For the Love of a Brother

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Kazuki Takahashi. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Beta: Kamerreon

Warnings: Yaoi: male homosexual relationships, swearing, violence, major angst, sexual situations, drug use, alcohol use, character death, AU.

For the Love of a Brother

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered any more, not after today, not after what she did. I sighed in despair as I ran a hand through my tri-colored hair tousling it even more. I don’t know what made me trust Anzu. Maybe it was all of those stupid friendship speeches, maybe it was the smile that she always seemed to wear, or maybe it was how she would always stay by my side when I needed her most. She’d been there for me, helping me when I didn’t think I could go on. She held me up when I wanted to fall, and caught me when I would stumble from the pedestal that the world put me upon.

I’d been deceived. Fresh, raw pain ripped open my tortured mind as I thought about the rumors that she had spread throughout the school, the fragile trust that she had broken. I hadn’t known her long, but for some inexplicable reason, I’d trusted her with all that I had. I’d told her that I was gay—she’d been the first and only person to ever know the secret that had lain dormant in my mind and heart for so many years. I’d been so afraid of the repercussions of my parents should they find out such a secret. I’d made her promise that she wouldn’t tell. She’d vowed that it would remain between the two of us. I believed her. I was naïve.

My whole life, I’ve been perfect. I did everything for my parents. I constantly studied to get the perfect grades, I made sure to have the perfect manners, and I never lied, wanting to remain true to myself, and my beliefs. I was everything that my parents could have wanted, and yet I was nothing that my parents wanted. For no matter how much I longed for their praise, I would never receive it. They would always want more; they would always demand a higher price, a price that I didn’t want to pay anymore.

Was that it? Was that the reason why Anzu betrayed me? She who had everything. She wasn’t perfect, and yet to me she was. Had her foolish jealousy gotten so obsessive that she’d been willing to ruin the one good thing I’d treasured? A safe place away from home.

I didn’t want to return to that huge empty house. I hated the long, brick path that led to the columned entrance way. I detested the large picture view windows that over-looked the bay. I loathed everything about that house—that mausoleum.

I couldn’t return, I wouldn’t return there. It was too barren, too bereft of life, just like my family. They didn’t care about me, they never had. Little by little, I could feel my self worth depreciate. I felt my hope fade, as I realized that no one would like me for me. I mourned as I felt my beliefs, and the love I held for life crumble. I stopped caring.

What was the point of caring when you had nothing or no one to care about?

-

The party was loud, obnoxiously so. However, it wasn’t annoying enough to make me leave. I would rather stay at this disgusting gathering then return to that… place. I would rather stay at a place you couldn’t have paid me to enter four days ago, because they were exactly like me.

For the first time in a long time, I felt safe. I fit in. These people thought the same way I did. They treasured the same things. They felt the same emotions.

They wanted to forget their life. They wanted to feel happiness, even if it was only false happiness. They craved attention because it was the only way they could feel alive. In this infested pool of druggies and sex-fanatics, I felt truly alive for the first time in weeks. It made me slowly forget earlier, the morning when my world crumbled.

The buzz of alcohol pounded in my ears, giving me a slight headache as I took another deep breath from the cigarette in my hand. At least I think it was a cigarette. I couldn’t tell. I’d never smoked before. I only craved what the drug could do. It could give me an escape. It could take away all of my problems. It was perfect, just like I’d been.

Taking another deep gulp from the bottle held in my other hand I glanced around the room. There had to be something more. I needed something more. I needed to feel more alive—more real. I didn’t want to disappear. I simply wanted to forget.

Raking my bleary, crimson eyes over the group of people, I stopped when they landed on the most gorgeous green-eyed male I had ever seen. Long, black hair that looked like silk was brushed into a high ponytail, with a few strands escaping to frame his slim face. A cocky grin twisted a pair of light pink lips that I wanted to kiss. He was wearing only a short, red, open vest that showed off his sleek muscles to perfection. His long legs were encased in black leather pants that hugged every curve, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Smiling slightly in bitterness, I handed the cigarette to someone else close by before weaving my way through the crowd. Trying to avoid the people who only wanted a quick grope, or to offer me a place in their bed. I didn’t take any of their offers. They weren’t perfect enough. They didn’t deserve me.

I choked down the hysterical laugh that was building in the back of my throat. They didn’t deserve me? I didn’t deserve them. I was useless—nothing. Yet, I wanted nothing more than to be somebody’s something. I wanted to feel wanted. I needed to feel needed, and this was my only chance, because come tomorrow, I wouldn’t exist. I would only be an empty shell.

Desperately trying to dispel that thought from my clouded mind, I shook my head. I didn’t want to think. Not tonight. Never tonight. I’d think tomorrow, and mourn the loss of my innocence.

Reaching out a hand, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a passionate kiss, one portraying all of my innocence, passion, and longing to forget. He could make me forget. I knew he could.

