Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Not This Time ❯ Realizations, Pt. II ( Chapter 5 )

Chapter Five – Realizations, Pt. II Yami’s POV    “Stay away from me!”   “Seto, please…” I start to walk around the desk toward him, sitting there on the floor, his back pressed to the wall. He looks toward me with fear.   “I said stay away from me!” He tries to move backward more, but he’s already against the wall and has nowhere else to go. “Don’t come near me!”   I freeze. He doesn’t really remember. He doesn’t remember how much I love him… just the pain. He just remembers dying at my hands hundreds of times… And he’s afraid of me. I’ve never wanted him to fear me, not in this life or any other. It breaks my heart to see it.   I crouch to his level beside the desk as he stares at me. “Please, Seto, try to remember…”   “It’s never different!” he yells. “I remember that!” Those familiar blue eyes are widened with terror of me… I don’t think I’ve ever even seen him afraid, and he’s terrified.   “Don’t be afraid of me…” I whisper, holding a hand toward him. He shrinks away slightly. “Please, don’t be afraid of me… I never meant it…”   He closes his eyes, separating his present life from his past ones. I watch him take a deep, calming breath, before he opens his eyes. I can see the Seto Kaiba hardness there, but he can’t help but be afraid. How can he do otherwise? After everything I’ve done to him…   “Please, try to remember more,” I say calmly, watching him intently, giving no sign of my desperation. “Remember more than the pain, the times you’ve died at my hand or my order… Remember the promises… the promise you always make me make…” I watch his eyes. The memories are almost breaking through, but he’s fighting them. Of course he is. He can’t stand to try to believe anything that he can’t prove, anything that may upset his carefully constructed and protected view of the world. That’s why he has so consistently refused to believe in anything I tell him, about Egypt, about his past incarnations, about even something as relatively unimportant as the Heart of the Cards. Something has happened to him to make him think that believing in those things would drive him insane… or would mean that he was already going insane. And anyone who protects their sanity that viciously… can’t have a lot of it left.   Am I hurting him, I wonder suddenly. Am I hurting him by trying to help him – make him – remember me? What if it does drives him over whatever edge he’s perched upon? Too cruel… I wouldn’t kill him, but only destroy his mind… That would be the cruelest punishment the universe could deliver. I should leave him now, never see him again, never risk that fate. But I can’t. I can’t deprive myself of any opportunity to see him, to even look upon his face, let alone be this close to him.   “This is not happening!” he says suddenly, closing his eyes and turning away. “This is all just another damned dream – you’ll tell me you love me then you’ll kill me somehow and promise it will be different next time but IT NEVER IS!”   “Seto…” His pain is my pain. I feel all of the sorrow and anger and denial he feels stab my heart. I’m kneeling in front of him now, cupping his face gently to make him look at me. His skin is soft… “Seto, I’m so sorry. Those dreams… they all happened. They’re all memories of other lives… I always kill you, and I’m so sorry…”   I feel tears prick my eyes again. Again, just as every time I lose him. I have lost him again, I think. This time for eternity. He would rather drive himself insane and repress these memories than face them, the pain in them. He refuses to remember me, though I won’t hurt him this time. I know I won’t… we’ve already passed that, and we both survived…   He stares at me, for some reason staring into my eyes. I see his memories, his need for me and my love, and his need for stability and sanity in his life warring with each other. Part of him wants to believe me. Part of him would rather die.   “It’s okay…” I whisper, still holding his face. “I’ll never hurt you again…”   Wary, hesitantly hopeful blue eyes search my face. The part of him that remembers wants to believe me, wants to overcome whatever has happened to him in this lifetime and be with me, but that part of him that knows only the pain and death I’ve caused him is fighting it, would rather kill one or both of us. He is losing this battle; a part of him is winning, but that means discarding another part, and I don’t know if he can do that.   “I promise.”   Something breaks in his eyes, and he sighs and collapses. At first I think that he’s passed out rather than choose, but he lets his head fall against my shoulder, burying his face in my neck. His hands go lightly to my waist as he leans on me; I wrap my arms around him. He decided to accept it… me… He’s overcome the hard, scared part of him and accepted me… I knew the promise would affect him. He’s always had a weakness for promises. How he could trust my word, I have no idea… After all the times I promised it would be different, and I broke that promise… But now I’ve finally kept it.   “I’m so sorry…” I whisper into his hair, holding him, rubbing his bent back lightly. “I love you so much…”   He says nothing, just holds onto me tightly.