Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction / Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Moments We Live For ❯ Chapter 1: Somtimes, I'm Afraid ( Chapter 1 )

Sometimes, I'm Afraid

 

Drof: Er…This is kinda depressing…But it's also kinda sweet…It's…yeah.

 

BHS: ^^ Just a weird little Bakura/Nikio drabble, that's what it is. Read, okay?

 

Drof: Yeah. That's what it is! Thanks. Er, yeah, read and review and all that.

 

Warnings: Angst, shounen-ai, murder references.

 

Disclaimer: Drof owns nothing.

 

Drof: Except the OCs. Anyway. Oh, Bakura's probably gonna be a bit OOC, but he's a lot nicer to Nikio than most people, soo…keep that in mind.

***

Sometimes, I'm Afraid

 

 

Nikio often had nightmares. He hadn't had a very pleasant life, and the memories that he managed to keep away during the day always found him in his sleep. He didn't like to sleep, because of this.

 

Being with Bakura, though, had changed that. That was one of the reasons Nikio had been so eager to get the man into bed with him—the memories didn't haunt his sleep nearly as much. Many nights he'd fallen asleep curled up in Bakura's embrace and not woken up until the next day, his sleep untroubled by reminders of his life.

 

Lately, though, the nightmares had started to become more and more frequent, and they were getting worse. Nikio usually remembered exactly what he'd been dreaming about, mostly because his nightmares were just memories of his life, and he remembered all of his life. But, lately, he'd been waking up with no remembrance of his dreams, just the fear and the hurt and the sadness, making his throat tighten and his heart ache and his stomach feel empty and hollow.

 

That was the worst part of it, not being able to remember. For some reason, the thought of forgetting what had happened to him and what he'd done scared Nikio more than anything else. This was probably due in part to his guilt over the things he'd done. No one knew the people he killed, not anymore, and no one mourned them. There was no one except for him to remember them, and so he took that burden upon himself. But if he was forgetting…

 

This night, however, Nikio didn't have much trouble remembering his nightmare. There really wasn't any concrete form to it, so that made it easier.

 

This night, Nikio dreamed of death. He dreamed of the lives he'd ended, of the blood he'd spilled.

 

This night, Nikio dreamed of sin. He dreamed of young lives cut short, of children's blood soaked up by the unforgiving ground,

 

This night, Nikio dreamed of the children he'd killed. He dreamed of their screams, their fear, their pain and confusion. He dreamed of the perverse enjoyment he felt when their hot blood ran over his hands, when he saw the light fade from their eyes.

 

This night, Nikio awoke suddenly. His eyes snapped wide, and for a moment he didn't know where he was. The dying screams of children lingered in his ears, the smell of blood dulled his senses. He could still feel the hot blood soaking his hands, his face, his body. Wide, innocent eyes, filled with fear, completely filled his vision, until the light faded from those eyes and they disappeared.

 

Some of them had been very young, some had been older. None had ever been over thirteen, though. He had never killed a child over thirteen. He never knew why, just that he never did. He killed toddlers, killed five-year-olds, killed infants who had entered the world only a few months ago, but no child older than thirteen ever fell to his blade.

 

It took a long moment for Nikio to calm his racing heart, and when he did, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling. He doubted that he could get back to sleep, after that.

 

Next to him, Bakura shifted slightly, murmured some incomprehensible syllable in his sleep. Nikio looked at him, and smiled, a look of love and tenderness softening his hard eyes. He reached out and gently smoothed Bakura's messy hair back from his face, and spent a long moment just observing the man's features.

 

To Nikio, Bakura was beautiful. Not in the way many women are said to be beautiful, not in the way that many had told Nikio that he himself was beautiful. To Nikio, Bakura was beautiful in the same way that the sunset high up in the mountains is beautiful; beautiful in the same way that the star-spangled sky is on a clear, dark night.

 

Nikio sighed, and shook his head. Had anyone told him at the time he met Bakura that he would come to love the man, Nikio would have said that that person was in urgent need of psychological evaluation. That person would have been right, though. For the first time in his entire life, Nikio was truly, deeply in love. A few months ago, he would have dismissed the notion of `true love' with a laugh and a cynical look. Now he was experiencing it.

 

Nikio would have liked to keep on with this train of thought. It was a pleasant one, far more pleasant than anything his dreams had held lately, but, alas, Fate rarely works for anyone's convenience. The image of a child, a small blonde boy of about seven years, entered Nikio's mind. The boy looked eerily like Bakura. They both had that same innocent, peaceful look as they slept. They were both beautiful in repose.

 

Nikio had killed that boy, murdered him as he slept. He'd slit that beautiful, innocent child's throat, and reveled in the feeling as the boy's blood slid over his hands. He'd done this terrible deed in cold blood, not for revenge, not even for sport, but for money. He'd killed a little boy for a paycheck, so that he may live a little longer. An innocent life had been sacrificed to continue Nikio's own existence.

