Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Possession ❯ Silence ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer: I own no one. Nobody. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Sucks, don't it?

AN: I woke up this morning, I showered, and I got sick. Woo woo. Still, I stayed home from school and finished off this part, and worked on other various thingymabobs. You should all be proud of me, I finally wrote something decently long. And angsty. And stuff. It's got things in it. Yep. Ahem. This works on the idea that, as we only see Yugi's mom approximately two times, so she's probably off on business trips or some such things on a fairly regular basis. So she comes home. To a rather unpleasant surprise. So... who's that guy in Yugi's bed?

* * *

It's been a long trip, and my back is aching from lifting my suitcases and dragging them around untold miles of airport. But still I can't help but smile as the taxi pulls up to the game shop.

Home at last.

* * *

"Father!" I call cheerfully as I begin dragging my things into the hall, "I'm back!"

A gray head pokes out inquiringly from within the kitchen, and I wave cheerfully. "Morning!"

A warm smile graces father's face. "Ah! Daughter! You're home!"

He trundles out into the hall and grabs my bags after giving me a rib-crushing hug, clearly intent on hauling them upstairs. "Oh no you don't! What about your back?"

He laughs. "Oh, nonsense! I'm healthier now than I was at your age!"

I grab one of the heavier pieces of luggage when he's not looking and follow him upstairs. "Could that be because you stopped smoking?"

He tosses me an annoyed glance over his shoulder. "Oh, quiet you," he scolds. I can't help but grin. I love being home.

"How is my little boy? Are his grades any better, I hope?"

A sad smile flits across father's face. "Not quite, I'm afraid."

I sigh and shake my head. "He'll fail this year if he doesn't get his act together."

Father shakes his head as he deposits my things on the bed. "To be truthful, I can't say that he really cares about it."

I roll my eyes. "Of course not. His games and all his new friends come first, but he's never going to get in a good university by playing games."

Father pauses and puts down the suitcase he was going to put away. Then he turns to me, and there's something strange in his eyes. "Sometimes... sometimes I wonder if he's even going to live long enough to think about that sort of thing."

I drop the pajamas I'm holding, sudden terror shooting down my spine. What the-? "Father?" I manage to ask, feeling myself tremble. My son...?

Father looks away. "Daughter... there is much I haven't told you in my letters." He pauses, tugging thoughtfully at his beard. "Things that were better left undisturbed have been awakened - and Yugi is at the heart of it all."

"What do you mean?" I whisper numbly. It should sound just like nonsense... but father is a wise man.

He sighs heavily. "I can't explain it all - even Yugi isn't certain. And that damn other of his-"

I seize on the oddest bit of that sentence. "Other?"

He glances at me, a deep frown curving his face. "Well, to begin with... no. Yugi is... no, that doesn't make sense either." He sighs deeply and shakes his head. "But... I think there's something you should see."

I just blink at him, puzzled, as he motions me into the hallway towards Yugi's room. He knocks lightly on the door before opening it a crack and peering inside.

"Ah. It's safe. Come on in and see what your son has been doing."

And with that, he swings open the door. At first all I see is the room. Mostly neat, with a few random games scattered about and his book bag lying haphazardly against his desk. I frown at the carelessness - will he ever grow up? - and abseently start inspecting the bookshelves, which have a thin layer of dust covering them.

Father follows me inside and strides forward quickly, blocking my view of the bed.

"What you need to see is right here," he murmurs cryptically, tapping on the rumpled covers with a calloused finger.

I abandon my quest to see what my boy has been reading and walked over, feeling a prickling sensation run down my skin. Something is... strange about all this. Very, very strange, even for father.

Father gives me a sad smile and steps deliberately out of the way.

My son, my little Yugi, is lying sound asleep on the bed, wearing a set of pajamas that are covered in stars. Such an innocent little angel...

And then I realize that he isn't alone.

"Who is that?" It comes out as a whisper even though I feel like I'm shouting.

Father rests a heavy hand on my shoulder and stops my hands from reaching out to tear my child away from the grip of this stranger in his bed. "Him?" Father lets out a sardonic chuckle. "He's just a boy like any other. Just a child who was forced to grow up too fast."

