Domination

Yes, this one took a while but it’s here
now so I hope you enjoy it and leave me a lovely, detailed review at the
end. Chapter 7 is going to take a long
time. It’ll be the easiest chapter to
write so far in this fiction I believe, but exams are looming and I should
*really* start revising within the next few days. So I’ll have squat time to write, but I shall endeavour to do so
and keep up the level of quality. A
great thanks goes to my Beta Ayod Botla once again, for without her this
fiction would be a lot crapper.

 

Read, enjoy and review!

 

Domination: Chapter 6

 

“Sink into yourself. It’s just us here now, no outside
concerns. Let your mind float but don’t
let it fix on anything in particular. We’re
not here to analyse anything right now.
Just drifting.”

 

Feeling refreshed from his somewhat
forced slumber, Yami clenched his eyes a little in an attempt to follow these
instructions before forcing himself to relax again. It was difficult. There
were too many things to be thought about at the moment and allowing his mind to
drift about from random tht tot to random thought wasn’t going to help
anything. He needed to get all this
crap sorted out before anything else could happen. He needed to start putting his life back together. And he wanted that damn tape back.

 

But he felt he could put all that on hold
for an hour or so despite their constantly looming presence. He trusted Bakura, and if he thought that
this ‘session’ was going to be of some benefit to him then he’d listen and
follow obligingly.

 

It was early. The house was completely silent, Yugi having gone to sleep after
worrying restlessly once again in another room; and Grandpa still some minutes
away from rising to open the shop. It
was because of this- and generally because he enjoyed playing stealth- that
Bakura had entered through the window and roused Yami slowly so as not to
startle him unnecessarily, settling himself on the carpet whilst he waited for
Yami to join him.

 

He’d left Ryou alone at home, either
asleep or awake: he didn’t really care.
He was still feeling bitter about their conversation the night
before. It was not embarrassment by any
means that Ryou had seen his own attack; just a general sourness that his
Hikari had known and kept it to himself for months.

 

But their ‘chat’ had at least one
positive point that he could see immediately (not a long-term one like Ryou
kept prattling on about with openness and shite); he’d given today’s lesson
more thought than he usually would have.
That was mostly due to the fact that Yami’s mind was in a very fragile
state at the moment and he needed to proceed cautiously, but also because he’d
been outright lectured by his daring Hikari to not push Yami too hard lest he
snap completely. And now Bakura
couldn’t be sure if he hadn’t already pushed him too hard. He didn’t like this new feeling of concern
over his actions and words to Yami since all of this started.

 

A muscle twitching as he realized that he
was doing exactly what he had told Yami *not* to do, Bakura opened his eyes a fraction
to make sure that Yami was properly relaxed before closing them again. Taking a steadying breath, he gathered his
thoughts to begin.

 

“You’re still having nightmares and
flashbacks, seeing things that you don’t want to but are being pushed at you by
your mind because they need acknowledging.
There’s something you haven’t thought about or accepted in what your
seeing, and if you make yourself actually look at them you’ll start having an
easier time with them and soon they’ll stop recurring altogether. You need to have some strength to do this,
and I know you do so don’t argue with me over that.”

 

Yami cracked one eye open slightly,
staring at Bakura whose eyes remained firmly closed as he sent him a mental
scowl. Closing it again, he resettled
himself to take in what Bakura was telling him. He was confused though.
He had expected to have been pulled into the Shadow Realm by now but
they were still in the room, sitting cross-legged on the stubbly carpet. Resigning himself to ask about that later,
Yami returned his attention to Bakura’s words.
He suspected that Bakura knew that he had looked around as he had
stopped speaking, waiting with a surprising amount of patience for him to
‘immerse’ again, or whatever Bakura actually meant by that.

 

“I can’t help you with this so you’re on
your own in that respect, but remember you can go to someone if you’re having
trouble. An outside perspective will do
more good than harm,” Bakura continued smoothly after a few moments. A thought occurred to him, spawning from one
of the many things that Ryou had said to him last night and seeing no harm in
relaying it, Bakura continued. “You do
know that other people are here to help you, right?”

 

Snapping open his eyes instantly broke
the ‘trance’ Yami had fallen into and the spirit sat frozen, waiting anxiously
for the other to expand upon that inquiry.
Was Bakura getting tired of helping him? Had he become little more than an annoyance to him? He dearly hoped not; he needed all the help
he could get at this point.

 

Having not received an answer to his
question, Bakura opened his own eyes and was unsurprised to find Yami staring
at him. Sighing slightly as he saw the
discomfort he had brought about through his inappropriate bluntness, he tipped
his head to the side and met Yami’s gaze firmly.

