[challenge entry] Letter L - Liberashipping

[gonetoarcadia]

Title: In the ruins
Challenge: Letter L
Prompt: Stuck
Pairing: Liberashipping (Malik Ishtar x Mutou Yuugi)
Warnings: N/A
Summary: There are many ways to be stuck but only one way to get free.


"I can’t... it’s not working."

Yugi took a deep breath and leaned back against the crumbled wall before closing his eyes and counting to ten. His breathing echoed around him, around the vast, dark empty spaces and for a second he felt like if he let himself relax, even for a moment, they would swallow him up. There would be nothing left but the dark and the empty cavernous ruins, silent.

He really needed to stay calm and that was getting harder by the minute. He drew in another breath more sharply and his shoulders shook a little so he pressed his eyes closed even more tightly and clenched his fingers into his palm. The pain in his leg was getting worse.

The light touch of a hand on his shoulder caught him by surprise and his large eyes flickered open to stare up at the other boy as he returned temporarily to reality.

"It’s going to be okay," Marik told him quietly. "We’re going to get you out of here. Just try to keep still, okay?"

Yugi nodded wearily, trying not to look at the crush of rubble keeping him here, trapped. It was hard and the sight, the weight of it, made his eyes sting and his breathing falter with the fear he steadfastly fought back. As if he could tell what Yugi was thinking the blond teenager crouched down in front of him, mostly blocking the view. He offered Yugi a slight smile, though he couldn’t quite hide the worry in that too.

"The others will get help, it’s going to be fine."

"But what if we don’t get there in time?" Yugi burst out, all of the panic fluttering in his chest swelling even larger. "What if we get there and Katsuya’s..."

"Don’t think like that," Marik rebuked harshly, for a moment looking and sounding more like the tomb keeper who’d once been their bitter enemy than the rather quiet young man he’d become in the last two years.

Yugi sucked in another breath and hesitated, then nodded. Silence reigned in the dark ruins for a time while minutes ticked by uncounted.

"Where do you think Anzu and Rishid are now?" Yugi asked finally, cutting into the quiet.

Marik sighed and settled slightly into the dirt and the dust.

"Probably getting into trouble. But if anyone can figure out how to get us out of this it’s Rishid."

"Yeah..." Yugi agreed quietly. More silence rushed in.

They sat together in the companionable stillness for a while before Marik squared his shoulders and looked resignedly back at the place where the strewn rubble and debris still trapped Yugi’s leg.

"I should probably try to move this again."

Yugi nodded.

"It’s okay, I’m ready. We need to get out of here, even if it hurts."

Marik gave him a slightly speculative look as if appraising the sincerity of that answer, but instead of replying he stood and turned to the stones. He was fairly certain that if he could shift the largest rock than they’d be able to get Yugi out in no time, but so far all efforts to move it had been completely ineffectual and had hurt more than helped. Well, no time like the present and no use sitting here getting colder and more desperate.

He pressed against the large stone slab with one hand experimentally, as though checking to see if it had suddenly come loose, but there was no more give than there had been before. It was cold and damp under his palm, and the slickness didn’t bode well. He sighed again quietly and moved so he could brace his feet and get his shoulder against the surface of the thing.

"On the count of three..."

Yugi nodded and clenched his teeth. The numbers seemed to pass as heart beats, thudding out the countdown until Marik inhaled and began to push. For a moment there was no effect except the straining breath of the blond boy as he fought his hardest against the apparently immovable stone keeping them here in the dark. And then, ever so slightly, it shifted. The move was no more than a fraction of an inch, but suddenly Yugi yelled in pain, almost doubling over where he sat.

Marik scrambled back, his face pale and a smudge of dirt marking up his cheek and his lip like a black lightning bolt.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, are you okay?"

Yugi let out a choked sound, his own face ashen and his eyes a little dazed.

"Yugi, come on..." Marik urged, his voice almost pleading. "Focus. Stay with me."