"What is he doing with my son?" I mumble thickly, still staring. Black. All in black, bearing an uncanny resemblance to my son - almost looking like a fallen angel.

There's a sort of quiet rage in father's voice as he replies. "Sleeping."

But why in Yugi's bed? "What's his name?"

Father's hand tenses on my shoulder. "He has many, but Yugi calls him 'Yami'."

"Darkness?" Who would name a child 'darkness'? But... somehow... strangely... it seems to fit.

Father snorts disgustedly. "The darkness to Yugi's light."

I don't understand. None of this makes any sense. Nothing at all. "Why does he look like my son?"

Father almost snarls when he speaks. "He is your son's other half."

I blink dazedly and turn to look into his smoldering eyes. That doesn't make sense. Other half? "You don't like him?" I ask hesitantly, trying for a bit of normalcy. This isn't a good sign, nor is the fierce glower he's fixing on that boy.

"I hate him." There's so much venom in those three words that I'm taken aback. Father's usually so gentle...

But still - if he hates him so much, why is he letting him sleep over? "Then why...?"

"Because!" he snaps, then pauses and lowers his voice, and the venom is gone, replaced by a kind of hopeless bitterness. "Because... Yugi loves him."

My heart freezes in my chest. He can't mean that - Yugi wouldn't... couldn't... "Yugi isn't... I mean, he's not..."

Father shakes his head sharply. "He liked girls, before. Remember Anzu? But..." he sighs heavily, waving a careless hand at the bed, "Now all he sees is this boy."

I can't believe that. I won't. Yugi is innocent. But I have to ask. "They're... dating?"

Another sigh, rich with disgust. "Much too mild a word for it. They're," he cringes, "Lovers."

No! "You can't mean that!" I blurt out, clutching my hand to my chest.

Father just nods his head at the bed. "Yugi is... that overwhelming innocence of his - it's true, yes, but deceptive. I've seen the way they kiss. And besides - look at them. Can't you tell? They've slept together for at least two months now."

But... but... "But Yugi's only sixteen!"

The look of long suffering on father's face tells me all I need to know. "His yami is... was only seventeen."

The boy? "Was?" I glance back - well, he certainly seems quite normal, if uncannily similar to my son. He's breathing normally and looks like any other teenager who's sleeping away a Sunday morning.

Father's expression turns cold. "It's not my story to tell. You'll have to ask Yugi, although I doubt he'll tell you the full truth of the matter. He hasn't even told me all that he knows, I'm certain of that."

"What truth?"

The coldness melts into a sad smile. "About him. About his yami. About everything."

Everything? What's everything? And, "Why is he sleeping in Yugi's bed?"

Father shrugs, going cold again. "Because Yugi is."

So he just sleeps over randomly? Strange behavior... "What about his family?"

"Yugi is all he has."

That poor child! "Is he an orphan?"

Father hesitates. "Of sorts."

No wonder then, that he stays here. It makes a little more sense now, but is still quite strange. "Where did he come from?"

There's an odd solemnity on his face. "Egypt."

I blink in shock. Does everything come back to that country? And if he's a foreigner, then when and why did he come here? "How did Yugi meet him?"

Father tosses his head back and laughs bitterly. "Destiny."

That's not an answer, but I have a dozen questions to ask. "Where does he live?"

Father shrugs. "Here."

Here? "But the other bedroom is mine. Has he been living in there?"

Another shake of the head. "No. In here, with Yugi."

Huh? "But..."

"They share a bed," father points out unhappily.

But that still makes no sense! "And the rest? Two teenage boys in the same room always cause a huge mess!"

Father shrugs. "Yami owns very little."

That makes sense, being an orphan, but even orphans have some precious items. Unless he's more than just an orphan. "...is he a street person?"

Another bitter laugh, slightly louder than before. "No, no, no. The exact opposite, in fact."

I still don't understand any of this! "What grade is he in?"

A snort. "He doesn't go to school, as such."

All right, so some teenagers don't go to school. That's all right, I suppose. "Where does he work?"