 

“I’m not trying to ditch you here so
don’t even start thinking along that avenue.
All I’m saying is that other people want to offer their support and at
the moment the only one you really seem to be turning to is me, and I’m not
always going to be around. You got
really close to Joey at first, and I’m a little surprised that you’re not still
talking to him considering how much he helped you. And then there’s your Hikari whose misery is bloody tangible
because you’re trying to cut yourself off from him. I’m not criticising you; I did the same thing, it’s just that you
don’t *need* to.”

 

“Yes, I do,” Yami cut in before Bakura
could carry on, his formerly relaxed hands now balling into fists. “He needs to be kept away from all of this.”

 

“*Why*? To keep him out of harm’s way?
To preserve the image he’s conjured up of you? To protect his bleedin’ innocence and purity? Yami, you don’t have to! He wandered round Duellist Kingdom for his
Grandfather and we both remember what that was like. He faced up to Pegasus and overcame him, heck; he’s even gone
into a virtual reality to save his nemesis.
I think it’s safe to say that he’s tougher than you seem to think.”

 

Yami shook his head a little, not
disagreeing with any of those points but still clinging to his priority, which
was to act at Yugi’s guardian. He tried
a different tactic, touching on something that was a bit closer to the
truth. “I don’t want him upset over
me.”

 

It was true; he didn’t. He didn’t want to put his Hikari through any
more heartache than was necessary, and in the back of his mind he still felt
fi, fe, felt like something not worthy of being worried over. But he’d had the lecture about that one
already so there was no point in bringing that up again, even if the original
talk had done little to help his feelings.

 

Quirking a brow at that last statement,
Bakura smiled a little. “I don’t think
you’ve got a lot of choice about her her he’s upset or not, and as it is you’re
hurting him more by pushing him away.
His imagination is probably doing utterly *wonderful* things to his
worries over you.” A pause, mostly for
dramatic emphasis Bakura noted idly.
“Talk to him.”

 

“About what?”

 

“I don’t bloody know, anything! You don’t talk to him anymore and it used to
be that we could never shut you two up.
Ask how he’s doing, if everything with the shop is all right, what he
thinks of the bleedin’ weathven.ven.
Just see where you end up. Don’t
jump into anything serious straight away though, because it’ll just put too
much stress on the both of you and make things more, ‘charged’.”

 

‘My first mistake,’ Bakura added to
himself. The conversation he had had
with his Hikari had swung from outright arguing to terse confessions and the
entire experience had been exhausting.
It helped though; they were both a little easier around each other
now. Ryou felt more comfortable knowing
that his yami wasn’t keeping secrets again and Bakura felt like he’d gained
someone on ‘his side’. Ryou had a bit
more of an understanding of him and although there was now a good opportunity
for blackmailing, it put him at ease.

 

Yami turned those words over in his head
a few times before nodding slightly.
“I’ll talk to him. Later, when I
think I can face him.”

 

“That’s good enough. I think we’ve shot today’s meditation idea
to shit, by the way.”

 

“I agree.” Hesitating as
he debated whether or not to ask the two questions which had been hovering in
the back of his mind, Yami stared down at his hands. Quirking a brow when he saw that the scars running across his
knuckles had faded significantly, he wondered when they had started healing so
rapidly and if the other marks were whitening like this. He didn’t like to look at them, didn’t like
the reminder, which was ironically one of the reasons he made them in the first
place. It was doubtful that they’d
started to turn pale though; they were significantly deeper than the marks on
his knuckles had been.

 

“Why aren’t we in the Shadow Realm?” he
asked, breaking the silence like shattering glass. He’d decided that he might as well get *some* peace of mind this
morning, and getting answers to his questions seemed like the best way to go
about it.kurakura looked up, broken out
of his own silent musings by the bold question.

 

“Because I didn’t move us there.” At the light scowl he continued. “I don’t want you to start hiding there from
the real world. It’s more dangerous in
there for your mind than it is out here.
None of us need you to go completely insane on top of everything else.”

 

That was fine. He could understand that.
Bakura seemed to be trying to lighten the mood with light sarcasm,
something that he had grudgingly realised he had started to miss. Everything had gotten dour and serious
recently, which was primarily his fault, but it didn’t mean it had to stay that
way. He could see now how bad he’d been
over the last few days and how seriously things needed to change. It had taken rather a lot of alcohol and a
dawn-conversation but Yami had figured out that he needed to start taking
control again. He was still afraid,
still hurting, but he had to start getting his head together at some point even
if it only meant talking to his Hikari and obsessing less over the tape. Which brought him to his next question.

 

“Where’s
the tape? What did you do with it?”

