Nerd of All Trades

Road Dust-- Rum-Run

2011-10-31T05:18:52Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Road Dust
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar
Rating: M
Warnings: Racism
Summary: 1920: In the wake of the First World War, liquor is scarce but guns and automobiles are easy to come by. This is the age of the motorized bandit. (Tornshipping smut and very little else)
This chapter, our band of merry thieves travels up into the hills to get some white-lightning.
Previous: 1

“Malik, get in the back.”

Malik turned a scathing glare on Bakura. “No,” he growled.

Bakura returned his glare between glances at the narrow road ahead of them. “Do you want to get shot?” he demanded. Malik’s only response was to narrow his eyes a little more. “Then get in the back and take off your jacket,” Bakura repeated.

Begrudgingly, Malik turned and climbed over the seat, muttering under his breath.

“Ryou, you come up here,” Bakura called over his shoulder.

Ryou frowned softly, looking between him and Malik, who was now quietly fuming in the corner. “Do it,” Malik sulked, glaring at the back of the seat. Hesitantly, Ryou clamored over into the passenger’s seat.

“Okay,” Bakura said quietly, his eyes trained on the winding, dirt road they were following up through the hills. “Ryou, you’re my brother, all right?”

“Okay,” Ryou agreed, nodding, feeling apprehensive at the need for a cover-story when they weren’t planning any robberies.

“You’re gonna stay in the car with Malik. Y’ain’t gonna get out and y’ain’t gonna talk to nobody, got it?”

Ryou nodded. “Got it,” he mumbled. He could hear Malik snort from the back seat.

Dense forest finally gave way to a small clearing with a structure that could be described as little more than a shack seated to one side of it. Bakura parked the car just as a large man came out to stand on the porch, glaring suspiciously at them. Ryou could see a curtain pull back from the inside of a small window and a plain woman with long, straight hair peer out of it. Bakura walked around the car and called a greeting to the man on the porch, approaching slowly as he explained himself in vague terms. His voice dropped lower as he drew near the building and the large man stepped down from the porch and shook his hand.

As Ryou watched the inaudible conversation unfold, Bakura produced a roll of bills from his coat-pocket, showing it to the man briefly before stowing it away again. A few more minutes passed in quiet deliberation before the man turned, ascending the porch, and disappeared back into his house. “...What’s happening?” Ryou whispered.

“Time to inspect the wares,” Malik replied softly.

The man returned with a bottle of liquid, clear as spring-water, and handed it to Bakura, who turned the bottle around and slapped the bottom against the heal of his hand, examining the contents carefully. He handed the bottle back to the man with a dissatisfied frown. Ryou was so busy watching the transaction, he didn’t hear the crunch of dried leaves until Malik hissed behind him, “Ryou.”

Ryou turned his head to find himself face to face with a youth who couldn’t have been much older than himself. “Hey there, honey,” the youth greeted, grinning at him with tobacco yellowed teeth. “What’s yer name?” Ryou stared at him blankly for a few seconds, not really sure whether to be shocked or bewildered. The youth smiled lop-sidedly and continued. “You from ‘round here? Down in town? You one of them flappers? Cut yer hair short an’ the like?”

Malik cleared his throat and the youth turned a contemptuous glare on him. “What’re you lookin’ at, boy?”

Malik glared right back. When he opened his mouth, a nearly unrecognizable voice came out of it. “Mister McCoy ain’t gonna like you talkin’ to his brother that way,” he growled and Ryou resisted the urge to stare at him, it seemed almost inconceivable for Malik’s enunciation to be anything short of perfect.

The youth looked startled. He took a step closer to the car so that he could look over the top of the door and take note of Ryou’s clothing. A look of intense embarrassment slowly overtook his features and his face seemed unable to decide whether to flush or pale.

“Hey!” Bakura’s voice broke through the awkward silence and Ryou glanced up to see him looking back in their direction. “You best get away from there, son, ‘less you fixin’ for a lickin’!” Bakura shouted, glaring at the youth.

“I, uh,” the youth faltered.

“Davie, you get!” the man from the house ordered sternly and the youth scampered out of sight again.

Bakura crossed his arms, turning his attention back to the man. “Now you and I both know you got better’n this coffin varnish stashed away,” Bakura accused, giving the man a steady, serious look. “I ain’t gonna stand here and let you play me for some lowland idiot. I came here for some real busthead and I ain’t payin’ a nickel for this shit.” He gestured disdainfully at the bottle in the man’s hand.

The man looked annoyed for a moment, then he started laughing good-naturedly. “All right, all right, you win,” he said. “I can see yer a man who knows his onions. I’ll find some’n else to take this panther piss of my hands.” The man disappeared into the house once more and returned with a bottle that looked exactly like the first one as far as Ryou could tell. “Here’s the special reserve,” he said, handing the (apparently new) bottle to Bakura.

Bakura slapped the heel of his hand against this bottle like he’d done with the last one, examining something that may as well have been invisible. He pried out the cork and sniffed at the contents of the bottle, and then smiled. “Ah, now that’s more like it,” he said appreciatively.

The man chuckled. “How much you fixin’ to buy? I ain’t got a lot here right now ‘cause I wasn’t expectin’ you.”

“Five of these,” Bakura answered, pushing the cork back into the bottle and giving it a shake.

The main raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?” he asked, looking slightly irritated.

“Personal consumption.” Bakura shrugged. “If they’re all this quality, I’ll give you fifty rubes for ‘em.”

The man’s face lit up again. “Sure are! You wait right there!” He disappeared into the house again and this time when he immerged, he was carrying four more bottles of equal size and watery clearness to the first. He walked over to the car with Bakura, his tone chatty as he passed the bottles one by one to Bakura, who, after giving each of them a slap, passed them through the window to Ryou. “You’re a man of taste, I can tell! Y’all can come on back any time and I’ll have some special reserve waiting for you.”

“Well I recon that’s mighty kind of you, sir,” Bakura said, giving the man a nod and a grin. “Pleasure doing business with you.” He held out his hand and the large man shook it, before returning to his porch as Bakura rounded the car and climbed back into the driver’s seat. “And away we go,” he murmured, cranking over the engine.

A few miles down the road, Malik clamored over the back of the seat, displacing Ryou momentarily before pulling him into his lap. Malik leaned his cheek against Ryou’s shoulder as he glared out into the woods. “I hate the hills,” he muttered.

“Aw, did that brat talk down to you, Malik?” Bakura simpered sarcastically.

“Yeah, after he tried to pick up the pretty girl in the car,” Malik snorted, his arms tightening around Ryou’s waist.

Bakura laughed. “He’s lucky you di’n’t tell on him. Wouldn’t want his old man havin’ to beat the devils out of his hide.”

“Devils?” Ryou asked quietly.

“In my name shall they cast out devils,” Bakura said in a recitative voice. “It just makes sense to blame anythin’ you don’t like on devils, seein’ as the preacher can get rid of ‘em for ya.” He snorted. “Never did me no good though. That old man slappin’ my head and screamin’ at me...” He sighed and leaned an arm against the window frame. “‘Til they ‘ventually thought it would do better to cast my devils out with a shotgun.”

Ryou frowned softly, leaning into Malik’s embrace as he contemplated Bakura’s words. “Why did they do that?”

“Hm?” Bakura looked almost startled, as though he’d drifted off somewhere far away. “Oh,” he shrugged and made a sound through his teeth. “‘Cause Ray told the preacher I was possessed by Satan and I forced him to sin against God.” Bakura scowled darkly. “I di’n’t force him to do nothin’, lyin’ son of a bitch.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have fucked your cousin,” Malik suggested in a bored tone and Ryou cringed inwardly. He’d really rather not they start fighting while Bakura was driving.

“Third cousin, practically not even a relation. An’ shut up,” Bakura snapped, glaring at the road ahead of them. Bakura didn’t seem particularly interested in escalating the argument, which both relieved and worried Ryou.

000
000

Oh, jeeze, sorry for throwing social-issues at you without even having the decency to give you any smutty pay-off. So, to run down the list of things that should probably be noted… Please bear in mind that that little flash of racism is meant to reflect the period and not the regional attitudes as they exist in this day and age; although, to be honest, that was pretty mild, which I think is in large part because the boy maybe hasn’t seen somebody not-white more than once or twice in his life, if ever, and isn’t entirely sure on how to approach the issue, other than knowing that he probably shouldn’t take any crap from a ‘colored’ person. Also, why Bakura was slapping bottles- he was testing the alcohol content. If you’ve ever done any sort of construction or home improvement work or just putting up a shelf, you’ve probably used a liquid-level, that little tube with a bubble in it. You know how there’s just *one* bubble, even if you shake it? That’s because it’s in pretty much pure alcohol. The more water is present, the more and the smaller the bubbles will be when you shake a bottle of alcohol.

And Ryou’s hair, Davie mentioned it being short here, and that’s because I can not think of any logical reason that Ryou would have long hair in this verse. He was a decent and law abiding citizen before he met these hooligans and he spent quite a lot of his time trying not to stand out. At this point, he’s stopped using palmade (men pretty much all slick their hair back in this era) and his hair has grown out a tiny bit, so it ends up looking about chin-length and fluffy, which comes off as pretty feminine. Bakura still has long hair, mostly out of defiance toward his upbringing, which brings us into the Church of God With Signs. The verse that Bakura quoted is part of the passage on which the prevalent religion in Appalachia is based. They’re sometimes called ‘holy rollers’ (derogatory) or ‘snake-handlers’ because a common practice (before a lot of laws started getting passed against it around the 50s) is handling venomous snakes to demonstrate that your faith is so strong you won’t be bitten (because snakes are incarnations of devils), and ‘holy roller’ refers to the sect’s practice of speaking in tongues (transing). The Church of God With Signs (which has no centralized leadership, each parish is autonomous) is on the extreme end of conservative; I’m talking women not being allowed to wear pants or cut their hair (ever, having bangs is a sin, I’m informed by a former member) and conversely, for men, their hair is supposed to always be cropped very short. Bakura is deeply resentful of religion in general and the Church of God With Signs in particular, but it has still shaped a lot of the way he thinks and goes about things, and a lot of his deliberate habits are in direct reaction and defiance of his upbringing (and he likes snakes).

Oh, and I nearly forgot; you probably noticed that I gave Bakura a surname in there. How did I come by ‘McCoy’? No, not from Star Trek. The McCoys are one of the most famous families of Appalachia, located in north-east Kentucky, right across the state boarder from the Hatfields. That Hatfield-McCoy feud was bigger and more violent in legend than reality, but it’s one of those little anecdotes of American history that we like to reference now and again; they’re our Montagues and Capulets.

And that’s a nice, wordy, know-it-all author’s note I’ve written for you. It’s practically longer than the chapter, yeesh. Soooo, I guess that’s about it. I’ll get some more smut in here for the next chapter. I’m planning something really adrenaline charged and gratuitous for you, hold tight.

Road Dust

2011-10-23T04:10:35Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Road Dust
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: 1920: In the wake of the First World War, liquor is scarce but guns and automobiles are easy to come by. This is the age of the motorized bandit. (Tornshipping smut and very little else)

1920

There was a crack in the ceiling. It looked like it had been plastered and painted over multiple times but continued to find its way through. Like the room above was slowly, slowly trying to collapse into this one. Maybe it would cave in right now as Ryou was watching it. He waited.

The ceiling stayed where it was.

He turned his head to look at the clock on the wall. It was almost five. Soon the bank would close, and after that, all the employees would go home and the day’s work would be over. His eyes flicked from the clock to Bakura, perched in the window, a pair of binoculars and a small camera hung around his neck, scribbling in a notebook. Ryou felt that this had been an exceptionally boring day. Who would have thought that crime could be so boring? The tellers inside the bank were probably having more fun counting pennies than Ryou was, laying silent and idle on the bed of a cheap hotel room overlooking its front doors.

It was sensible, of course, but it wasn’t what Ryou had pictured. When he used to read about bank robberies in the newspaper, it had always seemed to be the kind of thing that happened suddenly and without warning. Of course, that was the idea. For the people inside the bank, it did happen suddenly and without warning, but apparently for the bandits –these ones, anyway- it was meticulously planned ahead of time. The building was quietly examined from the outside and inside, sketches were made, with all exits and obstacles marked out, and poured over and discussed for hours. Days were spent determining the identities of every bank employee and writing a detailed list of their daily schedules and regular activities.

All of this meant that the bandits were very busy doing next to nothing and Ryou was bored out of his mind. He needed a new book. He had finished reading his novel hours ago and been left with no alternative entertainment. Tomorrow he’d take some money and go buy a few new books from the store on the corner. The new Porter book should be out now. He was too old for her books, but they remained a guilty pleasure. Not that reading books written for little girls had ever been anything but a guilty pleasure.

Ryou had just never been able to find much interest in the western adventure books his classmates had read, with cowboys and Indians and bandits. Except for the romantic ones his mother had liked. Ryou sighed; he would have made a much better girl. God must have put his paperwork in the wrong basket.

The light hitting Ryou’s eyelids dimmed as he felt hair brush his face and the mattress sink just left of his head. His eyes fluttered open to meet Bakura’s, hovering over him, a hand pressed down against the bed to support himself. “Bored?” Bakura asked softly, the corners of his lips curled up slightly.

“Yes,” Ryou agreed, feeling heat flushing his cheeks.

Bakura bent lower over him, bringing their lips together, softly at first, before the kiss grew gradually more insistent and Bakura shifted, climbing on top of Ryou and crouching over him so that Ryou was caged in, helpless beneath his captor. Ryou lifted his arms to drape around Bakura’s neck, sighing into the kiss and submitting to the hands that were slowly unbuttoning his shirt. Bakura’s fingers fanned out over his bare chest as lips and teeth moved to Ryou’s ear, gently nibbling at the curve while Ryou’s breath grew more labored.

Bakura’s tongue was languidly tracing the line of Ryou’s jaw when the door opened and Malik came striding through, stripping off a wool jacket as he announced his presence. “Jesus Christ its cold out there!” he groused. “Tomorrow you’re-- You son of a bitch!” He cast a sulking glare as Bakura started laughing, dropping his head down next to Ryou’s shoulder and shaking with mirth. “Well isn’t that just Jake!” Malik spat, crossing his arms disapprovingly. “I’ve been freezing my God-damned tail off and you’re up here cashing in!”

Bakura lifted his head a little, speaking through a smirk of barely contained laughter. “Ryou ‘as bored,” he explained.

“Says you!” Malik scowled.

“You look cold,” Bakura noted, sitting up, his legs straddling Ryou’s thighs.

“No, really?”

“So why’n’t we get a damn fire goin’ already!” Bakura grinned and Ryou could see almost all of his teeth through it.

Malik raised his eyebrow and sniffed, before turning his head sharply away. “Bank’s closed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

This banter could last for hours, and entertaining as it could be at times, Ryou’s patience was waning. He dove in. “Then we’ll just have to work with the cash you’ve got on you.” Ryou held out his arms in Malik’s direction. Bakura’s eyes returned their focus to Ryou and his mouth formed a feral curve. Malik glanced back, probably still wanting to be a pill, but a smirk was tugging at the corner of his lips. One more push to make him lose interest in his game of peevishness. “I’m boooored,” Ryou whined.

That sealed it. Ryou could see the glint in Malik’s eye as he dropped his arms and turned back around, before finally moving toward the bed. “Come to think of it, a fire would be nice,” he murmured, perching on the edge of the bed and reaching a hand out to run through Ryou’s hair.

Ryou winced at the icy touch of Malik’s fingers grazing his cheek. “Oof! You are cold!” he squealed.

“Well that ain’t no good,” Bakura said, grabbing Malik’s wrists and pulling the frozen hands up under his own shirt. Bakura didn’t even flinch at the chilled digits meeting his skin. Malik sighed, looking reluctantly grateful as he pressed his hands against Bakura’s belly. Bakura relinquished Malik’s wrists to instead grab hold of his tie and reel him in. “You look pale,” he whispered.

“Compared to you?” Malik scoffed through a smirk.

Bakura yanked on the tie, dragging Malik’s mouth to his own and claiming it. Ryou watched the war waged between their conjoined lips. It was like two rutting bucks locking antlers and wrestling for dominance. Ryou wondered hazily whether he was the doe they were fighting over, or a yearling with no hope of competing. They broke apart so that Malik could try to tear Bakura’s shirt off over his head, which worked, except that his wrists were still caught in the inside-out sleeves. After some irritated fumbling, the shirt finally made its way to the floor while Malik shrugged out of his suspenders and started fussing at his own shirt.

Once exposed, Bakura attacked Malik’s neck, biting without any of the gentleness he’d afforded Ryou. Malik closed his eyes and tilted his head back, making a growling sound that came from deep in his throat. After a few seconds, his eyes cracked open and Ryou could see that their focus was directed toward him. Malik pushed Bakura away and descended on Ryou, knocking Bakura from his previous perch and swooping down to capture Ryou’s mouth with his own, a hand landing just to the side of Ryou’s head to prevent devastating collision.

Ryou tilted his head into the kiss and shivered as Malik’s free hand slid up his ribs, still cool, but not unpleasantly so. Ryou caught the front of Malik’s waistband and clumsily tugged at the buttons even as he could feel hands coming in from the side Malik had thrown Bakura to, in order to give Ryou’s buttons the same treatment. Malik’s lips retreated abruptly, leaving Ryou flushed and panting as two sets of hands worked together to drag his trousers off and peel away his shorts. Malik scrambled to regain his previous position before Bakura could usurp Ryou’s attention, and fell forward, slamming down on top of Ryou when his own trousers were yanked from his legs.

Malik cursed and struggled to get his elbows under him and find Ryou’s mouth again. His tongue assaulted every hidden surface of Ryou’s mouth as Ryou wrapped his arms around Malik’s shoulders and reciprocated with small, teasing licks. Their mouths came apart with a sound almost like a suction when Malik’s head suddenly shot up and started to turn, his eyes wide and startled. “Wait- you’re--” he started and then cut off with a sound somewhere between a gasp and a yelp. He buried his face in the pillow next to Ryou’s head, his hands balling up in the sheets and body shaking.

Ryou stared over his trembling shoulder to see Bakura wearing a grin of wicked glee. Malik kept his face buried in the pillow but his arms moved in, sliding under Ryou and hugging them tightly together. His body was tense and resistant to Bakura’s first thrusts, but as Bakura leaned lower over Malik’s back, eyelids sliding halfway closed, and panted softly in time with his movements, Ryou could feel the muscles in Malik’s shoulders loosening and his body starting to move in more amiable response to Bakura’s undulations.

And just as Malik had started to pant lustily, his head lifted a little from the pillow and breath feathering out against Ryou’s neck, Bakura drew back and moved away again, inspiring a rapid torrent of colorful curses, insults and threats to shoot out of Malik’s mouth. He next appeared at their side, grabbing Malik’s shoulder and shoving it, rolling him to the side, Ryou was pulled along with him, still held fast against Malik’s chest. Malik continued to spit a few more curses as Bakura entirely ignored him, his mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, gently latching onto Ryou’s neck as a hand trailed up his inner thigh from behind.

Ryou shivered and lifted his leg up, hooking it over Malik’s hip and keening softly as a finger pressed into him. Bakura had said once, God damn, I love the sounds you make, and so Ryou was unabashed and unrestrained in his mewling as fingers, first one, then more, felt around inside of him and wet kisses were peppered over his shoulder. Malik had given up on his irate swearing in favor of exploring the underside of Ryou’s jaw while he slipped a hand between them and aligned their erections, stroking both of them together.

The fingers withdrew, leaving behind a feeling of need so strong it was like a physical ache. Ryou was slightly puzzled to find himself being pulled upright then, and it seemed that his assailants had managed to synchronize their objectives again as two pairs of arms collaborated to hoist him up, first onto his knees and then swept right off of them, hands hitching up under his thighs and elevating him above the bed. Ryou gripped Malik’s shoulders a little tighter and was denied the ability to glance around in confusion as Malik recaptured his mouth.

The hands supporting Ryou’s thighs spread him a little wider and then he was being entered and he wasn’t entirely sure by whom for an unreasonably long period of time. As Ryou came to terms with the odd verticality of this evening’s proceedings, he was able to puzzle out that it Bakura thrusting smoothly in and out of him from behind, while Malik was supporting and suspending most of his weight, as well as keeping Ryou’s attention split, to hold him in a state of dazed confusion. It was always faintly dazzling when they worked in flawless tandem, without any apparent communication, all the more so when the subject of their partnership was Ryou.

Malik gave Ryou back full use of his mouth so that he could pant wantonly, every breath accompanied by a little blossom of voice that didn’t sound entirely unlike a hiccup. Ryou clung to Malik’s shoulders as though his life hung in the balance, any semblance of rational thought long forgotten. He threw back his head and heard a delirious wail spilling from his own lips as he climaxed. Bakura swore breathlessly next to Ryou’s ear and, a few seconds later, Ryou shivered, despite the warmth of the feeling, as he felt Bakura’s release pervade him.

Ryou almost whined in protest at how quickly Bakura made his exit, before he was supplanted by Malik’s presence. Hands shifted, Bakura taking Ryou’s weight as Malik plunged into him, the incursion lasting just a handful of thrusts before Malik shuddered in surrender and Ryou let out a faint moan. A few weeks ago, he’d professed to enjoying the sensation of being filled, and since then he’d noticed the bandits making an effort to give him double-servings. It was just another new facet to this cabaret of sin Ryou had let himself get sucked into.

Ryou closed his eyes again and let his head fall back, leaning against Bakura’s shoulder as he panted, pressed between their bodies. He could feel Malik’s face near his neck, breath warming and cooling his skin on the exhales and inhales. Bakura was nuzzling his ear. Ryou knew that he was going to hell, and maybe he’d always been bound for it; all the bandits had done by involving him in their deviant behavior was help to insure that Ryou would at least be getting his money’s worth for his damned soul.

They shifted; Bakura sank down to the bed and Ryou found himself sitting in the bandit’s lap when he cracked his eyes open and lifted his head. He lazily watched Malik pull back the blankets and crawl underneath before looking back up at Ryou and holding out his arms in a similar gesture to the one Ryou had made earlier. “Come here,” he called.

Ryou felt himself smiling and shifted forward as Bakura’s arms unwrapped themselves from around him, making his way to the head of the bed and joining Malik under the covers. He closed his eyes again as he settled down, feeling Bakura following him and completing the capsule of warmth beneath the layers of wool and linen. Ryou sighed and let himself be tugged into Malik’s arms again and held there. He listened to the flick of a lighter; he could feel cool air on the back of his shoulders as Bakura was curled forward, half sitting up to light his cigarette.

“Hey.” Malik called, lifting his head slightly. “Gimme,” he demanded in a soft, tired voice.

Bakura snorted. “How ‘bout a ‘please,’ ya no-class dinge,” he muttered even as he must have held out the cigarette. Malik propped himself up slightly and leaned over Ryou. Ryou chewed on his lip, wondering if any ashes would drop on his face. Would they still be hot? None did. Malik dropped back down into the pillow, exhaling slowly.

Malik’s arms enfolded Ryou again and he sighed. There was a long and comfortable silence and Ryou might have begun to doze off, because he started very slightly when Malik lifted his head again. “Bakura, go make yourself useful and get us some supper,” he mumbled.

In response, he received another snort. “Ryou s’one ain’t done nothin’ today. Why ain’t ya sendin’ him?” Bakura demanded.

“Ryou’s keeping me warm,” Malik replied, nuzzling Ryou’s temple.

“Oh, well,” Bakura let out a sarcastic puff. “Can’t be takin’ the prettiest blanket off the bed then, can I?” Ryou shivered, cool air assaulting his back as Bakura brushed back the covers and pushed himself out of bed. “Fine. I’ll go find something to eat.”

“Eat, not drink,” Malik reminded in a chastising tone.

“I said eat!” Bakura snapped. He commenced grumbling as he shuffled around alongside the bed. “Uppity son of a bitch, ‘spectin’ me to do everything... What the hell d’you do with my shirt, Malik?” Ryou could feel Malik shake with suppressed laughter. “I’m takin’ yours.”

“What? No,” Malik protested, pushing himself up slightly. “Wear your own damn shirt.”

“I can’t find it,” Bakura scoffed. “Unless you gonna come out here and look, I’m takin’ this one.”

“It’s your shirt, find it yourself!” Malik snapped.

“You threw it.”

“Take that off!”

“You gonna get up and make me?” Bakura challenged. There was a momentary pause and then Malik flopped back down into the pillow with an irritable sigh. “That’s what I thought,” Bakura muttered. There was more shuffling from his direction and then another annoyed snort. “Damn it, m’shoe’s under the bed...”

Ryou started to laugh, but it came out as more of a sigh. Malik’s fingers were slowly combing through his hair and lulling him into complacent fatigue. “Are you still here?” Malik asked sarcastically over Ryou’s head.

“I’m goin’!” Bakura snarled. “Christ Almighty!”

The door closed behind him, casting the room into a quiet in which Ryou could hear the beating of Malik’s heart and his own. A few minutes passed, and Ryou was again torn from the brink of sleep by Malik’s voice. “You really okay to drive the car, baby?” he asked softly.

“I said I was,” Ryou mumbled next to his neck.

“You know this is going to make you a full accomplice,” he reminded. “No going back after that.”

“Thought you’d be more worried about me stalling the engine,” Ryou said with a tired smirk.

“I’m worried about that too,” Malik agreed with a soft chuckle.

“I can do it,” Ryou whispered. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go with you.”

He felt Malik’s chest expand and sink back in a sigh, and then a gentle kiss brushed Ryou’s forehead. “If you want to follow us to hell, I don’t mind the company,” Malik breathed. Ryou felt himself smiling.

888
888

So this ‘verse kind of seems like it came out of nowhere. I think it’s because I’ve been hearing Lay Me Down (Dirty Heads) soooo much on the radio the past couple months. It puts me in mind of motorized bandits. Although, realistically, there’s no mentions in the song to indicate a period of time and it’s more likely taking place in the ‘old west’ being that that has a lot more pop-culture precedence, but still, my mind goes to motorized bandits of the 1920s because tommy-guns and three piece suits pleases my aesthetic senses so much better.

This fic is dedicated to Lady Blackwell, who has offered me a job as her pet pornographer as soon as she becomes a rich doctor-lady. I shall sleep at the foot of her bed, eat from a bowl with my name on it, and write her tornshipping smut all day long.

So, as for the setting and character quirks, probably the quirk that stood out the most in this fic was Bakura speaking in dialect; for this ‘verse, Bakura is hill-people, born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. This region was largely populated by ‘Scotch-Irish’ immigrants back in the day and has a long-standing tradition of contempt for the law, moonshine, and dangerously weird religious practices (playing with snakes and drinking tinctures of strychnine). For those interested, Malik was born in DC (son of the Egyptian ambassador) and Ryou is from a small town in Georgia. NOW THEY ROB BANKS!

So, I’m not calling this fic finished but I’m not promising more of it either. If and as I continue this, it’ll be in disjointed drabbles and no particular order. And it’ll probably mostly be smut, because Lady Blackwell’s been spoiling for some tornshipping sex and I may have made some vague promises to deliver.

Oh, and on old-timey slang, the references to money in the banter at the beginning refer to make-outs. Also, Bakura referred to Malik by a racial slur at one point in there; this isn't because he takes any particular issue with Malik's complexion, more that he knows it irritates Malik and that is always a primary goal.

YGO- Invisible- Chapter Six

2011-10-05T02:09:54Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Yami-Bakura, Bakura Ryou, Malik Ishtar, Yami-Malik
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.
Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Two name retcons- the character originally called ‘Maggy’ in the first chapter is being changed into ‘Melody’ (Miho’s English name) because I’ve decided to bring her back briefly and I don’t like having much in the way of reoccurring OCs in fic when I can help it, and Miho was actually a great fit to that role. Second name change is for a character who hasn’t even been introduced yet, so I don’t think that’s going to upset anyone too much. The person Yami mentioned in the last chapter as having a lunch appointment with on Monday is now ‘Mister Wong.’ I went back and forth on whether I wanted to make him actually related to Vivian several times, but in the end I’ve decided to go for it.

000
000

“He’s made you weak.”

Bakura glanced over the top of his tablet where he’d been reading the day’s headlines. Akefia was poking away at his Gameboy with a faintly annoyed look on his face. “You mean Arthur, I assume?” Bakura asked quietly, turning back to the news site.

“... You could have been so much more if he hadn’t made you soft,” Akefia murmured in a wistful tone, not looking up from the tiny, glowing screen.

“I don’t really see how, since he taught me everything I know,” Bakura responded calmly.

“To say that I’ve taught you nothing?” Akefia raised an eyebrow.

Bakura smirked. “Well, he taught me enough to get your attention in the first place, didn’t he?”

Akefia chuckled. “You’ve got talent, the old man afforded you a smidge of skill, but you don’t have the passion to be great. It’s such a pity... I think I’ve been wasting my time on you.”

“Mm, yes, what a pity. I’m so very lacking for passion you must be bored out of your mind,” Bakura agreed. “Perhaps you’ll just have to start from scratch, find a new talented, young vagabond to train.”

“You have so much potential,” Akefia sighed, pausing his game and tossing it to the side. “I know you’d hate beautifully if you just gave it a chance.”

“Hate is counter-productive,” Bakura replied easily. “Being obsessed gives the object of your obsession influence over you. Why would I want to give that kind of power to someone I rather don’t like?”

Akefia was quiet for a moment and then he growled, “The old man taught you that, didn’t he?”

“Of course.”

“He’s a liar,” Akefia hissed.

Bakura clenched his jaw slightly, his eyes not leaving an article he was on yet not making any progress through the words. “No. He’s not,” he said in a quiet but firm voice.

Akefia’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you not like that? Let’s just have some juice and gram crackers and talk about our feelings then,” Akefia sneered.

Bakura sighed and rolled his eyes.

Akefia leaned into him, putting his mouth right next to Bakura’s ear. “What if I stabbed you in the back? Would you hate me?”

“Hm, literally or figuratively?”

“Either? Both?”

“Well, I think if it was literal, then I’d be somewhat dead,” Bakura said, giving a small shrug which Akefia refused to be dislodged by. “I’ll leave biologists and theologians to speculate on what sort of feelings I might have then. And if it were to be figurative, hm, how would I feel about that...?” Bakura tapped his chin. “I think you’d want me to hate you, so maybe I won’t, just to spite you.”

Akefia laughed and then sighed, stroking his fingertips down Bakura’s jaw. “You would have had such beautiful hate if the old man hadn’t ruined you.”

“I’m sure he regrets it every day.”

Bakura groaned softly, rubbing a hand over his face. He took a long, deep breath and then let it out in an irritated sigh. He hated dreams that made him wake up wanting to punch someone. Particularly when that really wasn’t an option. Even taking out his fury on the headboard or the pillow would have probably been a bad idea, since Bakura probably couldn’t have extricated himself from Ryou’s grip without waking him.

What time was it? He could roll over and look, but that might disturb the aforementioned complication, pressed softly against him, breathing so steadily. The alarm would also disturb him, of course. Was there anything Bakura really needed to be on time for today? No. No appointments on a Saturday.