"He doesn't, as such."

This is making less and less sense as we go along. "What does he do?"

An odd half smile flits across father's face. "Terrible things. Wonderful things."

I'm completely lost now. "What do you mean?"

Father shakes his head. "It's complicated. Only Yugi can explain... if he even knows how."

Yugi. I turn my gaze back towards him, noting the soft curve of a smile on his lips, the easy way he's cuddled up against the boy. "...he looks happy."

Father gives a soft sigh of acknowledgment. "I know. And that's what hurts the most."

I'm so damnably confused. "What do you mean?"

Father sighs deeper. "You'll see it eventually... they're beautiful together, aren't they?"

I blink. Yugi is sprawled out over the bed, head resting on this other boy's side, one arm tossed out to the side, the other threaded together with the other boy's. The other boy is curled up on his side around my son, one slender arm caught in between Yugi's, the other lying protectively across his chest.

Beautiful? Yugi has always been a lovely child... but somehow I know that isn't what father means. Father is thinking of the carelessly graceful contrast of milky pale skin against a deeper shade of gold, of the delicate way their shining bangs tumble over their dozing features, of twin messy crowns of ruby-touched obsidian hair, of the gentle feeling of endless comfort that seems to curl around them. Beautiful? Breathtakingly so.

"Yes..."

Father shakes his head thoughtfully. "And yet so terrible at the same time."

"What do you mean?"

Father's calm violet eyes lock on mine. "You'll see, daughter. You'll see."

Two sleepy teenagers tangled around each other? And one of them my only son?

I bite my lip as I slowly exit the room, tossing an anxious glance over my shoulder. I don't want to believe father, but... he's sharing a bed with another boy, sharing an intimacy abandoned since early childhood with a boy his own age. He's so vulnerable like this...

Yugi, my baby boy, what have you done?

* * *

It's early afternoon, and my son has finally woken up.

"Mom!"

From the brightness of his smile and the tightness of his hug, I have to wonder if father isn't perhaps overreacting a bit. He's still my little boy, regardless of what my father thinks he's doing. Isn't he?

That beautiful blinding smile flashes up at me - and I can't help but wonder what it is that he's been hiding.

If father knows, then why is the other boy not here?

But I don't ask questions, I just serve him breakfast, and smile at my only child.

* * *

He's run upstairs to shower.

I whirl around and pin a glare on father. "Where was the other one?"

Father gives me a cool look. "Back in the puzzle, I presume."

What the hell? "Father..." I growl warningly.

"You've noticed him talking to himself before, haven't you?"

I pause. "Yes..."

He leans over the table and gives me a hard look. "That other boy is much more than just a boy. He's what Yugi was talking to when you thought he was talking to himself. He's what was locked inside the puzzle Yugi solved. He's what got Yugi into this mess in the first place!" he slams a fist against the table in frustration, and I jump backwards.

"What...?"

"Yami. Yugioh. Yami no Yugi. Pharaoh. Call him what you will, that's what Yugi unleashed. And I hate myself for encouraging him to do it."

"Father..."

He gives me a long, weary look and stands up. "Just ask Yugi to coax him out. He'll come, and then you'll see what he is."

"What is he?"

He pauses on his way out of the kitchen, regarding me with a pensive, thoughtful air. "Everything that your son is not."

* * *

He's come down the stairs again, that puzzle gleaming around his neck, dressed in black and wearing a smile brighter than the sun, and I can't help but hesitate before I call him into the living room.

He bounces in with his usual exuberance, and I can't help but feel that I'm going to utterly kill his mood. But still... "Yugi, your grandfather told me a little bit about what has been happening since the last time I saw you. He didn't give me any details, though, so could you...?" And I wave a limp hand at his necklace.

The strangest expression flickers across his face for a moment. He pauses and sinks down into the couch, biting his lip as he glances shyly over at me. Then he looks down at the puzzle around his neck and brushes his fingertips lightly against the shining surface.

A flash of light - dazzling enough that I have to blink stars from my eyes, and now there's a slender arm draped carelessly over my son's shoulder.

