Shattered

Shattered.
By Lady Jade

Disclas: s:
Warnings: I don’t own Yugioh. Damn. Anyways, I’m not making any profit off this, and my hat is off to all the talented ppl who worked so hard to make Yugioh successful. If you sue me, all you’ll get are my student loans. Have fun.This is Yaoi boys and Girls. Boy boy interaction. (TxJ) Explicit stuff. NO kiddies or ppl with heart conditions. Swim at your own risk!
Please review.
All flames will be used to line the cat box. Don’t waste your breath J Please review. It works good for me, helps me get some feedback as a writer. Thanks everyone, hope you enjoy.

A/N: This is a continuation, more really of an Add on, to Bittersweet Goodbyes. Set before the death of Yugi’s grandfather. Its really a “part two” of the series. Anyways, there is a lot of violence in this. Joey’s father beats him. If that upsets you, Please don’t read. In a way, this fic is my tribute to teens and kids everywhere who have ever been abused by their parents. Its not just a Yaoi fic, this is also a way to make know to everyone that family violence exists. Consider it my small soapbox. But don’t worry, its going to be a good Yaoi too. I promise.
- Wataris_Girl

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~*~
Joey ducked another flying fist, still trying to recover from the one that HAD landed not a moment ago and sent him through the glass coffee table. It was getting hard to breathe, it was so cold in the apartment (The gas company had turned the heat off a week ago, no real surprise.) and his chest ached from what the best he could guess, was the second time, in the last five days that ribs had been broken. He could barely feel his arms where the glass from the table was embedded in them.
“You bastard!” His father slurred as he faked his son out, landing a punch that made Joey certain he had to have broken his jaw and knocked a tooth loose at the least. He couldn’t stand up anymore. Before he knew it he was curled into a ball on the kitchen floor, struggling to breathe as his father drove his boot into his gut over and over again.
“You lousy pathetic excuse for a son! You are the reason she left me. You! Useless. Its your fault!” Distantly Joey felt something in his arm shatter under the impact of another kick, and a few more ribs breaking. He felt the sticky heat of blood pooling under him, and the need to cough to clear his throat of all the blood that he was swallowing, but a stunning kick to the temple ended any need at all, and everything faded from red to black.