Therefore, without a second thought I let him lead me from the crowded room, into another one down the hall. Without a second thought, I let him touch me, caress me, and fuck me. Because I knew that I would never have love, I let him take the last thing I had to offer—my innocence.

I didn’t care that it was with a random stranger. I didn’t care that anyone could walk in. I didn’t care that my first time was on dirty sheets. I just didn’t care. So I continued to give, and he took everything I had.

-

I groaned as the harsh sunlight hit my closed eyes. Morning? How could it be morning? Where was I? Running a hand over my exhausted face, I clenched my eyes shut again as the sunlight made my head pound even harder than before. Why wasn’t I dead? If I were dead then the pain would stop.

Sitting up, I tried to rise to my feet only to quickly sit back down as the unfamiliar room spun in circles, making me dizzy. Great. Just great. Thoughts and memories of the past night flashed through my mind like a black and white film, playing in slow motion, taunting and surreal. Glancing over at the other side of the bed, I sighed in slight relief as I noticed the other half of the bed was empty.

The dull feeling was back. The emptiness. Last night had helped, in a fucked up way. Yet, it wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough?

Shaking the thoughts from my still foggy mind, I hurried and threw on my wrinkled, soiled clothes, before clumsily stumbling to the front door, ignoring the other hung over occupants that were doing just as I was.

Fumbling with my keys, I finally found the right one before almost violently shoving it in the lock of my small, blue car. Tugging the door open, I entered the vehicle before starting it up, and pulled into traffic with ease. Where did I want to go? I needed to go somewhere, and yet I had nowhere to go. Trying to decide what to do next, I glanced around the area, noticing that it was familiar. Finally deciding to go home, I turned right, clutching my pounding head as I made the ten-minute drive back to the house that I hated.

It felt much longer than ten minutes. Maybe it was because of all the beer I’d had to drink, or because of the drugs I’d taken the night before, or it could have been both. I just knew that when that brick driveway came into view I almost turned the car around and left. I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t because this house, this prison, was a cage that I knew I would never escape.

My wings were broken, my pain-filled voice couldn’t sing, and my beauty was rapidly fading with each breath I took.

-

The house was quiet, too quiet. Yet, I was used to that as well. My parents never loved the sound of laughter. They never liked the feel of a home. They only enjoyed the cold stagnant feeling of marble, and silence.

Walking up the long staircase to my room, I entered and crashed on my bed, feeling the despair encroach ever closer. I needed a distraction, something that would make the pain vanish. I needed something that would bring life into my broken soul, and joy to my eyes.

I felt a vicious smile spread across my tired face as I thought about the perfect idea. It was a perfect idea. Yuugi. My foolish little brother always read my journal. I knew that he did, and yet I never made him stop. When I had first found him reading it two weeks ago, I’d been furious. I’d wanted to rip it from his fingers and demand what the hell he was doing. Scream that it was private, and that he had no right reading my private thoughts. Yet, seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days.

I never confronted him.

Recently, I almost felt like I was begging. Pleading for him to understand my words. To realize my loneliness. Yet, he never had. He, just like our parents, didn’t care. They were too wrapped up in their pathetic lives to notice the pain that I was in every second of every day.

But, they will notice me. I will make them see!

The only thoughts going through my mind were of amusement and revenge, a way to get back at the family that had held no love and never would.

Taking out my black journal that I hid underneath the top mattress of my bed, I opened it to a fresh page and composed my entry. I poured out my pain-ridden heart, writing down the recent events of Anzu’s betrayal, and how no one would ever love me, because I wasn’t worth the pain. My pen raced across the paper, as I tainted its pages with thoughts of suicide, and how life would be better if I was gone, that they would be happy if I was no longer a burden.

There was no way that Yuugi would refuse to show that entry to our parents. It was the perfect way to make them see me. It would make them realize what they have been missing. It would make them panic, and it would make them feel worthless. It would make them feel like I had felt for the past few years.

It was revenge at its sweetest.

Closing the journal, I placed it on the bed in plain sight, and headed downstairs to the pristine kitchen that my mother loved so much. Grabbing a steak knife from the knife block, I left the house and entered the back yard making sure to stay completely out of sight.

-

Yuugi quickly leapt up the stairs as he came home from staying at his friend’s house the night before. It had been the first time he’d stayed at Jou’s house, and he’d had a great time. They’d played games, watched movies, ate pizza, and drank soda all night long, only stopping when they thought they were going to be sick.

Dropping off his bag still full of dirty clothes he headed over to his elder brother’s room. He knew that Yami should have been home by now. He always adhered to the rules of the house, so it didn’t make any sense that the house was so quiet.

Knocking on the door across the hall, he waited a few minutes before cracking it open and glancing inside.

Where was he?