He reached awkwardly backwards and his hand brushed the clock. Clumsily but carefully, he found the alarm switch and pushed it towards the off-position. Bakura sighed again, bringing his arm back and tucking it around Ryou’s gently rising and falling shoulder. He closed his eyes and imagined what Ryou would look like right now, if there were any light source in the room. Pale skin and lean body, no hint of tangible fat anywhere, round, effeminate face and soft, colorless hair spread out over the pillow. He was pretty in clothes; he was probably mesmerizing without any.

But he was also body-shy and traumatized. Bakura leaned his cheek against Ryou’s forehead. It would probably be cruel or something to push for keeping the lights on. It wasn’t only his body and visual aesthetic though, Bakura also just wanted to see the reactions to his touch. Ryou was good (very good) at giving vocal feedback, but a picture was worth a thousand wordless moans, wasn’t it.

Bakura turned his head and kissed Ryou’s forehead, stroking his fingers slowly through the boy’s hair. Maybe he wasn’t exactly a lover, more fantasy than reality, but he was the ‘outlet’ they’d all been telling Bakura he needed. And he had needed this. This quiet time, made so much quieter by Ryou’s temperate presence than any time spent alone with his own thoughts would be. He slowly inhaled the smell of Ryou’s skin and hair and relished the faint tug of desire that stimulus produced. Was it Ryou or the fantasy that was so endlessly enticing?

Bakura supposed he must be desperately in lust with the boy. Curious that all his sexual frustration had lead him to such a completely different ‘type’ than he usually went for. Maybe he’d just gotten burned out on his usual ‘type’. Or maybe sweet-and-wholesome was safe and he really was just rebounding. Ryou didn’t deserve that, but what was Bakura supposed to do about it? He couldn’t break it off now, Ryou was financially dependent on him. And... he’d said he wanted to be used anyway. Which was probably exactly the reason Bakura shouldn’t be using him and some psychological bullshit.

Bakura groaned and closed his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Ryou’s voice whispered, next to Bakura’s collarbone.

When had he woken up? Bakura sighed again and ran his fingers up the curve of Ryou’s jaw. “Thinking too much...” he murmured against Ryou’s forehead and then pulled away half an inch to speak more clearly. “You get in the habit of thinking things are always going to stay the same, then when they turn over you’re so freaked out you can’t stop asking what-if what-if what-if all the damn time...”

Ryou nodded slowly and then shifted, his arms coming up between them and hands gently catching around the sides of Bakura’s face. “Stop thinking,” he suggested, and repositioned Bakura’s mouth to kiss him.

Bakura sank into the kiss and slid his down-turned arm underneath Ryou to pull their bodies closer together. Ryou’s tongue brushed teasingly against his and Bakura tilted his head to explore deeper into the warm, beguiling mouth offered to him. Ryou’s arms moved to cling to Bakura for dear life and he started to pant sweetly through his nose. A leg hooked behind Bakura’s and he took it as a cue to push his thigh up into Ryou’s groin.

“M-mhh!” Ryou moaned against his lips as Bakura dropped a hand to squeeze his buttock and grind slowly against Ryou’s mounting erection. After a few moments, Bakura moved his elbow and rolled his weight over, pressing Ryou down onto his back and sucking at his neck. “Oh-Ah! Hahh... Yes...” Ryou mewled, weaving his fingers into Bakura’s hair.

Bakura nibbled at Ryou’s earlobe for a moment and then murmured, his lips brushing the shell of Ryou’s ear, “Let’s see if we can wake the neighbors.”

Ryou gasped lustily and Bakura shoved the blankets away before crawling backwards on hands and knees over Ryou. He licked the inside of Ryou’s thigh and shivered at the desperate little sounds Ryou made before he started hair-pulling in frustration. Bakura winced slightly at the uneven tug on his scalp but obligingly transferred his attention, catching Ryou’s hip and holding him down with his left hand as he drew his tongue slowly up Ryou’s erection and then closed his mouth around it, absorbing the fevered rhythm of his pulse.

Ryou came quickly and without much warning, but it didn’t catch Bakura by surprise so much as it had the first time. He managed not to choke this time as he listened to Ryou’s shameless screaming. When the orgasm passed and Ryou was left panting and whimpering in its wake, Bakura slowly kissed his way up Ryou’s belly and chest, which elicited more sweet little sounds. Bakura slid his arms under Ryou’s thighs and lifted them out over his own, before catching Ryou behind the back and pulling him into his lap.

Ryou wrapped his arms around Bakura’s neck and undulated slowly in time as Bakura ground his own erection against the sensitive stretch of skin behind Ryou’s balls. “D’you like that?” Bakura panted softly next to Ryou’s ear, only pulling his mouth away briefly before going back to lavishing damp affection onto the boy’s ear and jaw.

“Y-yeah,” Ryou breathed, swaying in Bakura’s lap.

“What else do you like?” Bakura asked as he slid a hand appreciatively around the curve of Ryou’s ass.

“F-fuck me?” Ryou whispered, a hopeful, needy tone to his voice.

Bakura slowed for just a few moments even as Ryou kept grinding in his lap. “... Give it a little more time to heal,” Bakura mumbled against his neck.

Ryou’s arms tightened and his head dropped a little, curling around Bakura’s shoulders. “A-am I broken f-forever?” he whimpered.

Damn it. Bakura wasn’t going to be able to get off if Ryou got weepy. “You’ll be fine,” he assured softly and laid a kiss against Ryou’s neck. “It just takes some time.”

Ryou’s fingers dug into Bakura’s hair and he whispered softly, right into Bakura’s ear. “... I want you.”

Bakura hadn’t quite believed that mere words could push him over the edge, but Ryou’s voice, there was something so endlessly arousing about it. Ryou made a lusty little sigh into Bakura’s hair as Bakura rubbed wantonly against him, finding release against the cleft of Ryou’s ass.

000

Ryou watched the batter form bubbles until the edges of it started to solidify, then he slipped the spatula under and flipped the perfectly browned pancake over to let the other side cook. He smiled softly. As he moved three new pancakes to a plate in the oven, he heard a door open and felt a tiny rush, maybe a heart-flutter. He glanced over to see Bakura exiting the bedroom in fresh jeans and Tshirt, his hair tied up in its knotted bun for showering. He had the bed-sheets bundled up between his hands.

“I can take care of those,” Ryou called, feeling a little frown tug at his lips.

Bakura shrugged back at him. “You’re making food,” he replied.

Ryou turned back to the stove, his face feeling warm, and he grabbed the cooking-spray to cover the griddle before pouring three more pancakes. Around the corner he listened to Bakura loading the sheets into the stacked washer-drier. Ryou heard the door slam shut and then the sound of water rushing into the washer as he watched the pancakes bubble.

“So... is there anything particular you want to do today?” Bakura asked, returning to the semi-enclosed space that defined the kitchen.

“Do?” Ryou paused for a moment, and then moved the new pancakes to the plate in the oven before contemplating the question further. “I’m not sure. You’re not working?”

“Not today,” Bakura replied. “I don’t know, is there anything else you need or something? I mean, you’ve got clothes and a phone now...”

“I don’t need anything else,” Ryou said quickly. “...Thank you,” he added in a softer voice.

“Okay,” Bakura said, nodding and leaning against the fridge.

“I... I should go see Melody, and let her know I’m okay.” Ryou poured the last of the batter onto the griddle and watched it bubble. “...Tomorrow would probably be better. I think Saturdays are busier there.”

“Probably,” Bakura agreed, staring blankly at the counter across from him.

They were quiet for a few minutes as Ryou flipped the last two pancakes and moved them to the plate with their comrades. “Do you want eggs or sausage?” Ryou asked, turning to look at Bakura.

Bakura tilted his head and seemed to consider for a moment. “I could go either way.” He shrugged. “I guess... eggs?”

“How would you like them?” Ryou ran a dishrag over the griddle to get off the remaining traces of pancake.

“Eggy. I don’t know.” Bakura made a goofy little smirk, leaning his head back against the fridge. “What’s easiest? Scrambled?”

“Or over-easy or something. It’s probably about the same. Eggs are easy,” Ryou replied with a shrug and a little smile.

“I usually do over-easy with toast,” Bakura said and clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Let’s go with scrambled,” he decided.

“Okay,” Ryou agreed and then stood still for a moment before commenting, “The eggs are in the fridge.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Bakura let out a slightly embarrassed sounding laugh and moved aside so that Ryou could open the fridge.

The art supplies were still spread out over the dining table from the night before. Bakura cleared them off and set the boxes and sketchpads aside on the couch to make space for eating. It spared Ryou twenty minutes more before he had to confront the seven-hundred dollars worth of hobbycraft again, but after breakfast, when no fantastic plans for the day had been devised, Bakura migrated over to the couch and Ryou followed him.

While Bakura poked at his tablet, checking through messages or something, Ryou carefully picked up the boxes of pens and pencils one by one and examined them carefully, reading the text on the outsides, not disturbing the packaging in any way, and stacking them neatly on the coffee table.

“Draw me something.”

Ryou looked up from the back of the Prismacolor box. “What?”

“I want to see the kinds of things you draw,” Bakura explained, looking at Ryou over the top of his screen. “Draw me something?”

Ryou looked down at the Prismacolor box and felt his face heating up a little. “I- I don’t do any fine-art or anything like that. Just illustration, really... Like comics or game art, that kind of thing...”

“What genre?”

Ryou bit his lip, feeling self-conscious and picked at his fingernails. “Mostly fantasy, I’m trying to get better at scifi stuff, but it’s really different, because fantasy is all organic, curving kind of shapes and scifi is hard, geometric stuff... and I’m not very good at drawing guns...”

“So, like Tolkienesque kind of stuff?” Bakura asked.

Ryou nodded. “Yeah, like that,” he agreed.

“You draw me an elf-warrior or something?” Bakura tilted his head to the side, the hint of a smile flickering behind his eyes.

Ryou pressed his lips together and stared down at the stacked art supplies on the coffee table. He nodded slowly and set the Prismacolor box down before reaching out for a Canson sketchpad and the box of graphite pencils. As lines slowly began to divide the lightly toothed white plain, Ryou forgot to feel self-conscious. He didn’t even notice himself unwrapping the gum-eraser or pulling the adhesive seal off of the Micron pouch.

Ryou jumped slightly, and it took his brain several seconds of processing to realize that the thing which had disturbed him was a knock on the door. He blinked slowly, looking up from his sketch pad, watching as Bakura pushed himself to his feet. He walked around the bend of the couch, grumbling quietly, “If that’s Rebecca again, I’m going to ship her home in a dog-kennel.”

Ryou gazed after him for a moment before looking back down at his sketch pad. The colorless outlines of an elfin rogue were all but complete there, but he couldn’t use Copics on flimsy sketch paper, to finish he’d have to transfer the image to a sheet of bristol. He needed a light-table. No. No he didn’t. He had seven-hundred dollars worth of art supplies, he did not need more.

“Special deliveryyy!~”

Ryou blinked and looked back up at the corner around which Bakura had disappeared.

“W-what the hell are you-?!” Bakura’s voice demanded. “You said you wouldn’t even get the parts until Monday!”

“That’s what Saturday first-overnight is for. Costs three times as much, but you are worth it, Kura,” a voice, Ryou wasn’t quite sure if it was the same as the first or a new one, replied with a pronounced smugness.

Ryou set his sketchpad down on top of the stacked boxes on the table and turned halfway in his seat, peering over the back of the couch, at the corner of the tiled entryway floor that was visible from his current vantage point.

“... Okay, I appreciate that, but I wasn’t expecting you and I don’t have time t--”

“Catch!”

“Gh- What the fuck are you-- MALIK!”

Ryou flinched and his fingers dug into the couch cushion as an olive-skinned blond came tearing around the corner and skidded to a momentary stop on the carpet, looking around wildly and spotting Ryou. Bakura was right on his heels until a second, nearly identical blond tackled him and the first shot toward Ryou.

A thrill of terror at the sudden flurry of unexpected motion rocked through Ryou and he ducked his head down and drew his limbs in towards his core as the blond stranger vaulted the back of the couch and pounced on him.

“GET OFF OF HIM!” Bakura shouted and Ryou squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lip hard.

Ryou wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting, but a bright voice exuberantly exclaiming “Hi, cutie! What’s your name?!” wasn’t it.

Ryou blinked, hesitantly looking up into the pale violet eyes that were staring at him from much too close as a middle-eastern boy, not significantly larger or older than Ryou, hovered over him, smirking and studying him with interest.

“God damn it! Get off!” Bakura’s voice snarled and Ryou peaked over the couch to see him struggling against the twin, who was crouched on top of Bakura, pinning him face down against the floor and giggling excitedly.

“Oh don’t worry, they’re just playing!” the boy in front of Ryou said, grabbing Ryou’s hands and clasping them in his even as Ryou tried to jerk away. “Now. I’m Malik and that’s my brother Marid,” the blond explained cheerfully. “And who might you be?”

Ryou stared at him dumbly for a few seconds and then glanced back towards Bakura.

“I am going to fucking murder you!” Bakura screamed. “Mai told you, didn’t she?!”

“Oh don’t be dense, Bakura! You told us!” his captor, Marid, laughed. “A high end graphics card and ‘all that Adobe shit’? Either you’re taking up art or you’ve got some other new hobby!”

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”

“So!” Malik segued in a chipper tone. “How did you meet?” he asked as Ryou kept trying to tug his hands out of the other boy’s grip and scoot away. “And how on Earth did you get this frigid prude to put his cock in you?”

Ryou dropped his head, his eyes weren’t focusing anyway, and tried to stop hyperventilating even as tremors started to radiate out through his limbs. His lips started moving, repeating the same pattern again and again, before he could produce any sound.

“What’s that?” Malik asked, his voice a little quieter and his hands not squeezing Ryou’s quite as much, as he leaned forward slightly.

“Pleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchmepleasedon’ttouchme...”

Malik’s fingers slowly uncurled and his hands retreated as Ryou pulled his own back in towards his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. “...I’m sorry,” Malik murmured, his voice suddenly very subdued.

There was a thump strong enough to shift the couch-section under Ryou and Malik’s arm brushed him as he was hauled up off the seat. “Bakura, don’t you--” “Marid!” the just barely differentiable voices shouted and then there was sudden quiet.

A weight landed on the cushions ahead of Ryou and then fingertips just barely touched the sides of his face. “...Ryou?” Bakura’s voice whispered, inches away.

Ryou unclenched his hands and lifted them shakily to find Bakura’s, his eyes still squeezed shut. “W-what j-just happened?” he mumbled, his breath shuddering and fast.

“It’s okay.” Bakura leaned his forehead against Ryou’s. “They’re friends. They’re just really stupid,” he assured quietly. “...Are you okay?”

“Fine!” Ryou straightened up and shook his head. “Fine! I just- Fine!” he opened his eyes and blinked quickly.

“Okay. I can get rid of them,” Bakura whispered, his eyes right there in front of Ryou’s.

“N-no. It’s fine,” Ryou shook his head again and looked over to where the set of twins was standing a few yards away, Malik whispering rapidly into his ear as Marid gave Ryou a doubtful look. “S-sorry. That- You startled me,” Ryou said lamely and then pressed his lips together for a moment before adding, “I’m Ryou. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, not at all!” Malik protested, waving a hand dismissively. “We apologize for the over-enthusiasm. We were just a little too excited because Bakura’s being so secretive,” he explained with a just slightly forced smile.

“Because it’s none of your business,” Bakura growled.

Malik pouted like a cover-girl. “Now that’s just mean! After all we’ve been through together?”

Bakura snorted irritably and glanced back at Ryou. “They’re... part of my team at work sometimes,” he explained.

Ryou nodded slowly, watching Marid step away from his twin and pick up a wide, shallow box that had been discarded on the floor during the scuffle. “And I believe this is for you,” he said, his voice very close to Malik’s but darker, and without the streak of drag-queen-like flamboyance. He walked closer to the couch but stayed at arm’s-length as he presented the box to Ryou.

Ryou looked blankly at the box, the stickers on its surface declaring things like ‘Intel’ and ‘hp’. He glanced up at Bakura, who was looking away with a guilty expression.

“I... kind of got it before you asked me to stop buying shit...” he muttered awkwardly. “And I can’t really let you use my computers because they have too much work stuff on them and, I mean, it’s the twenty-first century, you need a computer...”

“A custom order for best performance!” Malik chirped, grinning.

“We loaded it with the basic Adobe Graphics Suite, but we weren’t sure if you were into video-editing and didn’t want to bog it down with that software if you weren’t,” Marid explained. “But just let us know and we can get a copy of Premiere on there too, if you want.”

“It’s... fine...” Ryou mumbled, sliding the box into his lap and feeling overwhelmed. “...Thank you.”

“You two can go home now,” Bakura suggested.

“Oooh no we can’t!” Malik protested. “I demand the chance to make a good first impression!”

“You don’t even know how to make a halfway decent impression,” Bakura grumbled.

“Oh yes, he’s so much less anti-social now,” Marid snorted, giving his twin an amused smirk.

“It is a lovely day and you are going outside and you are going to enjoy it if I have to cram valium down your throat,” Malik said sternly, narrowing his eyes at Bakura.

Bakura glared right back at him.

“Get. Your. Coat,” Malik hissed through his teeth.

“No,” Bakura snapped.

“Now,” Malik said with venom in his voice.

000

Bakura glared sullenly in the gray light, his feet following along almost without conscious decision, like a horse moving with the herd. His gaze rested on Malik’s hand linked with Ryou’s as he dragged the rather reluctant boy along the sidewalk a few paces ahead of Bakura, chattering brightly to him. Every so often Ryou would glance back at Bakura nervously, as though reassuring himself that he hadn’t been left alone in Malik’s clutches.

“How old is he?” Marid hissed at Bakura, apparently having decided to hang back and let his twin handle the socializing for the time being.

“Shut up,” Bakura growled, turning his glare off to the side.

“He’s jail-bait, isn’t he?” Marid’s voice held a distinctly amused tone. “I didn’t think you were into that scene!”

“Shut up,” Bakura said through gritted teeth.

“And I thought you were looking for someone who wasn’t fucked-up,” Marid pushed. “What’s wrong with him? Rape?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Bakura snapped. Ryou turned to look back at him with a slightly alarmed expression, but Malik didn’t even break the rhythm of what he was babbling and continued tugging him along. Bakura shook his head, hunching up in his jacket so that the collar was just under his nose, and kept walking. Ryou gave him a look of concern but turned around again to watch where he was going. “It’s none of your God-damned business,” Bakura muttered behind his collar.

“It’s a little hurtful, you know,” Marid said in a mock-hurt voice. “I would have hoped you’d at least find somebody less fucked-up than us after all that.”

“Nobody in this city is as fucked-up as you two,” Bakura snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Oh now I’m sure that’s not true,” Marid said with a chuckle.

“I’d challenge you to find a single one, but I really don’t think I’d want to meet someone who made you look well-adjusted.”

“Oh, I could probably find ten hanging out in front of the downtown library!” Marid laughed.

“Homeless schizophrenics don’t count. That is a biological dysfunction”

Marid laughed. “Still,” he said after a short pause. “He doesn’t really seem like your type, does he?”

“What the fuck would you know about my type?” Bakura snarled back.

Marid shrugged, his eyes tracking a small group of men across the street who were eyeing their procession, Malik and Ryou’s linked hands in particular. Bakura could see Marid’s hands shift slightly in his pockets, undoubtedly closing around a knife or two, and Bakura also spared a bit of his focus to study the body language across the street. He made eye-contact with one of them and the man looked away. The group seemed to think better of queer bashing in broad daylight and the attention ceased.

Bakura moved his eyes back to Malik and Ryou, irritated with Malik for his total ambivalence to which streets he chose to carelessly drag Ryou through. Malik had apparently chosen the shortest route to the waterfront, which lead through a sketchy part of town, and had found it appropriate to continue the hand-holding and camp either out of complete failure to notice or in his absolute confidence that Marid could protect him from anything. Bakura clenched his teeth and looked down the road, where, two blocks on, they’d hit a major artery and be back among upscale shops and liberal viewpoints.

He glanced back at Ryou and took in the hunched shoulders, slightly dipped head and quickened pace. He’d definitely noticed the unwelcoming atmosphere. Bakura chewed on his lip, silently considering that he had no idea what part of town Ryou had come from. He was apparently completely at ease with having prostitutes as friends, which didn’t exactly say ‘trashy’, but it was a little ways off the beaten path of the average middle-class teenager. And he’d dressed in well-kept but cheap clothing and seemed to regard a hundred dollars as a substantial sum. Maybe he’d lived in a low-income hive not entirely unlike this one?

They crossed over into urban chic territory and Bakura relaxed a little, trying to tune in to Malik’s ramblings. “Oh no, please don’t think there’s any hard feelings! I mean, I’m jealous, but not like that!” Malik was babbling and Bakura groaned, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as he felt a headache coming on. “I’d just really like to know how you did it! I mean it took three Manhattans and an LSD tab before I managed--”

“Malik,” Bakura snapped and when Malik glanced back at him with a painfully innocent expression, Bakura rolled his eyes and snorted irritably. “Tell him about the high school-college program you did,” he suggested.

“Oh are you going to do that?” Malik asked brightly, turning his attention back to Ryou. “That’s how Marid and I got our degrees. We went to Pinebrook Community College. It’s a really pretty campus and I totally recommend it,” he started down the new path of conversation with barely a pause for breath.

000

“And Tuesdays is sex-addicts group therapy. The judge is making us go to that for six months!” Malik rolled his eyes and sipped at his latte as he sat on top of the railing next to Ryou. “At least that’s almost over. God I hate those stupid meetings. It’s asinine anyway, don’t you think? They’re all like ‘Let’s find all the horniest people in the city and introduce them to each other! That’ll make them normal!’ I get hit on by the grungiest dudes. It’s sick.”

“What... did you do?” Ryou asked slowly, his own coffee rested on top of the railing, nearly forgotten as he stared at Malik. He was like a train-wreck. Morbidly fascinating and impossible to look away from no matter how disturbing the things coming out of his mouth became.

“Y’know that really sweet fountain they put in front of city hall last year?” Ryou nodded, he had admired the new fountain on several occasions; it was a brilliant design that had managed to look modern yet aesthetically pleasing in a very natural sort of way. “We fucked in it,” Malik explained and Ryou’s brain took a few beats to dissect and reassemble that statement even as Malik kept going with some new complaint. “But it was, like, 3AM! It’s not like kids were going to see or anything!”

“...With... each other?” Ryou asked quietly, staring down at the dark green water below them.

“Well yeah, of course w--” Malik broke off and then laughed. “Oh I’m sorry, you didn’t know that did you? Of course you didn’t!” he giggled.

“Problem?” Marid asked, looking down at his iced mocha as he fiddled with the straw.

“Er, no, I just wasn’t...” Ryou mumbled.

“You don’t have to be nice,” Bakura said, sitting on a bench next to the rail. “They’re completely fucked-up and they know it.”

“There’s no need to be mean either, of course,” Malik added, sipping at his drink again. “We know it’s unconventional.”

“Unconventional,” Bakura snorted, rolling his eyes. “Is that what you are?”

Malik laughed again and handed his latte to Marid so he could hop down to the planked wharf below him without fear of spilling. “And here you’ve found such a sweet, conventional little thing to play house with!” he said. “And cute!” he cast a grin to Ryou, who felt his face heat up a little, embarrassed.

Bakura pointed a warning finger at Malik and said “No,” in a firm voice, as though admonishing a dog.

Malik had a giggling fit and Marid swished his cup around, raising a thoughtful eyebrow at it. “But does ‘no’ mean ‘no’ today, or is there a safe-word?”

“The safe-word is ‘I’m going to punt you off the pier,’” Bakura grumbled.

“H-how long have you...? Is that something you were always...?” Ryou mumbled, unable to tear his eyes away from the train-wreck.

“Since we were eleven. Ah, here, look, this one’s cute!” Malik was suddenly holding an iPhone in front of Ryou’s face and it took him a few seconds to focus. On the screen was a photo of very young versions of the twins with a quilt for the background and one of them- their hair was the same length in the picture and it was impossible to tell them apart- kissing at the other’s neck, both naked and tangled together. The photo had a disturbingly professional polish to it.

“Put that away!” Bakura snapped, jumping to his feet and glaring. “Nobody wants to see your porn!”

“If that were true, why would so many people spend their money for a look...?” Marid said in a mock-musing voice, tapping his chin. Malik laughed again, but he obliged Bakura and slid the phone back into his pocket.

There were too many jumbled questions bottle-necking in Ryou’s mind and he couldn’t seem to articulate any one of them. “W-what? I- I don’t...?” he babbled helplessly and then shook his head, trying to force out the most vexing of the many problems with the picture. “Who took that?”

“A pedophile,” Bakura murmured, settling back down on the bench and taking another drink of his coffee.

“Our foster-dad, Greg,” Malik answered cheerfully.

“I think he was more of a profiteer than a pedophile,” Marid mused. “He never touched us. He just told us what to do to each other.”

“We were very popular,” Malik hummed, leaning back against the railing. “We had tones of subscribers. And every time we brought in fifty new ones, Greg bought us a present!”

Ryou stared at him, mouth slightly open, feeling hollow.

“He should have been arrested for criminal stupidity- filming kids the feds already had tagged,” Bakura growled quietly.

“Yes, well, nobody ever said he was bright,” Marid put in with a smirk. “Just greedy and perverted and lacking in a few morals.”

“I liked him,” Malik said quietly, tilting his head back and gazing up at the sky. “He never even raised his voice. He was a pervert, sure, but at least he was nice.”

“I think it still falls under the category of ‘abuse’,” Bakura snorted.

“That’s what the court says,” Marid agreed with a shrug.

Bakura was looking at Ryou, chewing on his lip. He sighed when Ryou cast him a pleading look, hoping that Bakura would explain how this was all a horrible joke. “They were in kiddy-porn for a couple years before the feds noticed and broke it up. They’re very proud of their fan-following,” he explained. “Don’t stress yourself trying to figure out why. It’s just one of the many reasons they are really fucked-up.”

It wasn’t a joke, apparently. The photographic evidence did back up the statements made. And maybe it explained why Malik’s mental age didn’t seem to fit his appearance. Up to now, Ryou had been assuming it was a deliberate act, like a feigned lisp, intended to be ‘cute’, but now the childlike mannerisms were painting a rather more disturbing picture. “One of... many...?” Ryou mumbled.

A deeply unsettling grin stretched Malik’s face and he leaned into Ryou’s space. “Want more?” he asked as Ryou took a half step backwards. He didn’t wait for an answer, plunging ahead. “We were in foster-care because Marid killed our father. Stabbed him fourteen times with a kitchen knife.”

Ryou stared at him, completely lost. What kind of denial issues had to be at work to put that kind of smirk on Malik’s face? Ryou’s brain seemed to have taken a holiday and was no longer supplying him with any responses or prompts. Again, Bakura came to his aid, asking, in an irritable droll that seemed to say he was well aware of the answer, “Gee, Malik, why did he do that?”

“Because he’s wonderful!” Malik declared, flinging himself at his twin, who caught him in a perfectly choreographed embrace and they launched into a passionate kiss.

Bakura rolled his eyes and then, for Ryou’s benefit, elaborated on Malik’s unsatisfactory explanation. “Abusive. As in, police took one look at the kids’ hospital records and never mentioned the word ‘homicide’ kind of abusive.”

Ryou nodded slowly, still failing to form any kind of verbal response.

000
000

All right! That’s it! I’m sick of this chapter! It’s done!

I’m also sick of being over-worked and not being able to write as much as I want. I hope to remedy that in the near future, but my aspirations of career-change are being somewhat hindered by being too exhausted to pursue it when I get home from the retail that is eating me alive. Soooo, I’d really love to do more updates, but I am in a stressful place right now and I don’t know how often I’ll be able to. But I have not forgotten you nor this story. There is more to come.

Gargoyles - Ill-Tempered Child

2011-09-21T05:59:17Z

Series:Gargoyles
Title: Ill-Tempered Child
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Owen Burnett, David Xanatos, Oberon, Fox Renard-Xanatos, Alexander Fox Xanatos
Rating: PG
Warnings: Violence and stuff, minor swearing.
Summary: SPOILERS! Owen Burnett receives a visit from his previous employer and gives his formal resignation.

Er, well, the statute of limitations on spoilers is probably well passed for this series, but I know at least one of my regular readers has expressed both an interest in the series and that she hasn’t yet watched it through, so I’ll put up warning here. Spoilers for Owen Burnett and the end of the Avalon arc are contained here-in. Probably the only spoilers the series has to offer, really.

000
000

David glanced up at the rattle of a pill-bottle. He paused, letting the line of code he’d been writing hang as he watched Owen skillfully extract a morphine tablet one-handed and slip the bottle back into the pocket of his blazer. He tucked the pill into his mouth, swallowing it dry, and pulled out his day-planner to make a note of the time, as he did without fail every time he took a dose. Doctor Finch had said that Owen was the kind of patient doctors dreamed of.

“Have you made any progress on finding a way to revert the effects of the Cauldron?” David asked in a casual tone.

“No,” Owen answered in his usual monotone, as always seeming completely ambivalent to his bad hand. “I rather doubt that a mystical cure exists. I’ve never heard of anything.”

“Did you know what the effect of the Cauldron was going to be?” David asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, Mister Xanatos.”

“Then so long as there remain things in this world that you’re ignorant of, there’s still hope,” David noted. “Still, an answer may be found on more modern terms. I’ve been reviewing my notes from creating Cold Stone. Gargoyle skin was used to create the spell, so I find it likely that the principles on which the organic-to-mineral conversion operate are the same.”

“Likely,” Owen agreed. “Although I’d hate to think you’re taking time away from more interesting projects to work on one that we’ve already established to be a failure.”

“Nonsense,” David waved his hand dismissively. “The mechanisms by which gargoyles can change the state of their matter has always fascinated me.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“In any event, I’d like you to review this macro when I’ve finished. It should increase the efficiency on the cybernetic uplink in my exo-suit,” David said, returning his eyes to the screen in front of him. “I’m hoping to fine-tune the speed controls to be more--”

He broke off and looked up sharply at the sound of his door opening without a knock. There weren’t many people who felt at liberty to waltz into his office uninvited. There was Fox and... well, there was only Fox, really. And the person currently entering David Xanatos’ office without invitation or announcement was definitely not Fox. A surge of anger tried to find a foothold in him as he recognized the face, but David quickly stowed it away and glanced to Owen.

Owen’s eyes might have narrowed very slightly and his jaw might have tightened just a fraction.

David turned his eyes back to the man striding confidently towards them as though everything his optical nerves captured belonged to him. To most people’s eyes he would have appeared like a very ordinary-looking middle-aged man, but David was fast to remember that face, which he’d seen only for a few moments before it transformed into a far more alien one, from the night his son was born.

“Lord Oberon,” David greeted in a cheerful voice, carefully arranging a smirk on his face. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I’m not here for you, human,” the Fairy King replied dismissively, not even bothering to look at David. He stopped in front of Owen, looking down his nose with the airs of someone considering an ugly and yappy dog. “Puck, a word,” he said, his voice intolerably aristocratic.

Owen glanced to David, lifting an eyebrow. David shrugged. “It’s fine. This won’t be ready for proof-reading for a while.”

