Domination

I’ll put the A/Ns at the end because I
doubt anyone will read them now after the last cliffy. Enjoy, and sorry for the delay!

 

Domination: Chapter 7

 

The older man reached up a single hand,
running coarse fingers down the side of Yami’s face. The digits dragged down slowly, neatly moving the collar of his
shirt to expose the bite-scar. Almost
tenderly, Kresha stroked it as if reminding himself of his handiwork and Yami
inhaled sharply as a result of the contact.
Paralysed with shock and fear, the spirit missed the opportunity to use
his temporarily freed hand against his suddenly returned abuser, Kresha
replacing his grip about his forearm once he had finished his tactile
exploration of his face and shoulders.
The touches had left his skin buzzing and brought up the acidic taste of
bile into Yami’s mouth.

 

This wasn’t possible? Kresha was *dead*. Kaiba had shot him. He
was gone. He couldn’t come back ever
again. This was just another twisted
nightmare; just harsher and realer and more terrifying than usual. He’d wake up soon and this wouldn’t be
happening. He wouldn’t be feeling
himself being forced into submission like this in his own home. He’d promised himself never again. Kresha was dead and this *wasn’t* real.

 

But he’d never seen a body; he’d never
had the reassurance of knowing with absolute certainty that he was really gone,
and Kaiba may have been lying to him.
But that didn’t mean that what was now leering, touching, and resting on
him was real. There was no other
explanation if it really was Kresha, and the universe could not be this cruel
to him again. But it felt so damn real;
too real; sickening and cold.

 

Yami squirmed desperately as Kresha leant
forward against him with an agonizing slowness, hips grinding sickeningly
against his own as a result of the movement.
Cheek to cheek now, Yami clenched his eyes shut and his jaw tight when
he felt warm breath slithering across his skin. The sensation of it made him want nothing more than to curl up
and never unwind again.

 

The slighter body shifted as Kresha moved
his head to the side, the tip of his nose brushing over Yami’s collarbone
before his mouth covered the mark he had touched earlier, teeth sinking into
the old indents gently, perfectly. An
involuntary shudder wracked Yami’s form at that. Stomach turning leaden and twisting horribly, the urge to retch
became unimaginably stronger.

 

“I missed you.”

 

Yami almost sobbed when he heard that but
managed to remain silent, barely breathing and trembling more than he could
help. He couldn’t believe that this was
happening again, but the weight atop his body and the breath against his
shoulder were damning evidence that it was indeed happening again.

 

Shutting off his perception of the
sensations through force of will, he felt himself gradually turning colder from
the outside inwards, reverting to a state where he could see through Kresha
rather than at him and become immune to what he was doing to him.

 

Kresha didn’t seem to notice the wide,
blank eyes or the frozen, lax expression.
Yami was still withdrawing though, so the light touches that moved down
his trembling chest to his slight waist still caused his hands to jerk and the
muscles about his eyes to twitch.
Retreating further into his mind, Yami didn’t even try to hide his reactions.

 

“I didn’t imagine that you’d be *this*
pathetic, Little Pharaoh, cowering and snivelling before scampering off into
your mind. You really are
pitiful.”

 

The voice that drawled those words was a
new one to the room, but also very familiar.
It was enough to snag Yami’s attention and he plummeted back into
awareness as he snapped his head to the side, away from Kresha’s, to find the
source. His eyes widened when he found
it.

 

Silhouetted against the dusk light
seeping in through the window, Yami Malik’s form was illuminated almost solely
by the glow of the Millennium Rod, the Item held out to the figures on the
bed. Amethyst eyes sent languid
shadows shifting across his cheeks and through his lifted hair, contracted
pupils barely visible through the glow.

 

Magic thrummed around him, flaring out in
a wave after a few moments as if to demonstrate that he was, in all actuality,
real. It was the same magic that had
smouldered about the tape. It had been
covered by a spell to make it less tangible, but the two were undoubtedly
identical. The strength of it that was
steadily buttressing inside the room nudged at the edges of the long cloth
draped back over Yami Malik’s shoulders, the thick material of his cape
catching at his ankles before lashing back when the power emanating from his
body forced it away.

