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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When Yuugi asks that, Kaiba clicks his tongue in annoyance, one of the rare sounds he can still make.

Of course we're playing! I'm only listening to you!

"That's not very nice."

Guess already. One of us has to be right. I won't lose to you again, Yuugi.

Kaiba's eyes catch Yuugi's, nearly black as they are, and he involuntarily tries to swallow. Fuck, why is he so thirsty? Why do the lights hurt?

Why did you eat that fucking cupcake? Just another fool move by a perennial loser trying to keep control of his situation.

D̷͔̱͇̹̔̅Ị̶̺́͐̓̃͐D̸̺͎͖͖̐̚̚͝Ņ̸͑̌ͅ'̶̭̤́T̷̢̛͇̜̠͕ ̴͈͓̍Í̷͚̯͓̾̓̚ ̷̨̩̖͛̐͗̐T̷̮̞̲͋̍̈́̀͠E̴̛͎̬͑À̶̧͖̦͍͠Ć̶̤̄H̴̻̽̚ ̵̣̅Ÿ̴̛͈̣͕̜́̐͝Ọ̴͒͗U̸̼̪̘̣̮̔̉͑̕ ̷̮͊B̶͔͊E̶̡̳̺͗̓̃̌T̴̨͍̪̳͍́̌͂T̷͍̬͎͕͓́E̴̟̅̓͝Ŗ̷͚̟̩̩̔͊?̶̖̻̤̳̓̊̽

There's a displacement of air near his left ear, and Kaiba flinches as he hasn't flinched in years, like a dog expecting to be struck.

The blow never comes, however. He showed weakness for nothing...?!

'I'm only listening to you'.

Was he...?

He was. He had to be.

At the flinch, Yuugi's response came out suddenly, flooding out of his mouth:

"The third one. The lie is the third one."

'I'm not afraid of you'.

He's afraid. He's afraid of something. Someone. What was he seeing? What was he hearing?

Why did he flinch...?

You...

Kaiba's shoulders drop, his head falls forward. So Yuugi found the lie in the group. The lie...that no matter how much he tried to stifle, he couldn't completely shake.

Even if it wasn't this Yuugi, it was still Yuugi he was scared of.

Does it bother you? That I'm scared of you?

It sure does bother Kaiba. And the audial hallucination seems to revel in that very fact.

Pitiful coward! Dying is too good for you! Dying would be a release, barely a punishment!

Again, there's the whistle of a blow just within earshot, and again, Kaiba flinches. Why, why, why can't he stop flinching? It feels like he's eleven again, forced to study until his eyes were bloodshot and spilling pitiful, frustrated tears onto his schoolwork.

There's a cut of pain across his cheek, the smell of blood, the pain--the punishment for his weakness, and for not applying himself! Only he can feel it. There's no blood. No cut.

I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU!

He screams it to the ceiling, unable to identify where the belligerent voice is, but wanting to set a boundary between them.

The voice only sounds closer, as if it's crawling in his ears.

Yes you are. You should be.

Did it bother him...?

Yes. I don't want anyone to be scared of me! I just want to go home!

Yuugi smiled, shaking his head.

"You can't help it. This place...it does things to people."

Like make them hallucinate. Like make them scream with a soundless voice at a figure Yuugi couldn't see, at a presence he couldn't sense or touch.

Make them feel so out of control that they think they need to eat poison in order to be ahead of the game. What happened to him when he was in the cells, anyway...?

"Who is it...?" He asked after a moment.

Calm.

Stay calm. Stay steady. People reacted better when you were calm, right...?

"The...person you're talking to. Who is it?"

The hallucination. Yuugi was literally asking this man about his hallucination.

(If you'd eaten it before he could, then this wouldn't have happened. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault--)

No. No, I'm not talking to anyone! You're WRONG!

Liar. You're so good at lying, Seto. That's excellent. You'll need that skill for the rest of your life, and so far you've done nothing but make use of it.

There's no one here but us.

All of us.

At that point...something in him snaps, and Kaiba lashes out, swinging at nothing, glaring at nothing at all and being very angry about it. Yuugi's calm doesn't seem to be helping here, and neither does Kaiba's denial.

Okay, he needed to do something.

Now.

"Whoever you are..." Yuugi turned towards where Kaiba swung, hoping he was on target. Were they right there? Were they? Was he enabling his hallucinations, or would this help?

He didn't know.

He didn't know, he didn't know! All he knew was that his friend was in trouble, and he needed to Help!

"Leave Kaiba alone! Leave both of us alone!"

HAHAHA! LOOK AT HIM FIGHT, like he can hear the same things you can! Like he can feel the same things.