Opening the door all of the way he entered the lightly lit room, due to the sunlight filtering through the baby blue curtains. Trying to find evidence of Yami’s return, he wandered around the room a few seconds before his eyes landed on the black journal sitting on the thick, dark blue quilt.

Narrowing his violet eyes, he walked over to the bed and sat down, picking up the journal in his hands, lightly running his fingers over the binding. He hadn’t left this there. He always put it back where he found it after reading the entries.

Yuugi knew it was wrong to read the thoughts of his brother, but he couldn’t help it. The last few years Yami had grown distant and cold. It felt like he was fading away. Yami was leaving Yuugi behind, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to be with his brother, the only person that he cared for. Yuugi wanted to be closer to him. That was the only reason he ever first touched the journal that now lay in his small childlike hands.

Taking a deep breath, he glanced around the room once again to make sure that his brother wasn’t going to find him reading his private thoughts before opening the book, and skipping ahead to the latest entry.

Violet eyes scanned the words in disbelief and growing horror. It couldn’t be true. There was no way that Yami would…

He would never...

Words of depression, pain, and hate permeated the book, filling and tainting Yuugi’s mind as he kept reading the words that had come from his big brother’s soul. His eyes started to water as he continued to read the words that had been written on the white paper, and they spilled over the further he read.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

How could he have missed this? How could he have not noticed all of the pain that had been lurking inside of his most treasured person? Was he really that blind?

It was his fault. It was his fault that Yami was dead. It was his fault that the person he loved most hadn’t gotten the help that he needed. Yuugi read Yami’s journal every day without fail, and yet he had still missed the signs, the pleading in the words, and the hate in the vicious strokes of the ink.

It was his fault.

Throwing the book to the floor, he tore out of the room, desperate to find what he was looking for. Determinedly walking down the hall and taking a sharp right turn, he wrenched his parents’ door open and walked inside the sun filled room, only stopping when he reached the chest at the foot of the bed.

Falling to his knees, he took the key from its hiding place, unlocked the wooden chest, and violently threw up the lid. Shoving his hands into the chest, he moved them around, trying to find the object of his desire. Feeling the cold metal against his fingers, he wrapped his hand around it and unburied the item. Caressing the beautiful curves, and loving the feel of it in his damp hand.

Turning it in his shaking hand, he grasped it properly and brought the revolver to his head. Yami, his beloved older brother was gone, and it was his fault. If Yami was dead, then he should be too.

-

Sighing in enjoyment, I leaned back against the willow tree. It was only a matter of time before I got my revenge. It was a game. A game that I would win. They would see that they ignored me. They would feel the pain that I felt. It was only a matter of time before—

A loud crack echoed in the silence, sending a few birds into flight. I felt the blood drain from my face, and panic began to race through my veins as I remembered that sound. I would never forget the sound, the sound of a gunshot.

Yuugi!

Leaping to my feet, still clutching the knife, I raced into the house and up the stairs, panicking as I tried to find my little brother. The only one that I ever cared for. The only person that had tried to see me. He had failed, that was true, but he was the only one who had tried.

My parents’ room—he had to be there. That was where the… gun was. Running and tripping through the hall, I barreled into the wall as I quickly turned the corner. Glancing into the room with my pounding heart in my throat, my knees buckled, sending me to the floor as I gazed at the sight before me.

Red. Blood. It was everywhere, coating the beige carpet and the soft green walls. Trembling, I inched my way forwards crawling on my knees, trying to reach the figure that lay in the middle of the gruesome scene.

He wasn’t dead. He was just sleeping. Hysterical laughter emerged from my slack mouth, as I tried to deny the truth. He wasn’t dead.

Tears spilled down my cheeks as I clutched his smaller, still body to mine.

“Wake up!” I choked on the words, barely allowing them past my lips. “Yuugi, you have to wake up now. I’m here see? It wasn’t true. I’m alive… It was supposed to be a joke. It was a game. You love games don’t you?” Rocking back and forth, I buried my face in his bloody hair, refusing to believe that he was no longer alive. “I promise to play a game if you wake up. I p-promise. S-s-so p-p-please? It wasn’t your fault. So please? Please? Open those pretty, purple eyes that I love so much.”

It was my fault. It was my fault that Yuugi was dead. It was because I thought he wouldn’t care, because I thought I wasn’t wanted.

“Yuugi, I did something stupid last night. I gave almost everything I had to a stranger, and I don’t even know his name. I kept one thing to myself, and now… I’m giving it to you. This is all that I have left Yuugi, so please—please wait for me. I have so much to tell you, I have so much to share. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But it’ll be okay now because I’m going to be there soon. I’m not going to let you be alone anymore, Yuugi. So please, forgive me.”

Closing my eyes, I raised the knife and slammed it as hard as I could into my chest, making me gasp in pain, before everything faded. I wouldn’t be alone. I would have Yuugi there beside me.

-Owari-