 

Before Yami could speak a word Yami Malik
stepped towards him, the Rod still lifted against him. His thumb came up to run against the blade
of one of the wing tips, an idle action that he made repeatedly as he
spoke.

 

“But I can see how you wouldn’t want to
be taken by this pitiful excuse for a mortal again.” Yami Malik snorted in contempt.
“He’s not very appealing,” he finished, a smirk forming on his
face.

 

His eyes narrowed as he snapped the Rod
about his hand in one smooth movement, the illusion disintegrating immediately
whilst he unsheathed the hidden blade.
Yami jerked impulsively to sit up and bolt away from him as soon as the
image was gone, but Yami Malik was faster and moved the end of the Rod
towards him, the sheath held tightly in his free hand before being tucked
behind him beneath his cloak. The tip
of the blade now under Yami’s jaw, Yami Malik emphasised its presence by
nudging it lightly, breaking the tanned flesh and releasing a rivulet of blood.

 

Yami tipped his head back from the blade
instinctively, leaning back down on the bed when the tip of the blade was
pushed against his throat to avoid getthimshimself impaled. There was little he could do in this position;
particularly as he was still reeling from the illusion of his tormentor, and
his sudden disappearance. Where it had
been tingled as an after-effect, both from the magic and from his need to scrub
himself clean.

 

“But he did
take you, and more than once too, you whore. I think you need to be reminded of
that.”

 

“You-how-what..?” Thoughts scrambled from shock and with too
many questions and accusations trying to dominate, Yami was finding it
exceptionally hard to get a cohesive sentence out of his mouth. Finally he settled on something simple.

 

“You bastard! What the hell have you done?” Yami demanded finally, ignoring
the blade pressing against his throat despite leaning back from it. His next words caught though as he saw
*himself* fall backwards through Yami Malik, landing in his chest with
wide, horrified eyes.

 

Yami Malik’s smile became broader as he
concentrated on the illusions. Eyes
wide and bright, a steady cackle started forming, steadily becoming louder and
higher in pitch as the blade dug a little deeper into his prisoner’s throat.

 

Guiding Yami up and off the bed with the
blade nicking at his skin, he walked him across the room just as the Kresha
illusion returned, straddling the other illusion and pinning its arms above its
head. Reaching a hand to the side, a
cord was produced which the Kresha apparition used to tether the illusion
Yami’s wrists together.

 

“You’ll have a better view from
here. This is the third time it
happened, if you had forgotten,” Yami Malik informed helpfully, lowering the
blade with Yami as he sunk to his knees against the wall. Yami had valiantly tried to remain standing
even as shock and horror stole away his strength; he didn’t want to show
weakness and especially not in front of the one holding the blade to him. But it was too much.

 

He tore his eyes away and clenched them
shut when the echo of himself gave a pained shriek as what was to be the
bite-scar on his shoulder was made. He
couldn’t stand this much longer. He
wanted to get away, he wanted to find Yugi and be safe with him, he wanted to
find Bakura and punch him for not being here to help. But neither of them were there, and he had no way of knowing if
Yami Malik hadn’t done something to them already.

 

Finding his voice, Yami shouted out the
question over the noises. “Where are my
friends? What have you done with them?”

 

Looking down, Yami Malik frowned when he
saw the Yami was looking away from his display. Crouching down so that he was eye to closed-eye with him, he drew
the blade down to force the crimson ones open.
“They’re right here. They can’t
see us or each other, but they can see them,” he answered quietly, tipping his
head towards the bed. “They’re
watching.”

 

Those two words sent a cold bolt down
through Yami’s body, one that settled in his stomach and sent numbness outwards
throughout him. They couldn’t be. That was…
too much to even think of. They
couldn’t see this, not when he couldn’t bear to watch it himself. He needed his friends desperately right now,
but if they saw this atrocity… Facing
them when they knew the barest details was hard enough. He didn’t think that he could survive their
looks if Yami Malik was telling the truth.

