kittensinboxes | Hang My Head, Drown My Fear [Lab of Nature AU, Suffering Is Magic]

Hang My Head, Drown My Fear [Lab of Nature AU, Suffering Is Magic]

Kaiba remembers pain. He remembers...drowning.

And he remembers smiling as he maliciously made it all worse and watched the life spill from his throat, spewing out with arterial force before him and creating a mess of wasted life all around him.

Then, he remembers--more pain? How could there be more pain after death? He knows he's screaming, but nothing comes out. He struggles against his bonds, but he's too weak, too weak, and even opening his eyes shows little besides the searing white lights of an operating room, the flash of a face that resembles an ape...and then, nothing. He feels something cover his mouth, inhales reflexively...then passes out. It's a release, freeing him from the delirium of the restoration and the pain of the experimentation that occurs in between.

He won't remember it. Perhaps that's a mercy.

---

When Kaiba finally does wake, it's in a new room, with aching limbs, a soured stomach, and a throat that feels poorly patched up.

He's too weak to sit up, but his tired eyes scan his surroundings, seeking out any familiarity at all. He has to do it slowly, so that the tracking of his own eyes doesn't nauseate him more than he already is.

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"Nnnngh..."

Yuugi mumbled softly as he finally woke up, sitting up slightly on his spot on the floor.

Wait. This...

This was a...!

Oh. Right. A bed. A bed in a room with...

With...!

Yuugi's head shot up, and he rasped:

"K-Kaiba, are you...?"

When Yuugi finally looks his way, Kaiba's lips move, but as expected, nothing comes out even vaguely resembling words. At best, there's a crackling sound simply because of air trying to force itself out through his abused neck.

I'm fine.

He's clearly not. But are either of them, after that?

You sound bad.

"I've been through worse," Yuugi croaked. "Don't worry about me."

He clearly wasn't fine, but Yuugi knew better than to push. Pushing would do nothing, especially when they should be getting along and working together...

First things first: See if anything changed in the room. Clearly this was going to be their arrangement, so he had to keep track of every subtle cha--

Wait.

Was that a...?

Yuugi saw a cupcake sitting on the table, cheerful and almost childish in its design.

He walked up to it, glaring at it like it personally offended him, but didn't do anything to it. He didn't even want to touch it without some kind of tool or gloves or something. Who knew what they could have laced this thing with?

Game sees game. As a professional liar about his physical and mental state, Kaiba knows what Yuugi's doing, and really doesn't give too much of a fuck to interfere about it at this point. Instead, he follows Yuugi's movements, which take him to...something colorful and obtrusive on one of their sparse furniture pieces.

Then, and only then does he at least shuffle to the edge of his bed, still seated, and cross his arms while scowling. If Yuugi looks his way, he'll mouth:

What is it?

Because by all accounts, it looks like a goddamned cupcake, and aside from being insulting...it reminds Kaiba that he can't remember the last time he's had anything to eat.

Yuugi made quotes with his fingers:

"Food."

Quotes because, ha, when has this place given anything like this and had it been good? He still remembered the first time they laid out a cake, covered in icing that looked like blood that made his stomach queasy as he had to come to terms with mercy killing someone...

"This isn't the first time they've done something like this, though I was in the first floor cells at the time."

We've established they don't mind recycling, Kaiba answers grouchily. He isn't a fan of sweet things anyway, so it shouldn't matter to him, and he's gone stretches without food before. If he could do it six years ago, he could do it again now.

So--you were in normal population before, then.

He adds that on, as a point of conversation, in order to get their minds off of the latest game attempting to be played.

"Recycling? What do you mean...?"

He stepped away, as though he wanted to create as much distance between himself and that...thing on the table as much as possible.

"But...yeah. I was there before there were enforcers. I'm pretty sure I was among the first batch of Light Bringers."

Light Bringers...what a joke.

What a joke all of this was; and yet, the words Helios said to him -- that she hoped he would keep his kindness amongst this darkness -- still stuck with him.

He'd still be himself. No matter what.

"It's where I learned there can be other versions of ourselves. A lot of people in the first group knew me, but I didn't know them."

Edited 2025-03-31 17:08 (UTC)

What I mean is that I participated in the game we played before. I did not lose, not once.

Which is true, and a point of pride...except that Kaiba's not feeling particularly happy about it. Helios's words still echo in his mind from before, when his actions had ended with him being throttled into unconsciousness.

He reaches a hand up to his neck, his fingers tracing the raised welts. He doesn't flinch away this time. He won't. He's not a coward. Even if he keeps slamming his head against the wall, over and over, until he breaks and bleeds...he won't cower from what they put him through.

Never. Never!

He misses some of what Yuugi says, as he thinks about it. Thinks about that damnable cupcake.

Thinks about how he's not a coward.

And thinks about the reality of what they're doing here. He's weighing options, and should probably share that with Yuugi. But he doesn't. Not yet.

Meanwhile, Yuugi was thinking about something else entirely:

What were the properties of regenerator blood? If Yuugi shared his blood with Kaiba, would he be able to share his regenerative properties with him? It was like the legend of the mermaid flesh, where if one ate it, they'd be gifted with Eternal Life.