"Mom," Yugi says softly, settling back against the couch, "This is my yami."

And my son's shadow gives me a sly smirk, ruby eyes gleaming with calm expectation from beneath long dark lashes.

...the child really is quite remarkably darkly beautiful. To be so close to my son, and yet so completely his opposite... what must it be like, to live to contradict another?

...cozy. Yugi's fidgeting uncomfortably, but hasn't made any move to shove away Yami's arm. The expression on Yami's face is completely impassive. Is he really as cold as father supposes?

Father claims... but no, not my child. Not my only son. He's sixteen, and not of the disposition to... to sleep around, is he?

I can't help but eye his pants. Yugi's always been fond of a style I don't much like, but maybe, just maybe...

"Mom?"

And I paste on a smile and nod and greet the shadow child as if he were Yugi's new best friend, and tie down the sickness in my stomach and the slow terror that's begun gnawing at my brain.

* * *

It's been three days, and I've made my decision. That boy is the most bewildering creature I've ever met - next to my only son, that is, and it makes wonderfully wretched sense, doesn't it?

They click. Like halves of a puzzle, they click, but the puzzle would be better off left unsolved, the mystery better clouded, the darkness better without the light. The past should be dead and gone - not stirring from its slumber to wreak havoc upon the waking world. Millennium items, psychotic spirits, strangers who want to catch my son and yank him into eternity or an early grave. Warped mirrors that distort reality and cling to their lighter halves for salvation, and light that seeks salvation in midnight's children.

And my son stands at the heart of it all.

I didn't understand what that meant until I saw them all - the golden children, the chosen ones - a group of teenagers who will decide the fate of the world. The eldest of their number is twenty - the youngest only ten. A billionaire and his brother, a street punk and his sister, a dancer, a confidante, a prodigy, a woman, an oracle, and the three who possess living shadows.

They scuffle and argue and battle and rage with conflict - and the rest of eternity flitters like a toy from one pair of hands to the next, a game only they can play, for stakes of an infinite price.

I would not wish to be them - yet in daily life they seem so ignorant of their destiny. But at times they seem so keenly aware of it - how can they live such a life? How can they stand it?

Yugi just shrugs when I pose the question to him over a quiet brunch. "We're all right," he says softly, fingering the puzzle. "We're just fine."

"Fine? How can you be fine?"

A soft, sad smile flits across his face, and I suddenly realize how quickly he's grown up. "You just don't think about it too much, or it could drive you mad. Chasing destiny down is no big thing when destiny comes knocking at your door every other Tuesday."

I take a calming sip of my tea and try to force down the uneasiness that sparks in my chest at his quiet acceptance. "That's it? No questions, no regrets?"

He frowns into his miso soup. "I didn't say that. There are a thousand things I should have done better, a million things I still don't understand, a billion questions that nobody knows how to answer. Even so..." he trails off into a contemplative silence that's very unlike him, and I wonder how often he's brooded upon it.

He's quiet and alone now, so I think it's safe - but I don't know how he'll react. Still, I have to try and convince him to leave the one person I think he loves more than anyone else in his world.

God, I hope I'm ready for this.

I take in a deep breath. "And what about your yami?"

He blinks, startled, before an unconsciously guarded expression crosses his face. "What about him?"

"How does he feel about this?"

Yugi relaxes minutely and absently caresses the puzzle, eyes going blank and thoughtful - oh damn, what if he uses that bond of theirs? Can Yami hear whatever Yugi does?

"He's... accepted his fate," Yugi murmurs slowly, "He wants to keep me safe. I guess... I guess that's all that really matters to him."

Ah. "So... he cares for you?"

A soft flush tinges his features, and he looks away shyly. "He's my other half, mom. He doesn't really have a choice in the matter." But embarrassment drips from his words, and they ring false.

"You know, I don't think father cares for him much."

Yugi bristles. "Nobody asked him to," he mutters sullenly, still looking away.

"Do you know why that might be?"

He gives me a suspicious glance from underneath his lashes. "Does it matter?"