 

“I left
it with Ryou and I didn’t do anything with it.
I agree with you though; there is something on it but there’s a spell
covering it so I can’t figure it out either.
Therefore: there’s no reason for you to go back to staring at it
again. As loath I am to say it; at this
rate, the only way we’re going to find out who sent the damn thing is if they
choose to be found out.” Bakura knew
that that wasn’t exactly what Yami wanted to hear at the moment but it was the
truth as he could see it and there was little that either of them could do
about it.

 

Yami
nodded slightly to his acknowledge that statement and the look he was getting
that warned him to not bother trying to take the tape back. Bakura likely had it under lock and key, or
sat innocently in the basement with a monster card and short-term spell on top
of it. He wouldn’t put that past the
Tomb Robber who sat before him in stony silence.

 

So he
had little to do today, meaning that he could sit down with Yugi and talk to
him. Much as he wanted to do that –he
knew that it was direly needed-, tiredness from the last few days still clung
to him. The few hours of induced rest
that he’d received with Bakura’s help last night had helped but not enough for
his head to stop pounding and his muscles to stop aching. He didn’t want to have what promised to be
an exhausting heart-to-heart with Yugi in this condition; it was doubtful it
would do a great deal to help either of them.

 

Reaching
out for a few seconds, he sensed that Yugi wasn’t in the house. Worry was fleeting though and he blinked in
surprise when he ‘found’ Yugi at Ryou’s house.
He could sleep for a little while this morning and feel refreshed to
talk to his Hikari later.

 

“Ryou’s talking to Yugi so I’m going to agree
with you and say that you get some sleep before he comes back.” A slight smirk. “You think you an handle that?”

 

“I think
I’ll manage. It’s too early for Vodka
so I’ll try the old fashioned way,” he replied smoothly, rising to his feet to
see the other out. Bakura followed the
action, walking through the body of the house in silence and then pausing at
the door leading out of the kitchen, Yami stood at his shoulder with a hand
resting idly on the wood. The former
Pharaoh squinted slightly in the obtrusive light that seemed far brighter than
he remembered it being. He hadn’t been
out of the house in four days now, so it seemed natural to be experiencing some
discomfort.

 

“Good
luck. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” the white-haired spirit said genuinely,
softly, before walking out completely and leaving Yami to close the door behind
him. Yami watched the other leave for a
few moments before he could stand the natural light no longer, turning away and
shoving the door shut behind his back.

 

Scrubbing
a hand over his face as he tried to figure out the last few minutes, he crossed
an arm around his waist and settled for contemplating what he was going to do
now. The bright, cold sunlight had made
him prickle with restlessness and despite needing sleep he was very aware that
it was very unlikely he’d get any now.

 

Groaning
a little as the pounding in his temples increased a notch; Yami dug his fingers
into his hair and exhaled slowly in exasperation. Bringing his head up again, he snapped his eyes to the item that
seemed out of place on the table. It
was a small, cylindrical pot, presumably made out of some plastic, and Yami
picked it up to free the slip of paper beneath it.

 

 

Heard
you’d been having trouble sleeping. Try
these if it keeps up. Hope you start feeling better soon.

 

Honda

 

Frowning
a little as he set about unscrewing the cap, Yami tipped out the contents into
his hand and eyed the four white pills suspiciously before checking the
label. ‘Sleeping tablets’. Replacing the container on the note whilst
still holding the pills, Yami pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table.

 

Honda
wouldn’t have left these if they were unsafe, and he doubted that anyone had
planted them in the house; he would have sensed it, and if not Bakura definitely
would have. He couldn’t sleep well and
he definitely needed to; tiredness was wearing away at him and he needed to
feel more invigorated when he talked to Yugi later.

 

Decision
made, Yami swallowed heavily before bringing his hand to his mouth sharply and
tipping his head back. He’d seen Yugi
do this a dozen times in the past, but that hadn’t prepared him for the digging
sensation in his throat and the chalky taste in his mouth. Swallowing despite it all, he sat patiently
working more saliva down his throat to move the pill that felt stuck there,
waiting for the effects to kick in. He
planned to move when he started to feel drowsy and collapse into bed for a few
hours.

 

He
didn’t expect the complete loss of feeling throughout his body for a few brief
seconds prior to oblivion capturing him entirely before he could even feel
alarmed at the sensations. Arms
buckling as his weight moved forward onto the table, his eyes rolled back and
he slipped into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

 

****

 

“- and I
just don’t know what do to. He’s my
yami and I want to take care of him the way he takes care of me, but he just
won’t let me,” Yugi finished tiredly, his head resting in his hands as he
dragged his eyes up from the carpet to look at the soft-spoken boy beside him.