This time, it's not a whistle of air near his ears to make him flinch, no. This time, Kaiba collapses back on the bed as if pulled down, then starts to squirm and gasp, as if...as if he's being throttled where he lay.

At least, that's what it looks like at first. And it is what he feels is happening, as if he has strong, thick fingers clenched around his deplorably scrawny neck, squeezing the air out of him.

In reality...the way he twitches on the bed, his muscles tensing involuntarily? That's less about the hallucination, and more about the poison, which has him convulsing.

So again.

He probably shouldn't have eaten the poison cupcake.

Thankfully for Yuugi, this part shouldn't last long. But the real question was what he could really do about it? Is he going to approach his ashen-faced future classmate and try to do anything at all, or simply watch the seizure transpire?

Yuugi'd seen this before.

It was with one of his classmates with epilepsy when he was in Elementary school; they'd had a seizure right in the middle of the classroom, convulsing like someone put a lightning rod to his spine.

He hadn't been able to do much back then, but the teacher did do something in particular as the poor kid wriggled and spasmed in the middle of the carpet--

Yuugi knelt by Kaiba's side and put his hand behind his head so he wouldn't hurt himself.

And...

"I said: stop it! Don't hurt him!"

He was seeing something he couldn't. If he acted like he was against whatever Kaiba was seeing, maybe he would see him as a friend. Maybe he wouldn't try to hurt himself or Yuugi in the process...!

Kaiba couldn't hurt anyone if he tried at this point, other than with his own uncontrolled muscular contractions. For what felt like hours...he falls into the abyss of unconsciousness, and Yuugi's left to attend to his body.

In truth, it's no more than a couple of minutes, in which the teen's body spasms on the bed, involuntarily arching up, then down, his arms moving in erratic, but weak arcs.

It's no more than a couple of minutes where those blue eyes were vacant, skewed to one side and seeing nothing.

It passes over time, and Kaiba's body...well, it doesn't fully relax immediately, but the erratic movements simmer down, and he lets out a pained groan as his wits return to him. No more darkness...no more voices for now.

Only pain and exhaustion. And warmth.

Warmth...?

Yuu...

It's all he manages to mouth. What happened to him? He has no memory since....since he'd been pinned to the bed by that monster.

Yuugi must have held him for hours, even if it was only a few minutes.

Kaiba's body was a heavy weight against him, even as Yuugi adjusted to compensate for his jerking, his spasming, his--

His reaction to the damn poison.

By the time he had settled down, his head was in a warm lap, fingers carding through stringy hair as gentle eyes gazed down at him.

"Right here," he soothed, "How do you feel?"

He wants to respond in a caustic manner. To say something like "probably as well as I look" or "what the hell do you think?" But Kaiba doesn't have the strength.

He answers plainly:

Bad.

His body burns. The muscles, and even his skin feel like they're on fire. And yet...where he might normally push Yuugi away, he finds that aside from lacking the motor control and energy to do so...he lacks the urge.

The fingers in his hair feel comforting, and he's ill-equipped to rebuff it.

Cold.

He feels cold, but his skin is burning up. Quite the conundrum.

"You're running a fever," Yuugi whispered, "So try to lay still. We can't get any water, but you can at least try to rest it out."

He shouldn't have eaten it. Gods, this idiot. This stupid, stupid idiot. This prideful idiot that got himself in this mess.

And yet--

Here he was, watching over him anyway.

"Though maybe...we might be able to get you to sweat it out, if we get more fabric on you..."

Kaiba's only response is a weak exhale as he closes his eyes.

You're touching me.

It seems obvious enough, but to someone who is currently prone to hallucinating due to his poor life choices, of course he'd say that. He's...confirming that those are Yuugi's hands.

Yuugi brushed Kaiba's hair away from his eyes, nice and slow.

Easy.

Slow and easy...

"Yeah," he murmured. "I am. It's just me."

You didn't hear it.

Another statement of truth. Kaiba's face is mostly impassive about it, though when Yuugi brushes his bangs slightly away, he'll note that the hawkish eyes are somewhat less sharp when you can see Kaiba's eyebrows.

Anyone would assume they'd constantly be drawn in a scowl. It seemed as much just a few seconds before.

But that wasn't the case now. His expression is one of pain, and his brows were knit together as such.

He was in so much pain...

What could he even do...? Yuugi's fingers tangled with the other's hair, trying to soothe, bring comfort, anything! Anything to ease that expression of pain from his face.

I'm sorry, He thought, If only I'd just eaten the stupid thing before his dumb pride got in the way...

"Can I do anything...? To ease the pain...?"

No. I chose it. I have to suffer.

And then, through the pain, Kaiba smirks coldly.

They want their Light.