Does it matter? Does the fact that you've been sleeping with a psychotic spirit matter? Does it matter that you've been slipping farther and farther away from reality? Does it matter that you only talk to father and I when we directly address you? Does it matter that I found you and your yami nestled together on the couch at three in the morning watching horror movies when you had school in four hours? Does it matter that you're failing two classes? Does anything matter to you anymore?

"It matters when my only son is spending all of his time with a murderer!"

His head snaps up and his eyes flare with a strange light. "You don't know what you're talking about!" he exclaims, shoving the remains of his breakfast away.

"Don't I? You can't tell me he hasn't killed people before!"

"It was self-defense!" he snaps, spine straightening.

I can't believe this! "How is destroying someone's soul a defensive maneuver? Yugi, don't you understand? He's dangerous!"

"Don't you think I know? Don't you think I know that better than anyone?" he hisses venomously, eyes narrowing.

I don't think I've ever seen him this angry. I can fight fire with fire, my child. I will make you see sense whether you want to or not! "How many?"

"What?" he blinks, confusion swirling into the mix of indignation and frustration that fills his voice.

I slam my palm against the table and glare into his eyes. How can he still look so innocent? "How many people has he killed?"

"It doesn't matter!"

Yugi, are you insane? "Yes it does! He should be in jail!"

His slender hands are clenched so tightly around the edge of the table that I'm surprised it isn't cracking. "He was protecting me!"

Protection? "Does protecting you mean that he has to kill anyone who tries to hurt you?"

He leaps off the chair, meeting my gaze angrily. "To him it does! You don't know how he thinks, what he knows - you don't know what it's like for us!"

Us - again with the us. My son is not an us! "You need to get away from him."

An expression of supreme disgust crosses his flushed face, and he recoils sharply. "No! God, what are you thinking? He's my yami! I can't, and even if I could, I wouldn't!"

This is insane! "Look at you! Why are you defending him?"

"He's a part of me! Why are you attacking us?" he shouts back.

Oh, for the love of God! "Why do you keep saying us?"

"He's my soul mate! We're... we belong together, why can't you get that?"

"Why can't you understand that he's... not at all right! He's..."

"He's my other half," he says softly, abruptly undermining everything that I was attempting to say. "He's everything that finishes me. What's wrong with that?"

"...everything. Yugi, honey, he's all wrong for you. You have to know that."

"No. No, I don't know that. And neither do you. But I know what he's done," he whispers, low and brittle, voice catching. Unshed tears are gleaming in his eyes.

"How can you just agree with that?"

He slams the chair back against the table, and for a moment I'm stunned by the unconscious grace and ferocity in his movement. The delicate turn of his wrist, a light-footed leap, and already he's halfway across the kitchen and glaring at me from beneath rumpled gold bangs.

"You don't understand," he hisses, visibly tensing. "You don't and you can't ever. You never did before - so don't try now. Just don't!"

"I will not live under the same roof as that murderer!"

Yugi's back straightens and his lips firm as he draws himself upright, and I can't help but think of a vengeful angel standing on the edge of eternity, oddly bathed in the warm light streaming in from the living room. Heaven or hell?

His words are simple and concise when he does speak, and I get the feeling that others have stared down this expression and faltered.

"Then leave," he states quietly, and turns and walks out the door.

I can hear his feet pounding up the stairs, and then the slam as he shuts his door.

I slump back into the chair and run a shaking hand through my hair.

Oh God. I blew it.

* * *

Ten minutes later, I drag myself upstairs, intent upon throwing myself into my bed and sleeping away the rest of this nightmare.

But a raised voice rushes down the hallway, and I pause by the door of Yugi's room to listen.

"I can't stand it! I can't! It's bad enough with grandpa, but now mom's going to get on my case about you! God, it's not like I asked for this, is it? Just because all of a sudden we..."

A soft, muted interruption, the voice a shade or two deeper than Yugi's. God, it's him.

"Oh, no! No no no! It's not you, you know it isn't, how many times do I have to tell you that? You're everything to me - oh, stop smirking, almighty pharaoh. I know where you're ticklish."