“Yes, Sir.” Owen nodded and then turned and started towards the door that connected David’s office with the adjoining board-room. He didn’t make eye-contact with Oberon, he merely said, “This way, My Lord.”

David maintained his smirk until the door closed behind them, but it dropped the moment the latch clicked back into place. He gave the back of the door a solid glare before reaching into his pocket to pull out his cellular phone. He pressed the speed-dial and held it to his ear.

“Hey, Baby, anything fun happening?” a velvety voice asked when the line picked up.

“Your step-father is here,” David replied in a monotone.

There was a pause on the other end before Fox asked, “Where?”

“The board-room. He wanted to speak with Owen.”

“... I’m coming down there,” Fox announced.

“Do you have Alexander with you?” David asked.

“I’m not putting him down for a second until that man is gone.”

“Good.”

000

“There’s something you wished to discuss?” Owen asked neutrally, turning to face Oberon.

“Yes. I’ve slept on it,” Oberon said with a nod. The statement might have seemed slightly ridiculous, considering it had been a month since the altercation had occurred, but Owen knew that little more than a day would have passed on Avalon. “I’ve decided I’m ready to hear your apology,” Oberon announced and crossed his arms, waiting.

Owen stared levelly back at him, silent for a few moments before replying. “I’ve slept on it as well. I’ve decided I won’t be giving one.”

Fury flashed across Oberon’s face and he stood up straighter, dropping his arms. “Insolent! I’ll have no more of your games, Puck!”

“Owen Burnett,” Owen corrected. “Puck no longer exists. You saw to that.”

Oberon snarled, his teeth gritting together. “That is enough!” he snapped. “I’ve no patience for your insubordination! If you ever wish to return to Avalon, you will stop this mockery at once and beg my forgiveness!”

“You’ve already decreed that the Puck will not return to Avalon, My Lord,” Owen reminded him. “But then, your decrees always were meaningless, weren’t they?” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re not bound to your word like the rest of us and you’ve only ever kept it when convenient. Your oath has no value and everyone knows it.”

“How dare you!” Oberon seemed to be truly shocked by Owen’s candor. “You will not speak to me thusly!”

“No. I suppose no one will,” Owen agreed flatly. “That’s probably why you act like such a spoiled child.”

Oberon gaped, clearly too shocked to react.

“Catering to the whims of a capricious narcissist is an occupation I’ve no qualms with,” Owen filled the silence. “But being the slave of an ill-tempered infant, prone to frequent tantrums, I have found to be quite tiring.” Owen let a small smirk grace his lips. “Of course, Alexander has been a perfect angel since his arrival.”

“...You dare...?” Oberon was visibly seething and his stature had gained by a foot. He darted forward suddenly. Owen became aware of the Fairy King’s revised position by the pressure on his throat before his eye had managed to track the movement. “You stand there insulting your Lord and King as though you would enjoy some immunity from my wrath?!”

Owen’s feet hung inches above the floor as Oberon’s hand suspended him from the neck like a noose, growing ever tighter. He no longer had breath with which to make a reply so he simply formed the shape of the world ‘child’ on his lips with great exaggeration.

Oberon roared.

000

“I don’t like this,” Fox commented quietly, her arms wrapped around the sling she was carrying Alexander in. “I don’t want him here.”

“Neither do I, but I think attempting to bar him entry would have been construed as rather insulting, and we can’t weather another assault right now,” David replied, pretending to be interested in the programming code in front of him. “We were protected by nine months of Owen’s best preparations before, and we’ve had less than one to recover from the attack. I’d rather keep things civil, if possible, for the time being.”

“Civil my ass,” Fox growled. Alexander made small fussing noises, upset by his mother’s distress.

“Owen can handle him,” David said, his voice confident.

“Puck couldn’t handle him!” Fox protested, casting a glare at her husband. “What makes you think Owen can?”

“... Because Owen isn’t afraid of him,” David answered.

“Well maybe he should be,” Fox said darkly. “He’s more vulnerable now than he ever was before.”

“I’m not about to underestimate the power of confidence,” David replied with a shrug and reached into the top right drawer of his desk. “But I have always felt it best to be prepared,” he said, pulling out a desert eagle and laying it down next to his computer.

Fox eyed the gun silently for a moment before asking, “Does that have the new rounds?”

“Of course.” David nodded.

Fox started to smirk but it turned to a scowl halfway through as muffled shouting could be heard from the boardroom. “He’s got quite a temper on him,” she growled.

“Don’t I know it,” David agreed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I still have whiplash.”

Fox gazed uneasily at the door, hugging Alexander tightly. “I don’t like this,” she reiterated.

“I know, but--” David started but broke off as a roar, which sounded more like an animal than a man, emanated from the boardroom. The sound was followed by a loud thump. A chill ran down David’s spine and he sprung to his feet, grabbing the pistol off his desk.

Fox was hot on his heals as David reached the boardroom door and wrenched it open. Inside, the Fairy King was standing amid a mess of overturned chairs and tables and glaring towards a crumpled figure laying against the base of the wall. David’s eyes widened as he took in first the lack of movement and then the slowly spreading shadow of blood soaking into the carpet around the fallen body.

“Owen!” Fox screamed, rushing forward as Oberon’s glare turned on them.

David didn’t quite recall lifting his arm before he found himself firing off eight rounds of custom-made, low-velocity iron bullets into the Fairy King’s chest. Oberon fell backwards with a strangled cry and David ran a few feet to put himself between Oberon and his family, still pointing the gun at him as though there were a round left in it, though he knew otherwise.

“Owen, oh God, Owen...” Fox’s voice was breaking in a way rarely ever heard, and David couldn’t stop himself from taking his eyes off of Oberon, who was still moving and very much alive, to glance behind him.

The blood, he realized, was coming from the stump of Owen’s arm. The fragile connection between bone and mineral must have shattered during his impact with the wall, and the flesh had torn away from the stone almost cleanly. Fox was kneeling next to Owen and digging in his pocket. She pulled out the bottle of morphine tablets and fumbled it open. “Don’t worry. We can fix this. Just relax,” she was saying. “Here, that’s got to hurt.” She held a tablet to Owen’s lips.

“It’s fine, Fox,” Owen slurred quietly. “I don’t feel a thing...” A quiet dread started to creep its way up David’s spine then, but his blood ran cold at Owen’s next words. “I think... my neck is broken.”

David found himself pulling the pistol’s trigger uselessly and cursing himself for not having another clip as he glared at Oberon, who was shuddering and picking the iron bullets out of himself one at a time, unable to move them with magic.

“Shhh,” Fox whispered. “It’s going to be fine. We can fix this,” her voice was starting to sound congested and desperate. She’d taken off her belt and was trying to cinch it into a tunicate around Owen’s arm. Alexander had started wailing.

Oberon glared across the room at them, finally pulling the last bullet out between his blood-coated fingers. There was a vague disquiet mixed in with the anger on his face and after a moment he snarled. “What’s wrong with you, Puck? Do you mean to just--”

“He’s dying, you stupid bastard!” David shouted.

A startled look overcame the Fairy King’s features and his mouth snapped shut.

“Mister Xanatos, please don’t provoke him...” Owen mumbled from the floor. David turned back to look at him again and he could see Owen’s eyes were turned up towards him, even as his face lay in the blood-dampened carpet. “It has been a true pleasure serving you, sir,” he said weakly, a slight smirk showing. His eyes dropped, not quite focusing on Fox. “Fox, I hvff luwnns...” he trailed off into slurry whispers, his eyelids drooping.

“Owen? Owen?!” Fox called, leaning forward and grabbing his shoulder, but not shaking.

“Stay with us, Owen. Keep talking,” David ordered, dropping down next to them, the malevolent deity in the room all but forgotten. He whipped out his cellular phone and started mashing buttons, scrolling through the contacts to find the direct line to emergency medical services.

As he was scrolling through the Es, the tiny screen was drown in a much brighter glow and David looked up to see Owen’s body convulsing and lifting a few inches off the floor as he emitted a pale, green light. Owen’s eyes and gaping mouth glowed like a jack-o-lantern and David bit down on his tongue as he watched the glowing eyes widen and elongate, long, white hair whipping around in the magical currents. David turned to look at Oberon, who had a glowing hand extended towards them, his own eyes luminessing the same green.

The light dissipated as suddenly as it had come and Puck’s small frame dropped softly to the carpet, which bore no evidence of ever being stained with blood. His eyes were still wide open, but the glow had been replaced with ethereal blue eyes, blinked rapidly, a shaken expression on the trickster’s narrow face.

“Owen...” David whispered, deflating slightly with relief.

Puck’s eyes focused on him for just a moment before his head snapped to the side and his gaze fell on the Fairy King. He was silent for a few seconds before hissing, “You just couldn’t stand the thought of taking responsibility, could you?”

Oberon looked thoroughly taken aback and, after a moment, a flash of anger came back across his face. He’d just started to open his mouth to speak when Puck cut him off. “You’re pathetic,” he snarled.

Startled anger turned to fury in Oberon’s features and he was on his feet, glaring haughtily and speaking through clenched teeth. “How dare you--”

“Wanna hit me again?” Puck shouted, pushing himself into the air and flinging his arms wide. “I won’t break nearly so easy now! You can really get your anger out!” He laughed through a cruelly manic grin.

“Owen, stop,” Fox whispered, her eyes darting between the diminutive sprite and the Fairy King.

“Fox,” David hushed, shifting towards his wife and child, pulling them close.

“Go on, my Lord!” Puck declared loudly, wild energy curling around him, filling the room with a sensation of unrestrained power, like the crackle of static electricity. “Throw yet another petty tantrum! Show me how wrong I am for doubting your maturity, oh magnificent sovereign of mine!”

There was another flash of light, this one lasted only a split second, and Oberon was gone. Puck hung in the air as the crackling faded, leaving behind only Alexander’s pitiful wails, before he started to slowly succumb to the laws of physics and sink back down towards the floor, panting.

“S-sorry,” he said in a slightly wavering voice. “That was probably uncalled for.”

“I think it was completely called for,” David replied, reaching out and squeezing Puck’s narrow shoulder, he received a tired but very genuine smile in response.

“Well, I think I’ve had enough high-testosterone bullshit for one day,” Fox sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I’d really appreciate it if nobody else gets themselves maimed or killed for the rest of the evening.”

“Dear me, Fox, has motherhood claimed your sense of adventure?” David asked with a smirk.

Fox snorted and laid a hand against Puck’s back. “How do you feel, Owen?” she asked.

“Fine,” Puck said and then laughed softly. “I feel fine. Oh does that feel good.” He let out a puff of a sigh and slumped back against Fox. “Tired though... That’s annoying,” he mumbled, leaning his head on her shoulder and looking down at Alexander for a moment before lifting a slender hand to ruffle the tennis-ball fuzz on his head.

“I think you have a pretty good excuse,” David chuckled, watching Puck’s arm drop and his eyelids slowly drift shut. “I’ll give you the night off.”

“S’pose I may as well use my sick-time,” Puck mumbled.

“I think you have more than a month of it saved up.”

“Nah... I’ll be in first thin’ ‘n t’ mrnin...”

Fox laughed softly, relief clear in her voice, and rested her cheek against the crown of Puck’s head, before David slid his arms around the fairy. He was light; admittedly, Puck was small, even for a fairy, but while he looked about ninety pounds, he felt closer to fifty as David carefully lifted him off the floor. Puck made no more response but to lean slightly into David’s shoulder, apparently already asleep.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that we won’t be seeing him again,” Fox said with a sigh, climbing to her own feet, one arm cradled under Alexander’s sling.

“I think that would be a long shot,” David agreed, shouldering past the door back out into his office, rather than attempt to navigate the mess of overturned furniture to get to the hallway door. “I’ve had the impression that Puck was somewhat of a favored subject to him. I think Oberon might not be inclined to let this go.”

Fox let out a bitter huff, following her husband through his office and out to the elevators that lead up to the living part of the tower. “Well, he’d better at least stay away longer this time.”

“One can hope,” David agreed.

000
000

So I’ve been re-watching Gargoyles lately, and mind, I haven’t watched this show since I was ten or something. So, y’know when you’re watching these ‘srs business’ cartoons when you’re a little tot, and you just kind of accept the established authority figures as being right because they’re the established authority figures? And then you go back and watch your cartoons when you’re older and you suddenly realize, ‘wait, these guys are a bunch of ass-holes!’ I was truly perturbed to realize that Professor X is a total douche-bag. Not the movie-version of Prof, Patrick Stuart did a pretty good job of redeeming that part, but the Professor X in the comics and cartoons? Total douche-bag. And watching Oberon here? Oh my gosh, that guy doesn’t just have a stick up his ass, he’s a power-crazed three-year-old! Xanatos is still pretty darn rockin’ though. Well done, Jonathan Frakes, you’ve made a villain/anti-hero I can still respect fifteen years later. Well done.

This fic goes out to Elfy, who unwittingly provided the spark of inspiration for it. Happy late-birthday.

Oh, and BTW, for those who have been writing me frantic messages the past couple months, no I haven't jumped fandom, my YGO fics are still underway, I just have so little time or energy to write anymore and I hit a bit of writer's block with Invisible. Don't worry, I'm almost ready to post the next chapter.

Final Eclipse/Serpentine, Deleted Scenes

2011-05-30T22:11:09Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Final Eclipse/Serpentine: Deleted Scenes
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Yuugi Mutou, Atemu, Mazaki Anzu, Jonouchi Katsuya, Honda Hiroto, Malik Ishtar
Rating: M
Warnings: Sexual violence.
Summary: Those deleted-scenes I promised.
Previous:
Delusions
Bad Religion
Interlude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Final Eclipse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

So, I actually got almost no questions for this series that weren’t answered in latter chapters than the one they were originally posted on. So I guess we’re not going to have question-answer time so much as a run-down of deleted scenes and un-pursued ideas. First you get answers to the two kind-of questions I have gotten:

What happened to Hirutani after he had the misfortune of meeting Mot? Well, when Ryou and Bakhura get home, and after they’ve rested a bit from the flight, they’re going to notice some little flecks and smears of blood here and there in the living room. Bakhura ends up getting the carpet quietly replaced and they don’t tell anybody about it. Now here’s how I see a sort of explanation-scene unfolding:

About three months after the end of the series, Malik is now living with them and I picture him on the sidewalk downtown, eating a crepe (Asian style, where it’s like a soft ice cream cone.) He starts getting some cat-calls and harassment from some obnoxious teenagers nearby because, come on, he’s such a queen. Ryou/Bakhura catches up to him (it takes a few minutes to make a crepe-cone and Malik got his first) and it turns out that the hecklers are Hirutani’s gang. Before Bakhura or Ryou even get so far as opening their mouth, Hirutani blanches and then beats pavement out of there.

What happened to Mot and Sek? – They joined up with Apep (remember that scene in the fifth season where Yami-Bakura kind of jumps down into the game-table and merges into Zork? That.) and were killed along with him. Sorry. They’re gone.

Deleted Scenes:

So I mentioned, back in the AN for chapter 6, that everything had ended up going in a totally different direction than I’d originally intended. What prompted the change in large part seemed to be shifting the perspective, as originally the scene was written from Malik’s POV and when I rewrote it from Bakhura/Ryou’s it kind of took off on its own and I lost control of it.

The biggest change, -before Malik went and threw a wrench into the plot by blurting out that Atemu was killing Yuugi- was that originally I had Ryou being the one who ranted, and it was just angry and hurt ranting, then after the switch it ended up being Bakhura doing a lot of the ranting and it turned into more unhinged vitriol.

I’ve started the deleted-scene here from the moment the two story-paths diverged.

...

“I see,” Yuugi looked back up with a hopeful gleam in his eyes. “... Do you think maybe we could start over fresh?” he asked, fidgeting.

“No,” Ryou replied in a hard voice and Yuugi winced.

“Wh-why the hell not?” Jonouchi cut in, obviously frustrated and offended by Ryou’s flat out refusal.

Ryou looked up to Jonouchi, his expression still nearly blank. “It might have been possible up to and even during Battle City, but I can’t erase what happened to us in the last three months because of what the Pharaoh did to me, and you can’t either.” He looked away then, not meeting any of their eyes when he added, “And trying to pretend that nothing happened is just going to make us angrier the longer it festers, and I would hate you.”

“But you’re the one- ones- that tried to blow up the world or something!” Jonouchi protested. “What the hell did we do that’s worse than that!”

“Nothing.” The word came out in a low growl and Malik couldn’t identify whose voice it was for a minute, until it raised enough as it continued to pick out Ryou’s tone, but with far more open hostility than Malik had heard in it before. “You did nothing. You sat back and did nothing while, for three months, while I was destroying myself. You watched me like a soap opera.”

There was silence as not even Jonouchi seemed to be able to form a response to that. Ryou’s eyes narrowed into a glare. “You’re all so obsessed with some grade-school fantasy of being perfect, wholesome heroes, you couldn’t possibly acknowledge any moral gray-area even existing, much less question the Pharaoh’s ethics, because you’d already picked him out as the lead singer for your little rock band.” Ryou’s voice was shifting and blending with Bakhura’s now, wavering back and forth between the two.

“Even without admitting that maybe the Pharaoh wasn’t an infallible pillar of moral virtue, you still could have just been there. I didn’t have anyone else,” Ryou said, his voice dropping down to something just above a whisper. “You took away the only person I had in Domino and then you disappeared and left me completely alone.” He paused for a moment, pursing his lips and then went on. “You know, I started playing a game with myself. I’d make lists of all the different ways I could think to kill myself, and then I’d rank them. What would be the most sensational? The fastest? The most painless? The most ironic?”

...

This was where I’d originally got lost and couldn’t figure out how to finish the scene. However, while I was stuck, I still decided to move on and write the next scene and wait for inspiration to strike on the previous one. So, because of Malik’s destruction of my carefully planned plotline, the following scene ended up not fitting into the story’s new direction, but it still amused me and I thought I’d share it.

...

“What are we doing here?” Jonouchi growled, scuffing his toe against the floor. “We’re supposed to look at mummies and pretend Bakura didn’t just have a nuclear meltdown? He’s complaining about us leaving him behind, and what the hell are we doing right now?”

“I think he made it clear he doesn’t want to talk about it now, and honestly, I couldn’t just hang out with him after that.” Honda shrugged, looking at a tarnished bronze hand-mirror.

“Fuck hanging out! We should be doing something!” Jonouchi shoved his hands into his pockets and glared at a cracked perfume bottle.

“Like what, Jonouchi?” Anzu snapped.

“Like- I don’t know! Something!”

“Jonouchi-kun, I don’t think he wants to be around us right now,” Yuugi said quietly, eyes fixed on his Japanese museum-guide.

“He needs to cool off, Jou.” Honda patted Jonouchi’s shoulder. “We can’t know how much of that today was blowing off steam and how much is, y’know, permanent grudge kind of stuff.”

“Besides, if he’s leaving tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll want to spend the day with Malik,” Anzu sniffed, tilting her head to look through the glass shelf at the underside of an Isis statuette.

“Yeah, why is he so buddy-buddy with Malik, anyway?” Jonouchi demanded sulkily. “He barely knows that guy, right? We go to school with him!”

“Oh my god, could you be anymore clueless,” Anzu moaned putting her face in her hands.

“What?”

“Jou, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think he knows Malik pretty well...” Honda said in a voice that wasn’t so much patronizing as it was weary. “Yeah, maybe they haven’t spent that much time together, but they were working together pretty close at Battle City,” he reminded. “For example, Bakura got the hell beat out of himself just to set us up to trust Malik. That’s not exactly the kind of thing you do for a stranger.”

“Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, I just kind of figured it was the other Bakura that did that...” Jonouchi frowned at the floor tiles and shuffled along.

“But now we know that our Bakura was actually on their side,” Atemu’s voice reminded and Jonouchi jumped a little, not having noticed him change places with Yuugi.

“Let’s not forget they were all being yanked around by those Apep-bastards,” Honda reminded him.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Atemu retorted with a hint of a sulk. “Anyway, Mai said that the other Bakura was intensely protective of our Bakura.”

“Right, so they’d have to be pretty serious about Malik to do something that stupid.” Anzu nodded, crossing her arms.

“Well he was serious about beating Yuug- I mean Atemu- right?” Jonouchi reasoned. “And he didn’t even stick to Malik’s plan anyway so they probably didn’t plan it out all that well.”

“Oh for the love of God, Jonouchi, they were practically sitting in each other’s laps,” Atemu snapped.

“... Huh?” Jonouchi frowned, confused.

“Clueless!” Anzu put her hands over her face again.

...

Rejected Plot-Points:

So most of you have probably seen that I rewrote the first fic for this series a couple months ago. The original Making Choices and Taking Chances (I was never happy with that title) was written before I’d really developed my versions of the characters and before I’d decided on having two snakes, so the snake seen in the first fic and earlier edits of Bad Religion was originally supposed to be a diminished form of Apep. It was only when I started Interlude that I decided to split that character into Sek and Mot. So when rewriting the first fic, I took out the mocking-humor and laughing that I’d originally had the snake doing and changed it to Sek’s severe personality. The other major change was because in the original fic, Bakhura had kind of had this “Waah, I’m a serial-killer with a heart of gold!” wank going on and it was a little too vague and... dumb. Edward lol wut. For those of you who haven’t noticed the change or anything, the new version of that fic is called Delusions.

Bad Religion really never changed much from its original plan. The only thing that got changed in a later edit was again the snake’s voice being changed to fit Sek’s personality (it originally sounded like a combination of Sek and Mot.)

In Interlude, y’know that scene when Yuugi+ come back from their season 4 shenanigans and Yuugi’s over at Ryou’s place hanging out and cheering him up? Originally I had them making dorayaki (cookies), because, I don’t know, I was like “What kind of low-key activity do you do to hang out when one of your friends is really tired and jet-lagged?” And, well, I bake, personally. After I posted that chapter originally, it suddenly occurred to me what an incredibly feminine scene that was. Cookie-baking and gossip to cheer up a friend? Holy estrogen, Batman! I ended up deciding that was just a bit too over-the-top and I didn’t want to make Ryou that fem, so on a later edit, I changed the activity to something Mario Cart-ish.

I had lots of fun ideas for Hirutani. The one I liked best was having Hirutani, while rooting through Ryou’s stuff because he’s a greedy, controlling ass-hole, discover a small stash of diamonds Bakhura had hidden in Ryou’s desk at some point. I ended up scrapping this idea just because it would take a long time to fuss around with the fall-out from that and it would detract from the central plot-line.

Mot ended up being a great entertainment to me. I originally created him on a whim, and based him off of the anime version of Yami-Malik, a grinning psychotic who’s mouth is stretched wider than Jack Nickelson’s Joker makeup. A clown of dark (and psychotically violent) humor. His personality continued to develop as I ended up playing him and Sek off each other and turning them into alike-and-opposite types, deciding to give Sek a very ascetic feel and Mot a very tantric one, and in the process turning Mot into as much a masochist as he is a sadist.

Somewhere between Interlude and Final Eclipse, I started plotting out in my head the events that transpired aboard the Battle City blimp, and in particular what the power-shift between Malik and Mot looked like from the inside. The following scene ended up as more of a writing-exercise exploring Mot’s personal beliefs and motivations more than anything else, because I decided that I really didn’t want to horribly traumatize Malik. Bakhura and Ryou are the center-point for this story and while Malik is an important character, he’s still a supporting one; not only would kicking Malik’s personal angst up by making this scene ‘canon’ have detracted from the central plot-line, but it also would have really made Malik unfit to support Bakhura and Ryou. I needed him to be functional, and this scene would have just put way too much on his plate. The following is a scene that never happened after Rishid got lightninged and Malik lost control to Mot on the Battle City blimp.

...

Warning! Rated ‘Mature’ for sexual-violence!

“I would have been more gentle with you, Malik, but you have kept me waiting for far. too. long.” Mot whispered breathily next to Malik’s ear as he punctuated with deep thrusts. Malik screamed at the unbelievable pain; it felt as though barbs were dragging through his flesh every time Mot pulled back and then slammed back into him with bone-breaking force.

Mot moaned wantonly and thrust faster. “That is so beautiful,” he breathed, his hand sliding down around Malik’s groin and crushing him like a vice. “I love your voice, Malik, I love the sound of it. There is nothing more beautiful than hearing you scream,” he whimpered.

Malik sobbed, his entire body weak and trembling and Mot’s arm wrapped tightly around his torso all that was keeping him from crumpling to the floor in a broken pile. “Oh my darling,” Mot panted against his neck, “I’ve wanted you so badly!” Mot’s grip on Malik’s genitals eased and turned to rough, merciless stroking, rubbing across the sensitive skin with far too much friction, making it raw and stinging within seconds.

“I will abandon my pride for you my love,” Mot murmured, scraping his teeth over Malik’s neck. “I will beg my master to let me keep you. You will be spared when this world burns,” he promised. “We will have all eternity together, so that I can show you the heights of agony and ecstasy.”

Malik whimpered through clenched teeth, mucus waving disgustingly as his breath picked it up off the slimy drizzle down his lips. Mot seemed dissatisfied by the muffled sounds of misery and delivered a series of faster, deeper thrusts as he sank his teeth into Malik’s neck and the burning of venom seeped into his veins. Malik’s teeth unclenched and another tortured scream erupted from his throat.

“Oh yes, yes, precious!” Mot sighed as he disengaged his teeth from Malik’s jugular. “Scream for me, my love! Give me all your passion!”

If he kept screaming, maybe Mot would be satisfied and it wouldn’t get worse. How long could he scream for? How long would a metaphysical being’s stamina last? As soon as he’d finished inhaling, Malik broke into another scream. Mot mewled behind him and licked the nape of his neck, continuing to thrust violently into Malik and rub at his penis as though to share some mutual satisfaction. If this weren’t just inside of his mind, Malik thought vaguely through the haze of pain, he’d have been bleeding out.

He kept screaming, his throat quickly becoming ragged and raw, and after a while Mot’s thrusts started to slow. “You’re not faking it for my ego, are you?” he whispered, sounding genuinely hurt, and Malik felt a fresh wave of dread wash over him. “Don’t do that, my love, I need to know you’re sharing this with me,” Mot whined, nuzzling behind Malik’s ear. His body had stilled, the agonizing, shredding thrusts coming to a halt. “Tell me how I can make it better for you, Malik. Tell me what you want, please.”

Malik sobbed, knowing this was a temporary reprieve, knowing that it wouldn’t last, knowing that the pain would be back stronger than ever in a few seconds, but some desperate, impractical hope was suggesting that maybe Mot would stop if he just asked... “S-stop,” Malik choked. “You-you’re hurting m-me...”

He felt Mot’s lips, pressed against his neck, twist into a manic grin, and Malik’s blood ran cold. “Oh yes,” Mot whispered. “Isn’t it beautiful, Malik? Overwhelming your senses, obliterating conscious thought, drowning you in an ocean of pure intensity.” His tongue rolled over the edge of Malik’s ear and lips caught around the lobe and suckled on it for a moment. “Your body is too fragile for this paramount suffering, I worked so hard to be able to share it with you, so you could experience this incredible beauty.”

“N-n-no,” Malik cried, his voice cracking. “I h-hate it!”

Mot whimpered and suddenly thrust into him several times, apparently overcome by lust. A scream caught in Malik’s throat and he gagged and croaked pathetically as Mot forced himself to still again, lavishing attention on the side of Malik’s neck, just below his ear. “Yes, yes, yes,” he whispered breathlessly. “Hate is the strongest form of love, my darling!” He bit again, his teeth sinking deep into Malik’s flesh but staying there only a moment before retracting again to allow for speech. “Give me all your hate, Malik, please, please! I will be yours forever, precious! I will give you all that I have!”

Mot started thrusting again, hard and fast, ripping against his insides like razor blades, and Malik screamed louder than ever. Fingernails had become claws and were tearing down into the skin of Malik’s chest. Fangs had found their way back to his neck, pouring fiery venom through his circulatory system. Then the pain reached a new decibel and it took Malik several moments to realize, and more based upon the sounds he was making than any recognition of the sensations, that Mot was climaxing.

Malik wasn’t even sure whether he’d screamed. Mot was quiet and panting for a while, still inside of him. Malik sobbed brokenly, in pain and an overwhelming, amorphous shame. Mot moved suddenly, dissolving, slipping, curling around him with boneless fluidity, until he was in front of Malik, arms wrapped around him supportively, and his mouth pressed over Malik’s. Malik turned his head and tried to pull away, shrinking from the despicable kiss, and Mot moved to suckle his Adam’s apple.

Mot’s hand moved and started stroking Malik again, not the rough, raw jerks of before but gentle, soft touches, coaxing an erection out of him. “N-no,” Malik whimpered, trying to squirm away. Mot released his neck and dropped down; the heat of his mouth suddenly surrounded Malik’s erection and drew gently back, sucking, teasing the way Ryou had before.

Malik sobbed. Somehow this was worse.

...

Er, yeah, so that’s pretty dark... I can’t remember what mood I was in then. This might have been a ‘write it so I stop dreaming it’ moment or maybe I was just mad with the power of the pen at the time.

So, anyway, that’s all I can think of right now. The past month or two I’ve been working on an AU tendershipping fic, but I do poke around at the Serpentine prequels when I have any inspiration for them. No estimates on when any of them might get finished, but I haven’t forgotten them. So anyway, I can’t think of much more to say here; I promised you deleted scenes and here they are, but now I’m all written out for the day. <3 to all my reviewers, you’re all lovely.

~ Fictatious

Invisible- Chapter Five

2011-05-19T04:59:49Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Yami-Yuugi, Kujaku Mai, Rebecca Hawkins, Mutou Yuugi
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.
Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4

“No, I want to put it on my plan,” Bakura corrected irritably; the clerk nodded and went back to talking to a bean-counter in some distant state or country as he tried to arrange a new cell-phone package.

“You’re rather serious about this boy, aren’t you. Where did you know him from before Tuesday?” Yami asked, still following Bakura around.

“I told you before: none of your fucking business,” Bakura snapped, glaring.

Yami rolled his eyes. “Can you not at least appreciate my concern?” he asked.

“No.”

“I really want you to start seeing a counselor,” Yami said in a firm voice.

Bakura glared at him silently for a few seconds.

“Sir, do you want to upgrade to a family-plan or add the new phone as a separate plan on your account?” the clerk broke in.

“What’s the difference?” Bakura asked, doubting that it was much. “I’m set up for unlimited talk and text, right? So it’s not like sharing minutes on a family plan or something is going to affect my use.”

“Er,” the clerk faltered, looking unsure. “The price, I guess...”

“Fine. Make it a family-plan,” Bakura snorted and then turned his attention back to Yami. “I want one who can take a look at Ryou too. Somebody fucked him up bad.”

Yami looked slightly startled, probably at how easy it had been to make Bakura agree to seeing a shrink. “Sure,” he said with a small nod. “Battery, I’m guessing?”

“I don’t know- fucked-uppedness!” Bakura snapped. “Battery’s got to be part of it, but he’s got some serious -I don’t know- self-esteem issues too.”

“Does gender matter?”

Bakura shrugged.

“Sherrie Holsgate works with some abuse victims,” Yami said. “I’ll find her number and send it to you tonight.”