"I... I am..." Yugi managed, the words more like gasps than anything else. Finally though, the worst seemed to pass and he slumped back against the wall again.

"I’m sorry," he quietly told the other. "I shouldn’t be so wimpy."

"What?" Marik blinked, violet eyes clearly perplexed. "Yugi, your leg is being crushed under a pile of jagged stones. Don’t be ridiculous."

"I know, I’m stuck." Yugi took a shuddering breath and when he looked up Marik was astonished to see actual tears in his eyes for the first time since the roof had, quite literally, fallen in on them. "I don’t know how to go forward anymore."

"We’ll get out of here, and then we’ll find Jounouchi. We will." Marik was trying to sound sure, sound determined. He wasn’t used to having to fill that role because Ishizu or Yugi were usually there to hold the line and urge everyone else forward. It unnerved him.

"And what if we do?" Yugi asked him, staring hard at Marik and ignoring the way tears were running down his cheeks. "What do we do then? I don’t know anymore..."

"We fight, we stop the ritual," Marik told him as firmly as he could manage.

"How? With who?" Yugi quickly closed his eyes again and shook his head. "If he were here he could tell me..."

Marik opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"I’m sorry," Yugi whispered before reaching up to finally wipe the tears from his face. He swallowed and his voice steadied a little. "I need to be strong, just like he wanted. I just... sometimes I don’t know how. I feel so stuck."

Marik bit the inside of his lip and studied Yugi quietly for a little while, the half light of their little make-shift lamp dancing along the uneven walls.

"Well, been there, done that," he finally murmured, sitting down slowly on the ground beside Yugi, but facing towards him.

Yugi looked up at him more alertly, his expression gentle but also almost... pleading.

"How did you do it, Marik? How did you move on?"

"How do you know I did?" the former tomb-keeper asked him with a crooked little smile.

"Because we’re here together," Yugi told him seriously. "Because even though you were hurt so badly, you’re my friend and you’re here with me."

Marik nodded thoughtfully as though admitting this was true.

"I... I’m not sure. Finally there was nothing left to hold on to, and instead there was you, offering me a second chance. A chance for freedom."

"You could have still been angry. You didn’t have to go back. No one would have blamed you."

"I know, but... as soon as the choice was mine to make, I knew what the right one was. I could run away and be alone or I could keep going on the path with everyone standing behind me."

Yugi sighed softly and rubbed at his eyes again, but this time he followed the gesture with a very small little smile.

"I’m glad. I’m glad you’re with us."

Marik found he was slightly embarrassed, but he managed to smile back at Yugi in what he thought was probably an encouraging way. It was challenging here in the dark and the quiet and the echoing sense of endless desolation, but he was aware that he didn’t feel alone in the slightest.

"Want to know a secret?" Yugi asked.

"Sure." Marik shrugged his shoulders, knowing that he might as well. Time was on their side there.

"Sometimes when things get hard I imagine the pharaoh’s still here, helping us out. But lately it’s getting harder, I can’t picture him clearly."

Not knowing what to answer, Marik twisted his lips with a little expression of displeasure before straightening them out into a line that spoke mostly of his deep tiredness.

"Maybe you could imagine him helping move this rock. If it helps, I’ll take anything."

Yugi shrugged a little, and Marik could tell even in the dim light that at least some of the colour had come back to Yugi’s face. Yugi surprised him, however, when he turned a hard look to the stones and straightened his back.

"Speaking of the rock, I think it’s about time we tried this again."

"Are you sure...? I don’t want to hurt you more...”

"I’m sure," Yugi told him, something of his old courage in his eyes as he met Marik’s. "I can handle it if you can move it."

There was really nothing else left but to try, so Marik climbed back to his feet and moved over to the rock slab, looking about one more time to try to find the point with the best leverage. It seemed impossible but they had to get out of here, and no matter how many times they told each other it was going to be okay, if they stayed it wasn’t and it was as simple as that.

