[fic] Help - Yugioh, YYxY, angst, PG, theme 17
Title: Help
Author: Chey (duelist_gurl163)
Theme: 17 - “All I want is for someone to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay.” for 50_lovequotes
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst
Parings: YamixYugi implied
Archive: You're lookin' at it
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Um...episode 160?
Summary: Nobody saves the hero.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh, and I took a little bit of creative license on the scene.
---
The door slamming behind him seemed an appropriate punctuation mark to his last statement.
“I’m sorry Anzu.”
Slam.
Alone in the train’s vestibule, he returned his gaze to the landscape outside, which he had been staring blankly at before Anzu attempted to start a conversation. His eyes stung.
Oh it was fine for his friends…fine to enjoy their train ride and make jokes about Florida and the beach…fine to say things like, “you can’t just sit around moping,” in response to his silence.
Moping? So now they thought he was moping, like an overreacting child?
He looked away from the window, down at the floor. They didn’t understand…they didn’t know how it felt…it was a given that they, too, must miss Yugi, but they didn’t have to feel the pain of having part of their soul physically ripped away. They weren’t the ones clinging to the Millennium Puzzle in the darkness of the night before, practically clawing at the item, begging Yugi to come back, begging to be sent back in, begging to spend eternity in the maze inside his mind if it only meant that Yugi would come back and take away the hurt, all the while knowing no amount of begging would help.
And yet they thought he was moping. There they sat, talking and planning, taking it for granted that he would shake it off and make everything right again.
Without warning, the memory of losing Yugi came back to him. Painful emptiness spread across his heart once again as he looked into the eyes of his partner as he vanished. Anguish churned inside him. He was supposed to be the victim…why had he been spared? He had asked himself that so many times in the last twenty-four hours.
His friends were quick to give him an answer. To get Yugi back…that’s why he was still here. To fight…
Even though he had already lost.
Something inside of him snapped, and tears claimed his eyes.
Aibou…I can’t save you.
They took it for granted; they expected him to fix this… But he couldn’t…didn’t they understand that he couldn’t?
His fist met the wall with a resounding crack, his breath coming in short gasps.
Why…
Cradling the Millennium Puzzle, he fell back against the wall behind him, dropping to the floor as his fingers caressed the cool metal. Ill-held-back sobs found their way out. He curled himself around the pendent, trembling. Why did it have to be him…why did it always have to be him? Why wasn’t there ever someone else to be the strong one instead? Even now, even though he was broken, he was expected to fight. Who could fight through this? It was all he could do to stay upright. Even if the time came, he couldn’t defeat Rafael. Not alone, not incomplete the way he was. He was lost and falling and while everyone expected him to walk the right path, he didn’t even know where that path was. All he saw was a future without Yugi. He couldn’t see anything else past that. Fighting now was pointless, yet people expected it of him.
His hands gripped the Puzzle tighter. Didn’t they know that he had already failed? Making plans and counting on him; didn’t they realize that he needed someone else to make everything okay? Didn’t they understand?
No.
Of course they didn’t. They never saw how vital Yugi was to his strength. So of course they assumed he would shake it off and win. Of course they looked to him. And he knew the help he so desperately craved wasn’t forthcoming. Nobody would hold him. Nobody would take control for him. He wasn’t supposed to need it, and he didn’t know how to ask for it.
Anger and pain filled the empty space, battling for control of his thoughts. Unable to see a way out, he simply huddled there and gave in to the helplessness.
I’ve lost him forever.
x-x-x
Notes: Of course we all know that within an hour or so he's gone from being depressed and hiding in a train vestibule to being in such a rage that he probably would have killed Haga with his bare hands, but I've always liked that scene in 160 where he just falls down and gives in to his fear that he'll never get Yugi back. It's just so...unusual, and yet so very IN character for Yami. The show is a little vague on what's really going through his mind other than just feeling guilty/lonely, so it was a fun scene to embellish. Plus I have always thought it must have been difficult...having to shoulder the whole saving-the-world burden while he was grieving for Yugi at the same time. Maybe too difficult, at least for a moment, for him to handle.
The beginning and end dialogue is based on the English dub, the thought processes I made up myself.
This is actually the third version of this theme...the first was a Ceremonial Battle fic, the second was an AU, and this is the one I finally settled on. xD;