Was it possible for him to heal those wounds in a way that would help them both in the long run?

Could he do something...?

He should share this with Kaiba. He should tell him what he was thinking, that even if they did go hungry, Yuugi's body was good enough to where he could be eaten raw.

But...

But....!

"Oh...I'm not surprised. They like doing variations on a theme to keep us on our toes. Or maybe they're just that uncreative."

Yeah, you hear that AI? You're uncreative hacks.

Variations. Bah!

Kaiba shakes his head, dropping his hand to the bed, then pushing himself to his feet. He strides over to Yuugi--or rather, slightly past him, to the cupcake. He picks it up, reads it, scowls, then grins, wider than he has any business doing.

He turns to Yuugi, still wearing that expression.

When I played last, he mouths thoughtfully, rotating the cupcake in his fingers, As soon as the game ended, there was little more than a minute of watching the rest of the bodies around you swing, before you were knocked out and put elsewhere. When it was done, no one ended up getting choked.

Helios changed the rules of the game.

So tell me, do you think the rules of the game have changed for this too?

And he holds the cupcake up to his face, contemplating it.

Was Kaiba...

Was Kaiba okay? What the hell was he doing touching that? What was his plan? He wasn't actually thinking of just eating it, was he--

No. No, he couldn't possibly be that stupid. He wouldn't do something that reckless!

"The last time...it was covered in what looked to be blood. People who ate it got stomachaches. Nothing serious, but it was laced."

He tapped his chin in thought.

"If it was laced with something...I'd imagine it'd be something worse than that. That seems to be their style, right? Whatever it was, but worse."

I'd prefer the blood.

Better than the message on there right now, if he's honest. But that's neither here nor there. No, he's still weighing it all out.

It's not as if they'd tell us directly. But I would bet that this is all they're going to give us to eat, wouldn't you say?

And at that, he glances up, knowing that somewhere here...there'll be a camera. They'll be able to read his lips, won't they?

Is that it? You won't feed us until we eat our fill of this? Dessert before dinner, now who's flaunting the rules?

Is Kaiba okay?

That is a very, very good question.

"The blood was after we were stuck in a massacre."

Was Yuugi's voice clipped? Was there some emotion rumbling under the surface? A nerve being struck?

Yes.

"I...Frankly, I'm glad it doesn't look like that."

That didn't stop it from being more dangerous, though. Probably poisoned, and probably far worse than it was the last time. Or would it not have any effect at all, and they were being psyched out?

He'd rather be psyched out than dead.

"...You're not actually thinking of eating that, are you?" He asked.

He wouldn't, right?

For the barest moment...Yuugi's reaction to his words pulls Kaiba out of his thoughts, and with a blink, he turns his attention to the other teen.

Dying shouldn't scare you, he offers. Not anymore.

It's probably not much consolation, but Kaiba isn't the kind of person to console people in a way that's conventional, or even helpful. He's not good at it. The only person who understands him is his brother.

His brother...the one who was out there, without any protection. His brother. Seto Kaiba wants nothing more than to be reunited with him, by any means necessary. It's like an itch under the skin, a craving that cannot be satisfied.

More to the point...

What would you suggest I do then, if not eat it?

"Dying doesn't scare me." Yuugi mumbled. "It hasn't for a long time. But sometimes there are things scarier than death."

Like killing.

Like hurting someone.

Like seeing the light fade from someone's eyes because they wanted you to kill them.

Like seeing people die to protect you.

"If you're set on eating it...then one of us should be the lab rat, to see if it's safe."

Yuugi swallowed, his own stomach growing queasy at the simple thought of putting that thing near his mouth.

"That someone should be me. I'll test it, and if I end up dead, then..."

Whatever part of him that you cut off would grow back, anyway.

Something in Yuugi's words pulls Kaiba down to earth, just a little closer. For once, he isn't thinking solely about himself, or Mokuba, but of someone else.

Yuugi can say he's not scared of dying, and Kaiba will believe him. But he is scared of something, relating to death. If not him, then the deaths of others, surely. Something...he might have had a hand in?

No, not possible. The Yuugi he knows, this Yuugi, even...they don't have the grit for it. He's certain.

Besides, the offer he makes afterwards? It's like a knife slicing through the last remaining tether that holds Kaiba steady. The smile that had faded now catches at the corner of his lip, dragging it up slightly.

Oh?

Do you think that I need protecting? Is that it? I need protecting? I need your pity?

Perhaps you think me a coward, of the sort who would put it off on someone else because it's more convenient to let someone perish than to face danger head-on?

Kaiba would laugh if he could. But he can't.

I don't need you to take a bullet for me, Yuugi Mutou. You pitied me once--and I'm not talking about the other you.

It was you who chose to stay your hand against me, to crumple under the weight of my gambit! And for what? Just to watch the outcome, I suppose, an outcome I could not change, because I--

Suddenly, he stops. His shoulders drop, and he looks at the cupcake in his hand, watches it tremble in his grip, because...

I won't lose again. I'll keep fighting, until there is no loss to pull me down.