“Okay.” Bakura looked back at the clerk, who was talking to the bean-counter on the other end of the line and scribbling down numbers on a carbon-paper form.

“I have a late lunch with Mister Wong on Monday. He wants you to be there too,” Yami said after a minute.

Bakura groaned. “... Of course he does.”

“I’m meeting him at two o-clock at the Szechuan Paradise,” Yami said. “Best behavior.”

“I know,” Bakura grumbled.

000

Ryou was so distracted, he didn’t even hear the door until it closed. He looked up and turned slightly, as the sound of the door was soon followed by an indignant yell. “Hey! Brat! What the hell?!” Bakura demanded, glaring at Rebecca accusingly.

“We’re going to start a role-playing group!” Rebecca announced cheerfully, ignoring the look.

“You’re huh?” Bakura frowned, looking baffled, as Ryou pushed himself up and walked around the couch to meet him in the living room.

“Sorry, they came over an hour or two ago and we’ve been talking about games,” Ryou said, stopping in front of him.

“Don’t apologize,” Bakura said, frowning slightly. “It’s fine. Besides, I’m betting you were ambushed.” He leaned around Ryou to cast another glare at Rebecca, who stuck her tongue out.

“We should probably be getting home though anyway, Becca. It’s getting kind of late,” Yuugi said, glancing at his phone.

“Ooor, we could all order pizza and watch a movie!” Rebecca suggested, throwing her arms in the air enthusiastically.

“No,” Bakura shot back flatly.

“But--”

“No. My house is not a daycare. Go home,” Bakura said in a firm monotone. “I just want a quiet evening without any interruptions or disasters or anybody trying to spy on me.”

Rebecca pushed out her bottom lip, her face stormy, and crossed her arms. “Fine. Are you going to at least give me a ride home?”

“No,” Bakura snapped. “You got here on your own, you can figure out how to get home on your own.”

“Fine!” Rebecca shouted, throwing her arms in the air again. She jumped to her feet and stomped around the couch.

“Rebecca...” Yuugi called after her in a pleading voice as he chased her over to the entryway.

“It’s fine! I know when I’m not wanted!” Rebecca snapped, stuffing her feet into her shoes.

“When you’re being a relentless pest? Yeah, that’s about the time!” Bakura snarled back.

“Ass-hole!” Rebecca shouted.

“Brat!”

“Shit-head!”

“Midget!”

Rebecca stepped out the door and cast Bakura one final glare. “Dumb-ass!” she shouted and then slammed the door.

There was a second of quiet, and then Yuugi broke it with an overly cheerful, strained voice. “It was nice meeting you Ryou! See you around!” He turned and hurried out the door, pulling it shut much more quietly than Rebecca had.

“W-what was that?” Ryou asked, looking from the closed door to Bakura.

“Eh, nothing. She probably won’t even remember what we were yelling about in a couple days,” Bakura said in a casual voice, giving a little shrug. “Every few months she’ll tell me that she’s never going to speak to me again. Lasts about a week. It’s just a new twist on ‘you’re not invited to my birthday party’.”

Ryou stared at him. Bakura’s countenance held no trace of anger or any other remnant of the shouting-match. “...But...” Ryou mumbled lamely.

Bakura glanced at him, a concerned expression suddenly crossing his face. “Sorry, did that bother you?”

Ryou blinked slowly, considering the question. Was he asking if Ryou was so fragile couldn’t handle raised voices? “I’m fine,” Ryou answered, shaking his head. “Do you have a preference for dinner tonight?”

Bakura shrugged. “Anything is fine. I like all the stuff we bought,” he answered easily and then glanced down at the bag he was carrying. “I, um, hang on,” he muttered and reached into his coat-pocket. “I got a key made for you,” he said, holding out a door key on a generic plastic keychain.

“Thank you,” Ryou said quietly, accepting it. He glanced at the side of the bag Bakura was holding. It was white paper with a name and logo printed across the front in cobalt blue, Perfect Palette Art Supplies.

“And a phone, because, y’know, you need...” Bakura muttered awkwardly and handing Ryou a black and white plastic bag with a small-electronics sized box inside. “And you said, uh-” he faltered slightly and then held out the large bag to Ryou. “The woman at the store recommended a couple kinds of paper and some pens and pencils and stuff, so, pick out what you like and then we can exchange the rest if it’s crap.”

“Th-thank you,” Ryou whispered, staring down at the bag, heavy with art supplies. Should he start getting dinner ready or did Bakura want him to inspect the new art supplies right now? Like a gift? That’s what it was, Ryou supposed, there was no excusing sketchpads and pens as necessities.

Ryou walked slowly over to the dining table and set the bag down, before reaching inside and pulling out the thickest object, which rattled slightly as he lifted it. He stared at the box in his hands, his mouth hanging open slightly. “Copics,” Ryou breathed.

“Are they not good? I didn’t know, it’s just what the girl at the store recommended. We can bring them back if you want something else,” Bakura said with a little shrug.

“They’re the best,” Ryou mumbled, opening the folding package and looking at all 72 colors lined up in beautiful rows. “What the professionals use.” And worth over three hundred dollars, he didn’t add.

“Okay, good,” Bakura said with a little grin. “I didn’t know what kind of drawing you were into. The girl gave me stuff for a couple different kinds...” He gave another slightly awkward shrug.

Ryou reluctantly set the markers aside to unload the rest of the bag. The sketch pads and bristol-board and various weights of papers were all standard Strathmore and Canson products. There was also a large set of Rembrandt soft pastels and the big box of Prismacolor pencils, as well as a standard eight-set of graphite pencils and a five-pack of black Micron pens.

“These... are all really good...” Ryou mumbled, staring down at the collection now spread over the dining table, a voice in the back of his head informing him over and over that he was looking at about seven-hundred dollars worth of art supplies. It was a far cry from the 50-pack of Crayola pencils he’d had last week. “This- this is too much,” he whispered as the voice in the back of his head wailed at him to shut up.

“It’s no big deal.” Bakura looked away, drumming his fingers on the back of a chair.

“It’s- it’s creepy,” Ryou blurted.

Bakura gave him a startled look. “Creepy?”

“All this stuff! It’s like- it makes me feel like I’m getting deeper and deeper into debt to you!” Ryou exclaimed, gesturing uselessly at the items on the table. “I- I keep worrying that the other shoe’s going to drop or something and you’re going to turn out to be some kind of psycho and I’m going to want to leave but I won’t to be able to because I’m going to owe you too much!”

Bakura’s brows pinched together and he opened his mouth to protest but Ryou couldn’t seem to stop the tumult of traitorous words falling from his lips. “I mean- Yuugi said you’re not with the mob, but it feels like the same kind of principle as you don’t ever let the Mafia do you a favor because the minute you do, they’re into you for life! It’s- it’s creepy! How much do I owe you now? What am I committing myself to by accepting all these gifts?!” Ryou knew he sounded hysterical, but he couldn’t seem to calm himself down or stop talking now that he’d started down this path.

“You’re not committing to anything! There’s no obligation, no commitment, I’m not the Mafia or some phone company!” Bakura exclaimed, his voice elevated, not angry, just frustrated, confused. “I’m not trying to buy you! I just want you to have some basic stuff!”

“Seven-hundred dollars worth of art supplies?!” Ryou’s voice came out loud and shrill.

“It’s not a big deal!”

“It’s a big deal!” Ryou screamed and then hooked his hands in his hair and started pacing as he moved from a-little-freaked-out into a full fledged melt-down. “I can’t do this! I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I’m sick of being alone!” Bakura shouted, his hands fisted at his sides. “I’m sick of going to bed alone- I’m sick of waking up alone- I’m sick of driving alone- I’m sick of eating alone- I’m sick of BEING alone!” He shook for a minute, squeezing his eyes shut; he didn’t look like he was holding back tears, he looked more like he was trying not to strangle Ryou. “I’m so fucking lonely I got infatuated with a fantasy loosely based around some kid I saw at a bus-stop! When I saw you going into Bridget’s, it ruined the fantasy and I’m so pathetic I couldn’t handle that!”

“So tell me what to do! Use me! Slap me! Just stop treating me like some kind of guest or pet poodle! I’m a WHORE!” Ryou screamed.

When Ryou ventured to look up through his disarrayed hair, Bakura was pacing a tight circle and viciously biting his own knuckle. He looked like a caged animal about to snap and throw itself into the bars. He stopped when his eyes happened to catch on Ryou’s. They stared silently at each other for a few seconds and the Bakura dropped his hand. “Let’s go for a drive,” he said suddenly, holding out his hand. It sounded more like a command than a suggestion.

Ryou took his hand automatically, not even realizing he’d done it until Bakura’s fingers closed around his. “W-what?” he stammered as Bakura started dragging him towards the front door. “Where?”

“Don’t know,” Bakura said, shrugging brusquely. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

000

The sun had set almost an hour ago, but rush-hour was still on. Bakura blew through winding back-roads, going well above the posted speed-limit, until he hit the edge of the city and merged onto a sparsely populated freeway. He had the base on his sound system cranked up so that he could feel the music shaking through his body even as he heard it, like a heavy-metal massage.

Ryou sat quiet and still in the passenger’s seat, staring blankly through the windshield, the whole time. He was probably still freaking out -he looked freaked out- but Bakura hadn’t managed to get to his happy-place yet and didn’t trust himself to speak civilly. When they got past the suburbs, traffic dissolved into a fast-moving trickle of semis, and as he held down the accelerator and let the engine unwind at 80 and 90, he felt his knotted nerves starting to unwind too.

He began to mentally pick apart the fit Ryou had thrown over the art supplies into its component pieces. Ryou didn’t like having money spent on him; yes, Bakura had picked up on that at the mall yesterday. Buying the most expensive pens and crap the art store had to offer had been a stupid idea. If he had a problem with people buying him basic necessities for survival, of course he’d get edgy about receiving expensive luxury items. Bakura should have seen that one coming and kept it simple, but noooo.

It wasn’t just about the art supplies either, Ryou had made that pretty clear. He was scared. And what the hell was this about Yuugi? Yuugi had told Ryou about Bakura’s work? What the hell was he thinking? Bakura’s fist would definitely be having a word with Yami’s face about this one.

Ryou was concerned about some kind debt, but that was probably a combination of factors one and two. Factor one was something Bakura had no idea how to address other than the way he had. A few hundred dollars here and there wasn’t a big deal. But that was a difference of opinion and not likely to be solved any time soon.

The second factor though, that was definitely something that needed correcting.

Bakura leaned forward, without taking his eyes off the road, and turned the volume down on the radio. He leaned back and took a breath, trying to compose the most straight-forward, non-threatening means of approaching the subject and figuring out what the micro-Mutou had blabbed. “What did Yuugi tell you?” he asked in an even voice. Simple, straight forward.

Ryou looked down at his knees and was quiet for a few seconds, then he mumbled, “Nothing.”

“Ryou, I know he told you something. You were talking about the Mafia earlier,” Bakura said, trying to keep his voice calm, even though frustration was starting to itch at him again.

“...He just asked me if I knew what you did,” Ryou said softly, still staring at his knees.

“And?” Bakura snapped before he managed to rein it back in. “What did you tell him? What did he tell you?”

“I- I- The only thing I asked him about you was if you were Mafia, and he said there was no connection!” Ryou said, his voice suddenly louder and once again panicky.

“Why did you think I was?” Bakura asked, glancing at Ryou for a moment before turning his eyes back to the road.

“I don’t know,” Ryou said, hugging his arms against his stomach and leaning forward in his seat a bit.

“There’s got to be a reason,” Bakura insisted, trying hard to keep his voice level. “You’ve known me less than a week.”

“I don’t know!” Ryou protested, his voice getting shrill. “I just had a feeling that you were into something illegal and that you were good at it! Like a professional or something!” A little hiccupping sob followed the words and Bakura glanced sideways again to see that Ryou was curled in on himself even more and covering his face with his hands.

“Are you crying?” Bakura demanded, the weak threads holding his patience together snapping. “What? What did I do now?!”

Ryou let out a louder sob. “I’m scared!” he shouted. “We’re having some kind of fight and you think that Yuugi told me something I shouldn’t know and now you’re driving me out into the middle of nowhere and it’s like you’re looking for a place to dump my body!”

“God damn it!” Bakura shouted, slapping the edge of the steering wheel. Why had he not considered how ‘let’s go for a drive’ sounded to someone convinced he was a mobster? He’d made a bad misunderstanding ten times worse due to his glorious wealth of stupidity. Bakura shook his head violently before turning back to the road, so as to not kill them both, and watched in horror as his mouth started getting ahead of his brain yet again.

“I’m not mafia!” he barely managed to keep his tone below an exasperated shout. “I don’t dump bodies! There are no bodies! I hate bodies!” Bakura was trying really hard not to get angry at Ryou, but this whole thing was just so stupid. Ryou had his head ducked and his body curled down towards his knees and the stretched-out seatbelt wobbled around above his crouched form.

Suddenly Bakura had a desperate need to not be trapped in a confined space with Ryou. His eyes flicked to a rest-area sign and he slid across the lanes, dropping carefully around a semi, and onto the off-ramp. He rolled into the large parking lot way too fast and he could feel the breaks protesting as the car skidded to a stop right in the middle. Bakura didn’t bother to fit it into one of the spaces, it was the middle of the night and March; nobody else was going to drive in.

He set the break and turned off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition, before fighting off his seatbelt and throwing himself out the door. The chill outside came as a sudden shock, but Bakura ignored it, slamming the car door shut and striding across the pavement to the grassy little berm that ran along one side of the parking lot. He dropped down onto the scraggly grass and hunched over for a few seconds before tipping himself back and laying on the frigid, spongey ground, staring up at the sky.

A moment’s search brought him the location Orion’s belt and sword, and then Ursa Major. A familiar sky, comforting sky, where darkness protected the stars from the sun’s fire. If only the air weren’t polluted by the orange light from a few dozen extra-tall street-lamps dotted through the parking lot, the stars wouldn’t be so dim and weak. Light made things too confusing, too overwhelming and intense; darkness was so much simpler. In the darkness all of Bakura’s senses were sharper and he knew where he was- he could feel it, the ground, the air the something-else that he couldn’t quite define. Daylight blocked all that knowledge and left him adrift.

Adrift like he was now, even in near-darkness, presented with so many intangibles that he couldn’t seem to get a grip on. He didn’t know Ryou. He didn’t know enough about him to understand his actions and reactions and it was frustrating that human beings had to be so very complicated. And for any interaction between two human beings the complications doubled as the complications of the one were added to the complications of the other. Or maybe it ought to be product rather than sum. And even if Bakura were to understand all the factors, he still couldn’t seem to speak the same language as Ryou.

The cold was starting to seep down deep into Bakura’s body. In a way it was uncomfortable. In a way it was soothing, like he’d been fevered before and the cool around him was pulling his body temperature back down to normal. Or maybe it was just numbness. No, he hadn’t been out long enough for that to start yet, had he? How long was it now since he’d abandoned the car?

There were footsteps; sneakers crunching against loose pebbles strewn over the pavement. They stopped a few feet from him. Bakura blinked slowly up at the weak stars and then his voice came out quiet and dull. “Can’t drive, huh?” he asked. He’d left the keys in the ignition; if Ryou really thought his life was in danger he could have driven away and left Bakura sprawled on the berm. Unless he didn’t know how.

“... No,” Ryou’s voice said quietly.

“Bummer,” Bakura murmured.

“I- I wouldn’t leave you out here anyway. It’s winter. You’d get hypothermia. You might die,” Ryou whispered.

“Isn’t it me or you though? You think this is a body-dumping mission, right?” Bakura closed his eyes, deepening the darkness but loosing the stars in the process.

“I know that it’s stupid,” Ryou mumbled. “I just got scared.”

“I’m not mafia.”

“Yeah,” Ryou acknowledged quietly.

“I’m a thief.”

Ryou was silent for a few seconds. “I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me that.”

Bakura opened his eyes and looked back up at the stars again. “It’s better than letting you go on thinking I’m a murderer,” he said, trying to remember where Cassiopeia was this time of year. “Besides, without any specifics, if you just went into the police station or something and told them that you believed I might have stolen something at some point, they’re just going to be like ‘yeah, okay, we have real work to do, kid.’”

“I suppose so,” Ryou agreed and then moved, his steps getting quieter as his shoes moved from the pavement onto the grass, and sat down next to Bakura.

“...I’m not good at talking to people,” Bakura admitted softly. “I usually just let Yami deal with that.”

There was a short pause and then Ryou started speaking in a slightly muffled voice. “If you’re trying to explain yourself because you think you’ve done something wrong, you don’t need to. This thing wasn’t your fault.” Bakura could hear him swallow and shift. “You’ve been perfectly nice to me this whole time and I’m throwing it back in your face because I’m paranoid.”

Bakura turned his head slightly to look at Ryou’s shadowy profile. “I don’t know how to make you believe that I’m not trying to hurt you. All I can do is say it, but I know I tend to come off as insincere.”

Ryou shook his head slowly and then dipped it a little, resting his chin on his knees and hugging them closer to himself. “You seem sincere to me,” he whispered. “But even if you’re sincere, what does that matter? People can be completely sincere and honestly want the best, but their actions will take them in the opposite direction. Because our brains are made of pieces, and even if the cerebral cortex wants to take the higher ground, our animal-brain is still run by violent survival instincts.”

Bakura studied Ryou’s outline carefully, the soft glow around the edges as the starlight reflected against his hair, the dim suggestion of features in the muddled darkness. “He’s the kind of person who would beat you up and then get all weepy and give you presents and promise to never do it again?” Ryou remained silent, hugging his knees a little tighter. “Is that why you don’t like presents?”

Ryou moved in what might have been recognizable as a shrug, if Bakura were looking at him from a different angle. Bakura sighed and turned back toward the stars. “... I’ll tell you a secret that doesn’t have any legal repercussions attached to it,” he said quietly. “When I was about eleven, Arthur- that’s Rebecca’s grandfather- started checking me for cuts and burns and scratches every couple days because I was hurting myself when I got stressed. I still do it sometimes, but I learned how to not leave marks a long time ago.” Bakura stared blankly up, not quite seeing the stars anymore, and took a deep breath. “My point is that if I lose it and need to hurt someone, it’s not going to be you.”

There was a long silence, maybe more than two minutes, and then Ryou’s voice came out small and wavering. “You bit your hand. Back at the condo.”

“Yeah,” Bakura agreed, nodding slightly. “If I do it in the right place, the mark only lasts about an hour and then it’s gone... And it lets off a little tension. I’ve heard it’s an endorphin thing.”

“... You’re kind of old for that sort of thing,” Ryou mumbled.

“I don’t do it very often anymore.” Bakura shrugged a little. “Just when I really need to clear my head.”

They were quiet again and in the lull, Bakura noticed an odd, tiny sound; it took him a few seconds to place. Ryou’s teeth were chattering. Of course he was cold. He hadn’t been wearing a jacket when Bakura dragged him down to the garage and Bakura hadn’t even bothered to notice.

Bakura sat up and reached over, grabbing Ryou around the waist and pulling the startled boy into his lap. He did his best to wrap his own coat around both of them and hugged his arms tightly around Ryou, who was stiff for a few seconds but then relaxed and leaned into Bakura. “Sorry about this,” Bakura whispered, rubbing a hand up and down Ryou’s arm in a feeble attempt to warm him through friction. “Driving helps me relax.”

Ryou nodded and stayed silent, leaning his forehead against the side of Bakura’s neck as he trembled. “We should find a place to eat,” Bakura decided. “What mile are we at? I think we’re close to a really great Thai place. Do you like Thai?” Ryou nodded again. “Okay, good,” Bakura said, letting out a little breath. “A little pepper will get you warmed up.”

000

It was a modest-sized but richly-furnished restaurant with an elephant theme. A carved, wooden sculpture near the middle had four elephants facing away from each other in the four directions with their heads and trunks swung upwards; they looked like they could have supported a table. It was much nicer than Ryou had expected from a little place in a strip-mall.

His eyes skimmed back and forth over the menu a pretty hostess had given him, over vaguely familiar words and completely foreign ones. Ryou chewed on his lip and he felt his face heat up a little. “Um...” he mumbled after a few moments of surveying the unfamiliar selection. He looked up to find Bakura staring back at him in that disturbingly intense way he did. Ryou’s eyes returned to the menu and he stammered awkwardly. “Could you... recommend something? Not too spicy or weird?”

There was a brief pause and then Bakura responded in a conversational tone, without any noticeable derision for Ryou’s ignorance. “Pud thai is good and not too adventurous. It’s rice noodles with tofu and egg and meat and a sweet sauce,” he said. “The spice level in most of these is tailored to the order. You tell them the star-rating you want, between one and five, one being not spicy and five being very spicy.”

Ryou nodded. Noodles sounded safe. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

A few minutes after they’d ordered, their waitress brought cups of some sweet soup that wasn’t quite egg-flower and wasn’t quite miso, and a salad made mostly of cabbage. The menus gone, Ryou found himself looking for a new excuse to avoid Bakura’s eyes. He stared down at the soup, stirring it slowly around with his spoon.

“... Are you warm now?” Bakura asked quietly.

“Yes.” Ryou nodded.

“That’s good.” There was an awkward silence.

“... Did you do something dangerous today?” Ryou asked in a soft voice just above a whisper. “When you were out?”

“Dangerous?” Bakura sounded baffled. “I just went to meet someone.”

Ryou nodded again and felt himself flushing. “I- After you left, I realized that I didn’t know what time you were coming back... I didn’t know what time I should start being worried...” He stared down at the remainder of his soup, face burning with shame. “...So I just worried all day.”

“... You shouldn’t worry.”

Ryou nodded once more. “I know... But I do,” he mumbled. “If there’s a chance you wouldn’t come back... if you’d get shot or arrested or something... even if it’s a tiny chance...”

“If I told you which days to worry, would you be okay the rest of the time?”

Ryou blinked and looked up at Bakura, startled. “What do you mean?”

“Smash-and-grab tends to be a pretty short-lived career with a lot of jail-time. Any job I do has at least a month’s prep-time.” Bakura seemed to be studying Ryou like a complex math problem. “If I told you what days I was doing something ‘dangerous’, would you not be worried the rest of the time?”

“That...” Ryou turned the idea over in his head a little and then slowly nodded. “I think so,” he said at length.

“Okay,” Bakura said with a nod and picked up his cup of soup, drinking the remaining broth. “I’d usually be working at night for ‘events’. Outside of those, there’s a pretty low chance of me getting shot at and if I’m going to get arrested it would probably be while I’m at home. But also, not likely.”

“Okay,” Ryou said with another nod, picking up his cup and his spoon and taking a whack at his own soup.

“And...” Bakura’s brow pinched and he looked at his cup as he set it down. “You’re not expensive, Ryou. The reason I’m throwing so much stuff at you all at once is because you don’t have stuff right now and I just want you to have some basic stuff to be comfortable and not bored and all...”

“I... Yeah. I just don’t need... expensive stuff,” Ryou mumbled, tugging at a lock of his hair. “I mean, I just feel like, if you’re going to throw money at some charity case, there’s plenty more deserving than me...”

Bakura was quiet for a moment. “You mean like Amnesty International or the Red Cross? I have auto-pays set up at my bank for those. They get a check every year.”

Ryou looked up, surprised but with a pang of guilt for the feeling. “So... You’re Robin Hood then?”

“Robin Hood lived in a tree. I’m not that generous,” Bakura corrected with a little grin pulling at his lips. “I asked Arthur, a lot of years ago, how to pay him back for taking me in. He told me to give to charity. So I do.”

“...He must have been a really great guy,” Ryou said quietly, twisting the end of his hair around a finger and letting it go, then repeating the process.

“He was,” Bakura agreed softly.

“Gang gai, three-stars!”

Ryou jumped slightly at the waitress’s voice and Bakura straightened up, looking slightly embarrassed as he nodded to her. “Yeah, that’s mine.”

“Here you are, sir,” the waitress chirped cheerfully, setting down a plate with a perfectly rounded mound of rice and a boat of red curry. “And that would make you the chicken pud thai, one-star!” she noted with a grin, putting a dish of orangey noodles in front of Ryou. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, that should do it. Thanks,” Bakura said, giving her an awkward smile and picking a ladle out of his curry-boat to spoon the creamy stew over his rice.

“Thank you,” Ryou echoed in a quieter voice, poking a fork into his noodles.

“... So, anyway,” Bakura said after the waitress had left. “I’ll stop buying you frivolous stuff. Just things you need.”

“I have my own money.” Ryou spun some noodles around his fork and ate them without looking up at Bakura. “I can buy the things I need... You’re not charging me rent and that’s huge. I don’t need any more help than that.”

Bakura was quiet for a while and Ryou glanced up through his bangs to observe Bakura frustratedly stabbing at the pieces of chicken in his curry. “Shouldn’t- shouldn’t you be saving up for tuition or something?” he demanded eventually.

“Wouldn’t do me much good without a high school diploma.” Ryou shrugged, looking back down at his food and feeling hot shame in his cheeks again.

“...Why didn’t you finish?” Bakura asked more quietly.

“Needed to work so I could afford food and rent,” Ryou mumbled shrugging again. “I can’t get a full schedule at one job because I’m a minor and I can’t coordinate two jobs around classes.”

Bakura nodded and chewed some coconut-cream coated vegetable slowly as he appeared to contemplate Ryou’s statement. “You don’t, now,” he offered very softly and then continued in a stronger voice. “Since you’re a minor, you’d probably be able to go back to school pretty easily without the government making a fuss about funding or whatever.” He seemed to falter slightly on the word ‘minor’ but pressed bravely onward. “I mean, obviously it would kind of suck to go back in with kids younger than you, but the state allows you to substitute classes at the community college to fill the high school requirements for a state-issued degree.”

Ryou picked up a sauce-filled piece of scrambled-egg on the end of his fork and looked at it. “I doubt if I could save up enough for tuition and take any classes before the clock ran out on my minor status,” he said quietly.

“You don’t have to. The state pays for it out of the high school budget,” Bakura said with a quirky, maybe encouraging(?) little grin. “I have friends who did it. Earning the college credits and high school credits at the same time and all, they got their associate’s all on the state’s expense. I think the deal still holds after you turn eighteen too, so long as you don’t apply for high school graduation until you’re ready to apply for a two-year degree too.”

“That seems rather dishonest,” Ryou noted, chewing on his lip.

“Anybody can do it, most people just don’t bother to look into it or go for it,” Bakura said and ate a clump of rice. “And anyway, do you think what you’ve been through is fair? If you’re a minor, somebody should have been looking out for you. If nobody else was, the state should have been. Somebody -your guidance councilor of vice-principle or somebody- should have tried to find out why you were dropping out and gotten you put on welfare or something. The state owes you.”

“I wouldn’t get welfare.” Ryou shook his head. “I have a father, I just don’t know where he is.”

“That’s bullshit. You’re owed,” Bakura said firmly.

Ryou nodded slowly, agreeing whether it was true or not. “Maybe I’ll look into it.”

“You should,” Bakura said in a quieter voice. “You’re definitely one of the smarter people I’ve met. I don’t think there’s a lot of seventeen year olds with your vocabulary.”

“... I like to read.” Ryou shrugged.

000
000

I don’t know, I feel like the ending here was a bit weak, but I’ve been trying to put together a closing for this part for a couple weeks (I was working on chapters 4 and 5 simultaneously) and I’m sick of looking at it, so I’m going to call this good-enough and move on to Saturday. Because I know several of you have been fiending for it, I’ve reworked the twins proper introduction and moved it up to the next chapter. I’ll also attempt to stick with my goal of a sex-scene every two chapters and maybe start off chapter six with a little steam.

I love reviews/comments! They inspire me to write moar!

Invisible- Chapter Four

2011-05-09T23:05:29Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Yami-Yuugi, Kujaku Mai, Rebecca Hawkins, Mutou Yuugi
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.
Previous: 1, 2, 3

Late 90s alternative was on the radio when the alarm went off. Bakura drew in a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, sleepily taking stock of himself before he would attempt the arduous journey of rolling over to turn off the alarm. He found that he was wrapped around Ryou again and his face seemed to be buried in Ryou’s hair. He smiled softly, feeling Ryou stir and squirm in momentary confusion before relaxing against Bakura.

Bakura sighed again and rolled onto his back, trying not to disturb Ryou much as he flailed and slapped the clock. He let his arm drop down onto the mattress and just lay there for a while. Ryou moved and slipped an arm around him, leaning into Bakura. He could feel Ryou’s chest puffing and then the warm breath fanning out over his shoulder as he listened to Ryou yawning.

“...Good morning,” Bakura whispered and then felt like an idiot for it.

“Mhm...” Ryou mumbled and yawned again. Seconds stretched into silence and then Ryou shifted, not really sitting up, but lifting himself about halfway there, and hovering wobblingly over Bakura. “...What’s on for today?” he asked in a half-alert voice.

“Mm,” Bakura grunted, grinding the heel of his hand against his eye and pushing his palm slowly back into his hair as he tried to organize his thoughts. “Oh. I have a meeting today,” he remembered and yawned. The fog of sleep slowly rolled back across Bakura’s mind, revealing pertinent details as it receded. “I’m going to be gone for a while, and I don’t have a spare key... I should have taken Rebecca’s away...” he sighed and let his still raised arm drop back onto the pillow behind him. “Will you be okay staying in for a few hours or something?”

“...Sure. No problem,” Ryou said softly, his voice a little raspy from sleeping. And maybe from all the sexy sexy screaming before that.

“I’ll get a key made for you today, so you can go in and out when you want,” Bakura promised.

“...Thank you...” Ryou’s voice dipped down quieter than before. He was getting awkward about such a practical little thing? “When are you going?”

“My meeting’s at eleven. I’ve got time for a pretty leisurely breakfast and such,” Bakura answered with a crunched shrug.

“...And such,” Ryou repeated in a whisper, and his fingers started tracing slow lines against Bakura’s chest.

Bakura’s breath caught for an instant and his mind started to race in circles that were becoming disturbingly familiar of late. Was Ryou being deliberately suggestive? Maybe he wasn’t; maybe he was just parroting because he wasn’t quite awake. Why was he so infatuating? Bakura’s thoughts paused as Ryou leaned down and kissed him. Apparently it was deliberate.

“...You’re affectionate this morning,” Bakura whispered when Ryou drew back again.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

Bakura shook his head. “I like it,” he said.

“...I like fooling around with you,” Ryou explained softly. “You’re really good at it.”

Bakura couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the candid statement. He found Ryou’s arm and ran a hand slowly up its length. “Skill is nothing without inspiration, of course,” he murmured.

Ryou snorted and shifted, moving a leg across to the other side of Bakura’s hips and straddling him while leaning a bit lower, pressing their stomachs together. Bakura drew a slow breath, his mind surveying and mapping out the position of Ryou’s body, where every limb was resting, the distance of his face from Bakura’s, the morning-erection pressing against Bakura’s skin as he rapidly started to feel warmer and warmer.

Ryou leaned down and kissed him again, this time deeper, more lingering. Bakura ran his fingers slowly over Ryou’s back, appreciating every feature of the topography. He was such an effeminate little thing. Bakura’s brow pinched slightly as he wondered whether Ryou was naturally that thin or if there might be some undernourishment issues at play. He had a delicate build, but perhaps his ribs shouldn’t have been quite so easy to find.

