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

[firstrateduelist]

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.

Comments

[puzzleshounen]

...

This was not the room Yuugi was used to.

How long had it been since he was taken away from his usual room -- his friends, his adopted father, his everyone -- and put to the cruel mercies of the scientists? Where they poked him, prodded him, shoved strange things under his skin and cut pieces off his flesh in order to...

Harvest "Light".

That's what they'd said. That he was the perfect specimen to harvest from, and they just needed to give him a few 'adjustments' in order to make him perfect...

Arms cut off that grew back hours later, as he felt each bone slowly grow back and sinew reattach.

Toenails removed, which took only a few minutes to regrow, but it didn't hurt any less.

Scars, thick and gnarled, ran up his arms to his shoulders, with some criscrossing up and down his stomach, and his neck...

Well.

His neck still had the mark of a man who ripped it out.

But his eyes were still warm. Still kind. He knew that not all people were horrible, even if the scientists themselves were.

What were they going to do to him this time...?

And who was that...person in the room with him? And why did he...look familiar?

"Um..." Yuugi mumbled, with a voice much softer, much more gentle than the Yuugi Seto knew from his world. "Hello."

Best start simply.