 

Yami shook his head slightly in
disbelief, the motion combined with the blood leaking from his throat and into
his clothes bringing about a feeling of light-headedness. “They have nothing to do with this. Let them go,” he said as firmly as he could.

 

“So noble: only wanting to protect your
friends whilst facing me. But deep down
all you want is to avoid the repulsion you’ll see when they look at you
again. I know you well enough to be
able to see that selfishness; it’s in your eyes. You don’t give a damn about them; you’re just trying to protect
yourself, which isn’t going to happen because I plan to make you suffer far
more than yrapirapist ever could.

 

“And they have everything to do with
this. What better way is there to
humiliate you, to break you down from the inside, than to put that which you
are most shamed by up on display?
Something that I even think you enjoyed deep down. I must thank you for saving your miserable
Hikari in this way,” Yami Malik finished brightly, pointing to the illusions
again this time with the blade, blood smearing its tip and dripping onto the
carpet. Placing it at the hollow of
Yami’s throat, he continued: “I came across the tape through one of my many
mind-slaves and you can imagine my delight at its content. I wanted to destroy you from the start, but
crushing you like this first is much more enjoyable.”

 

Yami’s
face screwed up as a series of cries and shouts filled the room, mixing with
Yami Malik’s own malevolent cackling, his breath coming in tightly controlled
pants as he worked desperately to ignore it all. He needed to stop the dreadful events replaying themselves and
get Yami Malik out of here, away from his friends and family. He needed to put a stop to this.

 

It may
have been sheer desperation that caused Yami to lunge at the crouching figure,
the blade slicing neatly across the side of his throat as he moved with a snarl
twisting his features, or it may have just been that every emotion that had
been part of the torrent in his mind had decided to release itself in one great
burst. Either way it caught Yami Malik
entirely off guard, both spirits rolling backwards against each other before
the Egyptian got a knee between them and forced Yami onto his back, straddling
his stomach and sending a fist across his jaw.
Shifting his position whilst Yami was dazed, he pinned the slender hands
beneath his knees, sitting up slightly so as to keep his weight down on them.

 

The
illusion had shattered as a result of the scuffle and left the Rod bearer
slightly disorientated, the energy needed for sustaining such an illusion
already having drained him more than he would have liked. Yami bucked beneath him and he returned the
blade to his throat, rapidly losing patience with him. Yami glared up at him, lip curled and chest
heaving. With the disappearance of the
illusion came the loss of the paralysing terror that had held him. Brutality was needed now.

 

Yami
tried to wrench his hands free to tackle the other spirit again as he moved the
blade from his throat to his left wrist, dragging the tip up against his skin
without breaking it, following the trail left by his attempted suicide. The adrenalin was still coursing through his
veins making his wanting to attack Yami Malik even greater, although that
wouldn’t have been the best of ideas. Yami Malik had the Rod and Yami wasn’t in any state of mind to
use the Puzzle.

 

Left
hand bracing his weight against the floor and his right gripping the Rod
alongside Yami’s arm, Yami Malik leant forward slowly until they were nose to
nose. Yami’s shaking intensified at the
spirit’s proximity, eyes closing when the tip of his aggressor’s nose dragged
down from his, brushing across his upper lip before moving up to his
cheekbone. He didn’t doubt what Yami
Malik was capable of; Bakura had told him firsthand what the Rod-bearer had done
to him some years ago, and in Yami’s mind being attacked in such a way by the
spirit was the worst thing that he could possibly imagine.

 

Lips
dragging across his skin, he felt Yami Malik’s breath against his mouth and
jerked to free his arms again.
“Coward,” the other breathed, just loud enough for him to hear, before
leaning back laughing and returning the blade to the base of the scar on his
wrist. Watching intently as he did so,
he broke the pale skin with the tip and snapped his hand up, rapidly bringing
the blade up the length of Yami’s arm, the re-opened wound crossing through
several scars that crisscrossed over the pale skin.

 

Yami
lurched at that with a pained cry, the memories of when he did that to himself
pounding into his mind, the remembered pain combining with the real becoming
excruciating. Spurred on by his
reaction, Yami Malik expertly swept the blade through the smaller scars,
his cackling rising in volume as more blood flowed and revelling in Yami’s cry
of pain when he passed through a scar that had already been slit open.