 

Nikio had for a long time believed that his was the life that warranted ending, but he'd tried all the same to keep alive. He had never really gotten over his feelings of worthlessness. He never would.

 

Nikio embraced his self-hatred, welcomed the pain that comes with not accepting who and what you are as a sort of repentance for the things he'd done. He knew all too well that only his death would avenge those whose lives he'd taken, but this was as good as he could do, given the circumstances.

 

Even though he deserved nothing better than death, Fate had chosen to bestow Nikio with something approaching immortality. A spirit cannot die of old age, nor any normal sickness. He was very resilient, and would heal quickly from any but the most mortal of wounds. Although he deserved to be killed, he was instead made untouchable, immortal. If there was a God, he had a very sick and ironic sense of humor.

 

Nikio pondered on all of this. His thoughts often trailed down this path, and he could do nothing about it but wait until they strayed off it again. Until then, the best thing he could do was find a nice, comfortable, private place in which to pursue his thoughts. This he did, walking out of the room and downstairs, to settle into the couch in the living room.

 

“Someday,” he mused aloud to himself, “I will find a way to free myself of these thoughts.” Unbidden, the image of that little sprang to mind again. Nikio saw again the fine golden hair, the smooth pale skin. The boy's face was calm and peaceful, his brow untroubled, his young mind not yet strained by the stress of everyday life.

 

“He was a beautiful child,” Nikio said softly. “He was so young.” The boy had been young. He never had a chance to get any older. “Perhaps,” the man thought, “I did him a favor. I spared him the pain of having to live in such a difficult world.”

 

Had Nikio not killed him, the boy would have been an orphan, alone in the world. He would have had no family, no one to take care of him. Once the death of his mother—his only living parent—was discovered, the boy would have been turned out of the house, to live on his own in the streets. He had no other relatives, and no one wants to adopt a child who slept through his family's murder. It was considered bad luck.

 

Growing up as an orphan himself, Nikio knew well the pain of being alone. Nothing compared. He was hated by everyone, abused by everyone, with no one to turn to for help, no shoulder to cry on. He'd survived, but at such a cost that sometimes he truly wondered if it had been worth it. He'd exchanged his very soul for his life, his human decency for a chance at living. At the age of seven-and-a-half, tired of being abused and hurt, he'd killed a man. The man had touched him, hurt him, and Nikio had simply snapped. He'd thrust a knife into that man's stomach, laughed at the surprised look on his face. Then he slit the man's throat, to make sure he died. And he'd enjoyed it.

 

Soon, Nikio had discovered that he had quite a knack for killing people, and he'd become an assassin. He'd murdered women, children, old men, the sick, the crippled. He murdered the rich and the poor. He murdered indiscriminately, and without remorse. It didn't matter to him that these people died, because they would go to Paradise after their death if they deserved it, and Hell if they didn't. He knew that he'd be killed, and that he'd suffer eternal damnation because of his actions. He didn't care.

 

Few murderers will kill children, and those who do are labeled as sicker than the rest. No decent human being would kill a child, it is said.

 

Nikio didn't think of himself as a decent human being. Indeed, back then, he wasn't even thought of as a human being at all, by himself or anyone else. He was an orphan, and poor, so he was twice not a person. He didn't mind being thought of this way—it was how he thought of himself.

 

“A cruel man will kill men and women,” Nikio murmured, “but only a monster will kill children. Well, I guess I'm a monster, aren't I?” There were, he knew, worse people in the world. There were people like the men who'd killed his family, men who would kill an entire family but for one child, and leave that child to live alone. That, in Nikio's estimation, was far crueler than simply killing all of them. When you die, you only have to die once, but when you are the sole survivor of a tragedy, you die over and over again, with all the others who died. You die once for everyone else who died, each time you remember what happened.

 

Nikio's family had only died once. In Nikio's mind, however, they had all died thousands of times, over and over again. In his mind, Nikio could keep them from dying. In real life, however, the event had already happened, and there was no power in the world that could take it back.

 

Death could be stopped, halted, beaten back into a momentary retreat, but it couldn't be taken back once it had happened.

 

Nikio had never left a young child orphaned. He never caused a bereaved child to be turned out to live in the streets. He didn't wish that fate on anyone, not after having experienced it himself. He told himself this, now, as tears of regret and shame at what he had done began to prick his eyelids.

 

It worked, but just barely. Nikio sat there, silent, his eyes squeezed shut and his breath whistling and wheezing slightly as he tried not to sob.

 

When a hand descended on his shoulder, Nikio let out a strangled cry and very nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned, eyes wide with fear, to see who had snuck up on him so quietly, all the while cursing himself for not noticing. When he saw who it was, he calmed down a bit.

 

“Bakura?” he asked. “Why are you up?”

 

“I was,” Bakura said, seating himself next to Nikio, “going to ask you the same thing.”

 

“I…I just wanted to think about some things,” Nikio replied. After a moment, he leaned against Bakura slightly, laying his head on the other man's shoulder. “That's all.”

