This is when things stop making sense.
When blood isn't red, and time ticks sideways.
When grass grows down and trees root in the sky.
When hearts loathe and minds love, and time still ticks sideways.

I dreamed once, that I knew you. It was early on, in the beginning hours of morning, as false dawn first arrived. I lifted your cold hands from your deck, held them a touch too long, until I was the one chilled beyond repair. I saw you vulnerable, stripped to the skin, coated in the finest layer of frost. And I wanted your icy chill for myself. But that was when I was dreaming – when I thought I knew you.

xxxxx

Cold hands shook him into wakefulness. Yami's eyes fluttered partly open.

"It's about time you got up." Cold hands, cold voice, an icy demeanor matched by none –

"I don't want to," Yami growled.

The covers disappeared, yanked away, leaving him exposed Raw evidence of the previous night littered his bare body. Bruises, scratches, bike marks so deep they'd bled.

"Get up," the brunet ordered again, flinging a wrinkled set of clothing at Yami. He caught them, and slowly dragged his abused wreck of a body out of bed.

Everything is sweeter by moonlight. Whispered promises under the stars, canoe rides on a like untouched by man. Alcohol tastes that much more intoxicating. Blood looses its bitter aftertaste. A first-time fuck at midnight is incredible – and then you wake up in the morning with a naked stranger and realize all those "I need you, I want you, I love you"s were another way of saying "You're taking too long to strip." Everything's sweeter by moonlight, but the sugar-coating only hides the bitter licorice morning.

xxxxx

Kaiba watched the play of muscles across his rival's back. There wasn't an inch of skin that wouldn't be some shade of bruised. The bite marks on his thighs had scabbed over nicely; he wanted to rip them off just to watch his rival bleed again, to hear him scream.

The other teen's movements were slow and deliberate, not pained. Kaiba gritted his teeth. The King of Games should not be moving at all. Not without wincing, panting, gasping. Not without tiny, smothered whimpers of pain to betray a weakness. Any weakness.

"I'm dressed. Now fuck off."
Kaiba smirked. He'd been waiting for the moment.

I began hallucinating midday, tricked into forgetting who I was and what you weren't. The frost that seduced me was back, extending icy tendrils. It wanted me, needed me. Skin that had never known heat beckoned. Again you were vulnerable, wherever my hand melted the ice. but it didn't last more than a moment, and when I'd covered your body with mine, I froze over too.

xxxxx

It hurt. Gods, but it hurt. Yami stumbled a few steps forward, his attempt at walking only partially successful.

"How long do broken legs take to heal?" he asked.

The doctor shook his head. "At least a few months, if not longer. When your body is ready, you'll walk again."

Maybe his body wasn't ready, but dammit, he was, and he'd walk if it killed him.

Another set of hobbling, disjointed stumbles too weak to be called steps…then he crumpled to the floor. Dully, Yami pushed his unresponsive legs into an outstretched position. Scars marred his thighs, oval-shaped in various sizes where someone's mouth had torn skin away. And he still couldn't feel his legs.

The sun is supposed to be illuminating. It's supposed to chase the shadows away and make everything bright and alive. It's the time around noon when everything is most awake, or so I'm told. Only half the world is asleep, because it's midnight on the other side of the planet. The cities that never sleep are zombies by the midnight hour, limping through parodies of a normal routine. They've forgotten the sun and adopted the shadows that blend together by twilight. But never forget – the shadows are always darkest at noon.

xxxxx

He watched his rival's tottering movements. One trembling step after another, and then he wasn't standing anymore. Kaiba nodded to himself. With any luck, early use of unhealed legs would leave the King of Games permanently unable to walk.

With luck…and maybe a bit of an insurance policy.

From his high vantage point, Kaiba watched. He didn't need to be close to his rival to see the marks on him, to know what every scarred inch of skin looked like. He'd carved the words, painted the canvas – he knew what his rival's body was.

A sure of motion alerted him as once again the Game King tried to stand, and fell crashing to the floor, a cry of agony escaping his lips.

I believed in once upon a time, once upon a time. I used to think so highly of fairy tales, and the heroes that inhabited them. Good always triumphed over evil, and someone always had a conscience. That was until I met my own ice monarch, lost my vision to his shards of crystal. When I finally realized the world isn't written in black and white, it lost its appeal. What good is vision in greyscale when dusk blends it all together?

xxxxx

Yami sat on the porch, twisting his fingers around a half-empty bottle's neck. The sun was gone, leaving the faint brushes of pastel lighting in the sky, waiting for those to vanish too.

Behind him the door opened and closed. He didn't need to look to know who it was. Who it always was, now.

A blanket settled over his shoulders. "It's cold out."

Yami only nodded in reply. It was always cold out now.

"Maybe you should come inside." The hand on his arm tugged a little.

He shook his head. The evening was just beginning. Why ruin it with pointless motion? Besides, he was waiting.

Eventually the hand went away to leave him with his thoughts.

There's no such thing as a good ending. Endings aren't meant to be good. They're designed to be the final moments – painful, tragic, memorable. But endings are never supposed to feel good, because it's a wrap without a real conclusion, even if everyone dies and the world is destroyed. There's always the question of what happens in the rest of the galaxy after that. So it's never really over. Some people just don't have enough imagination to see a creating through to its happily ever after. Oh, wait, I forgot – those aren't real either.

xxxxx

He was watching again, and when the porch door closed a final time, Kaiba made himself known. He half-expected surprise from his rival, but was only greeted with a weary sigh.

"It's cold out," Kaiba echoed. "Maybe you should go inside." He leered at the Game King, picking out fragments of skin with a practiced eye. The slight shudder that coursed through his rival's body pleased him to no end.

"I'm waiting." For who or for what, he didn't have to say. He knew, Kaiba knew, and he knew Kaiba knew, so nothing needed spelling out.

A syringe, filled with something like liquid silver, injected into his arm. His rival took a drink from the bottle and grimaced after a minute.

"I'm still alive."

Kaiba chuckled. "You're dying inside. You'll be alive the rest of eternity, and I'll never let you escape."