Another inaudible mumble while my stomach falls to my feet.

"Eee! No fair! That's hikari abuse! I claim - oof! Yamiiiiii! Off! Off! You weigh too much!"

Mutter. I don't want to think about what they're doing.

"Ha! Gotcha! Beat that, Game King! No tickling, do you hear me?"

A soft chuckle. ...he laughs?

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Yugi accuses, a smile in his voice.

A slightly louder chuckle.

"Still... what else did I expect? Understanding? From anyone? From her? I must've been dreaming..."

A pause, and then I can finally hear Yami clearly. "What's wrong with dreaming?"

There's a crystalline moment of quiet before Yugi's voice sighs, soft as a spring breeze, "When the dream doesn't come true. No, hush. Don't start. I won't let even you grant me that wish, my yami. It's not fair. Not to her and not to me. Not to anyone."

"Anyone doesn't matter, aibou."

"Not to you, no. Me... I keep trying to remember to reach out, but it's like groping in the dark, and I can't find you."

"You can always find me."

"Hn. You're distracting when you're all cute and snuggly."

"Hmm..."

"No, Yami... don't..."

A soft thud. Then, breathlessly, "Why not?"

Yugi giggles. "You're impossible! I- mmph!"

Soft rustling. Then a whisper, softer than a sigh, the words burning with a strange and terrible passion. The very words I never wanted to hear my little boy say, said to the person I never wanted him to be anywhere around. Oh God...

"I love you... until the end of time, I love you."

A sharply indrawn breath.

"You know that, don't you?" Warmth as soft as home, as overwhelming as a blazing inferno. It's Yugi - just my son, earnest and sweet. Just lost in someone else's arms.

"Aibou..."

I crack open the door - why I do it, I can't say. And there... oh God, please, not my baby, that is not my son, that is not Yugi draped so carelessly on top of that murderer! Those are not his fingers intertwined with the yami's, those are not his eyes locked on the boy beneath him, that is not my son, it cannot be my son because my son would never sit on someone's hips and look like that. Not like that. Not so drowsy-eyed and not that beautiful. No. No!

Then he tilts his head until his bangs are brushing his yami's face and the beauty melts into an allure that is not my son's, and oh God no! Not my son... not my son...

And in that exquisitely painful moment before their lips meet for what can't be the first time, the shadow breathes a single word that sends a sharp chill down my back and leaves me quaking.

"Mine," he murmurs hungrily, curling his arms tightly around Yugi, drawing him down into an embrace.

Yugi, my baby boy, just smiles gently, letting himself be pulled, letting delicate fingertips wind into his shirt, letting himself melt into lean arms. And then Yugi kisses his yami with all the passion and devotion of a lifelong lover, and I realize what I've lost.

He's not my son.

Not any more.

I close the door on that tenderly sickening scene and stumble numbly down the stairs. They won't notice the door shutting - they didn't notice it opening.

Father was right. He was right all along.

I lost him without knowing it.

He's not my son anymore.

I can't handle walking down the rest of the steps, so I slide down the wall and bury my face in my hands.

What kind of a mother loses her only son? What kind of a woman cannot raise her own child? What kind of a parent cannot wrap her innocent son in her arms and shield him from the tantalizing call of the darkness?

I failed. I failed somehow, and I didn't even know about it. And Yugi... Yugi doesn't need me anymore. He's found someone better than I could ever be... he's in love with the wrong boy, he's fallen into a trap, I'm sure of it. And it's my fault for not being there, it's my fault for not raising him right, it's my fault for not forbidding him from seeing the yami.

My little boy is all grown up now. I have nothing left to offer him.

Useless. Worthless. And it's all my own fault. If only I had... no. You can't take back the past. Can't undo what has been done. Can't act on your regrets. You can't... can't...

Oh God, what have I done?

* * *

AN: Wasn't that a happy chapter now? Poor Yugi's mom... Ashita whose last name I don't know, but I know she exists! She whacked Yugi over the head with a ladle once. ^_^ And she did make a comment about Yugi talking to himself.

Back to the "Possession" page
Back to Fanfic