 

Ryou
tipped his head to the side as he thought about what he’d just heard over the
last half hour. Yugi had been upset
when he arrived; desperately wanting to get all of these worries and
frustrations out into the open.
Everyone seemed so preoccupied with Yami –not that he didn’t need the
attention at the moment-, Yugi felt almost neglected. It was the other hal his his soul that was b tor tormented and
that was having a rather negative impact on him. Ryou tended to always be a step back from the group, and having
some sort of experience with this situation, he seemed to be the best person to
talk to.

 

And Ryou
was happy to be able to help. Talking
to his own yami so intensely last night had opened Ryou’s eyes to a few things,
and now sat in his living room with Yugi, it seemed a good time to share
them. He didn’t know quite what the
other Hikari wanted to hear, but he wanted to offer words of comfort as well as
advice. He could plainly see that he
and Yami desperately needed to talk at least some of this through, but with
Yami obsessing and Yugi thoroughly miserable, it didn’t look like that was
going to be happening any time soon.

 

“Our yamis are very proud people, Yugi. They want to be strong against everything
and don’t like showing weakness. Your
yami wants to protect you more than anything, but I think he’s still feeling
ashamed. Adding to that the fact that
he still blames himself for what’s happening, feels guilty about how this is
all affecting you and is generally miserable…” he trailed off uncertainly, not
sure that Yugi wanted or needed to hear the end of those words.

 

To put
it simply: Yami and Yugi were both depressed for similar reasons; Yami for
being supposedly ‘too weak’ to cope with what was happening and neglecting his
duties as guardian; and Yugi for not being able to do anything to help Yami
cope and being neglected as a charge.
And until something gave they were stuck like this.

 

Yugi
nodded, absorbing what he already knew and had heard in various forms from
various people over the last few days.
It came down to one thing at the very end though. “I miss him. I miss my yami and I don’t know how to get him back. And everything’s just getting worse and I
don’t see how he comecome back from all of this.”

 

Ryou
steepled his fingers considering, brow furrowed in deliberation. His words started slowly and cautiously,
thoughts forming as he spoke. “To be
quite honest Yugi, I don’t think Yami’s ever going to come ‘back’, not the way
he used to be anyway. This will-*is*
changing him, and it’ll make him stronger in the e

 

“If
there is going to be an end,” Yugi murmured bitterly. “It’s all just getting worse, and-”

 

“-And
there is little that you can do about it but be there for each other. He’s protecting you fiercely at the moment;
everyone seems to think that he’s just cutting you off out of selfishness, but
he’s distancing you.”

 

“Hld mld me that,” Yugi said quietly. “And then I told him that he was hurting me
more by shutting me out. He didn’t
listen.”

 

“He did,
he just chose to ignore it for what he believed to be your sake,” Ryou
interjected firmly before Yugi could continue.
“Bakura thinks, and I agree, that you two should sit down and talk to
each other. Properly. Without interruptions and actually make each
other understand, because that seems to be the main problem here.”

 

Yugi
nodded, seeing the wisdom in those words.
Glancing about the room, he spotted the clock on the wall and
practically jumped to his feet. “I’ve
gotta go. Yami should be up soon. I’m going to do what you said and clear some
of this up. Thank you Ryou.”

 

The
other teen smiled and tipped his head slightly at the gratitude he was being
shown. “I’ll walk you back,” he offered
on impulse, rising smoothly to his feet and walking towards the door, opening
it to the bright sunshine. Yugi walked
into it gladly with Ryou immediately behind him.

 

****

 

It was
like he was drowning again, except in a far more pleasant and less
life-threatening way. The easy floating
sensation was the same, as was the light-headedness and laxness in his
muscles. The darkness was inviting
rather than insidious, soothing and empty, emanating a freeness and security in
its promise of being entirely free of menace.
It was tranquil; a drug-assisted sleep that Yami was averse to leaving.

 

A
sudden, dull weight across his hips and abdomen jerked the world he was
drifting through, sensation returning in sluggish drabs. He was led down now, a soft surface beneath
him and he could tell without opening his eyes that it was dark in the
room. The weight on him was little more
irr irritating in his fogged mind, and he lifted an arm to bat it away.

 

Only he
couldn’t lift his. H. He could move
his hands but his arms were pinned to what he was lying on, the muscles in his
upper arms effectively restrained.
Curiosity and mild alarm allowed him to dredge up the strength necessary
to open his eyes, and when he did he sincerely wished he hadn’t.

 

Breath
caught and body rigid, Yami could only stare into the same smoulderines aes and
cruel smile that had haunted him, now inches from his face. Weight resting easily on the smaller teen,
Kresha stared right back.

 

 

****

 

 

And now
you review. ;p