in his power to stop it.
"I want to help." He announced loudly, stepping into the kitchen. Everyone turned towards him, two pairs of eyes looking astonished and three looking as if they had known all along. Seto was one of the three.
"As I suspected, Yuugi is perfectly safe and has been staying with my cousin here." He announced. Yuugi shook his head, flashing Yami a bright smile. Yami couldn't appreciate it right now though, his eyes were filled with horror and fear.
"Yuugi!" Yami called out. Yuugi walked towards him, laying his hands on the table and looking up through eyes on fire with the passion of the words that he was preparing to speak.
"I know what you're going to say." He began, looking Yami dead in the eyes, "I don't want to be in danger either, but I have to help them, Yami." He said firmly. His tone made it clear that there was no room for argument here. Yami ignored the serious tone, standing and placing his hands on the table in the same manner that Yuugi had, the same passion in his eyes that was in Yuugi's.
"You could die. I'm not letting you agree to this before we've even discussed the full ramifications." Yami spat, his eyes narrowing.
"Yes, and hundreds of other animals and people could die if I don't stand up for them. This isn't up for debate; I'm going to do whatever it takes to help, even if it involves putting myself in danger. How would you feel if you had the power to help- If you knew that there was even the slimmest chance that you could save the lives of people who didn't have to die- and you didn't take the opportunity? How would you feel if those people died because of your own fear?" Yuugi asked, no, demanded. Yami opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out for a moment. He growled in frustration and put his face in his hands before slowly taking it back out, placing his hands on the table again. His eyes had changed from demanding to pleading.
"We have a fairly good case if we angle this right. If I'm not mistaken, you and Yuugi are a couple now, right?" Seto asked, raising his eyebrow. Joey shook his head yes while the other two continued to face off from across the table. The tension in the room was so thick that you could slice it with a butter knife. "If we announce that and we play our cards right, we can pull a lot of sympathy from the media. It's practically fool proof; without a real reason, the government wouldn't tick off so many people with one single action. It would be drastically heartbreaking for many of the viewers if they were to kill Yuugi. The result would lead to mass uprising and protests. There's no way they'd risk that."
Yami pretended that he didn't hear Seto, continuing the argument between Yuugi and himself. "Please, all I'm asking is for you not to jump into this without giving it some thought first." Yami begged. Yuugi visibly bristled.
"Okay, let's talk through this some." He said, sitting down. "There's a huge chance that if I don't do it, everyone else who was taken gets killed, all the genetics engineers and the people who worked on my project lose their jobs, leaving families hungry and people without homes. So, tell me now, why the hell would I even hesitate? Not to mention the fact that without doing this, if this all happens, I'll be trapped in this house for the rest of my life. Do you really want that for me?" Yuugi demanded, his eyes narrowed into slits.
"I JUST DON'T WANT YOU TO BE HURT." Yami yelled, slamming his hands down onto the table. Yuugi stood up again, his eyes now blazing even stronger than before.
"Stop being selfish!" He spat. Yami visibly recoiled. "I can't let all these people be hurt just because we want to be together! Our happiness isn't what matters here!"
That stung. It stung bad. Yami felt tears come to his eyes. Selfish? Was it really so selfish to want to be happy? But, when he thought about it, he realized that it really was. He couldn't expect all of those people to suffer because he was too scared to let Yuugi fight for them.
"I'm sorry." He admitted, defeated. He walked around the table, not even trying to touch Yuugi. He knew that Yuugi needed his space right now. "I need a moment to digest this." He said, walking out of the room. There was a pause.
"So, what's the plan, as far as this goes?" Yuugi asked.
"We'll want to wait as long as possible; if it's close to the execution date, they won't have enough time to come up with something different to get them for." Seto said, gesturing towards Cecilia. "Other than that, we shouldn't have a definite plan concerning all of this. If we plan everything out to the last tee, it'll seem impersonal and robotic. I'll need you to speak some about your human emotions, with special focus on your relationship and feelings for Yami."
"Okay. So you want me to basically go in front of the press and talk from my heart?" Yuugi proposed. Kaiba shook his head yes. By this time, Yuugi was regretting being so harsh on Yami. He didn't mean to hurt him so badly; he just wanted to get his point across. He was just about to get up and find him, when Yami walked back in, looking composed and ready to listen to the plan.
"After Yuugi goes, Cecilia will go up and talk to the press about the proof that we have that everything was done legally." Kaiba commented, and Cecilia shook her head to agree. As Yami walked past, Yuugi brushed their hands together in reassurance, glancing up at Yami with apology in his eyes. Yami didn't look down, walking over and sitting back in the same chair as before.