You couldn't understand.

He couldn't, and Kaiba is not interested in explaining.

Loss is death. I will face this challenge and transcend the expectation, or die trying.

"You think this is pity?!"

That exasperation, that...anger. Was this similar to the Yuugi Mutou you knew, Seto Kaiba? Perhaps it had always been in his heart, but you never looked beyond his kindness to search for it.

"You think I couldn't understand?!"

It took everything in him not to grab the front of this man's shirt, to not shake him with the frustration that was building in him, fit to burst. With the images that flitted in front of his mind's eye:

Clint's dead body, face-up with a sinuous hole where his chest should be.

Logan's peals for Yuugi to kill him.

The others, dragged into the abyss.

Edward, dying in his arms as he struggled to take him to shore (Together, they died together)--

"Do you know what it's like, having someone beg you to kill them? Someone you love like family, but have to watch and follow through with their last request?"

"Do you know what it's like to keep trying to stop people from dying, over and over and over again? And you have to keep watching?

No. I don't think you do. You don't know me, and you don't know what I've had to go through in this place. I'm not the person you know. I'm not the person who Yuu knew."

Calm. Calm. Calm...Try to calm down...

"You keep thinking in the coin flipping on its side. Heads or tails. Heads or tails, that's all you think about! You aren't thinking about making the coin sit on its edge.

If you're hungry, there are other options than the damned cupcake! Someone that you can eat and not have to worry about dying from, and will always grow back."

Do you get it?

Do you get it yet, Kaiba?

Kaiba actually takes several steps back, not because he wants to show hesitation--but because this is...it's more than he's ever come to expect from Yuugi. The tone he takes, the way he demands to know whether Kaiba has ever experienced anything like he has?

It raises ire in the taller teen, but it's still kept at bay while Yuugi berates him. He's still processing that. Yuugi's...killed? Yuugi has seen people he cared about dying? But when Kaiba got here...there was no Yuugi, nor anyone who he knew from home so...

...how long has Yuugi been here?

It probably would have gotten through to him, except for Yuugi's pivot. The gambit that he actually thought might have gotten Kaiba on his side was to suggest--

What the hell are you talking about?! You want me to eat parts of you?!

I'm not so deranged as to try and eat the flesh of a man!

Though he is deranged enough to eat a poisoned cupcake apparently.

That... that snapped Yuugi out of his own trance.

For a moment, it was like Kaiba punched him. But why? Why would it be like that? Why did his gut twist and his chest ache? It was time for him to take a single step back.

"I--"

He said he was a person.

He saw him as a man.

For all of this man's stubborn pride, he saw Yuugi as a human being that deserved basic dignity and that was-- not what he expected in this place.

"... That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time."

...What?

Kaiba isn't the kind of guy you would expect to wear a legitimately "owlish" expression on his face, but...what?! He stands there, holding what's probably a poisoned cupcake, and just stares at Yuugi like he's grown a second head.

None of what he said there was nice at all! He just as good as told Yuugi he was insane for wanting Kaiba to cannibalize him! Why was he being weird like this?!

I wasn't trying to be nice. I was trying to tell you that I won't hurt you out of hunger! What kind of a response is that?

Yuugi smiled, though it was a sad one.

"You called me 'a man'. This place has a way of making you forget that you're a person sometimes.

I've been eaten before. I'm... not a fan of the feeling, honestly."

Kaiba...really does not know how to react to any of this. He's confused. He's...he's not supposed to feel sympathetic towards Yuugi! Hell, he's hardly felt sympathy towards anyone in so long, that he's not sure if he's experiencing a normal human emotion or heartburn.

But there is one thing it convinces him of, and perhaps it's not what Yuugi wants.

Ever since we've been in this room, all you've told me is how much you have suffered, and how much you have helped others. And you've tried to help me, for some idiotic reason, despite not even having the decency to remember who I am.

He shakes his head, looking away from the other.

I'm not going to disrespect my rival by considering him subhuman. Even if you don't remember me, my scars of defeat are something that I carry each and every day. You were the first to defeat me in my prime.

His thumb skates up the edge of the cupcake paper, then delves into the frosting.

I'm not going to be the one that cuts into you. And I refuse to accrue further debt, until mine is satisfied. Nothing you say will change that reality.

Do you understand, Yuugi?

Wait.

He's refusing to eat him. He's refusing to eat him and he's going to eat the damned cupcake instead. Out of... what? Debt?

Was that what he said?

He was speaking so fast, so intense...

For a moment, Yuugi's eyes squinted, as though he was trying to parse what he was saying...

It doesn't matter, in the end, what Yuugi's response would have been. Because Kaiba's response is to peel the paper back, glare at the shitty little baked good in his hand, and take a bite out of it.

He's committed. He's not sorry. He's going to eat it, so that Yuugi doesn't try and do it himself.

He'll accept the consequences. Surely the scientists wouldn't try to kill him, right? Death is not the best vehicle for attaining Light. There are better ways to extract suffering.

Such as a slow-acting, non-lethal poison.

...Right?

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1/2

2/2 i needed a different expression

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