 

“What?” Bakura smiled as he asked, wrapping a comforting arm around Nikio's waist.

 

“N-nothing…” Nikio could hear himself stuttering, and knew that his lie was completely transparent. `Damn it,' he thought, `why can't I lie to him?' `Because you love him,' a voice in his head answered. `You know that.'

 

“Nikio…” Bakura sounded concerned, and Nikio cursed himself again for making his lover worry about him. “Is something wrong?”

 

“I-I'm fine, `Kura,” muttered Nikio, wishing desperately that he could lie to Bakura without stuttering like that.

 

“Did you….” Bakura paused and licked his lips nervously, wondering how to go on. “Did you…dream about your family again?”

 

“No.” That, at least, was the truth. “No, that's not it. Really, `Kura, I'm…I'm fine.”

 

“So that's why you got out of bed and came down here at three in the morning, and then curled up on the couch and started crying?” Bakura, Nikio decided, was entirely too perceptive sometimes.

 

“I wasn't crying!” Nikio protested.

 

“You were about to start. What's wrong?”

 

“I…” `Oh, the hell with this,' Nikio decided. `Why shouldn't I tell him?' “I…You know I was a killer, right? An assassin?”

 

“Yeah.” Bakura seemed a bit puzzled. Why would Nikio be asking if he knew that? Of course he did.

 

“I've killed a lot of people,” Nikio went on. “I…I've killed children before.” There, that was it. Nikio waited, silently, biting his lip, for Bakura's reaction. He'd be disgusted, and appalled. `He'll hate me, I know he will,' Nikio thought sadly.

 

“Is that what you're so sad about?” Bakura asked. His tone wasn't disgusted, or appalled, or hateful, or anything Nikio expected. He asked quietly, softly. Not trusting himself to speak, Nikio nodded. “Nikio…”

 

Bakura wrapped both his arms around Nikio and pulled the small man into his lap. Nikio wrapped his arms around Bakura's waist and lay his head against the man's chest, swallowing hard and trying not to cry. Bakura gently stroked Nikio's hair with one hand, keeping his other arm wrapped around him. Nikio felt tears prickling at his eyelids once more, and bit his lip even harder. He wouldn't be weak, not in front of Bakura.

 

“Nikio,” Bakura said again. “Everyone has things they've done that their ashamed of, things they don't like to think about. I know you, Nikio, and you're a good person. You wouldn't have killed anyone unless you had to. Besides, it's over now, so stop beating yourself up over it. What's done is done. You can't take the past back.”

 

“But…'Kura, good people don't murder children in their sleep,” Nikio said. His small body shook slightly with repressed sobs, and his breath was beginning to hitch and catch in his chest, but he still didn't cry. He promised himself that he wouldn't.

 

“Good people,” Bakura murmured softly, “often do things that they regret, because they have to. Good people regret doing those things, later. I know that you regret it. It's obvious.” Nikio was fighting a losing battle with the tears, but he refused to give in.

 

“Sometimes we all have to do things we'd rather not,” Bakura continued. “Sometimes you have to step on a few people just to stay alive. Sometimes, the only thing you can rightly do isn't the right thing.”

 

“'Kura…” Nikio had something to say, intended to say it, but that was as far as he got before tears spilled down his cheeks and he began sobbing. “'Kura…” he said again, holding onto Bakura even tighter, the way a drowning man might hold a life-line that's thrown to him.

 

“Shh,” Bakura whispered, gently stroking Nikio's hair. He held the man until his sobs died down. “I thought nothing was wrong?” His tone was teasing.

 

“I guess I was wrong,” Nikio said. “'Kura…You're right.”

 

“Of course I am.”

 

“Be serious, okay?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Okay…” Nikio swallowed nervously, and then took a deep breath and began talking. “You were right, when you said…When you said that…that sometimes people had to do things they didn't want to. I…Sometimes, I've had to do very wrong things, just to survive. And…” Nikio swallowed again, and spent a long moment fighting with himself over whether or not he should tell Bakura this. Finally, he decided that he should.

 

“Sometimes,” he went on, “I think about it, and it really hurts. Sometimes I think that it would have been better for everyone if I'd just died, because of how many people I hurt. Sometimes…'Kura, sometimes I'm…I'm afraid to live with the things I've done. With myself,” Nikio finished miserably.

 

“I'd say that that's pretty normal,” Bakura said softly. “Nikio…You've done some pretty horrible things. But…You're such a good person. There's a lot of people who wouldn't be better off if you were gone, so don't you go thinking that you'd be better off dead. You might be, but I wouldn't, and I'd be pretty mad if you made me miserable.”

 

“'Kura…” Nikio smiled, and hugged Bakura. “I love you, you know that?”

 

“I know. I love you too.”

***

Drof: Aww…How sweet. My first shounen-ai scene!! Yay for me!!

 

BHS: Yeah, yay for you….

 

Drof: What? Was it bad?

 

BHS: No, it was pretty good. Review, people, okay?