~*~

He woke with a terrible headache. Screw the rest of his body; it was his head that hurt the most. He cracked one eye open, wondering blearily for a moment how he had gotten there on the floor to begin with. When he tried to sit up, he remembered all to quickly. He pulled himself up out of the sticky pool of blood he was lying in, his arms screaming and aching from the glass, he nearly bawled in pain when he put his right wrist down. Broken. He knew it was broken. He felt the bones grind together. Shit. This was not good. He had to escape. He couldn’t stay anymore. His father was going to kill him, if he wasn’t already dying. He felt so weak. He started crawling, trying to be quiet, trying not to cry out every time he moved more than a foot. He drug himself from the kitchen, to the living room. He was aiming for his bedroom. He wanted his stuff. Then he was going.
His father snored in drunken unconsciousness from the living room couch, and even that was enough to terrify him, he had to get away, away before his father woke up hung over and REALLY angry. He crawled as ths the carpet, trying to ignore the blood trail he was leaving. It hurt so badly. Maybe he could just lay down and wait for his father to come finish him…maybe…but …no. He would get away. He would get help. He would leave this run down shit hole apartment that stank of stale beer, cigarettes and dirty laundry. He was never coming back. He would live to remember. He had to. His friends would be sad if he gave up now.
He finally reached the end end of the hall, and was grateful that he had left the door open for once. Normally he would have been angry that he had left it open, that meant the smell of the rest of the apartment could get in and ruin what sanctuary he had. Today it was good news, because he was certain he did not have strength to turn the doorknob. He shoved his homework, his two remaining clean outfits, and his school uniform into his bag, and then, thinking of it with a wistful smile, the picture of his mother and sister that sat on top of his desk and his duel deck, the only decoration in the otherwise barren room. He headed for the window. He was again, grateful he had propped the window to let in some fresh air. He was going out that window. Lly tly they were on the second story, the jump wouldn’t be that far.
He had just painfully swung one leg out the window, and was turning around to push himself off the windowsill when he heard his fathers voice bellow.
“BOY! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”
“Shit.” He swore as he lost his balance from fright.
The two-story fall was no fun as injured as he was. Luckily, the bushes broke the worst of it.
He untangled himself from the thick shrubs until he slid underneath them, landing on his butt in the dirt with a jarring thump. He pulled his pack down next. Everything hurt even worse now, if it was humanly possible, and then the nausea started. He tried to throw up quietly, not wanting to attract his father’s attention should he be searching his room. He was not home free yet. When the worst of the retching was over, all Joey could do was cry. He leaned his forehead against a Yew branch and took a moment to spit, clearing his mouth of blood, fresh and old alike.
“Oh please.” He whispered brokenly.
“BOY!” His father screamed angrily out Joey’s bedroom window. He trembled against the foundation of the apartment complex, praying to whatever god would listen that his father was too hung over to notice the tattered bushes or the blood on the windowsill.
“OH FUCK YOU.” He heard his father scream. “DIE AND GO TO HELL BRAT! I GIVE UP!”
Joey took a moment to thank that deity.
He waited until all was still and then crawled under the bushes all the way around the complex before pushing himself, staggering to his feet. He was suddenly grateful for all the garbage cans, alleyway walls, and beat up junk car parts littering behind the apartment complex. Without them, he couldn’t have made it to the park, and the payphone. Joey collapsed to his knees in the booth, enjoying the respite from the wind, and as lucklessness would have it, the fine flakes of snow that had begun to fall. It was so cold. So very cold. He was shivering as he reached down his sock, pulling out thirty cents for a call, briefly grateful that he spent so much time in the arcade that he always need a spare quarter and nickel on him.
For a brief moment he contemplated whom he should call. Seto? HELL NO. Yugi? Too innocent, didn’t need to see him the way he was. Bakura? Be laid up with that kids rampaging trickster Yami, hell no!” That only left the one person that he had thought to call in the first place. He dumped in his coins and dialed the number by heart.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. A sleepy voice answered.
“Hullo?” *Yawn*
For a moment Joey couldn’t speak, he was so glad to hear Tristan’s voice.
“Hello… this better not be a prank it is two am and I will personally…”
“Tristan. Its me.” Joey whispered brokenly over the start of Tristan’s diatribe, his voice thick with pain, even to his own ears. There was complete silence on the other end.
“Joey?”
“Listen buddy, I know I’ve been an ass the last couple days, but…I really need your help.” His voice broke then, he couldn’t stop the tears. “I’m hurt really bad man, can you come get me? Please?” The last word was a pleading sob.
“I’m on my way, where are you Jo?”
He could hear Tristan pick up his keys and the sound of feet thundering down the stairs.
“In the park, at the payphone on the corner, please hurry Tris’…please? I’m really…I’m really scared.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Thanks man.”
Joey hung up before he gave in and couldn’t make himself. If he kept stalling Tristan he would never get there.
Joey collapsed into the more sheltered corner of the booth and slumped against the glass wall. He just had to hang on. He wanted to be out of the weather, warm and safe and dry. But that was not likely right now. He was still afraid his father would discover him, and every minute made him feel like he could be that much closer to finding him. Silently, he pleaded for Tristan to hurry. He had to get away. Worse than the pain, was that he felt so vulnerable. He couldn’t run, and he was too weak to hide. All he could do was curl in the corner of a deserted phone booth in the middle of the park and pray for someone to come help him. He started counting heartbeats.

~*~
He paused at 5, 263 and realized he could hear a motorcycle.
“Please god.” He whispered.
5, 267 and he was certain of it.
He could smell the bikes exhaust as it roared up outside the booth. He heard the engine die and Tristan nearly throw his helmet off in his worry. He didn’t want to look up when Tristan’s broad shoulders framed the booth and the snow swirled around him in the red glow of fading taillights. He didn’t want to see himself in those eyes.
“Oh god.” Tristan breathed as he took in Joey’s mangled body. “Oh god buddy, you are hurt bad.” He whispered as he hit his knees next to Joey, cramming his bulk into the tiny space that had become Joey’s refuge from the storm.
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No!” Joey almost screamed, and then slumped back to the glass wall. Tristan jumped as though he were physically stung by the outburst.
“No?” He whispered, “Jo, you need help.”
“No hospital. Dad will find me. Cant go back…GOD, Tris’…please, I want to be safe.”
Tristan paused for a moment and rummaged through his pockets to find change for a call as well.
“Then Jo…we are going to Kaiba’s. I’ll bet he can find you a doctor at this hour, and lodge us in that fortress of his till we catch…” Tristan left off the rest of the sentence, but Joey wouldn’t let it rest.
“Until they arrest my dad. Yeah.”
Joey and Tristan shared a nod. They also both knew that Joey had to be at deaths door, he would never, for any other reason have agreed to go willingly to see Kaiba.
Tristan dropped in the coins and then helped Joey dial the number that he knew best. Kaiba’s personal number. But Joey slumped back to the wall again when that frosty voice answered. He shook his head at Tristan who clenched the receiver tighter and understood. Joey couldn’t talk to Kaiba right now. It was simply understood.
“Kaiba, this is Tristan, I have a problem and I need your help.”
“Yes I know what time it is!”

~*~
A/N: Please review. Tbc.