Plans were discussed until eleven o'clock at night, papers were sorted, Yami explained how he had managed to keep Yuugi to Pegasus, Cecilia and Kaiba, and by the end of everything, Yami and Yuugi were honestly both exhausted. They hadn't talked much to each other since the fight, other than exchanging the information about Yuugi's cat breed. He was technically a mutt cat, but he was half Egyptian Mau, so he had some of the distinctive characteristics, like slightly larger ears, although his dark black was nowhere near the typical rusty orange.
When everyone was finally gone, Yuugi practically collapsed against the door. There was a moment of silence as his and Yami's eyes met, and he slowly reached his hands forward, begging silently with his eyes for Yami to pick him up. Yami complied easily enough, relenting after just a couple seconds. He was still hurt by what Yuugi had said, but he couldn't force himself to stay mad at him now if he tried. The chance that something bad could happen to Yuugi was very high, and he wasn't going to spend the time he had left with him angry for any reason.
"I'm sorry I called you selfish." Yuugi whispered. Yami flinched again, but didn't say anything back. He finally made it to his room and opened the door(being careful not to drop the groggy Yuugi) and kicked it closed behind him, walking over to the bed and setting Yuugi in it. He handed Yuugi his pajama bottoms, going into the bathroom to change into his own. He heard rustling and assumed that Yuugi had done the same, but didn't come out until he heard Yuugi dump himself back onto the bed.
Yami walked around the bed and climbed in, turning towards the wall in attempt to give Yuugi his space. Soon, though, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. Yami turned around to see Yuugi gazing up at him through wide and beautiful amethyst eyes, and he knew exactly what Yuugi wanted. Yami, in all honesty, had been hoping that this is what would happen.
"Please don't be angry? I want to kiss you and cuddle up." Yuugi announced. Yami gave a deep sigh, shaking his head.
"I'm not angry at you. I'm sorry if it seems that way." Yami mumbled, wrapping an arm securely around Yuugi, who snuggled into his chest. "You smell good."
Yuugi let out a giggle, looking up towards his lover with a sloppy smile. "I want to go to Egypt with you one day." He announced. Yami looked down at him.
"Why?" Yami asked. Yuugi gave a light shrug.
"I want to go lots of places with you." He announced, smiling widely. "I want to go to Egypt most though, and Antarctica. I've always wanted to go ice skating."
"Then we'll travel the world together." Yami promised, leaning down to give Yuugi a kiss on the forehead. Yuugi moved his head and reached up to tangle his fingers in Yami's hair, putting their lips together firmly and putting all of the passion that he could muster up into the kiss. Yami responded, pulling Yuugi's waist closer to his own.
"If I don't make it through," Yuugi panted, once they had parted. His eyes were glazed over in love and adoration, and Yami's resembled his. "I want you to travel the world for me."
"Don't talk like that." Yami said immediately, barely trusting his voice not to break. He loved Yuugi so much, he couldn't honestly imagine life without him. He knew that things would go on, he knew that he'd still be here, and he'd be strong for Yuugi, but he didn't want to have to picture it.
"Yami, I have to. Now, promise me that you won't lose your mind just because I'm gone. If I end up being killed, I want you to be my eyes and ears. Go and explore, go and see the world, go and be happy for me, because I no longer can. Live life to the fullest, fall in love again, smile when you remember me instead of crying." Yuugi whispered passionately. He could no longer contain the swirl of emotions inside of him, and he kissed Yami again, parting his lips and yanking Yami's hair roughly. Yami actually really liked it; the fiery passion that Yuugi was displaying was nice, even if the hair tugging hurt a little bit, it wasn't enough to stop him from enjoying it.
"Fine." He panted as they broke apart. "I have to be at least a little sad at first, but I'll try to get over it." Yami said. Yuugi shook his head in acceptance.
"I'm not expecting you to not be sad sometimes, I just don't want you to stay sad because of it. I don't want to make you happy if you're only going to be sad without me here anymore." Yuugi whispered. Yami nodded; he saw exactly what Yuugi was saying, and he knew that if Yuugi was gone, he'd make an effort to stay happy without him. He didn't ever think that he could love again, but he could still be happy for Yuugi.
"I can do that. I can do that for you." Yami said, smiling just a bit. Yuugi was in his arms right now, and he could honestly not be happier.
"I love you." Yuugi whispered.
"I love you, too."