Ryou paused after a while, a finger turning circles around a lock of Bakura’s hair. “...You don’t mind this?” he asked in a soft, curious voice.

“What?” Bakura breathed, stroking his thumb over the bump of Ryou’s hip-bone.

“You’re on the bottom.”

Bakura grimaced and let out a snort. “Oh please don’t mistake me for an insecure, half-closetted macho-moron,” he said.

Ryou let out a sudden laugh and his body rubbed against Bakura’s with the bounce of his diaphragm, making it hard to pay attention to what he was saying, or anything beyond his beguiling flesh. “You don’t believe in roles within a relationship?” he asked softly, and the laugh could still be heard in his voice. “You’re taking care of me, right? Doesn’t that entitle you to be the man or something?”

“Now that’s just sexist,” Bakura chuckled and felt a swell of delight and lust as Ryou laughed against him once more. He groaned, “God, you’re whole body wiggles when you do that!”

Ryou giggled, a little more restrained, maybe embarrassed. “I’ve totally gotten off track with all this talking, haven’t I?” he said, amusement shining in his tone. “I’ll get back to it then. I-” he faltered for a split second as his voice filled with embarrassment. “I want to suck you off.”

Bakura was very proud of himself for not laughing, which probably would have exacerbated Ryou’s embarrassment, but it was just so funny to hear such frank statements in such a nervous voice. “I- okay,” Bakura said, feeling himself grinning, mostly from amusement but also from a rush of yes yes yes yes. “I can go give it a quick wash,” he suggested.

“You’re sweet,” Ryou said with a giggle of nervous amusement. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Bakura murmured, his breath quickening again as Ryou pushed himself up a fraction and started to crawl backwards, the covers bunching up around him as he went. Bakura shifted his legs to let Ryou crouch between his knees, and dropped his head back into the pillow. He closed his eyes and let out a slow, shuddering breath as Ryou’s hand found his forming erection and fingers closed around sensitive flesh.

“Nnnn...” Bakura groaned as Ryou pumped him slowly, and then he could feel Ryou shifting position further, dropping his weight down to his elbow and lowering his upper-body. Ryou blew across the head and Bakura breathed a lusty sigh, which turned into a soft moan as Ryou’s tongue followed the ghost of his breath and taste-buds tugged against skin.

An analytical little voice at the back of Bakura’s head noted that Ryou was quite good at this, while Bakura panted and soaked in the sensations. Ryou deep-throated him seemingly effortlessly and his fingers toyed maddeningly with Bakura’s balls. Ryou slid back until just the head was in his mouth and hummed softly, the vibrations of his vocal cords buzzing over his lips and making Bakura let out a straining moan.

Ryou kept working him damn near expertly as the pressure built until Bakura felt himself near the breaking point. His left hand located Ryou’s shoulder and gave a sharp squeeze. “F-five second warning,” he gasped and Ryou’s lips once again slid back the length of Bakura’s erection, stopping just behind the head and hanging there as Bakura released into his mouth.

Bakura’s lust-fogged mind noted blearily that Ryou swallowed as he drew back, and that that was very sexy, as Bakura’s muscles all relaxed, leaving him as a human-shaped puddle upon his bed. Ryou sat back up and his hand softly petted Bakura’s hip while Bakura panted helplessly for a while.

When his muscles again agreed to cooperate, Bakura pushed himself up and caught Ryou around the waist, and pulled him into his lap. Bakura kissed him deeply, tasting his own fluids on Ryou’s tongue, as he curled his arms around Ryou’s back and held him captive. Ryou kissed back lustily, his thighs pinching tight around Bakura’s hips and his own erection pressing against Bakura’s stomach.

After a few minutes of wallowing in selfish sensuality, Bakura slid a hand between their bodies and found Ryou’s erection. Ryou mewled softly against his lips and then moved his face into the curve of Bakura’s neck and shoulder, sighing and digging his fingers into Bakura’s hair. “Mmm... You want to take a shower together?” Bakura asked, gently stroking his fingers up Ryou’s length.

“Su- um-” Ryou faltered. “... Maybe another time?” he mumbled.

Because he was too body-shy to be somewhere well lit, where Bakura could see him. Bakura wondered if it was because of bruises or some more complex hang-ups Ryou had about his appearance. He didn’t seem to be aware, or at least at terms with the fact that he was lovely. Bakura forced back a disappointed sigh that was trying to escape and kissed Ryou’s ear. “‘Kay,” he whispered and tightened his hand around Ryou’s erection, pumping him as Ryou moaned into Bakura’s neck.

000

Ryou sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, gazing down at the breakfast dishes. It wasn’t much, breakfast had been eggs and toast, and Bakura had seemed to appreciate the simplicity. Ryou smiled to himself; maybe the post-coital high was pushing his spirits to elevated levels, but he had to believe that he was also feeling genuinely... good. Hopeful, maybe? If what he’d been presented with so far wasn’t all a façade, then he was definitely in the best place he could remember being since childhood.

Of course, being a gangster’s moll was probably a kind of precarious position. Was it even okay for Bakura to have a male moll? Ryou frowned softly and leaned forward, resting his elbows against the table. No, it must not be a problem, because Bakura hadn’t been worried about being seen in public with Ryou yesterday, doing domestic things like shopping and such. And his family was well aware, clearly, if his teenage niece was comfortable interviewing potentials for her uncle.

And the other day, the man at the sidewalk café, Yami, had spoken as though knowledgeable of Bakura’s preference. ‘That’s your emergency? Love at first sight?’ It had obviously been a joke, but still, it belied an ease, or at least joviality, about Bakura’s sexuality. And whatever business Bakura was in, Yami must be a part of it. He was probably the person Bakura was going to meet today, since their meeting on Wednesday was obviously cut short.

It must be fine. The atmosphere was relaxed and the fact that Ryou was male had hardly even been mentioned in the past two days. Bakura must be part of the progressive, forward-thinking mob. That decided, Ryou finally pushed himself away from the breakfast table and picked up his plate before walking around and getting Bakura’s as well. He glanced at the microwave clock as he carried the dishes to the sink and rinsed them off. It was almost eleven, Bakura would be having his meeting soon; Ryou wondered how long he’d be gone.

Ryou slid the plates into the dishwasher racks and fetched the skillet from the stove, his brow pulling a little tight as he did. How long would it take? Would Bakura be home by dinner time? Was he really just having a meeting or was he going to be breaking into a maximum security vault or something? If he were arrested or shot, how long would it take for Ryou to find out...?

Ryou shook his head and scrubbed burnt egg off of teflon. Bakura had to be a very successful -and therefore very smart and careful- whatever he was, because of the luxury he could afford to surround himself with. He was a trained professional, not a petty thief. He knew what he was doing and he’d been doing it for a while. He wasn’t going to suddenly get caught now. Ryou propped the clean pan on the counter to air-dry and shook the excess water off his hands into the sink before picking up the hand towel to wipe away the rest.

Hours to kill alone in the condo, without poking into anything that might contain some information pertaining to Bakura’s ‘work’, or any other exploring that might count as snooping. The TV set-up might have internet access, if Ryou could figure out how to work it, and there was the collection of art books which held interest, although Ryou was really more interested in method than history or price. And there was a massive bathtub with jets and everything in the bathroom.

Ryou smiled to himself. It would be like a hot-tub only without the constant awareness that the water surrounding him had contained an untold number of bodies before he got in it. Or the potential of chlorine coloring his hair.

000

“You are a dick,” Bakura announced, dropping onto the opposite end of a park bench from Yami.

Yami raised an eyebrow and held a mostly full bag of kettle-corn out to him, asking, “Are you still talking about that?”

“Rebecca! You sent Rebecca to check up on me!” Bakura snarled, ignoring the proffered snack. “Using kids to do your dirty-work? That’s low.”

“I would hardly consider visiting a close relative to be ‘dirty work’,” Yami rolled his eyes and shrugged, retracting the kettle-corn. “She happened to be studying with Yuugi and I simply asked if she knew whether you were seeing someone. I really don’t think my actions merit such a tantrum.”

“God, you piss me off!”

“In any event, it turns out fortunate that we didn’t finish our meeting on Wednesday,” Yami said in a calm, businesslike tone. “Mister Dunstan was trying to low-ball us. The job is quite a bit more complicated than he led me to believe.”

“Did you call it off?” Bakura asked.

“No, I had a chat with him and he’s agreed to pay what the contract is actually worth,” Yami said, picking up a few kernels and popping them into his mouth.

Bakura started slightly as a pair of lips, greasy with lipstick, met his cheek and an arm came around his shoulders. “Hi, honey, sorry I’m late!” a cheerful, female voice chirped.

“Well, considering I didn’t know you were coming...” Bakura snorted, giving a reproachful look to both his companions.

“Aw, aren’t you happy to see me, baby?” the voluptuous blonde laughed, plopping herself down between Bakura and Yami on the bench.

“Glad you could make it, Mai,” Yami said, giving her a little smile, most likely for irritating Bakura.

“So then, opening one little box is more than I can handle?” Bakura asked, leaning an elbow on the damp armrest.

“It’s always a bad idea to work alone,” Yami said with a shrug. “It’s just safer to have support if unexpected complications should arise. The Mormons have it right.”

“And since poor little Bakura doesn’t have a partner...”

“Oh don’t be silly, baby, I’m your partner!” Mai grinned and gave Bakura’s thigh a playful slap. “We’ll be sensational together!”

Bakura rolled his eyes and snorted loudly.

“You should advise your partner as to changes in your personal life if you haven’t already, Bakura,” Yami commented, idly gazing out at the lake and munching his snack. Bakura glared at him.

“Well bless my stars, have you gone and gotten yourself a personal life at last, Bakura?” Mai exclaimed with a huge grin, leaning forward in interest.

“It is not an issue,” Bakura growled.

“Issue? Honey, forget work, I want gossip!” Mai laughed. “What’s his name?”

“None of your business!” Bakura snapped.

“Ooh, defensive!” Mai said delightedly. “Don’t be stingy, tell me all about it! Where’d you meet him? Is he cute?”

“Bridget’s, I believe,” Yami said casually and Mai’s grin faltered.

“Oh honey, you’re not dating a pleasure-worker are you? You know that’s never a good idea,” she said, sounding concerned.

“He’s not-” Bakura started and then cut himself off, crossing his arms and glaring out at the water. “None of your goddamned business.”

“Actually, I believe Bakura was the knight who saved the poor innocent waif from a life of exploitation...” Yami murmured, a sadistic little smirk pulling at his lips.

Mai blinked momentarily and then giggled, her humor restored. “Have you been taking dating tips from Harlequin, Bakura?” she asked.

Bakura gritted his teeth and said nothing.

“Looked young too,” Yami said in a mock-casual voice. “Thirteen, fourteen...”

“Seventeen!” Bakura snapped.

Mai squealed with delight. “Welcome to the cougar-club, Bakura!”

“Shut up!” Bakura restrained himself from stuffing Mai’s stupid sun-glasses down her throat. He did have to work with her, after all. “It is none of your fucking business who I fuck and I am not going to take any shit from you and definitely not from you!” he growled pointing at Mai and then Yami.

“All I’m looking for is a name, baby. Heaven knows, I’m no one to judge,” Mai said, leaning heavily against Bakura’s side.

Bakura’s glare had no effect and he eventually relented. “...Ryou.”

“Well, the first step is admitting you have a problem...” Yami murmured smugly.

“Fuck you.”

“Oh stop, Yami! I think it’s wonderful!” Mai said brightly. “My guy has been way too tense lately. A happy Bakura is good for business!”

“Fuck you,” Bakura turned his scorn on Mai, who just laughed. “Can we please get back to the task at hand. My personal life is not the issue here.”

“Factors affecting your state of mind are always an issue,” Yami corrected. “Keep in mind that there is no privilege protecting you from that boy.”

“Whatever,” Bakura snorted.

000

Ryou gazed at photographs, mostly black-and-white, of lost masterworks, stolen during Nazi occupation and never seen again. There would be a photograph on one page and then the opposite one would have a description of the painting, when it was painted, why it had been commissioned and the artist who had made it, as well as its last known whereabouts and what person or museum had owned it before its disappearance.

There were so many of them. It was painful to think that it was because of the appreciation of art by misguided people that such precious pieces of Europe’s artistic legacy had been lost to the world. Love, hate and loss, harmoniously united.

Although what is one to mourn more, a life lost in the holocaust or a painting? The lives became just numbers to the collective consciousness, it was sad, horrifying, the size of those numbers, but one didn’t know most of those numbers as anything more than a digit. Famous objects offered a point of familiarity to millions; more people could feel the loss of those specific objects. Only so many people can know and love an ordinary person, an infinite number can love a well-known object.

And the pictures aren’t just objects, they’re memories. Memories of celebrities the world lost centuries ago. Memories of our history as a culture. Memories of how far we’ve come and where we came from. Memories of once upon a time.

Ryou had been caught trying to escape because he couldn’t bring himself to leave that place without his photos. They were the memories, the proof of what it had been like once upon a time. Even when he finally had gotten out, he hadn’t done so without them.

Ryou glanced in the direction of the coat-closet. His backpack was sitting in the sheltered corner, and his memories were inside of it. Would Bakura mind if he set them out somewhere that Ryou could see them? There was nothing on any of the walls in the condo, no decorations, maybe Bakura didn’t like that sort of thing. But maybe there was some small out-of-the-way place that Ryou could have them that they wouldn’t bother his benefactor or disturb the spartan aesthetic.

Ryou was shaken from his thoughts by a sharp, abrupt knocking at the door. He sat up and blinked, looking at the corner around which the door was located. His hand moved to touch the bruise on his forehead; he hadn’t put any of the concealer on it today because he hadn’t thought that he’d be facing anyone but Bakura.

Whoever it was, they were looking for Bakura though, not Ryou, so it was probably best if Ryou just pretended nobody was home anyway. Ryou had just decided to ignore the knocking and return to his book when suddenly there was the sound of a key in the lock and then the door opening. Ryou jerked around in his seat again, eyes wide as a jolt of fear ran through him. They were coming in!

“No, it’s fine. He complains but he really doesn’t mind. It’d just be silly to sit out in the hall when we don’t even know when they’re coming back.”

Ryou relaxed slightly at the familiar voice and hurriedly combed his hair over the bruise with his fingers. “R-Rebecca?” he called out hesitantly.

“Ryou!” Rebecca popped around the corner, coming into sight before she finished the task she’d started of taking off her shoes. “I didn’t think you were here! You didn’t answer the door!”

“I- I didn’t think anybody would be looking for me...” Ryou said lamely.

Rebecca laughed. “Well, shows what you know!” she declared merrily, tossing her shoes back towards the entry way and walking out onto the carpet as a short teenager wandered into view behind her. “Ryou, this is Yuugi. He goes to my school and is a close family friend,” she introduced and then added, “And also my boyfriend.”

“Hi. It’s nice to meet you,” Yuugi said, looking a little embarrassed by Rebecca’s introduction.

“Family friend?” Ryou wondered, looking curiously at Yuugi. He could have been a perfect copy of Bakura’s ‘business associate’ Yami, only five or ten years younger.

“Our grandpas were best friends,” Yuugi offered with a little shrug and a lopsided smile.

“Ah,” Ryou said with a little nod.

“So I was talking to Yuugi today and I wanted him to meet you and both of us were free for the afternoon so I thought we should stop by!” Rebecca exclaimed brightly, walking over and leaning against the back of the couch. Then she paused and blinked, the smile falling off her lips. “Yee gods, Ryou, what happened to your face?!” she demanded.

Ryou ducked his head, grabbing at a lock of hair and trying to hide behind it. “It-it’s nothing,” he stammered quickly. “It was a while ago. It’s almost healed. It’s fine.”

“What happened?!” Rebecca insisted, running around the couch and all but jumping on top of Ryou. “It looks like you head-butted a sidewalk! That wasn’t there yesterday, was it?!”

“N-no, it’s old.” Ryou shook his head and tried to scoot away from her, but Rebecca was fencing him in. “I had makeup on it yesterday. Bakura didn’t do it. I swear to God, he had nothing to do with it.”

Rebecca froze, a blank look on her face as she stared at Ryou. “What are you talking about? Of course Bakura wouldn’t do something like that!” she snapped, anger suddenly flashing across her features. “Are you saying somebody gave you that bruise on purpose?!”

“Hey, Rebecca, maybe you--” Yuugi started hesitantly.

“Who did that to you?!” Rebecca shouted, grabbing Ryou and shaking him.

“Some drunk!” Ryou wailed, bringing his arms up in front of his face. “He was so blasted he probably didn’t even know he was doing it!”

Rebecca stopped shaking him and let go slowly. “Rebecca, come on,” Yuugi coaxed, pulling her away. Ryou kept his eyes squeezed shut and didn’t peek out from behind his raised arms. He could feel tears burning at his eyes and he fought to hold them back. “Stop,” Yuugi was whispering. “You’re freaking him out. Leave it alone.”

Rebecca made a frustrated sound and then announced, “I’m gonna go get hot chocolate!” Ryou lowered his arms slowly and watched as the girl marched back towards the door and started pulling her shoes back on. “Ryou!” she snapped over her shoulder. “What kind of Starbucks do you like?”

“I, um,” Ryou faltered, frowning. “I’m not sure. I usually put milk and sugar in my coffee...”

“Anything you don’t like?” Rebecca asked.

“N-not really...”

“Okay. Yuugi?” Rebecca turned her attention to the boy standing a few feet away from Ryou.

“Hot chocolate, I guess,” Yuugi answered with a shrug.

“Okay. I’ll be back,” Rebecca said and then disappeared to the sound of the front door opening and shutting again.

Ryou turned to look at Yuugi who sighed and scratched his head. “Sorry about that. She gets excited,” he said with an apologetic little smile.

“Y-yeah, I’ve noticed,” Ryou agreed, glancing away and feeling awkward.

“And the reason she’s just run off now is that she expects me to entice you into a bro-chat and find out more information about you than she’s managed to get,” Yuugi said with a shrug and an eye-roll. “Sometimes it’s easier to just pretend to go along with the scheme than it is to argue.”

Ryou blinked in momentary confusion and then slowly his lips spread apart and he smiled back at the other boy. “I see,” he said, grateful for Yuugi’s candor and apparent ease with the fact that Rebecca’s personality was perhaps a bit too forceful.

“There is something though...” Yuugi said in a more hesitant voice, his posture and expression suddenly turning awkward. “I wanted to know if... Do you know what Bakura... does?” he asked in a quiet, nervous voice.

Ryou looked at him carefully for a moment. He definitely had to be related to Yami, they were practically identical, and Bakura had seemed to think that Rebecca’s initial visit was prompted by his associate. “Do you?” Ryou asked quietly.

Yuugi looked away uncomfortably. “It- It’s really none of my business. If he hasn’t said anything to you, then I shouldn’t. I was just kind of...”

Ryou nodded slowly. It seemed like Yuugi wasn’t looking for information, he was testing Ryou’s knowledge. “I jumped to the worst conclusion at first,” Ryou said with a casual shrug. “He works odd hours, on commission, he won’t talk about what he does, and he drives a ‘vette. Naturally the words ‘Mafia’ and ‘assassin’ came to mind,” he admitted.

Yuugi looked alarmed suddenly. “Ah, that’s- that’s really--” he stammered, bringing up his hands a little in a ‘whoa’ gesture.

“But his personal library over there made me feel a little better,” Ryou said, cutting Yuugi off, and he nodded towards the bookshelf in the living room. “I think if I had to guess, I’d be inclined to label him a... acquisitions specialist?”

Yuugi looked relieved. “Good. I wanted to make sure you knew what you stepped in,” he said.

Ryou shrugged. “He’s probably the least shitty thing I’ve stepped in for about eight years,” he said vaguely. Yuugi looked down, an uncomfortable expression overcoming his face. “Just… as far as the proverbial ‘catch’ goes, this doesn’t seem like a terrible one,” Ryou explained. “I suppose I could go to prison as an accomplice or something, but he’s obviously not careless.”

“He hasn’t told you in any specific terms what he does, has he?” Yuugi asked, frowning.

“He hasn’t told me in any terms. The only thing he’s said is that he works freelance,” Ryou agreed.

“Right. He’s making sure you don’t know anything to protect both of you. If you knew any specifics about his work, you could really hurt him, and it would also put you in a dangerous position,” Yuugi explained carefully. “My grandpa, he says that he and Yami are in the ‘antiques and collectables’ business. I think it’s pretty apt to call Bakura an ‘acquisitions specialist’,” he said with an amused little grin. “Yami just calls him a ‘freelance contractor’.”

“And Yami is your... brother?” Ryou guessed.

“Cousin,” Yuugi corrected and then tilted his head a little, looking curious. “Have you met him?”

“Bakura ditched him when he swooped in to rescue me, apparently.” Ryou shrugged. “And he was waiting when we came out. He seemed like... one of those people who, when they’re annoyed just gets all dry and sarcastic. I think he was annoyed.”

Yuugi nodded thoughtfully and then gave a sheepish, little grin. “Yeah, he does that,” he agreed and then sighed. “I think you must be pretty intuitive. You haven’t used any red-flag words since we’ve been talking. It’s the way they talk too, always with nonspecific words that. Like, to anyone paying attention it’s pretty obvious what they’re talking about, but even if you recorded it, no judge would ever let it into the courtroom because it’s all subjective and stuff.”

“So... how is Yami involved with Bakura? You said ‘freelance contractor’. I’ve pretty well figured out what Bakura does, how does Yami come into that?” Ryou asked, drumming his fingers on the counter.

“He’s an agent. He sets up work for Bakura and deals with the customers. He has other clients too. The best,” Yuugi said proudly. “See, he’s one of the only agents around who’ll represent women, and he’s the only one I know of who’ll represent open homosexuals, so because he’s the only one, he gets the very best, like Bakura... Actually,” he amended in a thoughtful voice, “I think Bakura gave him the idea. They were already working together when Bakura ‘came out’.”

Ryou nodded slowly, staring blankly ahead as he processed the information. “And you mentioned your grandfather. It’s a family business?”

“Family but not ‘family’,” Yuugi said carefully. “It’s that way for a lot of the big-leaguers. Passing from father to son and such,” he said. “I’m not really in on it. I only know a little of what goes on, like, they make sure I know enough to understand why I can’t approach them if I see them out in public, but they don’t give me any real information, like nothing that could get me in trouble, because I’m a minor and all.”

“A client list isn’t risky information?” Ryou asked, raising an eyebrow.

Yuugi laughed nervously. “Bakura’s the only one I know. He’s not just a client, really. Like Rebecca said, our families have always been close. See, Grandpa represented Mister Hawkins- actually, they kind of started the business together.” Yuugi smiled lop-sidedly. “So Bakura’s almost like family, even though he and Yami argue most of the time.”

Ryou nodded slowly, processing the information. “Do you-” he stopped himself and shook his head. “No, sorry, never mind.”

“What?” Yuugi prodded.

“Nothing,” Ryou shook his head again. “I’m curious about some things about him, but it really wouldn’t be appropriate to ask you.”

“Oh,” Yuugi nodded and looked down at his hands.

“... Rebecca doesn’t know about his job, does she?” Ryou asked after a few minutes.

“No. Mister Hawkins didn’t believe women should be in that line of work. That’s why he took Bakura in, because he didn’t want to pass the trade on to his daughter. I don’t think Rebecca’s mom knows either. Maybe she has an idea, but she’s probably never been told or anything.”

“I see.”

“Grandpa never involved Aunt Yuri in anything, but, I don’t know, that could be because she’s kinda flakey instead of because she’s a woman. My dad- I think Grandpa was just about to retire when my dad died, and then he kept going and taught Yami when he grew up.” Yuugi leaned back and gazed up at the ceiling.

“Do you live with your grandpa?” Ryou asked.

“Yeah, sorta. Mom and I moved into the townhouse next-door to his after my dad died,” Yuugi said with a nod. “I was pretty young and I can’t really remember him much,” he trailed off and then shook himself a little and continued. “And Grandpa raised Yami, because Aunt Yuri... she... couldn’t really handle things and she kind of ran away... So then Grandpa raised Yami and when he turned eighteen, Grandpa started teaching him the business and now Grandpa’s sort of half-retired and I think he’s mostly just advising Yami at this point.”

It was considerably more information than Ryou had asked for, and he got the impression that Yuugi was feeling rather relieved to have someone ‘in the know’ to talk to, even though Ryou really didn’t know anything. “Do they just handle ‘acquisitions specialists’, or do they have... more...”

“They don’t work with assassins or anything,” Yuugi said quickly, a touch of anger flashing across his round features. “There’s a lot of different specialties inside the acquisitions business. It’s a huge business and they don’t need to branch out. You can’t just lump everything that’s illegal into one category. There’s a big difference between, like, art theft and racketeering rings that exploit working-class people.” Yuugi insisted defensively. “Crime is a major cornerstone of the economy. Do you know how much money goes into crime-prevention? A million people would be put out of work if there wasn’t any crime. And the kind of targets that Yami and Bakura go after are the ones that could lose ninety-nine percent of everything they own and still have a roof over their head and food on their table.”

Ryou nodded silently. Yuugi’s counter-indoctrination was kind of impressive. “So there’s no association with the mob?” he asked quietly.

“No. Well-” Yuugi paused, thinking about it. “I don’t know, maybe they get hired by mobsters now and then, but that would be individuals who just happen to be part of the mob hiring an agency on their own, not in direct association with their organization.”

“I see,” Ryou said. He opened his mouth to ask another question but stopped and clamped his mouth shut when he heard a key in the lock. A few seconds later the door opened and Rebecca came back around the corner.

“Ookay! Ryou, I got you a caramel macchiato!” she announced, seeming to be back to her usual chipper self, as she came out into the living room carrying a cardboard drink-tray with three grande-sized cups in it.

“Er, thanks... You really didn’t have to...” Ryou mumbled. It was weird enough having Bakura spend money on him; Rebecca was just a kid.

“Bah! You made me dinner last night so it’s fair, right?” she dismissed and checked the sharpie-scribbles on the sides of the paper cups before pulling one out and handing it to Ryou. “Besides, I’m not gonna sit in front of you drinking a hot-chocolate when you don’t have anything. That’d just be rude.”

“Thanks, Becca,” Yuugi said as she handed a cup to him.

“Nooo problem,” Rebecca plopped herself down on the couch next to Yuugi, cradling the remaining cup in her hands. “So, Ryou, I was thinking that we should totally hang out. What do you do for fun besides art? What’s your favorite games?”

“I don’t know...” Ryou said, tilting his head to the side a little and watching the steam rise out of his anti-spill lid. “I used to have a Wii, but it... got broken. I kind of like the cartoony games sometimes, but I never get that into, like, the video-game RPGs. It just feels a little pointless, playing this game that’s supposed to be ‘role-playing’ but the ending and everything is already scripted. It’s somebody else’s story and you can’t really change it, even if you chose left instead of right, eventually you’ll get to the same ending cut-scene.”

“What about the ones that aren’t scripted, like MMOs?” Yuugi asked.

“Yeah, they’re definitely an interesting idea.” Ryou nodded slowly. “I’ve never had the cash around to pay a subscription fee for any of the really popular ones. I’ve played some of the free ones a bit, but they’re still a little restrictive. I used to play D&D with my friends in middle school, and I really liked that, but I haven’t really had time for it or a group or anything in a while.”

“We should make a group!” Rebecca exclaimed, eyes bright and excited. “I’ve got a friend at school who’s really into Shadow Run and stuff! We could totally put together a role-playing group!”

“I’d play,” Yuugi agreed with a little smile. “I’d love to have something like that as, like, a regular thing.”

000
000

Mai mentions Harlequin, which is a major publisher of adult novels (what I like to call Safeway-porn), so, in case anybody drew a blank on that one I thought I’d mention it here.

So I’m not sure I feel that this chapter is done so much as that I’m sick of rereading it in parts over and over again. The first scene was actually the last to be written, or finished anyway, as I had some porn-writer’s block going on the past few weeks. The rest of this chapter has been sitting around undergoing revisions and waiting for me to write the smut and I’ve gotten thoroughly tired of it because it’s taken so long; I’m really glad to get it out of the way and move on. Next chapter will have some conflict, so don’t worry, mindless fluff is out of the way for now. I think this is the first ‘day’ that’s lasted more than a chapter, but it was getting towards thirty pages so I decided I should break it in half.

So, anyway, I can’t think of much more I want to say about this one. I love and respond to comments, and often times they help me get into gear to write some more, so honestly and without pouting I’d say that more reviews can lead to quicker updates.

Rivalry Chapter Five

2011-04-27T04:11:43Z

Series: Yugioh
Title: Rivalry
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Noa, Kaiba Mokuba
Rating: 13
Warnings: not really
Summary: Seto is irritated at things and there's a Christmas party.
Previous: 1 & 2, 3, 4

Noa was helping Mokuba study his flashcards of first-grade math problems. Nothing higher than two digits and nothing more complex than addition or subtraction. Seto could think of nothing more boring as he glanced up from his physics book to where his rival was holding up cards and babbling encouragingly to Mokuba while he read and answered the simple equations aloud.

The two of them were sitting on the carpet in Seto’s room, where they liked to congregate after lessons so that Seto would be forced into some togetherness time by proximity if nothing else. It was irritating. Not the noise, their voices weren’t especially loud and Seto could easily study amid the minor distraction, it was the subtext that irritated him.

This scene had become more and more frequent over the last month until it seemed that Noa was loitering in Seto’s room nearly every afternoon. As though he wanted to be near Seto. He knew the decision to spend the afternoons in Seto’s room had to be Noa’s, because Mokuba had seemed happy enough to play anywhere within or around the mansion, so long as he was promised a play-mate. But Noa’s attitude had been taking a discomforting turn lately.

He’d taken to prompting conversation from Seto more often, and being genuinely engaged by Seto’s responses. There was no mocking undertone, there was no deliberate attempt to illicit anger, no masked aggression or even rivalry. It was like he’d started believing in their farcical little ‘family’.

Then again, as far as Seto had been able to put together from observation and investigation, Noa had likely never had a family before. Prodding Junko had yielded the knowledge that Noa’s mother hadn’t stuck around long after his birth. Likely Gozaburo had wanted an heir but had no particular desire for companionship, and so he’d hired a woman to bear him a son and then disappear. That left Noa with no mother and a father to whom he was something more like an insurance policy than a child.

Perhaps their imaginary fraternity had gotten Noa hooked, and now he was attempting to somehow render the filiation legitimate through force of will. Seto snorted to himself at the thought. Noa was a spoiled brat who had always been given everything he could want, naturally now that he’d discovered something he didn’t have, he was trying to take it for himself by force.

...

Gozaburo was absent from the Christmas festivities, but Seto wasn’t really surprised. When the man was actually at home, he didn’t waste his precious time in the presence of children. Junko had gotten their playroom decorated like a department store display and even hired a Santa. Seto also suspected that it was at her direction that the household servants were all dressed finely and attending the children’s Christmas party. She did an admirable job of giving children with no real family or friends a decent imitation of a satisfying social life.