 

After he was
done slashing every one of the numerous scars on Yami’s left arm, Yami Malik
shifted his knee to release the hand of the mutilated limb. Bringing the blade up to his mouth, he
tongued the blood on its surface as he regarded the spirit’s face. Eyes clamped shut, the tendons in his neck
taut and risen, Yami’s teeth were clenched to the point of breaking, exposed as
his lips were pulled back in a grimace.
Yami Malik grinned broadly at that, he lowered the Rod from his lips and
touched the base of the long scar at the wrist of Yami’s right hand with
it. He started laughing again when he
heard the whimper.

 

The tip
had just broken the surface when Yami Malik froze, sensing a new presence
within the room from behind him.
Withdrawing the Rod to himself, he twisted slowly with narrowed eyes to
face whoever dared to intrude on them.
A pulse of energy smashed into his chest before he could react to the
other, sending him off of Yami and sending him sprawling on the floor.

 

Bakura
was practically trembling with barely-contained fury as he stared down at the
other, the Ring glowing with a blinding brightness as he advanced upon
him. He didn’t spare Yami a glance as
he strode past him, all his energy fixated on Yami Malik.

 

“I
should have guessed, you son of a bitch.
Only you would do something like this,” he growled, gathering up and
focussing more energy into the Ring for a second shot.

 

Yami
Malik sneered at him with contempt, standing smoothly and holding the Rod up
against him. He was back against the
window now, the Tomb Raider stood only a few feet away.

 

“You
always were too stupid to figure out even the obvious,” he retorted, tipping
his head to the side as he regarded the other spirit thoughtfully. “Do tell me, is that scar on your right
thigh still giving you trouble? Or has
it improve since I last saw it?”

 

Bakura didn’t flinch at that comment
although internally it was a different story.
“Fuck you,” he bit out fiercely, eyes narrowing as the Ring flashed
warningly.

 

A
smirk. “Again? You didn’t find once satisfying enough?”

 

Knowing
that would have grated enough to provoke a response, Yami Malik snapped the Rod
outwards and sent a bolt of his own magic out to meet Bakura’s in mid-air. Stepping to the side when it came crashing
back towards him, he quirked a brow challengingly at the Tomb Raider, smirking
when the other spirit ran at him and sent them both through the broken and
smoking window.

 

Landing
in the shrubs bordering the house, Yami Malik took to his feet instantly and
made a run for the streets. Growling
loudly, Bakura ignored what felt like a cracked rib and followed without a
backwards’ glance.

 

Seconds
later inside the house, footsteps pounded up the stairs but Yami was beyond
caring at the moment. Cold from shock
and dizzy from the dangerous amounts of blood he was losing – dangerous for a
mortal that was-, he was more concerned with trying to figure out where Yami
Malik and Bakura had disappeared to after that last flash. He’d heard shouting, but it had all seemed
so distant. Rolling onto his side with
some effort, he curled into himself, bringing his injured arm against him,
vaguely noting the warmth of his blood as it seeped into his clothes.

 

Bowing
his head, he couldn’t help the tears that slipped free, stinging when they
passed hiw anw and ran down into one of the cuts on his throat. He felt hot and cold at the same time,
dizziness sweeping through and muffling his mind, not that it brought any ease
to the barrage of thoughts knocking around his skull. It had been Yami Malik all this time, and now he’d slipped out
again, albeit with a pissed-off Tomb Raider hot on his heels. But he could still come back. It had apparently been easy to set this up,
break into the house and then… Who was
to say he couldn’t do it again?

 

He
wasn’t safe here. More importantly his
Hikari and Grandpa weren’t safe. Not
around him anyway. Damn it why couldn’t
Yami Malik have finished him and ended all this torment for everyone?

 

The tumultuous thoughts were too much
for him, combined with the searing cold of shock and the pain throbbing in his
arm. Yami absently felt his stomach
clench and his gullet constrict impossibly as what little contents there had
been were retched up, burning a path up his throat and through his mouth. Feeling too wretched to feel the humiliation
than he usually associated with this sort of action, Yami closed his eyes even
tighter and tried to ignore the bitterly acidic taste in his mouth.