Finding a handhold, Marik braced himself again and glanced over to Yugi who was watching him with an oddly comforting fierceness. He held the other's eyes.

"If it starts to move it’ll hurt a lot, but if that happens I want you to try to focus on me. Got it?" Marik had no idea if it would help, but it was better than nothing.

"Got it," Yugi answered resolutely, his posture and expression blazing with an angry resolve. Marik dug around for a little of his own, sparing just a moment for an ironic thought as to how it just had to be him and Yugi, the two smallest, who wound up in this situation. Oh well.

And then he pushed. It was hard, harder than almost anything he’d done before, because here in the dark it felt like he was trying to move the whole freaking world. But he’d been through mere hard before, he’d been through so much worse than that, and when he thought about that kind of darkness it made this one seem almost bright. He pushed harder, throwing his back into it as best he knew how, and thought about the fact that moving forward wasn’t a straight forward process and it was impossible to do alone.

For just a second he thought he felt someone beside him, thought he saw the faintest shimmer out of the corner of his eyes, and he pushed harder than he thought he ever could.

The world moved.

Before he knew what had happened he found himself on all fours on the stone floor, gasping for breath like his life depended on it. He could faintly hear Yugi breathing raggedly, and he heard a rattle as some pebbles clattered and something shifted. Forcing his head up he looked to see Yugi, teeth clenched again and one eye shut but the other staring straight at the place where the rock had been. Where there was now nothing, or at least nothing but Yugi’s bent and bloody leg.

Stumbling to his feet, Marik lurched over again and dropped down besides Yugi’s injured leg, trying to survey the damage. Relief, cold, sweet, wonderful relief was washing through him but he needed to know how bad it was. It looked pretty broken and mashed up, but for that second he was more worried about the blood.

"Hang on..." he muttered, glancing around for something to bind the worst puncture wound with. There weren’t a lot of options, so he made use of his own jacket, ripping it into ragged strips with the dagger he kept buckled at his belt.

Yugi seemed to be coming around to himself again, and he sat forward to see what Marik was doing.

"...it doesn’t look like I’m going to be much good for walking, I’m afraid."

"No," Marik agreed. "But first let me make sure you don’t bleed out, alright? If you die from an infection it’s one thing, but too much blood makes me nauseous."

Yugi paused and then laughed slightly, not sure he could quite believe that this might just pass, that they might just make it out yet. He winced a little as Marik fumbled while tying the last knot and pulling it tight, but the makeshift bandages looked like they’d hold for now.

"Thanks," Yugi told him, offering a drained but real smile.

"Anytime, I guess," Marik replied, standing again with an exhalation. "Now let’s get the hell out of here and go stop those loonies from turning your friend into a sacrificial dragon, shall we?"

"You bet," Yugi agreed. "I think I’m going to need some help up, though."

Nodding, Marik reached out a hand to help up the boy whose death had once been his only reason for living, and there in the dark Yugi took it, clasping Marik’s worn hand with his own.

"Good imagining, by the way," Marik told him a little breathlessly as he slowly pulled Yugi up to his good foot and quickly wrapped an arm around his waist to support him. “I almost thought the Pharaoh was here helping too."

"Hm?" Yugi said, wincing through the sudden rush of pain but forcing through a smile in spite of it. "No... I didn’t imagine him. I didn’t need to. It was just you and me who did this."

He slid his arm around behind Marik’s neck and the two took a first faltering step towards the doorway. It was difficult, but the second was a little easier and the third almost entirely manageable. Marik paused them on the threshold of the doorway for just a moment to collect the lantern, and he looked quickly down at Yugi.

"Ready to do this?"

Yugi smiled right back up at him with that infuriatingly confident, trusting smile he knew only too well.

"Only if you are, partner."

At that Marik could only grin faintly back.

"Alright, let’s do this then. We have a world to save you know."

"Yeah," Yugi told the emptiness. "We’ll make it together." And so together they hurried into the dark.