Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ I Should Have Helped ❯ What Happened at the Convention ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

I Should Have Helped…

CHAPTER TWO – WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CONVENTION


Pegasus watched the speaker from his seat in the front row of the auditorium. Despite his singular interpersonal skills… Seto could be quite persuasive and businesslike when he was talking to a whole group. And obviously he had no stage fright; his confidence seemed to be right where it always was. Dealing with people was hardly a chore for him.

And lo and behold, he actually allowed people to ask questions. He might have a future in this business after all. Now, if he could just hold back from insulting everyone when he encountered them one on one…

He raised his hand politely. This technology looked very impressive – the newest thing in holographics, to be sure – but he was afraid the science as a bit over his head, and he wouldn’t mind having it explained a bit more. He could certainly see the applications, in gaming and beyond, though Seto had told them all very specifically that it was intended for, and only for, gaming. Apparently even the coldest teenager alive still had an inner child, somewhere, probably suffocating slowly.

And Seto ignored him very pointedly. There was no way he could not have seen him, after all. He could only guess that he still held a grudge… and who wouldn’t, really? He lowered his hand with a small, chagrined smile for anyone who was watching him, but inside he was saddened. Somehow, he didn’t want Seto to hate him. He actually… well, saying he liked him would have been incorrect. He wasn’t sure how he felt about him. He pitied him, surely… and somewhere, though he tried desperately to banish it, he desired him, and he did respect him, though he had very rarely shown it, for his intelligence, business acumen… even for mastering his game as he had. If he, Pegasus, hadn’t cheated, it’s very likely that Seto would have beaten him… he still wasn’t entirely certainly that Yugi’s victory over him had been completely fair and upfront. But saying that he liked him as a person… might have been going a bit far. It’s hard to like someone who loathes your very existence, after all.

Someone asked the question he was going to ask anyway, and he got his answer… but he never took his eye (singular, since that incident with Bakura…) from Seto. He was studying him, trying to see something in Seto that told him he wasn’t as in control as he thought… something that could let him see that maybe, just maybe, Seto wasn’t an ice prince, that Gozaburo hadn’t crushed every last ounce of feeling that wasn’t connected to his brother out of him. It was all well and good to love his brother… but if that was all he cared at all for in this world, then Gozaburo had still succeeded in ruining him anyway, and he could have one more thing to feel guilty for when he went home tonight.

It seemed, though, that Seto was nothing more than a computer as he answered them all so succinctly, then walked off the stage when they were finished. Pegasus left immediately, as the other businessmen dawdled gathering their things and talking with each other. He walked past the end of the stage, where Seto had walked off, intent upon leaving immediately. He had really only come for Seto’s – no, KaibaCorp’s – newest invention, because after that, nothing else would really interest him. He knew that Seto was the frontrunner in any kind of science techno-race the cerebrals had going on, and anything else was just a distant second.

Then he saw Seto, standing there behind the curtains, where only someone at Pegasus’s precise angle could have seen him. He had almost missed him, in fact. Seto leaned on one hand against the wall, his head hanging down to his chest, then popped a prescription bottle open and dry swallowed a couple pills as he watched. He froze, uncertain how he felt about that. So Seto wasn’t the icy prince he had made himself out to be… but he was obviously also not a normal boy. Popping pills like that… No normal eighteen year old did that. He wondered what they were for. Anxiety? Ulcers? Just to get high? He was almost saddened to find that he wasn’t surprised at all.

After a moment of hesitation, he pushed his way back through the curtain until he was face to face with him. Except that Seto didn’t notice him at all, as he had his eyes closed and was still breathing calmly as he rested against the wall.

“Seto, I need to speak with you,” he said calmly.

Seto was startled, and jerked to face him, though he tried to hide it. “What?” he demanded crossly, though he was too surprised to deliver any of his normal scathing remarks.

“I really did have a question, you know,” Pegasus said reproachfully. “Just be cause you are a child, doesn’t mean you have to act childish.”

“Didn’t see you,” Seto said. Not sneered… actually said. It almost sounded as though he really hadn’t seen him. “You followed me to ask me about my system?”

“I didn’t follow you at all, Kaiba-boy. I just happened to see you through this curtain and decided to say hello. However… I do need to speak with you.”

“If that’s not what you’re doing now, what do you call this conversation we’re having?” Ah, there was that patented Kaiba sneer. Except Pegasus knew it was all fake.

“I’d rather speak in a more private setting, if you don’t mind.”

“And what if I do mind?”

“Then I suppose I’ll never get to say what I want to say,” Pegasus said, and turned away, hoping that Seto would call him back… and yet hoping he allowed him to walk away, preferably forever. Every time he saw Seto Kaiba, he felt even worse. He didn’t enjoy feeling like a creep, so he really saw no further need to subject himself to his present company. Unless Seto called him back and allowed him to say what he needed to say…

“Wait. What the hell are you talking about?”