 

There
were voices again, concerned and close-by, but he still refused to open his
eyes. He didn’t want to. A hand came to his face; cupping his cheek
and lifting his head a little to face the owner, the gentle, almost reassuring
action enough to coax the spirit’s eyes open.
Yami offered no resistance to the movement, too shaken, scared and tired
to care anymore. Yugi looked terrified
but was obviously relieved when he saw that he was conscious, running the
fingers of his other hand down his cheek as a small offer of comfort.

 

Yami
flinched as his Hikari then cautiously touched the hand to his own bloodied
one, turning over his arm tenderly to see what the source of all the blood
was. The sensation of skin twisting was
too much and he cried out again in pain, clenching his fist and pulling his arm
back as Yugi gasped and bit his lip hard with barely restrained tears at the
sight of the hideous lacerations. The
spirit’s eyes closed once more, not wanting to experience that again.

 

“Yami,
I… Ryou, get me a towel or something,”
Yugi spoke quickly, not taking his eyes off of his Dark as the other Hikari
turned away from the gaping hole that was once the window and left in search of
some thick cloth.

 

There
was now an uneasy silence in the room, Yugi not knowing what to say and Yami in
no state to try. Instead Yugi did the
only thing he could think of; moving behind the spirit, he eased him into a
sitting position and wrapped his arms around him, mindful of his multiple
wounds. Some idle part of him noted
that this was a definite reversal of roles.
His chin at Yami’s cheek and arms looped around his waist as his Dark’s
weight rested against him, this was how Yami used to hold him when he had
nightmares.

 

Reaching
out across their bond as Yami used to, Yugi was dismayed but not surprised to
feel that every mental defence Yami had was up, a new one present around the
recognizable shields making it utterly impossible from him to penetrate. He could ‘see’ thousands of small dark
bubbles, obscuring the connection and gathering into an impenetrable mass when
he tried to focus on one particular area.
Yugi had to wonder whether Yami had been practicing this for some reason
or if this was natural and there had never been the need for such a defence
before.

 

Either
way he wanted it gone for the moment.
Bringing up a hand to Yami’s face, he stroked a cool cheek trying to
ignore the shivers and the way the skin pulled as the spirit’s eyes closed
tighter. “Ssh, Yami please. It’s only
me. Don’t be scared now.”

 

Yugi
sighed when he felt some of the shields slacken, probing again, trying to get
him to register his presence on this more intimate level. It was not difficult to realize that Yami’s
mind was not in any condition for mental communication right now, but he wanted
to reassure Yami that he was with him and he wasl. l. Having seen Yami Malik drop to the garden
with Bakura out of the window, he estimated that the Egyptian had subjected
Yami to illusions as he had been. But
it was impossible for the maniac to replicate this bond and his signature in
it. At the moment, just proving that he
was *there* to the spirit was as much comfort as he could give.

 

He’d
started to get worried about what was taking Ryou so long to return when he
heard footsteps again, Ryou coming back into the room in Sugoroku’s
shadow. The elderly man paled at the
sight that met him before he moved to kneel beside Yugi, quietly suggesting
that he move out of the way. Albeit
reluctantly, Yugi shifted so that his Grandpa was where he had been, taking a
towel from Ryou and moving to dab at Yami’s injured arm.

 

“Not
just yet, Yugi,” Sugoroku advised softly, meeting large violet eyes with his
own. “Ryou, call an ambulance. Yugi and I’ll stay here for now.”

 

Ryou
nodded and dropped the towel to the floor.
This entire situation felt quite surreal to him. He would have expected panic and running,
but instead they were all being quiet and moving carefully. He presumed that that was for Yami’s sake;
he certainly didn’t need to be traumatised any more than he obviously was
already.