“Ohohoho!” the Santa chortled, handing Mokuba another brightly wrapped box. “Mokuba, my elves told me what a good boy you’ve been!” Every one of the gifts seemed to be wearing a different color paper, professionally wrapped at whatever department store Junko had picked the Santa up from, no doubt.

“I was!” Mokuba agreed excitedly, accepting the box and plopping down onto the carpet to tear at the glitter-spangled tissue paper.

All the festively dressed servants ‘oooh’ed and ‘ahhh’ed at the new game console Mokuba uncovered, and he obviously delighted in the attention, probably not even realizing that everybody was being paid to be here. It was like their ‘family’; an artificial creation of the Kaiba Corporation, fabricated to benefit its investments.

Seto looked down at his cup, deciding that he didn’t like eggnog, and stepped back to set it on the edge of the buffet table. He glanced over the miniature food and selected a caramelized onion quiche to munch on.

“And Seto! Where’s Seto!” the Santa called in his overly cheerful voice. Seto sighed and walked back over to the tree, pushing the rest of the quiche into his mouth as he went. “There you are, Seto!” the Santa chortled. Two huge, irregular-shaped packages had appeared, and Seto was faintly bemused by how they’d gotten in here so stealthily, but given the identical shape and size of the packages, he guessed that it was matching, competitive toys for himself and Noa. Probably... go-carts.

He and Noa started ripping off the wrapping paper at the same time and indeed, two go-carts immerged, navy-blue and black. That would probably be fun, Seto acknowledged, nodding and running his hand along the sleek, black roll-bar.

“I have a present for Seto-Nii!” Noa announced brightly and Seto glanced up.

“Wonderful!” the Santa exclaimed. “You really are a good boy, Noa!”

Apparently it was gift exchange time now. Seto shrugged slightly. “I have something too,” he said and walked over to the chair he’d left the gifts he bought under. “Here, Mokuba, this one’s for you,” Seto called, carrying over a huge box, wrapped in yellow paper and containing a remote-controlled robot-tyrannosaurus. Mokuba squealed in delight and pounced upon it as Seto held out a fancy envelope to Junko. “Thank you for organizing this party, Junko-san.”

“Oh Seto-bozu! That’s so sweet! You shouldn’t have!” Junko exclaimed, looking flattered and amused at first and then delighted by the spa-passes she found inside.

Mokuba shrieked again as he uncovered the tyrannosaurus and flung himself onto Seto babbling thank-yous and giggling. Seto felt his lips pull into a faint smile as he tousled Mokuba’s hair.

When he finally turned back to Noa, Seto felt vague disgust at how unreasonably excited the eleven-year-old looked. Mokuba had an excuse, he was six, but it was nauseating to watch a boy Noa’s age acting like such a baby about some over-commercialized, foreign holiday. “I thought for a long time about what would be good. I hope you like it,” Noa said grinning hugely, his eyes gleaming, as he held out a small, rectangular package with both hands.

An iPod, Seto guessed, looking at the size and shape. It was the same thing he’d bought for Noa, and you didn’t see him getting all smug about it. Seto forced a smile for the audience and held out a nearly identical package as he accepted Noa’s.

Noa held the wrapped iPod against his chest, almost entirely ignoring it, as he stared at Seto excitedly. Seto sighed, doing his best not to grimace, and tore the blue and gold paper away from Noa’s gift. He looked down at what turned out to be not an iPod but a small, plexi-glass display case.

“... Oh,” Seto whispered, feeling suddenly numb as he stared down at the card held between the two planes of clear plastic. “Oh...” he said again, his mouth dry.

He turned the case over in his hands and stared at the familiar pattern on the back, then over again to the picture, stats and description on the front. “Oh...” he said.

“Is... Is it good?” Noa asked, sounding suddenly nervous.

“...Oh,” Seto responded blankly, never taking his eyes off the card. “... Thank you,” he whispered.

Mokuba abandoned his robo-saurus and peered around Seto’s arm to see what he had. “Wow!” Mokuba shouted, his eyes going round. “The Blue-Eyes White Dragon! How did you get it, Noa-Nii-san?!”

“I had to out-bid this guy in Sweden and he was really persistent, but I finally beat him, and- and I’ve been keeping it secret for weeks and it was really <>hard!</i>” Noa babbled excitedly.

Seto stood very still, staring at the plexi-glass encased card in his hands and listening to Noa and Mokuba ramble as the adults around them asked in low voices if anybody knew what that thing was and why it was so important.

...
...

This chapter sat around about half-written on my drive for a long time. I finally got around to finishing it on Easter. I had the day off from work and I wasn’t on cooking-duty; I also felt compelled to work on not-porn as I was surrounded by family. Mom gave me a bag of Trader Joe’s ‘Bunny Gummy Tummies’ (I’m allergic to chocolate) and while they are entertaining, I don’t think they beat the ‘Lovey Gummy Tummies’ they were selling for Valentine’s Day. They were little heart-shaped gummies with cherry-flavored syrup in the center, so if you poke the little heart, it bleeds red goo. Ahahahaha, they are morbidly entertaining. I hope they make them again next year, I only bought one package this year because I didn’t know they’d be anything so amusing as bleeding hearts. Oh, Trader Joe’s, you always have the best pun-foods...

Wading: Lotus

2011-04-25T03:37:12Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Wading
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Thief King Bakura
Rating: K
Warnings: none
Summary: A series of snap-shot drabbles about Bakura growing up alone on the banks of the Nile.
Previous: Locust, Moving Day

Sometime before noon, Bakhura scrambled down the clay bank to check on his lily-field again. There was a sand-bar jutting out into the river and behind it a quiet pool had formed, and within that pool, a field of pink-lilies. Bakhura stood with his feet sinking into the soft mud at the edge of the lapping water and squinted out at his lilies, carefully examining the carpet of wide, flat leaves and the large, pinkish blossoms dotted here and there among them.

He spotted a lily-pad that was poked up on one side, as though being pushed from underneath, and Bakhura sucked in his breath eagerly and splashed out into the water. Once the water was dragging at his waist, he fell forward and swam out, trying not to get tangled too badly in the submerged stems tethering the lilies to the mud below. Bakhura reached the lily-pad that was poking up and shoved at it. Sure enough, when the leaf was moved aside, it revealed a honeycombed knob, bigger than Bakhura’s fist, sticking out of the water.

Bakhura couldn’t touch the bottom, and that made it difficult to bite through the stem, while thrashing in the water to stay afloat and to keep his arms and legs from getting too tangled up. Finally the stem broke and Bakhura tried to hold it up out of the water in one hand while swimming clumsily back toward the shore. When his feet finally found purchase (although very slippery with muck) Bakhura staggered and panted with the effort of his struggle against the lilies.

Back on land, he dropped down heavily into the clay and sat there, trying to catch his breath as he counted the seeds in his lily-fruit. Twenty-six. Bakhura grinned triumphantly; he’d captured a very big fruit. He started picking and pulling at the side until the walls around one of the seeds broke, then he glanced down at the clay under him and scooped out a small bowl with his hand to drop seeds into. He pushed a bit of the broken rind between his teeth to chew on while he kept pulling seeds free and dropping them into the basin. It didn’t taste very good; not all that different than chewing through the stem had. The seeds were sweet and nutty though, and they made the effort worth-while.

There was a dicky-bird that kept trying to sneak up and steal a seed away from Bakhura as he pealed off the skins and popped them into his mouth. Bakhura glared at it and threw pieces of the rind, twice managing to actually hit the would-be thief with a small chunk. The bird flapped at him and ran back and forth along the clay and sand, eyeing Bakhura irritably. “Either get your own,” Bakhura said, flinging an empty peal in the bird’s direction, “or stop being so incompetent. You’re a terrible thief.”

Invisible- Chapter Three

2011-04-02T02:32:19Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Rebecca Hawkins
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.
Previous: 1, 2

The clock-radio clicked and mid-90s rock came on, making Ryou start. He fought the initial urge to shove away from Bakura, and lay still as the older man blearily rolled over to his back and shut the alarm off. After a few seconds pause, he rolled to his side again and put his arm back around Ryou, and touched his mouth lightly against Ryou’s forehead, not really kissing, just leaning. “How do you feel?” he asked after a little while; his throat sounded dry.

“I’m fine,” Ryou mumbled back.

“That’s good...” Bakura murmured, stroking his thumb slowly against the hair behind Ryou’s ear. “We should probably go get you some clothes today.”

“...You’re wasting a lot of time on me. Don’t you have to work?” Ryou asked softly, his eyes open just a crack, though he couldn’t see anything since the room was still dark.

“Freelance. I set my own hours,” Bakura replied, and Ryou could feel the arm around him move slightly as Bakura shrugged. “And I haven’t gotten the deposit for my current job yet, so the clock hasn’t really started running on that anyway.”

“How long do jobs usually take?”

“...Anywhere from two weeks to six months. Depending on complexity,” Bakura answered vaguely.

“Hm.” Ryou closed his eyes again and uncurled his hand, smoothing the palm out against Bakura’s chest and sliding it slowly out, the tips of his fingers following Bakura’s collarbone. The hand that had been stroking behind Ryou’s ear moved to cup his jaw softly. Ryou tilted his face up as Bakura leaned in and gently kissed him. They exchanged subdued, surface-level kisses for a few minutes before Bakura pulled back an inch to speak again.

“You feel up to a normal breakfast or is your stomach still tender?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Ryou said again.

“Okay.” This time Bakura did kiss his forehead. “Your clothes from the other day are clean now. You can wear them today. If you want to.”

Ryou nodded. “What time is it?”

“Nine... Where do you want to go for clothes? The mall, or ‘s there a particular store you like?” Bakura asked. His hand rested on the curve of Ryou’s shoulder and his thumb moved in slow, tiny circles against the skin beneath it.

Ryou shrugged his upward shoulder. “Salvation Army... Usually get my work-clothes at outlet places.”

He could feel Bakura’s lips twist next to his forehead, making a little grimace or something. “I think it’s one of those questions of what’s more valuable to a person, a bargain or the time it takes to find it. I generally lean towards time as being the more valuable, so I think I’m gonna be inclined to go the mall route here.”

Ryou shrugged again. “I don’t really care what I wear,” he said quietly. “I just need to have black slacks and a white shirt for work. The rest of the time doesn’t really matter much. Whatever fits.”

Bakura was quiet for a moment, either considering Ryou’s statement or being put-off by it. “Well,” he said, “if we’re going to take the time to get you new clothes, they should be ones you look good in.”

“If you like,” Ryou mumbled. “You’re the one who has to look at me.”

The hand on Ryou’s shoulder stilled for a few seconds before squeezing a little as Bakura leaned down and kissed his cheek, then shifted and sat up, flicking on the bedside lamp. Ryou blinked a few times, sighing as his eyes adjusted to the new light source. Bakura stretched, and Ryou watched the way the muscle moved over his shoulder blades under the skin.

“So, we can get some breakfast at Beth’s and then head over to the mall after that,” Bakura decided.

“...Do you always eat at restaurants or order take-out?” Ryou asked.

“Eh,” Bakura shrugged. “I keep some stuff in the freezer for when I’m just too lazy...”

“...I can cook.” Ryou sat up and hugged his knees, watching Bakura walk around the bed, toward the dresser.

“...Yeah?” Bakura asked, glancing at him with an eyebrow raised in an interested fashion.

“If your kitchen had something other than TV-dinners and canned soup in it, I’d be happy to make dinner or something,” Ryou said, giving Bakura a little shrug. “...Probably a lot happier than I’d be eating restaurant food every day.”

“...Okay. Cool,” Bakura said with a smile creeping over his lips. “We’ll hit a grocery on the way back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ryou murmured, returning the smile just a little. “Oh... Can I use your phone to call my boss?” he asked.

“Yeah. Sure,” Bakura picked up his phone off the dresser and tossed it to Ryou. Ryou felt himself stiffen momentarily, but managed to recover in time to catch the phone. Bakura was wearing an odd expression when Ryou glanced back at him briefly, and Ryou had a suspicion that he’d noticed the reflex. He turned his eyes quickly to the phone, opening the keypad. He listened to Bakura grab a few things out of the dresser and then wander over to the bathroom as he keyed in the bakery’s number and held the phone to his ear.

“This is the Croissant Moon Bakery, today’s special is whole-grain cranberry-nut muffins,” Mister Foley answered cheerfully.

“Hi, Mister Foley, it’s Ryou,” Ryou said quietly.

“Ryou! How are you? Are you feeling better today?”

“Yes, thank you Mister Foley,” Ryou said, nodding to empty space. “I- um- I’m not sick anymore, but I was wondering if you could get by without me today. See I- I had to move kind of suddenly...”

There was a short pause and then Mister Foley’s voice seemed warmer than usual. “Ryou, you take the rest of the week off if you need it. Marcy’s been begging me for a little over-time.”

“Th-thank you, Mister Foley,” Ryou mumbled, feeling embarrassed.

“You take care of yourself, Ryou. You’re a good employee.”

“Thank you, Mister Foley,” Ryou said again.

000

Bakura glanced right and left as they walked down the tiled floor of the shopping-mall. The niche-market shops with their ‘style’ displayed in the windows and employees with sales commissions -who would fight to claim incoming customers- would probably have better service than the large department stores. The downside was that for most of them, ninety percent of their inventory would likely be based around a female figure. And then there were the ones that felt the need to saturate their sales-space with some truly repugnant ‘fragrance,’ to the point that it would spill out beyond their boundaries and pollute the mall for a ten yard radius around the entrance.

There was a constant drone of mixed chatter from all sides, punctuated and pierced every thirty-seconds or so by the shriek of a small child. Everyone walked at different speeds, making it near impossible to get past the slow-moving families who stood four-abreast, while being cut-off or mowed down by pairs of strutting teenagers. Bakura was thankful it wasn’t December; this place after the ‘Christmas Shopping Season’ was headache-inducing enough.

He finally spotted a storefront which displayed male clothing that wasn’t ‘skater’ or ‘metal’ styled. “Here,” he said quietly, pointing toward it and Ryou followed his gesture. They slipped out of the current and into the shop, and before they’d moved ten steps beyond the threshold, Bakura witnessed a race between two clerks to claim them.

“Hi! Is there anything I can help you with?” the winner, an eager, college-age boy wearing tight-fitting jeans and glasses with thick, black rims asked, bouncing up to them. The loser, a girl with shoulder-length brunet curls, slunk away in defeat.

“Yep.” Bakura nodded toward Ryou. “New wardrobe. Advice?”

The boy -his nametag said ‘Clyde’- looked thrilled. “Oh jeeze, I don’t know, let’s see...” he murmured, looking Ryou up and down and walking to the side slightly to check his profile. Ryou’s cheeks grew a sweet shade of pink under Clyde’s scrutinizing eyes. “Okay, I’m thinking dark, solid colors,” Clyde said, tapping his chin. “And for cut- y’know you’ve got that great svelte figure- blouses with an androgynous shape and maybe just a little bit of ruffle.”

Ryou pressed his lips together and glanced at Bakura, who shrugged a little and gave him a lop-sided grin. “So come over here... and do you know what size you are?” Clyde asked, walking briskly over towards a wall displaying hipsterish clothing.

“Thirty thirty-four,” Ryou mumbled.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that?” Clyde turned to look back at them.

“Thirty thirty-four,” Ryou repeated in a bit louder voice.

“Hm- long legs,” Clyde said with a grin. “You’re lucky we cater to the tall-and-thin crowd.” He started shuffling through the pants hanging against the wall, looking like he was going too fast to possibly read what the sizes were, and pulling out pairs to throw over his arm. “And let’s come over here and look at some shirts,” he said, spinning around almost without warning and striding over to a circular rack. “What do you think of... this style?” he asked, whipping around and holding a navy-blue button-down shirt out to Ryou.

Ryou stared at it blankly for a minute before looking away, the blush back in his cheeks and mumbling. “It’s- it’s really... girly...”

“Dial it back, Clyde,” Bakura said, putting his hands into his pockets and rocking on his heels.

“Okay, sorry about that,” Clyde said with a laugh, shoving the shirt back onto the rack and then pulling out another one, forest-green with a normal collar. “How about this one?”

“...Okay,” Ryou said quietly.

Clyde picked out three more button-down shirts and a sleeveless mock turtle-neck before shooing Ryou into the changing rooms. Once Ryou had been shuffled into a stall, Clyde stepped back, grinning at the closed door for a minute before glancing over at Bakura. “He’s cute!” Clyde noted.

“And you’re over the top,” Bakura replied, not looking back at him. “The Queer-Eye routine isn’t earning you extra points. You work in a boutique and you’ve managed to dress yourself in a not-hideous manner, so I’ll assume you have a decent understanding of what you’re doing. You don’t need to spread it on so thick, this isn’t cable-TV.” He glanced back at Clyde, who now had his mouth twisted to the side a little and looked as though he were calculating in his head as he considered Bakura. “He was already uncomfortable before we came in here.”

Clyde nodded. “Noted,” he said and then looked back towards the changing stall. “How’s it looking in there?” he called.

“Um- I...” There was a hesitant pause and then the doorknob turned and Ryou peeked around the corner, looking immeasurably self-conscious as he slowly stepped clear of the door, wearing the green shirt and a pair of tight, black jeans.

Clyde got a sparkle in his eye and looked like he was about to offer some helpful commentary, but Bakura cut him off, asking, “Is it comfortable?”

“Y- I guess...” Ryou said, looking down and fidgeting.

“It looks good on you,” Bakura said.

“Thanks...” Ryou whispered, looking away, his cheeks pink again.

000

Ryou stared at the large tiles ahead of him as he walked, carrying a large bag made of thick, recycled paper and filled with folded pieces of clothing. Clyde had loaded him with half a dozen tight-fitting T-shirts in addition to the button-downs and turtle-necks –for casual wear, he’d said- and he’d ended up working five pairs of pants and a wool peacoat into the sale. That was before Bakura had brought up the need for white button-down shirts for work.

The digital letters displayed above the cash-register had informed Ryou that Bakura just bought him almost five-hundred dollars worth of clothing. Admittedly, Bakura did seem to have money to throw around, but the thought of somebody spending that kind of money on things for Ryou made his stomach churn.

“So, now you need shoes, socks, underwear... anything else?”

“I- I have shoes,” Ryou protested lamely, glancing at his beat-up sneakers.

“Those aren’t good for work though, are they?” Bakura pointed out.

Ryou bit his lip, he couldn’t argue that, and it was also a little disconcerting how well Bakura must have taken note of what Ryou had been wearing at the bus-stop.

“Those don’t look very warm either. Let’s get some weather-proof sneakers or something too,” Bakura suggested. “...I want you to have the things you need,” he added quietly.

“I’m fine. I’m really fine. This is... a lot of stuff,” Ryou mumbled.

“Y’know, if you’re cooking stuff instead of me buying all my meals, that’s going to save me a lot of money,” Bakura pointed out. Oddly, that did make Ryou feel more comfortable. This wasn’t just absurd amounts of money being spent on him now; it was a barter.

After another hundred dollars, they tucked the bags and shoeboxes into the small trunk of Bakura’s corvette and carefully escaped the mall’s parking-garage. Bakura clicked a few buttons on his smart-phone, as he waited for a break in traffic to turn out onto the road, and then spoke into the receiver with a flat, loud voice. “Grocery.”

“...Nearest locations for ‘grocery’ are: Stan’s Market, Whole Foods and Safeway,” a synthesized, feminine voice responded from the phone after a few seconds of processing.

“Do you know any of those places?” Bakura asked in a normal voice, and Ryou glanced over at him.

“Um, Stan’s is a small, neighborhood store, the prices are higher than a chain like Safeway and the main draw is that it’s convenient for the people living near it,” Ryou explained; he’d gone there twice before and then dismissed it. “Whole Foods is a chain-store that specializes in organic things and neo-hippy kinds of food, and Safeway is kind of a baseline of normal.”

“Okay, so I guess we should go to Safeway then?” Bakura asked, sounding just slightly uncertain.

“I would,” Ryou said, nodding slightly.

“Okay,” he lifted the phone back near his mouth as he stopped for a red light. “Safeway.”

The phone was silent for a few seconds, before ordering, “Turn right onto Cordata Boulevard.”

Bakura flicked on his blinker.

000

Bakura paused, key inches from the front door, and listened. There were voices coming from inside the condo. He frowned softly and listened for a moment. The voices were excessively lively and soon an exaggerated springing sound, distinctive of slap-stick cartoons, interrupted the dialogue and was quickly followed by comical screaming. Bakura relaxed and a small smile started to play across his lips. Then he remembered Ryou, standing just behind him, and forming smile shifted into a small scowl.

He slid the key into the lock and opened the door as quietly as possible, then looked back over his shoulder to Ryou and pressed a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. Bakura set one of the grocery bags in the path of the door to hold it open, so it wouldn’t make another sound, and then crept to the corner and peered around it into the living room. A ponytail and the top of a blond head was visible over the back of the couch. Bakura wet his lip absently before slinking out across the carpeted space, as the couch’s occupant giggled at the TV.

Bakura came to a stop just behind the couch and stood up straight, then asked, in a slightly louder than normal voice, “Having fun, Goldilocks?”

Rebecca shrieked and jumped. Popcorn went flying out of a paper microwave-bag. Her startled yelp quickly turned into laughing as she scrambled around on her knees and then hopped right up and stood on the cushions, throwing her arms around Bakura’s neck. “You jerk! You almost made me pee myself!” Rebecca exclaimed.

“As fascinating as your incontinence is, I can’t help but be distracted by wondering what exactly inspired you to visit today.” Bakura caught Rebecca under the arms and pulled her halfway off the couch, so that she was helplessly hammocked between his arm and the back-rest, and scrubbed viciously at the crown of her head with his knuckles. “Or should I say who? Did Yami tell you to check up on me?”

“Ow! Ow!” Rebecca complained, struggling. “Since when do I need an excuse?!” she demanded, slapping at Bakura.

Bakura glanced over his shoulder to see Ryou bringing in an armload of shopping bags and setting them on the floor just at the edge of the living room, then giving Bakura and Rebecca a curious look before ducking back into the hall and grabbing the rest of the bags. Bakura sighed and dropped Rebecca on her feet. “Don’t even try it, kid,” he warned. “I know you’re in cahoots with that bastard.”

Rebecca crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out, giving Bakura a thoroughly scathing look before turning her head away and sniffing. “You’re way paranoid, Bakura! Maybe I just wanted to come show you how I got the top score on my chemistry project!” she reached over the back of the couch, grabbing a clear, plastic folder from inside of the pink backpack laying there, and shoved it in Bakura’s face. “BAM!”

“Yeah and maybe you forgot that you posted all over your Facebook about getting that project back two weeks ago,” Bakura shot back. “BAM!”

“Whatever!” Rebecca sniffed. “I been busy!” She leaned around Bakura and peered at Ryou, who could be heard looking for places to put the newly acquired groceries.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it and this little check-up has nothing to do with any Mutous,” Bakura snorted. “Who the hell do you think you’re fooling, brat?”

“Hey! Heeeeey! I’m Rebecca! What’s your name?!” Rebecca demanded, ducking under Bakura’s arm and trying to scramble past him, only to be caught around the waist and hauled up off her feet.

“Um...” Ryou looked back and forth between Bakura and the struggling fourteen-year-old. Bakura shrugged and made a face. “I’m Ryou.”

“Nice to meet’cha!” Rebecca exclaimed, throwing her arms up and -most likely deliberately- smacking Bakura in the face. “Hey...” her eyes widened a little, observing the groceries and shopping bags and looking at Ryou with intense curiosity. “Did you move in with this jerk?!”

Ryou flushed a little and looked helpless. “Uh... Um...” he cast Bakura a pleading sort of look.

“Stop it,” Bakura ordered, pinching Rebecca’s nose.

Rebecca started giggling, her voice coming out at a particularly obnoxious pitch with her nostrils blocked. “You cradle-robber! He looks young enough to be my boyfriend!” she declared.

Bakura dropped her abruptly and Rebecca stumbled and landed on her knees with a wince. “God, you’re a pest,” Bakura groaned as she glared up at him.

Rebecca stuck her tongue out again and rolled to her feet, hopping across the room to the kitchen island before Bakura could recapture her. Bakura ran a hand through his hair with resigned irritability and fished the remote off the couch to turn off the oppressively bright cartoon Rebecca had been watching. “So how’d you meet my uncle?” Rebecca was demanding, climbing onto one of the bar-stools to watch Ryou put away groceries.

“Uncle?” Ryou asked, looking from her to Bakura in a way that suggested he was searching for any kind of resemblance.

“Her grandfather took me in,” Bakura explained, walking over and leaning against the counter. “Rebecca, clean up your popcorn.”

“Pfffff!” Rebecca puffed bitterly before jumping off the stool and turning back towards the couch. She paused for a moment and then ran around the counter into the kitchen, pulling the garbage out from under the sink and taking the opportunity to get a better view of Ryou, who flushed a bit darker under the scrutiny. “You’re cute!” she announced, picking up the garbage and carrying it out to the living room with her.

Ryou watched her and then glanced back to Bakura, who shrugged and rolled his eyes. “I gave her a key,” he explained. “Now she shows up whenever she feels like it. Guess I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I see.” Ryou nodded.

“And I got over ninety-percent on an end of term test and/or project!” Rebecca shouted from behind the couch where she was hunting stray popcorn puffs. “Which means my choice of restaurants, if I recall!”

“Ahahahaha!” Bakura threw her a sarcastic laugh. “Try calling ahead, brat!”

“I wanna get sushi at the Shelton!” Rebecca demanded, her head popping up over the couch.

“You’re not dressed for the Shelton!” Bakura shot back.

“I stuffed my blue dress in my bag and wore my nice shoes today!” Rebecca countered.

“Good for you! You can be the best-dressed girl on the bus ride home.” Bakura leaned his elbow on the counter and rested his cheek against his fist.

“You’re a jerk!” Rebecca shouted, standing and picking the trash can up again to carry with her as she walked back toward the kitchen.

“And you’re a brat. What’s your point?” Bakura snorted.

“Mom’s got a business dinner tonight, and Daddy’s still on his trip,” Rebecca pouted.

“And your boyfriend’s been hospitalized with midgetitus...”

“I wanted to hang out with you!” Rebecca whined.

“Well I’m not inflicting the Shelton on Ryou tonight. He’s been sick,” Bakura said firmly.

“You were--” Rebecca started to ask, giving Ryou a concerned look.

“I- We got plenty of chicken. I could make enough for Rebecca. It wouldn’t be a problem,” Ryou cut her off.

“Nngh...” Bakura dropped his head against the counter. He didn’t look at Rebecca, but he could picture quite clearly in his mind the way she undoubtedly threw her fists in the air as she let out a triumphant little sound.

“I- I mean...” Ryou faltered.

“It’s fine,” Bakura sighed. He would have lost the argument eventually anyway.

“Damn right it is!” Rebecca crowed.

000

Rebecca was very chatty and had a great talent for asking questions that Ryou didn’t want to answer. Bakura thumped the top of her head several times but it didn’t seem to put her out at all. Ryou thought that the dynamic between them was more reminiscent of siblings than uncle and niece, but he supposed that Rebecca was probably closer to Bakura in age than her mother must be. She revealed herself to be ‘almost fifteen’ as Ryou was pan-frying chicken breasts. The same age Amane would have been.

She started to chatter blithely about her school as he was adding the lemon and rosemary. “It’s got middle school and high school in the same building. It’s only got, like, a tenth as many students as the public high school though, and part of the senior’s curriculum is teaching classes and stuff to the younger kids.” Rebecca explained. “They plan out what they want to teach us and then they work on it for a couple months and then they teach on Fridays and they do some pretty cool stuff.”

Ryou nodded as she spoke, covering the chicken and turning the heat down before giving the potatoes a shake and going to get lettuce from the crisper drawer to make a salad.

“What high school did you go to, Ryou? One of the local ones or did you move here from out of town?” Rebecca called, making Ryou pause for a minute in the process of digging out a carrot and the paper bag of mushrooms.

“Um, I went to Riverside,” Ryou said, not adding that it had only been for a little over a year.

“That’s up north, right?” Rebecca asked but didn’t wait for him to respond. “It’s one of the really big schools, isn’t it? That’s neat, I always wondered what it would be like to be in a class of, like, five-hundred people. There’s only forty-seven eighth-graders at my school, and we’re one of the bigger classes. I think Yuugi’s class only has thirty-nine. I mean, I know we’re getting a lot better attention from our teachers and things and better academics or whatever, but I kinda wish there were more people, y’know?”

“I suppose,” Ryou said with a shrug, tearing romaine leaves into fork-sized pieces.

“Hey, how’d you meet Bakura?” she asked suddenly and Ryou faltered again, staring down at the salad.

He turned to the potatoes again and gave them another shake. “At the bus-stop,” he answered.

“Really?” Rebecca looked puzzled. “I didn’t think he ever took the bus.”

Ryou shrugged, and glanced over to where the man in question was half-sitting against the back of the couch in deep conversation with his phone, an irritated expression on his face. Ryou’s attention was pulled back to Rebecca when she sighed and commented in a more subdued voice. “...You seem really nice.”

“Um,” Ryou mumbled, turning to the potatoes again to avoid looking at Rebecca as he felt his face heat up a little. “Thanks.”

“I mean it,” she insisted. “I’m really really glad you’re not a jerk. Y’know his ex- they were living together for, like, three years and then two days after Grandpa died, this guy tells Bakura that he’s holding him back and jumps on a plane to Africa. Freaking Africa! I mean, what the hell, man?!” Rebecca glared at the glass of orange juice sitting on the counter in front of her. “Who does that?”

“I never liked him, though,” Rebecca confessed, glancing back to check that Bakura was still distracted with his phone conversation and then leaning forward with a conspiratorial air. “I hardly ever saw him, because whenever I came to hang out with Bakura, he’d disappear. And he never came to Thanksgiving or Christmas or anything.” She grimaced disdainfully. “Bakura just said family situations made him uncomfortable. Whatever. It’s not like Grandpa or Mom cared that Bakura’s gay, they wouldn’t have gotten all weird if he’d brought his boyfriend home or something.”

Ryou turned the heat off under the potatoes and stared at the covered pan the chicken was cooking in. Rebecca’s chosen topic of conversation was managing to make him more uncomfortable than any of the questions he’d avoided answering earlier. “I don’t know, maybe his parents disowned him over it or something and that’s why he doesn’t like ‘family situations’. I’ve heard that minorities get a lot more upset about homosexuality. But still, it’s like, Bakura was really serious about him and the guy just doesn’t even try to--”

“Rebecca! Are you being a pest?” Bakura demanded, making Rebecca jump. He still had the phone in his hand, apparently having just hung up, and he was glaring daggers at his niece.

“N-no!” Rebecca shot back, flushing. “I was telling Ryou about the- the play at school last November. ‘Cause it was really fun!”

“Right,” Bakura snorted, walking back over to the counter. “And I’m sure Ryou could tell me which play it was.”

Ryou bit his lip and pulled out a medium-sized casserole to put the potatoes into. “...Shakespeare?” he guessed, figuring he was covering a pretty wide range of high school plays there.