Pegasus stopped, not certain if his sigh was one of relief or regret. “I told you, you foul-mouthed boy, not here,” he said easily as he turned back.

Seto immediately turned and walked away. Pegasus, bemused, followed him, though he wasn’t at all certain if it was an invitation or a dismissal. Invitation, he guessed, as Seto led him back to what appeared to be his own rooms in the hotel, luckily on this same floor, because it would have been damned awkward to be in an elevator with him for several minutes. Seto stopped and turned to face him as he shut the door behind them.

“Now, what do you want? And if you try anything–”

“Don’t worry, Seto, I have no intention of ‘trying’ anything.” Pegasus leaned against the door and wondered if he would actually be able to do it.

“Stop calling me that.”

He raised an eyebrow. “It’s your name, isn’t it, Seto?”

“You’ve never seemed to think so before.”

“Very well, Kaiba-boy.” He could see that he was putting Seto on edge, and that helped him relax a little. Just remember that he had control of this situation, it was Seto who was on the defensive… “Although I really think your given name is more appropriate in this situation…”

“Either spit it out or leave, Pegasus!”

Ah, there was that impatience, impatience with any situation he did not control, impatience with not knowing what was going on and knowing that he could change it at a moment’s notice. He decided to take pity on him and put his mind at ease.

“I came to apologize.”

Seto, unexpectedly, took a minute step backward. “Are you drunk?” he demanded.

“Oh, at least half,” Pegasus said airily. That certainly not the response he had been expecting… but he could take it in stride.

“I thought as much. Just get out of here.”

“Of course, I haven’t really been wholly sober once in the last five years, so that’s really no surprise,” Pegasus went on. “In response to the question you meant to ask, I am in total control of my faculties, and I fully intended to say everything I am saying.”

Seto didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, and Pegasus took that in stride too. “So, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I wanted to apologize to you.”

“For what, precisely?” Seto asked, layered liberally with sarcasm. “We have something of a long list here, so you’ll have to be more specific.”

Pegasus smiled slightly. “There is a list, isn’t there, and I suppose a blanket ‘everything’ would sound too insincere. At any rate, I’m not entirely certain I’d wish to apologize for ‘everything’, so I suppose that’s rather lucky for me. I’m sorry for kidnapping your brother, of course…” He began to count them off on his fingers. “That really was rather uncalled for, I admit, and having you killed was never my original plan anyway, that just sort of got away from me. And the whole souls-in-cards thing, too.”

“But not for trying to steal my company?”

“No, not really,” he admitted. “That, as I saw it, was necessary.”

“Well, now that we have that all taken care of, do you mind leaving?” Apparently, Seto didn’t get apologized to a whole lot; it was making him distinctly and obviously uncomfortable. Well, then the next apology was going to really do some damage to his confidence… He hoped it wouldn’t be permanent.

“Actually, Seto, I’m not finished.” He quite purposefully changed back to ‘Seto’, and he dropped the ever-present playful air, looking at him in all seriousness. And Seto, seeing these changes, seemed to harden, as though preparing himself to be assaulted.

“What now?”

“I should have helped you.”

Seto just looked at him without changing his expression. This was harder than he’d thought it would be… but he pushed on.

“I should have gotten you away from him.”

“Yes.”

Pegasus was taken aback. He hadn’t expected that. Not for Seto to just agree with him like that. But of course, Seto really must blame him for everything…

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Pegasus shook his head and turned away. “I guess you don’t want to hear this, but I really am sorry. I was a coward. He tried to have me killed, repeatedly, so I never tried to help you.”

“You’re right; I don’t want to hear it. Get out. Now. And don’t ever speak to me again.”

Pegasus didn’t look back.

Seto stared at his trembling hands, sitting on his bed. Why did Pegasus have to do that? Why did he apologize like that? Why couldn’t he just let him hate him, like he’d been doing…? It was so much easier just to hate him…

Not that hating him still was hard… not with the memories his damned apology had brought up… Memories of all the other people that Gozaburo had brought home, men and women, but mostly men. Of how it got so bad those last seven months, that last eternity, after Pegasus had tried to help him. It was almost as though he knew it was only a matter of time before something made him stop, and he was determined to make up for all the time he wouldn’t have later. Seto had more than once thought that he was going to be killed, either on purpose or just in his over-zealousness, and he had cursed Pegasus from his dim fog of obedience and fear, for bringing this upon him… and for that one brief moment of hope…

He hated Pegasus. He wanted to hate Pegasus. He didn’t want him to be sorry – or if he was, he didn’t want to know about it.