After saying it, he winces and squirms in the bed...but it's out of stomach pain, and not another seizure. Without really thinking about it, he turns his head into Yuugi's touch. His mind is swirling, there's still whispers at his ear that he's trying to ignore and...even though he said no, Yuugi's touch is comforting.

It's grounding. Real. He wants it.

Still wouldn't eat parts of you, he adds stubbornly.

Yuugi smiled, but it was a wan little thing. Amused, but perhaps in a bit of a sick way.

He speaks softly:

"Well, I guess that means I don't have to worry about getting eaten again, then. Hehe, having someone's teeth sunk into you kinda sucks."

Gods, "light". To hell with the scientists' Light! They could rot in darkness for all he cared, if it meant that none of the people here would have to suffer anymore.

Value yourself more.

They won't.

Kaiba's lips move slowly on the last of those words. The hallucinations were one thing, but the seizure had drained him immensely. Pain or no pain...he was starting to drift.

But if he did...there was at least one thing he wanted. Weakly, he reaches for one of Yuugi's arms, fingers closing tightly on his wrist. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to convey intent.

Stay. Don't leave. He needs to know Yuugi's there.

"Okay." Yuugi murmured. "I can do that."

He could, but would he? That was the interesting question: he wasn't used to having to think of himself beyond the basics. He was used to being the shield, the barrier to protect those he loved.

To value himself...

Something in his stomach felt warm, distant and hazy.

With his other hand, he took Kaiba's other hand and squeezed it, just gentle enough to be an attempt at comforting.

Warmth.

How...was Yuugi so warm? It felt good, because he felt so cold. Even if that was his body lying to him, and the fever had him burning up, he didn't care. More...he wanted more of it.

Kaiba's eyes roll shut slowly, his breathing somewhat labored as he lays there, reveling in the warmth of Yuugi Mutou as sweat beads along his forehead.

G...good. You can't...lose. You're my rival, and my rival has to be...

Kaiba winces again.

...has to be strong. Undefeated. For me.

Rival.

Nobody'd called Yuugi their Rival before. Of course he'd won games plenty of times and even earned the ire of some regulars in the game halls he'd been to, but...

...Rival?

Something in his chest shifted.

Something...something. Something he couldn't name, but was tangible just the same.

"I will."

When was the last time he'd spoken with such determination? When he met that...other person that looked a lot like Kaiba, right? During the gun experiment?

"I'll make you proud to call me your rival."

Gentle fingers carded through sweaty hair, soothing against dampening skin. Gods, the man looked so sick...

If only he could do more...

Kaiba doesn't try making words anymore. He breathes harshly, willing his body to relax as he lays there, shivering. Soon...soon it'll have to pass. The poison just had to work its way through his system, that's all. He had to pass it.

Lightheadedness finally overwhelms him, and the fever sweeps his consciousness away. He won't be the most still as he sleeps though; he tosses and turns, and he'd probably groan audibly if his vocal cords worked, but they don't. So it's hisses and heavy breathing.

Yuugi's suggestion that he sweat off the fever turns out to be what happens. For a few hours, he's squirmy and shivering...until the fever finally breaks and he can relax.

Somewhat.

He's still hearing things in his sleep. Feeling things on his skin...but in the rare instance he comes around briefly, as long as it's Yuugi's hands on him, he's able to slip back into oblivion with minimal anxiety.

It's hours later still, when he wakes up for good, his hair absolutely out of sorts, his body aching, and his insides feeling distinctly uncomfortable even now.

"Wh..."

...ere?

Oh. Ohh, that's almost a word, in almost a voice, but it's more wheeze than volume.

Yuugi's lap was numb.

Gods, he'd never thought he'd have a man in his lap for this long, petting his hair and shushing him as he woke up, feverish and shivering (before he went back to sleep). He'd never thought he'd have the man wake up with Yuugi's hands using...something to brush the sweat off his brow.

That something being Yuugi's own shirt.

Why yes, he was shirtless right now.

"You're in the cell; nobody moved you," Yuugi said, "I think your fever's finally broken."

Though Kaiba sweated so much that Yuugi's shirt was soaked through with it, and it was tossed aside in the corner of the room--

--When did two fresh sets of clothes get brought in through the bars? There wasn't anything else, but at the very least there were clothes. Did someone come in, or did they use some kind of machine or chute?

Kaiba lets out a shuddering breath, then tries to sit up, slowly. He doesn't want to be on Yuugi's lap anymore, although he still feels out of sorts. Not being feverish does help with that, but he's still not very strong. It takes him longer than he'd like, but he does manage to roll of of Yuugi and prop himself up onto one elbow.

More to the point...

Why aren't you wearing a shirt?

Somehow, his facial expression makes that seem accusatory.

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cw; seizure

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a little skip. as a treat.

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