“Grease. Good try, Ryou,” Bakura said, grabbing Rebecca around the shoulders and delivering a vicious noogie, which caused her to shriek. “You, set the table,” he ordered after he let her go. Rebecca grumbled and stomped around the island to start poking through cabinets, trying to find where things were. “Sorry. She can be a pain!” Bakura said to Ryou, but emphasized the last word for Rebecca’s benefit.

“It’s all right,” Ryou mumbled, picking up the casserole and walking it over to the table. He felt guilty having heard such personal information about Bakura, even though he hadn’t asked or done anything to solicit the gossip from Rebecca.

“Yeah! I wasn’t bothering him!” Rebecca insisted, following Ryou out with silverware rattling on top of a short stack of plates.

Once they were all settled at the table, Rebecca started asking awkward questions again. “So how long have you two been dating?” she asked, cutting her chicken into pieces.

“Rebecca,” Bakura growled. “Nosey.”

“It’s not nosey!” Rebecca protested. “It’s a perfectly reasonable question!”

“Drop it.”

“God! You’re so touchy!” she complained. “What do you think I’m going to do? Run and tell everyone in the world that you’re shacked up with a sweet young thang?” Bakura glared at her, but Rebecca ignored it. “You don’t want Mom to know about him. That’s it, isn’t it? Seriously, Bakura, she’s not gonna have an aneurism. She’s been really worried about you since Akefia--”

“Drop. It.” Bakura narrowed his eyes.

“Wow, Ryou! This is some GREAT chicken!” Rebecca shouted, slamming the end of her fork down against the tabletop and glaring back up at her uncle. “So how about them Yankees?! Did’jya see the weather today?! Ha! Crazy!”

“Stop it,” Bakura said, turning back to his plate and skewering some pieces of potato.

“So how old are you anyway, Ryou?” Rebecca asked, her volume back at normal but her tone still strained with unobscured irritation.

Ryou glanced to Bakura, who had frozen with the fork halfway in his mouth and pursed his lips. “Um, seventeen,” Ryou mumbled, looking back at Rebecca.

Rebecca raised an eyebrow and gave Bakura a meaningful look, before continuing with more small-talk. “And what kind of hobbies do you like?” She picked at her salad.

“Art,” Ryou mumbled.

“Neat!” Rebecca actually looked interested now. “What kind of art? Paintings and sculptures and stuff?”

“I- I like to draw and I like a lot of small crafts... origami, model-making, carving, that kind of thing...”

“Origami- actually, you’re name sounds really Japanese, is that right?” she asked.

“My mom was Japanese,” Ryou said softly. “And since we had an English last-name, she wanted my sister and I to have Japanese first-names.”

“Cool!” Rebecca smiled, looking pleased and engaged with the new topic. “So you’re Japanese/English? I gotta say, that’s a pretty combination!”

“Th-thank you,” Ryou stammered.

“My mom’s English and Welsh and my dad’s German,” Rebecca offered up. “Of course, both their families have been in the states a lotta generations, so none of that’s direct from the old-sod.”

“I see.” Ryou nodded.

000

“That was not cool,” Bakura told Rebecca after she closed the car door. “Don’t butt in on my personal life.”

Rebecca snorted, strapping herself in. “Don’t be so secretive. I’m your family. I care about you.”

“You were making him uncomfortable and I’m not ready to deal with this, Rebecca.” Bakura turned over the engine and released the break.

“What aren’t you ready for?” Rebecca demanded. “Another boyfriend? Is he your rebound? He’s moved in and you’re having commitment issues or something?”

“Okay, number one: that is none of your God damned business. Number two: no. He needed a place to live. Number three: shut up.” Bakura glared ahead of him as he pulled out of the parking garage.

“...Did you pick him up off the street?” Rebecca said quietly. “You bought him a whole bunch of clothes today, and ‘he needed a place to live’? You picked up a homeless teenager, didn’t you? You know that’s probably the creepiest thing ever, right?”

“I will refer you to number one and number three,” Bakura said through gritted teeth. “I am not talking to you about this. And he was not on the street.”

“...Did you know his name before you took him home?” Rebecca asked in a dark tone.

“Yes!”

“But he is jail-bate.”

“God damn it, Rebecca!” Bakura snapped. “Knock it off!”

“...Is he a hooker?”

“No!” Bakura cast her a glare as he paused at a stoplight.

“Well I like him.”

Bakura paused, thrown slightly. “What?”

“I like him. So you’d better not break his heart or something,” Rebecca said firmly. “Because this reeks of rebound.”

Bakura was silent for the next few minutes until he pulled up in front of a nice townhouse. “You’re home. Get out of my car,” he ordered. “...And don’t tell Shannon.”

Rebecca smirked. “Don’t worry. I won’t sic Mom-zilla on you,” she said as she unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed the door open. “But I’m not giving up either. And just for the record, Ryou’s about a billion times better than Akefia.”

“Stop it.” Bakura glared at the steering wheel.

“‘Night,” Rebecca said before closing the door.

Bakura watched her hop up the walk and onto the porch, where she fussed with her keys for a moment and then opened the door. As she closed it behind her, he put the car back into gear and pulled away from the curb. After a few seconds, the sudden silence got nauseating and Bakura punched in the knob on the radio, bringing some loud, angry nu-metal to life.

When he got back to his condo, he found Ryou curled up on the couch with one of the Picasso books, freshly bathed, apparently, and wearing Bakura’s flannel pants again along with one of his new T-shirts. “Sorry about... that,” Bakura sighed.

Ryou shook his head a little, looking down at the book. “It’s all right. She was... nice.”

Bakura puffed out a tired laugh and shook his head. “She makes me exceedingly glad I’m unlikely to father a child,” he said and walked over to throw himself down on the couch as well.

“That’s rather cruel,” Ryou commented, a small smile flickering on his lips.

“She’s so annoying...” Bakura groaned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “...I’m sorry if she asked you anything weird while I was on the phone.”

“No. It’s okay,” Ryou dismissed quietly.

“...I’m tired,” Bakura complained.

“Do you want to go to bed now?” Ryou asked, and Bakura could feel and hear him scooting closer.

“...Yeah...” Bakura agreed.

“Do you want to have sex?” Ryou asked, scooting up right next to Bakura. Bakura opened his eyes and looked at Ryou. His cheeks were a little flushed and there was an amorous tint to his expression. Was it a put-on, or was he horny?

He was a teenager; he was probably horny. Bakura pushed himself forward and kissed him for a moment. “I’ll take a shower,” he murmured and received a little nod in reply, even as Ryou’s eyes were still closed and he was still leaned in. Bakura kissed him softly again and then climbed up off the couch. “I’ll be quick.”

000

Ryou dropped his pajamas on the floor next to the bed and crawled under the covers to stay warm while he waited and to keep the purple-brown marks on his skin covered until the lights were out. He lounged there and listened to the water in the pipes as the shower ran. Ryou’s hand gently rested against his lips as he idly tapped a rhythm against his front teeth with a thumbnail. His mind drifted to the other night.

He almost felt guilty. If he were to take his current circumstances at face-value, it really seemed like he was getting the better end of the deal all around. Or rather, that there just wasn’t a down-side to this arrangement. Ryou could feel heat in his face and tingling anticipation remembering their previous nocturnal encounter. He closed his eyes and shivered slightly. That was the most satisfying orgasm he could remember having. All the more so for the fact that the entire session had been painless.

The water stopped running and Ryou turned his hand a little, biting down lightly on the first knuckle of his index finger. He wondered how long Bakura intended to wait before deeming Ryou penetrable. He hadn’t felt it today when he was walking or moving about like he had the previous two. Cuts in his mouth had always healed fast, and that was also a mucus membrane, so maybe this would heal quickly too. And then maybe he’d never have to think about it again.

Ryou squeezed his eyes shut and bit down on his knuckle. He wasn’t going to think about that now. He wasn’t going to ruin tonight with thinking about anything else. He was going to think about Bakura. Bakura’s skin was going to taste clean, fresh from the shower, and his mouth was going to be hot and wet and his shoulder-muscles were going to be taut and way too fascinating. Ryou was definitely going to suck him off this time; he wondered what it would be like with someone circumcised.

His breath was getting quick and his face and body were feeling so warm he wanted to push off the covers, almost -but not quite- forgetting his bruises. He’d successfully banished all thoughts of life before coming to his new home by the time the bathroom door opened and Bakura stepped into the bedroom in his bathrobe.

“You’re all pink,” Bakura observed with a lop-sided grin. “You’re not getting started without me, are you?”

“Considering it,” Ryou returned, and noticed that his voice sounded rather breathy. “If you take any longer getting over here, I might have to.”

Bakura laughed and flicked off the lights. “Pushy pushy,” he chuckled in the darkness and Ryou pushed the covers off of himself and crawled a few feet to meet Bakura, as he climbed onto the bed, with a kiss. Bakura’s hands slid up Ryou’s arms and around his shoulders, as though tracing him, and then eventually landed with the right hand curled around the back of Ryou’s neck, fingers sunk into his hair, and the left hand resting on Ryou’s hip for a while before Bakura finally pushed Ryou down onto his back and hovered over him, kissing and nibbling at Ryou’s neck.

Ryou sighed lustily and fanned his fingers out over Bakura’s shoulder-blades. He could feel the muscles over them shift back and forth with Bakura’s every movement, as he supported his weight on his arms. It was so nice, Ryou almost forgot to make good on his intention to reciprocate the more than satisfying fellatio Bakura had given him last time. He seemed to have lost his chance for the moment, however, as Bakura moved himself between Ryou’s thighs.

“Aaohhh...” Ryou breathed a little whisper of a moan as Bakura brought their erections together, and then he was vaguely aware that his vocalizations were gaining in volume as Bakura started to grind against him and pant near Ryou’s neck.

Frottage had never been good enough for him. Because it just wasn’t sex if Ryou wasn’t being bent over a piece of furniture or shoved up against a counter or wall, or forced to his knees or degraded some other way. No. He wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about Bakura’s rock-hard cock rubbing against his. He was thinking about the hot breath crashing like waves against his neck. He was thinking about the smell of fresh, new sweat, heady and salty and not yet soured. He was thinking about the friction of their damp skin sliding together.

Bakura moaned against Ryou’s throat. Ryou probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it over his own appreciative ruckus, but as it was, he felt the vibrations of Bakura’s voice through the sensitive skin of his neck, and the sensation was ridiculously aphrodisic. Ryou caught the side of Bakura’s jaw and pulled him into a long, hot kiss as their bodies continued to rock together.

In the constant, slow motion, Ryou forgot his plans, and after he eventually orgasmed, Bakura following him over moments later, he couldn’t bring himself to feel disappointed that he’d failed to get mouth-fucked tonight. It was strange; it felt oddly calm, sweet, comfortable, and he lay afterwards, panting and clinging to Bakura, wondering if an experience was allowed to be exciting and calming at the same time.

000
000

Name-note the second: Yeah, I’m using the fanon ‘Akefia’ for TK Bakura because if I’m having three Bakuras running around this universe I’m going to need three separate names. So that probably didn’t trip readers up like Marid might have, but I know there are those who get offended by use of the so-not-canon name, so I’ll ask you to forgive the fanon-ism in light of the logical need for a third name. I’ve kind of thrown out all my usual name protocol for this AU. My regular readers have probably noticed that I’m spelling Bakura’s name kana-style instead Egypting it up like I usually do. Fun-fact, Bakura, with that spelling, is a Sanskrit name, one you’d most likely run into in Pakistan or India.

So, why is Rebecca there? I was thinking that I needed an old man (who wasn’t Sugoroku) to be Bakura’s mentor; and there’s really only two old men besides Sugoroku, there’s Dr. Hawkins and Aknadin. I didn’t go with Aknadin because he’s a jerk and we’ve all seen what happens when you put those two together. The apocalypse. After I decided that, I started poking at Rebecca, thinking how she’d fit in, because she had to fit in if I was going to be using Dr. Hawkins, and she ended up being pretty fun. I’ve added some attitude quirks to her that come from hanging out around Bakura, but she was a pretty high-attitude little girl to begin with (I guess because the writers were all ‘she’s supposed to be American so she needs to be really pushy!’)

Anyway, questions and comments welcome and encouraged. <3

Invisible- Chapter Two

2011-03-31T05:04:08Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.
Previous: 1

There was 80s big-hair music on the radio when Bakura’s alarm went off. He groaned irritably and rolled over, flailing an arm out at the clock and feeling over the top for the off-button. He lay there for a minute after it had been silenced, with his hand resting on the clock, before mustering the energy to turn the lamp next to it on. He sat up slowly, stretching his back and yawning.

He dropped his hands in his lap and looked sleepily around the room, at which point he noticed the other body curled up in his bed. Oh. Right. That incredibly stupid/crazy thing he did yesterday. He sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair and looking at the shape of Ryou curled up under the blankets, just the top of his head and a tail of frosty hair visible. Bakura frowned softly at the way he was tucked into a little fetal ball; that was a disturbingly defensive position to sleep in. What did it imply when his unconscious mind was concerned about protecting his vital organs?

Bakura blinked in surprise, suddenly noticing a faint trembling in Ryou’s body. He scooted across the mattress, next to Ryou, and picked at the top of the blankets, uncovering Ryou’s face. Ryou turned his head to look back up at Bakura, already quite awake apparently. The light from the bedside lamp wasn’t particularly good, but Bakura thought that Ryou looked a great deal paler than yesterday and he was biting his lip.

“What is it?” Bakura whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“...Feel sick,” Ryou mumbled back.

Bakura lifted a hand and touched it gingerly to Ryou’s face, slowly laying the palm against his forehead. Ryou’s skin was definitely hotter than it should have been. “Fuck,” Bakura whispered, his fingers brushing through Ryou’s fringe as he pulled his hand back. “Fuck!” he repeated through his teeth and clambered off of the bed and to the bathroom. Aspirin. Aspirin to reduce the fever.

Bakura riffled through the drawer under the counter, excavating the aspirin bottle and then turning on the sink and shoving the cup under it. He hurried over to the bed and crouched down next to Ryou. “Okay, Ryou,” he could hear his own voice wavering slightly. “You’ve got a fever. I need you to sit up and take some aspirin, okay?”

Ryou closed his eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath, and then pushed himself stiffly up to something resembling a sitting position. Bakura handed him the cup, then fumbled the aspirin bottle open and dropped two into Ryou’s hand. Ryou had trouble getting the pills down, gagging twice before managing to swallow them. He handed the cup back to Bakura and collapsed into his fetal ball again.

“...What can I do?” Bakura asked softly, brushing back Ryou’s hair with his free hand. “Is there anything you want?”

“To puke and be done with it,” Ryou croaked, bunching up the blankets around his hands.

Bakura bit his cheek and combed his fingers through Ryou’s hair again. “I’m going to make a call. You yell if anything gets worse, okay?”

Ryou nodded minutely.

Bakura set the bathroom cup on the nightstand and pushed himself up. He grabbed his robe and phone on the way out of the bedroom, pulling on the robe as he went and scrolling through the contacts list in his phone. He held the phone pinched between his ear and shoulder, listening to it ring, as he tied the robe around him.

“Leanne’s Shopping and Errand Service: this is Tina, how may I help you today?” a young, female voice greeted when the line picked up.

“I have a small order that needs to be done immediately. Someone’s sick here,” Bakura said quickly.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!” Tina exclaimed. “Okay... What’s the order?”

Bakura could hear Tina typing on a clicky-keyboard as he spoke. “Cola- without caffeine, benadryl... gatorade or some other sports drink… instant rice... an enema-bag, baking soda and olive oil.”

“Okay, got it. Anything else?” Tina asked. Bakura was thankful she didn’t get hung up on the enema, but he supposed that most people who used Leanne’s were the elderly, with any number of bowel grievances.

“Just to get it here as fast as possible,” Bakura said.

“I will try to have somebody there within the hour,” Tina said. “Now, do you already have an account with us?”

“Yeah... Six-two-nine-eight,” Bakura said, pulling the phone away from his ear briefly to glance at the screen.

“Oh wow, somebody who actually knows their account number. Way to go,” Tina chuckled. “And you’re still at Akebia Towers?”

“Yes.” Bakura nodded.

“Charges will be billed to the credit card we have on file... and... Okay, I’ll send somebody out right away.” The sound of a dot-matrix printer could be heard in the background now.

“Thanks,” Bakura sighed.

“Thank you,” Tina replied brightly. “Now I’ll let you get back to the patient.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Bye.” Bakura nodded to no one and then switched off his phone.

He stared into space for a minute and then shook himself and walked back to the bedroom. Ryou was still curled up in a ball on the side of the bed. Bakura went over and crouched next to him again. Ryou started slightly, eyes opening up, when Bakura reached out and touched his face. Bakura paused, fingertips laying near Ryou’s ear.

“You’re shivering,” Bakura said quietly. “Are you cold? Do you want another blanket?”

Ryou’s eyes dropped a little, looking down at the blankets he already had pulled tightly around himself. “...I dunno,” he mumbled.

“Okay, I’m gonna get you another one then, and you can shove it off if you don’t like it,” Bakura said, standing up slowly, touching Ryou’s hair for a moment and then going over to the closet and pulling at a fuzzy, green blanket stuffed into the corner of the upper shelf. He shook it out, doubled it over and then tucked it messily around Ryou. Ryou mumbled something Bakura couldn’t make out.

Bakura crouched down next to Ryou’s head again. “Didn’t hear you. What?”

Ryou’s eyes were still cast down at the nautilus of blankets twisted around his hands. “Y-you don’t have to be so nice,” he whispered. “It’s... awkward.”

Bakura was silent for a few moments, then he reached out and caught Ryou’s chin lightly, making the boy look back at him. “Hey. I’m pretty sure the deal was I’d take care of you,” he said in a quiet but firm voice.

Ryou looked down at the blankets again.

“I’m going to get dressed because somebody’s going to show up at the door pretty soon,” Bakura said. He stood and touched the lump that was Ryou’s upward shoulder briefly before making his way to the bathroom.

A piss and a shave later, Bakura was feeling like he had managed to get the situation well in hand. It was just a little crisis. He’d dealt with much bigger crisis before. They just usually revolved around unexpected security features or equipment malfunctions and not the after-effects of the beating/rape of his... his something.

When he headed back into the bedroom in search of clothes, he found Ryou half sitting up, looking bleary and worried. “What’s wrong?” Bakura asked.

“’m s’pose’ta work today...” Ryou mumbled.

“You’re sick,” Bakura said flatly. “You can’t go to work.”

“’eah but gotta call Mister Foley,” Ryou protested weakly.

“Lay down, I’ll do it. Where do you work?”

Ryou flopped back down. “Croissant Moon Bakery,” he said with his face squished halfway into the pillow.

“Right.” Bakura nodded, he’d seen their sign from the street but never stopped there. It was on the same block where Ryou always waited for the bus. He picked up his phone again and searched the name, quickly coming up with the main line for the bakery in question. He listened to it ring twice before the line picked up.

“This is the Croissant Moon Bakery, today’s special is spiced-apple tart. How may I help you this morning?” an older male voice asked.

“Hi, I’m calling on behalf of one of your employees. He says he’s supposed to work today but he’s running a fever.” Bakura glanced back over at Ryou who appeared to have fallen asleep.

There was a flipping-paper sound. “Ryou, you mean?” the man asked.

“That’s correct,” Bakura answered.

“Well, please tell him that I appreciate the warning,” the man said in a slightly stiff tone.

“I’ll do that. Thank you,” Bakura said, pleased to find that Ryou’s boss was apparently a highly reasonable man.

“...Is this Danny?”

Bakura froze for a moment, staring at nothing. “...No. It isn’t,” he said at last.

“Ah. Okay. Well, thanks again for the call,” the man said, his voice loosening up noticeably.

“You’re welcome,” Bakura said quietly and clicked the phone off. He looked over at the blanket-covered lump that was Ryou for a while. Danny. Good to know.

000

Ryou woke up on the bathroom floor. When he shifted, tried to sit up, a jolt of pain went through him and he whimpered pathetically, squeezing his eyes shut. He was cold, he realized after a few moments, and cracked his eyes open again, looking down at himself as he lay there on the linoleum. His pants were tangled up around his ankles; they’d been ripped down, but got caught on his sneakers and given up on. Ryou closed his eyes again, pressing his lips together and willing himself not to cry.

It took longer this time, to work up the courage to open his eyes. He hesitantly curled his knees closer to himself, so that he could catch the waistband of his pants, and pull it slowly up, getting the jeans disentangled from his shoes. He needed to stand up to finish the job though, and he gingerly rolled onto his knees and caught the edge of the sink. As Ryou levered himself slowly to his feet, his eyes fell on the red smears decorating the fake-tile floor.

He was bleeding. And not from any wounds he could see. Ryou whimpered, remembering... when was it? A few hours ago? He’d blacked-out and had no idea what time it was now. The bathroom didn’t have any clock or windows. Maybe that’s why Ryou was in it. There was no escape route.

The flashlight, Ryou thought miserably, as he pulled his jeans up over his hips and fastened the belt. It had been the flashlight that Ryou kept next to the bed because of the apartment complex’s frequent power-outages.

Not that identifying the ‘weapon’ helped anything.

Ryou sobbed and closed his eyes again. He bit his lip and told himself that he had to pull it together. He had to stop thinking about it and get out. He opened his eyes again and lurched over to the door. The knob turned -the only actual lock was on the inside, of course- and when Ryou carefully pushed, ever so slowly, he heard a slight scrape and then a soft thump and the door stopped moving. That had to be the back of a chair, wedged under the knob.

He was trapped.

Ryou wondered if he was going to die.

He couldn’t move. He was tied up. He was wrapped up like an insect in a spider’s web. Ryou sucked in a breath and screamed at the top of his lungs, thrashing violently, every movement only seeming to entangle him more.

“Ryou! Ryou!” A hand grabbed his arm, which was still tied up tight and immobile against him, and Ryou tried to twist out of reach.

“No! Don’t touch me!” he bawled.

“Ryou! Look at me! Ryou!”

A hand snagged in his hair as he struggled, and the pull on his scalp sent a fresh wave of terror through him. He screamed hysterically.

“Ryou, please!”

Two hands caught his face, cupping his cheeks between them and holding his head still. Ryou stared up, sobbing and gasping, at the face of Bakura.

It was Bakura. It wasn’t him.

“You’ve got to calm down, Ryou,” Bakura whispered, petting his cheek softly and looking worried. “I’ll get you out, okay? Just calm down...”

Ryou stopped screaming and struggling, but he couldn’t help whimpering and trembling as Bakura let go of his face and started trying to untangle him from the blankets.

He’d been dreaming. He wasn’t in that rundown, little apartment. He wasn’t being tortured. He wasn’t being restrained. He wasn’t bleeding. He was tucked into bed in Bakura’s high-rise condominium. He was safe. Relatively. As far as he knew.

“You got really tangled up...” Bakura commented softly, extricating Ryou’s arm from a knot of sheets.

You don’t know the half of it, Ryou thought as he shivered and hiccupped.

Bakura’s arm slid under his shoulders and sat Ryou up so that he could unwind the covers constricting Ryou’s torso and tying the other arm against his side. When Bakura finally got past the blankets, and Ryou felt the first brush of a hand over his bare flesh, he jerked and his shaking renewed its strength.

“Okay. Okay. You’re out now.” Bakura’s voice was quiet and soothing, and his words were far more comforting than he probably realized. Ryou sat still, trembling and staring at his benefactor while Bakura rearranged the blankets around him, getting Ryou disentangled while keeping him covered at the same time. Like he knew Ryou didn’t want him to see the purple-brown blotches on his skin.

“Okay,” Bakura whispered, stroking Ryou’s hair softly and looking right into his eyes. “How’s your stomach now? Are you still nauseous?”

In the panic, Ryou had forgotten entirely about being sick. Now that he was reminded, he felt like he might vomit at any second. He nodded, pressing his lips together.

“Okay, I’ll be right back. You just hold tight,” Bakura said, petting Ryou’s hair once more and then standing up straight and disappearing out the door. A few minutes later, he returned holding a shot-glass, which he held out to Ryou. “Okay, try drinking this fast, and then no water or anything for a while.”

Ryou stared blankly at the shot-glass for a few seconds. The liquid inside was a dark, molasses color, and it appeared to be carbonated. “...What is that?” he asked quietly.

Bakura looked slightly confused for a moment before grinning slightly. “Don’t worry, it’s coke. The shot-glass was just a good measure for this,” he assured.

Ryou nodded and took the shot-glass. His throat protested and he almost spat it back up when he tried to swallow all of it in one go, but Ryou managed to get it down and sat for a moment, staring at the shot glass and pressing his lips shut tight. Finally he looked up at Bakura again and handed back the shot-glass.

“I’m gonna have you take some benadryl in about an hour,” Bakura said, petting his hair and still looking Ryou right in the eye, completely attentive. “Are you still tired? Do you want to sleep some more?”

“No,” Ryou said quickly.

“Okay. Do you want to read or watch TV or listen to the radio or something?”

Reading would be marvelously unpleasant with the headache throbbing behind Ryou’s temples, and listening to music ran the risk of putting him back to sleep. “TV... would be good...” he mumbled.

“Okay. I’m gonna set you up out on the couch then,” Bakura said, giving him a small smile. He glanced around and then crouched down next to the dresser and pulled out a drawer. “Here’s... some pants... and a shirt... and you should probably wear socks,” he said, pulling the clothes out of drawers and setting them on Ryou’s lap. “I’ll go get the TV set up.”

Bakura gave Ryou’s hair another pet before leaving the room. So that Ryou could dress without being seen. Ryou tilted his head slightly, staring at the door. He didn’t want Bakura seeing the bruises, but he didn’t think he’d properly expressed that. Was it because he’d asked for the lights to be out? Or maybe he was just giving off a body-shame vibe?

Ryou shrugged and pushed the blankets off of him, shaking out the fresh, flannel pants Bakura had presented him with and stepping into them. After he’d finished dressing, Ryou balled up the extra blanket Bakura had draped over him earlier and padded out into the living room.

The ‘TV’, he noted, was something that would more accurately be described as a ‘home theatre system.’ A screen seemed to have descended just in front of the fireplace and was displaying hi-def images from an LCD projector that Ryou hadn’t previously noticed attached to the ceiling. It wasn’t really that surprising, Ryou supposed, considering the man drove a Corvette and lived in a luxury condo in the middle of the expensive part of downtown, it would have been downright weird for him to have a normal television.

Bakura seemed to have piled all the throw-pillows on the chaise and draped an afghan over the side. He looked up and smiled a little as Ryou wandered out into the room. “I’m not really sure what’s going to be on this time of day, but the movie channels are in the one-hundreds and I think the first half of the two-hundreds is most of the sports channels and the second half has a lot of those stations with documentaries and crime-dramas... Mm, locals are in the nine-hundreds somewhere... I think around nine-sixty? And I don’t really know what most of the stuff between three-hundred and nine-hundred is...”

“... Thanks,” Ryou said quietly, sitting down on the chaise and accepting the remote Bakura handed him. He glanced up at the screen; it wasn’t a pull-down, it was one of the kind that were sunk right into the ceiling, out of sight, and rolled down automatically with the push of a button. Of course.

Ryou found a nice, mindless, high school movie, with simple, formulaic drama and a romance that had been stamped out with a cookie-cutter. He curled up under the blanket and watched the dazzlingly pretty ugly-duckling girl spill her text-books on the floor after she was bumped into by a careless jerk in a letter-jacket, who then walked off without even noticing he’d done it; like she was invisible. Ryou had watched this scene in half a dozen different movies and sitcoms. It was comfortingly standard-issue.

He let himself sink into the same old story -which would inevitably have the same old ending- as the ugly-duckling commenced her comically disastrous rise and fall through the social ladder, which would eventually lead to her transformation into a swan and end just as she and the resident cute-boy finally discovered each other.

The dangers-of-gossip stage of the movie was just getting properly underway when Bakura set his computer -a regular laptop, this time- to the side and pushed himself off the couch. “Time for benadryl,” he announced. “How is your stomach now?”

“It’s fine,” Ryou answered shifting under the blanket to sit up.

“Good,” Bakura said, and went into the bathroom, immerging a few seconds later with a medicine bottle and a digital thermometer. “We should see where your temperature’s at before you drink anything,” he said, handing Ryou the thermometer and setting the bottle on the table before wandering back to the kitchen.

Ryou heard the clink of glass and the hum of the water-cooler on the refrigerator working; he clicked the thermometer on and put it under his tongue. Bakura returned before the thermometer had completed its analysis and Ryou looked up at him silently, watching Bakura crack the plastic seal on the benadryl and pull the medicine-cup off the top.

The thermometer finally beeped and Ryou pulled it out of his mouth to look at the screen. “What is it?” Bakura asked, looking up from reading the dosage instructions on the benadryl.

“Ninety-seven nine,” Ryou murmured and held the button to turn the thermometer off.

Bakura’s mouth twisted to the side a little and his eyebrows frowned. “So now you have an anti-fever...?”

Ryou shook his head. “That’s normal for me. I’m a little cold-blooded,” he said.

Bakura sighed. “Good,” he said and poured two tablespoons of benadryl into the medicine cup, then handed it to Ryou. Ryou swallowed it and accepted the glass of water from Bakura to wash the taste out of his mouth. Bakura watched him silently until Ryou lowered the glass. Then he asked, “Have you ever had an enema?”

Ryou stared blankly at the glass for a few seconds and then turned and stared blankly at Bakura instead.

Bakura looked away nervously. “It’s- I think it’ll probably cut down on any more blood-poisoning, and it’ll definitely help you heal faster and probably make you more comfortable,” he explained.

Ryou just stared at him for a few seconds. “... Okay...” he said at last.

“Okay,” Bakura echoed, looking slightly relieved. “I... I can help you or I can show you how to set it up and leave you alone if you’d prefer that.”

“Um, the- the second one, I think...” Ryou mumbled, feeling his face heat up in embarrassment. “It’s... not going to be something gross like... coffee or something, is it?”

“No, that’s- we’re going for the hygiene angle here,” Bakura said quickly. “Just baking-soda and oil and a little soap to help dissolve it into the water.”

“...Okay,” Ryou said again, nodding and staring at his knees.

“We- we can wait until the movie’s over...” Bakura muttered awkwardly.

That’s right, Ryou was watching a movie, wasn’t he? “...Yeah,” he said, nodding again and looking up at the screen. He hadn’t been paying attention for a while, but it was easy enough to identify where they were in the plot. It was the kind of story that was built like an Ikea shelving unit.

000

Ryou appeared to fall asleep on the chaise, despite the sounds of a scifi action/thriller playing on the TV, after eating a bowl of plain rice for dinner. Bakura sat on his corner of the couch and silently watched his charge. Someone, ‘Danny’, had gotten pretty rough with Ryou to put him in this state, and Ryou didn’t seem like the type to ask for, or be okay with, S&M.

Although there really wasn’t a ‘type’; it’s damn near impossible to tell someone who’s into that kind of thing without it being explicitly stated or demonstrated. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that made Ryou seem like the ‘sweet and innocent’ type. But then, whatever had happened had inspired Ryou to abandon everything he owned and go seek safety and stability as a brothel-worker. So that would tend to back up the idea that he probably wasn’t okay with it.