He opened the bottle of pills with shaking hands, dumped two or three out, and swallowed them. He took these to repress those memories, because he didn’t think he could function properly if he had to always remember them. It had taken practice, but now he could remember what he needed to and nothing else until they wore off… unless something happened to make him remember. He had seen Pegasus – and a couple other faces – in the crowd, though, and had had to take some earlier, because they forced him to remember… And now Pegasus had made him remember again…

And the pills weren’t even working. It was getting harder and harder to repress his memories, and now they weren’t working at all… He held his head in his hands. He had taken so many today, he couldn’t safely take any more. He had actually taken too many, but it wasn’t bad… any more, and they could kill him. But maybe that would be best. He wouldn’t have to remember this anymore… even now, he could feel phantom hands on his body, hear phantom voices in his ear… he couldn’t do this anymore. It was all Pegasus’s fault, too…

He opened the bottle again and dumped the remaining pills into his hand. There were around ten left; he hoped that would be enough. He swallowed them all in groups of two or three, and lay down on the bed, curled on his side with his eyes clenched shut, trying to will the memories away. The ghostly voices and touches away.

It wasn’t Pegasus’s fault, he knew that. He should be grateful to him… he couldn’t let this happen, letting him think that he hated him for not helping him… Because he never had been able to hate him, no matter how he tried.

He opened his eyes and picked up the phone, called the front desk. A cheerful woman answered.

“How can I help you?”

“I need the number for Maximillion Pegasus’s room,” he said quietly. “And hurry.”

“Very well… his room is number 1428. Will that be all?”

“Yes.” He hung up the phone briefly, then called him. He could feel himself slowing down… the voices were gone, anyway…

“Hello?”

“I don’t hate you, Pegasus.”

“Seto?”

“Yeah… I need to thank you. You tried. No one else ever tried. I can’t blame you for being a coward… I was a coward… I still am a coward. Taking the easy way out…”

“Seto, are you all right?”

“No… I took some pills… they make it so that I can’t remember, in smaller doses… Guess it’s not so different now, though. I still won’t remember.”

“You…”

“You'll hear about it in the morning. Thank you for trying, at least… no one else ever tried to help me…”

“Seto? Are you going to be okay?”

He hung up.

Pegasus swore as he slammed the phone down, forgetting his comment to Seto earlier about being a foul-mouthed boy. He wasn’t sure… there was no way he could be sure… but it sounded like Seto had tried to kill himself. But he wouldn’t… would he? Surely not… not if he still had Mokuba. Mokuba who loved him and needed him. He wouldn’t kill himself… would he?

He left the room and ran to the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor several times, even though he knew it wouldn’t make the thing go any faster. He thought that Seto might do just that, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. And if he hadn’t, then all he was doing was making an ass of himself… and if he had…

The elevator stopped, and he was through the doors before they were entirely open, trying to remember which room was Seto’s from this morning. 512… 520… 532. That was it. He pounded on the door for a moment, hearing nothing from inside… Was he too late? No, Seto had just spoken to him ten minutes ago. He couldn’t be dead yet. Maybe unconscious?

He gripped the doorknob and pounded a couple more times, accidentally turning the knob as he did… and found it miraculously unlocked. It opened easily – for a moment he was too stunned to make use of it, then he remember himself and rushed inside. Why wouldn’t Seto lock the door though? He knew Seto well enough to know that he always locked doors. He must have been distracted or preoccupied. Or maybe it just didn’t matter anymore…

Seto was lying on the bed in a half fetal position, his eyes closed, breathing shallowly. The empty pill bottle was lying on the floor; it looked like it had just been dropped by someone sitting at the foot of the bed. He ignored it and knelt beside the bed, turning Seto onto his back so that he could look at him.

“Seto? Answer me!”

The boy barely cracked his eyes open. “I do hate you after all,” he whispered after a moment.

Pegasus was just relieved that he was still conscious. “Fine, hate me – just as long as you live.”

“Damn you…”

“Several times over, most likely.” He lifted Seto to his feet, over his feeble protests and struggles.

“Let me die…”

“No.” He half pulled, half carried him into the bathroom. “You’re going to make yourself throw up, Seto, before I do,” he said as he made him kneel before the toilet, and knelt beside him.

Seto shook his head, seemingly tired to say anything more.

Pegasus took his face in both hands and looked into his eyes. “I’m not going to let you die, Seto. I can’t. Do you want me to call 911? Because I will if I have to, but I’d rather you save yourself. I don’t want you to die.”

“Why do you care…?” Seto asked quietly, looking at him. “Why do you care about me? Why have you ever cared?”

Pegasus suddenly realized that he knew the answer to the question… but he could never let Seto know. “You’d hate me if I told you,” he said. “Please… just save yourself.”

Seto might have seen the answer in his eyes, though, because he turned away without another word and put his finger down his throat, making himself throw up. He was crying when he finished, and Pegasus pulled him back against him, and wrapped his arms around him, just holding him without saying a word.