 

He was
worried about his own Dark at the moment though, but Yami required his
attention more at the moment. Bakura
had a knack for handling himself, and he’d glimpsed the rage on the spirit’s
face when he began to chase Yami Malik outside. With that amount of aggression pumping through his veins combined
with his usual hostility, Ryou knew that Bakura was not in any immediate
danger.

 

Sighing
and shaking his head a little to refocus, the hikari found the phone and set
about getting some help sent over. He
doubted that Yami would appreciate it, but in his current condition he was in
no position to refuse.

 

Upstairs
in the dim room and cool breeze, Sugoroku continued talking to Yami, soft,
meaningless words but comforting in their mellow sound. Yugi kept brushing against his Dark’s
defences although he didn’t feel them give at all. Sugoroku fell silent when the shiver’s stopped and Yami was
simply catatonic, staring blankly down with barely-open eyes. The Puzzle glowed with a soft hum as it
started to repair the externally inflicted wounds, putting a stop to the blood
flow before beginning to knit the flesh back together.

 

“Tell me
what happened.”

 

Jerking
slightly at the seemingly unusually loud and clear voice, Yugi swallowed and
began to speak. “Ryou and I came home a
few hours ago. We found Yami in the
kitchen; he’d taken too many of the sleeping tablets that Honda had left for
him. He was okay, so we brought him up
here to wake up.” Yugi frowned as he
tried to piece together what had happened next. It was still difficult to comprehend at the moment, many hours of
rumination needed before he’d be able to understand it.

 

“We got,
‘separated’ some time later in dark rooms.
I don’t know where I was, but I started seeing things.” He gave his Grandpa a pained look, silently
pleading for him not to ask what exactly he’d seen. He didn’t want to think about it now, not ever in fact. “It stopped before-. We were both disorientated and confused when
the illusion disappeared, and then Bakura appeared saying that a Millennium
Item was here. He told us to stay
downstairs until he came back. We could
hear him fighting with Yami Malik before the window broke and they fell
through, and Bakura ran after him. We
came up then, but we don’t know where they went.”

 

Sugoroku
nodded a little, taking his eyes off of his grandson to look over his protégé’s
shoulder. Even with the copious amount
of blood, he could see that the wounds were already far shallower. From the rate the Puzzle was working at, it
looked like Yami wouldn’t need to stay in a hospital bed overnight, something
that he would certainly not appreciate.


 

“Is he
relaxing at all?” he asked, looking to Yugi again to confirm the gradual
slackening he could feel throughout the wiry frame.

 

Concentrating,
Yugi outstretched his senses and moved forward instantly. “He’s loosing consciousness!”

 

Sugoroku
held up a hand before Yugi could do anything, warding off any action he may
have taken. “Just leave him be; he’s
had enough for tonight.”

 

Through
the hole where the window had been, fast-approaching sirens could be heard, the
flickering blue light seeping into the window and increasing in brightness and
intensity. They could briefly hear Ryou
guiding them into the house, giving them the non-psycho-spirit excuse he had
concocted whilst waiting that would explain Yami’s state.

 

There
was a lot of commotion as the paramedics came up the stairs before the Motous
had to pass over their charge into the hands of strangers, but not before
stating that the supposed ‘trinket’ around his neck was not to be removed. There were a few frowns at that but an
overall agreement to the terms. The
majority of the wounds on Yami’s arm and throat had healed up to the stage
where they were superficial but the Puzzle was not to be deterred from healing
its holder even before the mortals.
Yugi hoped that the blood was enough to hide its actions, otherwise
there would be a lot more explaining to do than there was already, and it was
going to be a long enough night as it was.

 

 

****

 

Now
dontchya just feel stupid? Hands up
now; who saw that one coming? Some of
you folks had the most interesting ideas, but no-one came close to this. Makes me feel sorta proud. ^^

 

We’re at the half-way mark now people and I promise
I’ll start putting Yami together now...
Honest... My thanks again to
Ayod Botla for support, ideas and pointing out my short-comings and areas for
improvement. You’re a star luv. Also to Pachelbel as she’s given me a lot of
inspiration and many hours of enjoyment through our e-mails. Thanks to everyone who’s been reviewing so
far, and I can only encourage you to do so again.