Bakura leaned his head back against the couch and gazed up at the ceiling. Now he was experiencing a desire to find ‘Danny’ and cripple him. Protective feelings now. For someone he’d known a little more than 24 hours. Bakura sighed; as much as he’d denied it, he really must have been lonely the past few months. A vague, physical attraction had turned into bringing a perfect stranger into his house and doting on him like... he wasn’t sure what. It wasn’t quite what he’d normally associate as feelings towards a lover, because he’d never had one that required any taking-care-of; it almost felt more familial.

But the attraction definitely wasn’t familial. It also wasn’t very comfortable; he didn’t really know how old Ryou was, he wasn’t quite brave enough to ask. It was okay for him to be a teenager when he was just eye-candy at the bus-stop, but now this was an entirely different game. Bakura sincerely hoped that Ryou was 18. Or older, older would be okay too.

He should have gotten a councilor like Yami told him to. It wasn’t uncommon now; a large number of professionals had come to respect the dangers of psychology. A certain market had developed for skilled psych experts with the loose morals required for counseling successful professional criminals. Bakura knew that Yami kept a list of reliable, inside councilors, but Bakura didn’t much care to give him the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’. Maybe he could ask the twins who they used.

In his line of work, Bakura couldn’t afford to have ‘personal issues’, and if Ryou was a mistake that ended up getting him arrested, Bakura really wouldn’t have any excuse. It wasn’t too late, really, Ryou had yet to be privy to any business that could have been attested to in court... but even as he considered that, Bakura knew he wasn’t going to put Ryou out. He could have set him up in a little mistress-apartment like the mobsters did with their extra-marital affairs... but then he wouldn’t be here.

Because once he was asleep, his breath slow and heavy, Ryou’s presence became relaxing. There was something about listening to the sounds of another human being sleeping close by that seemed inherently calming. Last night, Bakura hadn’t felt the restless urge to get up and wander around like he usually did. He hadn’t chewed his nails. He hadn’t tossed around restlessly. He’d just laid on his side and listened to Ryou breath until he fell asleep himself.

Bakura sighed and shook his head. He hadn’t taken the threat of psychological weaknesses seriously enough before, and now he’d need to be very careful as he let this infatuation run its course. Soon they’d find points of tension- tiny, irreconcilable differences that would lead to an eventual split. He just needed to be sure not to arm Ryou with any information that could be used against him should there be resentment when it was all over.

But Bakura would try to avoid that. When they started to drift, he could set Ryou up in an apartment, with a few months’ rent, and put him back on his feet. There wouldn’t be anything to feel guilt over -another potential weak spot that psychology could strike him at- and there wouldn’t be much excuse for Ryou to resent him.

Bakura could still come out of this situation unscathed. And the promise of this relationship being so entirely different from the preceding one sounded positively therapeutic. For a while, at least, he could pretend Ryou was a sweet, innocent angel, and that would be a pleasant diversion.

000

“Ryou,” Bakura’s voice was soft and nearby, tugging Ryou gently out of his doze. He yawned and turned his head, looking sleepily up at his benefactor. “I think it’s bedtime,” Bakura said with a small grin.

“...Mhm,” Ryou mumbled, pushing himself forward a little to sit upright on the chaise. He yawned again and rubbed his neck, before noticing that Bakura was offering him a hand. Ryou dropped his feet to the floor and accepted the hand, letting Bakura help him up.

He noticed that Bakura was rather slow to relinquish his hand and when he did, he moved it to rest on Ryou’s shoulder instead, as they walked over to the bedroom. The covers had been straightened; they looked a little sloppy, but they were back in their proper locations again. Ryou hopped up to sit on the comforter with his feet hanging over the side.

He watched Bakura empty the contents of his pockets onto the top of the dresser and shook his head, trying to wake himself up a little. “Are you going to take me tonight?” he asked after a moment.

Bakura stared at him, looking vaguely disbelieving. “...Ryou, do you understand why you were sick today?”

“Sepsis,” Ryou replied in a neutral voice, nodding slightly. “Some of the digestive bacteria from my intestine got into my blood-stream through a tear in the mucus-membrane.”

“...Right,” Bakura said slowly, seeming slightly surprised. “Are you having a logical disconnect here or are you being self-destructive?”

Ryou was quiet for a moment before responding. “Actually, I’ve been wondering if you’re having a logical disconnect,” he said quietly. “I’m your whore, aren’t I?”

Bakura’s expression darkened and the corners of his lips took a distinct, downward turn. “Not everybody gets off on abusing someone,” he said in a soft voice. “I have no desire, nor intention, to hurt you.”

Ryou looked down at his hands folded in his lap. “So I can go down on you tonight, and in a couple days, when I’m back up to spec, you’ll start getting your money’s worth?”

Bakura made an exasperated groan. “If my only purpose was sex, it would have probably been a lot more cost-effective to just buy a few hours with you from Bridget, don’t you think?”

“I figured you were territorial,” Ryou said with a shrug, still watching his hands. “And it seems like you can afford to be.”

“That’s not it,” Bakura said and then walked over and leaned against the bed next to Ryou.

“...What do you want from me?” Ryou whispered, not looking at him.

“...I’ve been driving a lot lately,” Bakura said in a low voice. “Not going anywhere, just driving for hours at a time. In the city, out around the country, up and down the freeway. Just driving around, with the radio blasting out my eardrums.” He sighed. “It’s like insomnia... And I’m having regular insomnia too.” He paused for a while before taking a deeper breath and then saying, “I want you to give me a reason to come back here at the end of the day. I want you to talk to me and eat with me and sleep in my bed and make ‘home’ not feel like a crypt... I want you to play house with me.”

The trappings of a relationship without the effort or mess. Ryou couldn’t find fault with that. Actually, it sounded great. If Ryou had as much money to burn as Bakura, he might have spent it similarly. “Okay,” Ryou said quietly. “I can do that.”

“Good,” Bakura said, sounding faintly relieved. He put a hand over Ryou’s shoulder and leaned over, kissing him on the cheek, before stepping away from the bed and standing up straight. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Go to sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” Ryou said again, nodding, his eyes never meeting Bakura’s.

000

“This place looks more sterile than a hospital room,” Malik observed in a dull tone.

“I guess I’m just not gay enough for interior-design.” Bakura muttered, rolling his eyes. “Did you find the numbers yet?” He glanced up to see Malik looking back at him with a little frown, but past him, the other twin suddenly nodded, eyes locked on his computer screen.

“E720 series,” Marid said, his eyes flicking higher on the screen and then down again. “It should be the same set-up as the one in the Mercer building.”

“Probably a software upgrade though,” Bakura said, nodding.

“Leave that little detail to us,” Marid replied with a smirk.

“I’m worried about you,” Malik said, dragging the topic off work again. “You’re suffocating yourself.”

“Not into that fetish, thanks,” Bakura snorted.

Malik moved his computer onto the coffee table and leaned against Bakura, draping around him. “You’ve been so reclusive lately,” he pouted. “All work and no play makes Jonny a dull boy, you know.”

“Not coming over to play today, Malik,” Bakura said without looking away from his own computer screen.

“But you look so lonely...” Malik whined and nuzzled his neck.

“Not everyone gets lonely as easily as you.”

“We’re running ahead of schedule, you know,” Marid noted in a sly tone. “We could take a break.”

Bakura shot him a look, which just made Marid’s smirk widen. “Malik’s right, you know. You’re going to go crazy if you don’t find an outlet.” He dropped his computer down next to Malik’s and then flopped across his twin’s lap, casting an impish grin up at Bakura. “So, do you plan to fuck us now or on this job?”

“I’m fine,” Bakura said through his teeth. “You’re the ones who are going to fuck this up if you keep getting distracted.”

“You’re so distracting though, Bakura!” Malik giggled and then sobered a little. “But I am serious... I’m worried about you. You’re... despondent.”

“I’m fine,” Bakura repeated.

“No you’re not,” Marid said quietly, the usual smirk gone now and an uncharacteristically staid look on his face. “You’re lonely. It shows.”

“Forgive me if I don’t defer to you two on psychological health.” Bakura rolled his eyes again.

Malik giggled again and then kissed his neck. “I really just don’t think you should be spending so much--”

Pain suddenly blossomed in Bakura’s nose. “Jesus Christ!” he cursed, reeling backwards in the bed and bringing his hands up to his face.

It took a moment to register that Ryou, who he’d formerly been spooning, was flailing and getting himself tangled up in the blankets again, apparently protesting the content of his dreams. “N-no!” he sputtered, squirming.

“Ryou, you’re okay!” Bakura tried not to snap.

Ryou’s thrashing died and Bakura heard him sit up in the bed, hyperventilating. Bakura hissed, poking carefully at his nose. It was just a little bit sore; Ryou wouldn’t have been able to smack him very hard from his position, even if he’d been aware of his actual surroundings.

“W-what’s wrong?” Ryou stammered in the darkness. “Did- I didn’t hit you, did I?” he asked, horror starting to creep into his voice.

“I’m fine. No big deal,” Bakura placated, sighing and running a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Bakura sighed, dropping his head back down against his own pillow. “I- I’ll just give you some more space, okay?”

“N-no, that’s not...” Ryou mumbled. There was a moment’s pause and then he crawled over to Bakura’s side and dropped down against Bakura, facing him rather than letting himself be spooned. “This- this is better,” he whispered.

“...Okay,” Bakura said, and hesitantly and put his arm around Ryou again.

Ryou continued to tremble for a few minutes and then slowly relaxed back into even, rhythmic breathing. Bakura was still for a little while before leaning his cheek against Ryou’s forehead and sinking his fingers into Ryou’s hair. He closed his eyes and breathed out the stress of the little interruption, trying to drop off to sleep again.

000
000

Name-note the first: Yes, Marid is Yami-Malik. Dropping them into a non-mystical setting and making them twins, I wasn’t happy enough with ‘Malik’ and ‘Marik’ because naming twins like that would just be unfair; they’d get teased so badly on the playground. I actually did a lot of poking around to find the perfect name and finally decided on ‘Marid’ for a number of reasons. First, it’s just one-letter off ‘Marik’, second, it’s Arabic to match Malik’s name, and third, while the meaning for ‘Malik’ is ‘master’, a marid is a type of genie. Ooh, fun times with names!

So, I guess I defined what country this fic is taking place in when I had Ryou state his temperature in Fahrenheit, although I still picture the city looking rather like Vancouver in architecture and I think the ethnic make-up is going to be pretty Pacific North West-ish... Anyway, not important, just what I’m picturing in my own head as I write, so that I can make this setting come off as ‘real’.

Dadadadadadata- what else... I can’t think of anything. The dog is making noises at me and I’m making noises back at him and it’s all quite silly. As always, I love reviews/comments, I love them so good. More to come and I’ll introduce another character next time, it’ll be fun.

Yugioh: Invisible

2011-03-29T23:39:34Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Invisible
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Yami-Bakura, Bakura Ryou, Yami-Yuugi
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: On an inexplicable impulse, Bakura, a professional criminal, takes in a bruised and beaten teenager whom he's seen around but never spoken to before today. Tendershipping.

It was the boy from the bus-stop.

Bakura stopped hearing what his lunch appointment was saying as his eyes were drawn to the opposite sidewalk, where a white-haired teenager was shuffling along, a backpack hanging off one shoulder. Bakura had seen him before. Three, four times a week. He would be standing at the corner of Sixth and Picket, waiting for the bus. Bakura had first noticed him a month ago, and had kept noticing him since then.

There wasn’t anything particularly striking about the boy. When Bakura saw him, he was always wearing black slacks and shoes -the uniform of retail or the service industry- peeking out from under a rather unfortunate coat. He stood with an unassuming posture, his shoulders slightly curled in, his back not slouched but not straight either. His long hair was, perhaps, a little unusual, but not exceptionally so.

He had a pretty face, but all together he was entirely unextraordinary, even drab. Yet for some reason, he’d come to fascinate Bakura when he’d be stopped for the traffic light and see the boy standing there, waiting for the bus. He’d mused, on more than one occasion, that if the boy wore clothes that suited him, or if he smiled, he would have been positively stunning.

He wasn’t at the bus-stop today. He was eight blocks from the place Bakura usually saw him, and he walked with a hesitance, something almost shameful in his manner. If Bakura squinted, he could make out a redness around the boy’s eyes, and somewhat above them, covered over almost entirely by his loose hair, a patch of purple was just peaking out.

Bakura’s companion had stopped talking. After a moment he called Bakura’s name; Bakura started to turn back to him and then froze when he saw the townhouse the boy had stopped at the door of. He knocked and a pretty girl opened the door and fussed over him for a moment, touching the boy’s face and finally throwing a hug around his shoulders, before guiding him inside. Inside Bridget Forde’s Place.

Bridget Forde’s Place was a well-kept secret of the less moral half of society. It was one of the old Victorian townhomes, huge inside, with plenty of room for a wealthy Victorian family and their servants. Or for a dozen prostitutes.

“Bakura? Is something wrong?”

Bakura glanced back at his dining companion for a moment and then said, “Yeah. I have to go. I’ll call you later.” He pushed himself out of his chair and started weaving his way through the densely packed tables of the sidewalk café.

“Bad form, Bakura. You are not the center of the universe, you know. I do have other clients,” the annoyed voice called after him.

“So take five-percent out of my commission or something and quit bitching,” Bakura snapped over his shoulder, stepping free of the field of patio-furniture.

His eyes were trained on the Forde townhouse as he strode to the crosswalk and waited for the light to change. When it did, he jogged across and down the row to Bridget’s Place. He rapped his knuckles sharply against the door and waited. The response took longer than it had when the boy arrived.

When the door finally opened, the pretty girl from before appeared behind it, blocking the entrance with her body in a subtle, practiced way that most people wouldn’t have noticed. “Hello sir, how may I help you?” she asked sweetly.

“Is Bridget baking today?” Bakura asked quietly -he’d heard the phrase over scotch in a private club some months back- and the girl stepped back, holding the door open for him.

Bakura moved past her into the large entry hall. It was a tastefully decorated in a way that preserved the classic feel of Victoriana, the kind of front room one would expect from an upscale establishment like Bridget’s. “Do you have an appointment?” the girl asked, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t know anyone was coming in this early.”

“The boy who just came in here,” Bakura said, glancing around at the closed doors to the sides of the hall and the elegant central staircase directly ahead. “I want to see him.”

“I-I’m sorry,” the girl said, giving Bakura a dubious look. “He won’t be available today.”

“Is he new?” Bakura asked, turning to look at her.

“Y-yes...”

“I’m not here for the service. I just want to talk to him,” Bakura said. “I... didn’t realize he was in financial crisis.” The statement was, technically, true, although the implication that Bakura actually knew the boy was patently false.

A slightly mournful look came over the girl’s pretty face. “I see...” she said quietly. “Um, he’s- he’s just gone to settle in and... get cleaned up.”

“May I speak to him?” Bakura pressed.

“I... What’s your name?” the girl looked worried.

“Bakura.”

She looked slightly relieved. “I... um... follow me,” she said and turned towards the stairs.

Bakura followed her up to the second floor and around the balcony to one of the many closed doors in the silent house. She knocked softly and called, “Ryou?”

A muffled response came from within and the girl opened the door a few inches. “Ryou, it’s- um, you have a visitor. N-not a client, it’s- um- a Mister Bakura...?”

“... Who?” a quiet voice asked, sounding baffled.

“Um- He-he said he knew you,” the girl said, frowning a bit and glancing back at Bakura.

“Actually, I never said that,” Bakura corrected. The girl’s eyes widened slightly and a look of outrage took over her features as a faint blush bled onto her cheeks.

“You--!” she started.

“I know you.”

The girl went quiet, looking back at the boy, Ryou. “I mean... I’ve seen you,” he mumbled, his eyebrows pinching together. “By the bus stop.”

Bakura felt an odd warmth in the front of his chest momentarily, like the burn of distilled liquor, at the realization that the boy had seen him, even inside of his car, and taken some kind of notice. Bakura’s eyes wandered over the purple edge of a large bruise hiding under his hair. Ryou noticed and pulled his hair over it, eyes darting away. “You were beaten by... your pimp?” Bakura asked.

Ryou’s head snapped up, a bright flush coming quickly to his cheeks and fury suddenly burning in his eyes. “I don’t have a pimp!” he shouted.

“You need to leave,” the girl said in a stony voice, glaring at Bakura. “Now.”

Ryou’s head dropped again, his face crumbling as soon as the yell had left him, and started fidgeting with his hair and stammering, his voice shaky. “I- I’ve never- It’s not like- I wouldn’t- I’m not- I don’t- I don’t have anywhere else to go!” he sobbed. “Mama-Bridget offered me a job but I didn’t- not until today- I couldn’t- what else am I supposed to do?”

“You don’t want to be here?” Bakura asked.

“Sir! I asked you to leave!” the girl insisted and Bakura ignored her. After a few more seconds she turned and ran toward the stairs, shouting, “Jeffery!”

“I don’t...” Ryou whispered, shaking visibly. “I don’t have anywhere else to go...”

“Room, board and pocket-money. Everything Bridget would give you, significantly less ‘work’.” The words had left Bakura’s mouth before he even realized he was speaking.

Ryou’s hands stilled on the lock of hair he’d been worrying. He tilted his head just enough to look up at Bakura through his fringe. He was silent for a while as they just stared at each other. Finally he whispered, “...I don’t know you.”

He was right, and Bakura’s offer, following the boy in here in the first place, was complete lunacy. What the hell was he doing? “You won’t know most of the men who come through this door,” Bakura said, deciding that he must have completely lost his grip on reality.

There were heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Bakura and Ryou kept staring silently at each other until a man built like a tank was looming over Bakura. “Sir, I need to ask you to leave,” the tank-man said in a warning voice as Bakura finally ripped his eyes away from Ryou. The girl from earlier was standing behind the tank-man, glowering at Bakura.

“W-wait!” Ryou finally opened the door the rest of the way and stepped clumsily into the hall, before freezing like a deer in the headlights. “I- I...” he stammered, looking up at tank-man before quickly moving his eyes to the girl behind him. “M-Mel, I’m sorry to have caused you trouble...”

“It’s not your fault, Ryou,” the girl, Mel, said, shaking her head. “Just go back in your room and Jeffery will take care of this.”

“N-no, I mean- Please, just-” Ryou held up his hands in a hesitant ‘stop’ gesture momentarily before ducking back into the room. He ran over and grabbed his backpack off the large, ornate bed, before returning to the door, his gaze towards the floor. “Sorry, Mel. Sorry about this, I- Sorry for the trouble,” he stammered, inching out into the hallway.

“Ryou, what are you talking about?” Mel demanded, looking alarmed.

“Sorry,” Ryou whispered, shuffling forward and gingerly catching hold of Bakura’s sleeve.

“Ryou, do you even know this guy?!” Mel asked frantically.

The tank’s hand landed over Ryou’s wrist and he flinched, his shoulders curling in. “Go back in your room, Ryou,” the tank rumbled.

“I haven’t met with Mama-Bridget yet,” Ryou mumbled. “I don’t work here.”

“Ryou!” Mel shouted.

The tank reluctantly let go of Ryou’s arm and Ryou stepped closer to Bakura, still not taking his eyes off the floor. “Let’s go,” he whispered, barely audible.

Bakura didn’t need telling twice. He put a hand on Ryou’s shoulder and towed him quickly to the stairs and down. “Ryou!” Mel shouted, chasing after them. “Jeffery, do something!”

“Melody, he’s right... And he doesn’t want to be here,” the tank said helplessly- if a voice like that could sound helpless.

Melody huffed in frustration and flew down the stairs after them as Bakura swept Ryou toward the door. “Ryou, he could be a serial killer or something!” she shrieked.

One of the doors on the side of the hall opened and another young woman poked her head out of it, looking exhausted. “For the love of God, Melly, it’s quiet time,” she moaned.

“Fuck off, Cynthia!” Melody snapped. “Ryou! Whatever this is, it’s a terrible idea!” she insisted, following them to the door as Bakura pushed it open and stepped back into the natural light outside.

Ryou stopped and Bakura paused, looking at him. Ryou started to turn, and Bakura let go of his shoulder to let him. “Mel, it’s okay,” he said quietly, moving back up a step and giving Melody a timid hug. “I’ll call you soon,” he promised. He turned toward the street again and stepped down to Bakura’s level, eyes cast down once more. Melody looked like she was about to burst into tears, but she didn’t yell this time as Bakura laid his hand between Ryou’s shoulder blades and lead him out onto the sidewalk.

Bakura headed for where he’d parked his car, his mind buzzing with just one question- what the hell was he doing? He didn’t notice that his lunch appointment was still sitting at the same table where Bakura had left him twenty minutes earlier, until he was addressed in that sardonic tone that Bakura just hated.

“That’s your emergency? Love at first sight?”

Bakura whipped around and glared at the blond. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” Bakura demanded.

“Eating lunch.” He received a raised eyebrow.

“Fuck off, Yami. This is none of your Goddamned business,” Bakura snarled.

“You are my business,” Yami corrected, casually slipping a piece of fish into his mouth.

“Fuck you.”

Yami’s eyes wandered over Ryou, examining the wrinkled clothes and pitiful state the boy was in at the moment. “Hey.” Bakura snapped his fingers as though trying to get a dog’s attention. “Over here, dick. Something you need clarified or d’you just need a boot in your ass?”

“I’m just a bit curious,” Yami replied, looking back to Bakura. “Five percent? Seems pretty serious. This also seems rather out of character, and I’m concerned you might be acting imprudently.”

“Fuck you. That was five percent from my net, not five off of my fee.”

“It’s not my place to council you on anything beyond business matters, but I do hope you intend to practice discretion and keep your social and professional lives strictly separated.” Yami turned back to his plate and cut another bite-sized piece of fish.

“Fuck. You.”

“There’s a meter-maid looking at your car,” Yami said in a casual tone.

Bakura turned to where he’d left his car and there was indeed a meter-maid standing next to it, scribbling on his ticket-pad. Bakura growled and stormed toward to the lowliest of civil-servants, pulling Ryou along so Yami couldn’t analyze him anymore. “A little over-eager there, aren’t you?” Bakura called loudly and the meter-maid looked up. “There are three minutes left on that meter.”

The meter-maid gave him a slightly disgruntled look and stepped back, disappointed at having failed to ruin somebody’s day. Bakura ignored him, clicking the remote unlock and making his car give a cheerful chirp. “This is us,” he said brusquely, letting go of Ryou as he split off to walk around the driver’s side. Ryou hesitated a moment before stepping over to the passenger door.

Bakura pulled his sunglasses out of their clip on the dashboard and then paused, watching Ryou get into the car. Ryou took far too much care in sitting down. Bakura bit the inside of his cheek as he pulled his seatbelt around him and slipped on his sunglasses. Bakura observed Ryou quietly as the boy pulled the door shut and reached for his own seatbelt. He must have felt Bakura’s gaze, and he glanced up, briefly making eye-contact before looking away again.

“...Do you want to go to the hospital?” Bakura asked.

“N-no!” Ryou yelped, looking up at Bakura again, for just a moment, with a startled expression. “I mean- I’m fine,” he mumbled quickly.

“...Okay.” Bakura turned the key and his car’s radio burst loudly into life.

000

Ryou stared out the huge windows at the city streets and rooftops spread out below him. The condo was really high up. The building was one of the towering high-rises in the middle of downtown, nestled in amongst the big corporation buildings and businesses at the heart of the city. It was very expensive real estate.

It was a one-bedroom residence, but it was bigger than the three-bedroom apartment Ryou had grown up in. It had an open floor-plan, with the dining room and living room nearly indistinguishable from each other and the kitchen walled-in only by a bank of counters, its area defined by the distribution of tile on the floor. It was the kind of place you saw in movies, not a place real people lived. He found himself wondering, yet again, what exactly Bakura’s occupation was. He had a strong feeling that it wasn’t entirely legal. If at all.

Mafia. The word kept creeping into Ryou’s mind. He’d known, when he left the brothel with the man, that he was doing something extremely stupid. He’d just been hired as an exclusive whore to some sort of gangster. Yes, this was probably the stupidest thing he’d ever done. He could hear his ‘client’ moving around behind him, walking back and forth across the apartment, picking something up in one of the rooms that actually had a wall and door separating it from the central area, then returning, then seeming to have forgotten something and going back.

He was nervous too. This wasn’t something he did very often, apparently. That thought was comforting, at least. Ryou heard the footsteps move in closer and he stayed still, looking out at the city, as Bakura came up beside him.

“How long ago did that happen?” he asked.

Ryou was blank for a moment. He glanced at Bakura out of the corner of his eye, and saw that the man was looking at the bruise. The obvious one. “Eighteen hours, maybe,” Ryou said, his voice small and slightly hoarse.

“... I don’t suppose icing it now would do much good...”

“Probably not,” Ryou agreed.

They lapsed into silence for a while, staring out the large living room windows. At length, Bakura ventured another question. “Are those the only clothes you have?” he asked.

“... Yes,” Ryou whispered. He hadn’t exactly packed. He’d put on the first shirt and pants he pulled out of the drawer, stuffed the photos from the mantle into his backpack, and got out the door as quickly as he could.

“... Have to fix that...” Bakura muttered.

Ryou wondered if his identity as personal-whore would have a dollish component to it. Would he be dressed up and paraded around like a trophy? Or maybe his wardrobe would consist of fetishy things, and he’d never leave the house?

“... Chinese or Italian?”

Ryou blinked slowly and turned to look at Bakura. “What?”

“I’m ordering in,” Bakura explained. “Chinese or Italian?”

Ryou wondered how long it would take Bakura to get used to the arrangement and start treating him like a possession rather than a guest. “Either is fine,” Ryou said quietly. It wasn’t that he minded the awkward politeness; he just wished he could see how this... arrangement was going to play out.

“You’re not vegetarian or anything, are you? Any allergies?” Bakura asked.

“No,” Ryou answered, shaking his head. “Anything is fine.”

“...Okay,” Bakura said, nodding slightly. After a minute he walked away and Ryou could hear him ordering Chinese food over the phone.

000

Watching somebody eat should not have been this fascinating. Bakura found himself spending the entire meal watching the way Ryou moved. The way he held his chopsticks -the correct way- how he kept his elbows in close to his body and confined his movements to a small area. He moved his arm without moving his shoulder up or down, more small motions. Polite, refined, an almost feminine delicacy. When his hair started getting too much in his way, he’d give his head a particular little shake that Bakura found especially engaging.

Ryou spent the meal watching his bowl.

It was still early evening when they’d finished eating. It had been an early dinner, since Bakura had missed his late lunch and suspected that Ryou hadn’t eaten very recently either. After putting the few dishes they’d used into the washer, Bakura checked his phone. Yami had sent him a file. Thank God; he had something to do.

“I have something I need to work on,” Bakura said, leaning awkwardly against his chair, across from where Ryou was still sitting, staring blankly down at his hands on the wooden tabletop. “You can- whatever, if you want to watch TV or something...” Bakura had never felt so awkward in his life as this boy -and his insane idea to just take him home like some kind of pet- was making him now.

“Can I take a shower?” Ryou asked quietly, not looking up.

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.” Bakura mentally kicked himself, the boy had been looking like hell all day and obviously something pretty bad had gone down earlier, and he’d probably just wanted to bathe all day while Bakura was bumbling around like a dazed moron, trying to figure out what the hell he’d been thinking. “I’ll... find something for you to wear.”

Bakura realized he’d failed to mention a rather crucial detail. “Er, the bathroom’s the door on the right.” He pointed across the living room. “There’s towels on the shelves opposite the sink and whatever’s in there, feel free to use anything.” He stopped before saying ‘make yourself at home,’ which would have been just too awkward under the circumstances.

“Thank you,” Ryou said quietly, pushing away from the table and standing up.

Bakura watched him make his way quickly to the bathroom and stared at the closed door for a few minutes before he reminded himself to move. He wandered slowly into his bedroom to find a change of clothes for the boy. He was in for the night, he wasn’t going anywhere, he just needed lounging clothes, something comfortable to sit around in between shower and bed.

Bed. Jesus Christ, what the fuck had he been thinking? This had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done.

Bakura shook himself and pulled out the bottom drawer of his dresser. Sweats and a T-shirt. That’d be fine. The pants had a drawstring so they could be cinched up to accommodate Ryou’s delicate build. Perfect. He added a pair of boxers to the stack and then stood up and looked at the door that connected the bedroom and the bath.

He waited quietly until he heard water start running, then gave it the few seconds it took the shower to heat up. He then moved toward the closed door and tapped it lightly before turning the knob and carefully venturing in. The shower door was closed with the blurred image of Ryou standing behind the fogged glass.

“I... found some stuff you can wear tonight. The fit won’t be great but- we can go get something better tomorrow... or something...” Bakura cringed inwardly at how ridiculous his nervous, halting voice sounded. He hadn’t had this much trouble talking to anyone in years.

“Thank you,” Ryou replied in a colorless voice.

“I’ll put them on the counter here,” Bakura said, depositing the pile of clothing next to the sink.

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” Bakura mumbled, God that sounded stupid, and retreated out the living room door.

He shut the door behind him and then stepped to the side so he could lean back against the wall, feeling exhausted, almost winded. Bakura dropped his face into his hands and shook his head. He was crazy. This whole thing was so ridiculously stupid it belonged in some kind of record-book. He knew he wasn’t the first man who had taken a shine to a pro and turned them into a mistress. But generally those men knew the person ahead of time. And they rented them their own little loft apartments rather than taking them home.

Bakura was pulled out of his inner self-reprimand by a soft sound from behind the bathroom door, barely audible over the shower. He wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all if he were two feet farther away.

Crying.

Bakura closed his eyes and bit his lip. “...Shit...” he whispered.

000

The shower helped. The shower helped a lot. It didn’t make Ryou’s body stop hurting, or change the situation he’d put himself in, but at least it washed away the filth, and got the smell of him off of Ryou’s skin.

He looked at himself in the mirror behind the sink -the kind that covered the entire upper part of the wall, not just a little medicine cabinet- as he slowly dried off, and counted the visible bruises on his skin. Counting, quantifying some part of the experience, also seemed to help. After patting away all the droplets clinging to his body, Ryou wrapped the towel around his hair and picked through the clothing Bakura had left on the counter.

Bakura had to have at least twenty -more likely closer to thirty- pounds on him. He wasn’t exceptionally tall, maybe six feet, give or take an inch, which still put him four or five inches above Ryou but it was nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd, and there wasn’t any shirt-stretching, 70s-style brawn, but he also wasn’t skinny like Ryou.

The boxers would have slid right off Ryou’s hips. He glanced to the sweat-pants with a drawstring waist and shrugged to himself; how long was he going to be wearing these things anyway? So he forewent the underwear and pulled on just the sweat-pants and T-shirt before glancing to the floor where his previous outfit was lying. It was all filthy and he didn’t want to touch it again, but the neat-freak in him wouldn’t let him leave the mess to lie.

The size and shape of the whicker container in the corner suggested a hamper and Ryou carefully picked up his jeans between two fingers and went to investigate. He was right, and one by one he dropped the wretched articles out of sight. He kicked his shoes under the counter, they weren’t the kind of thing you just threw in the wash, but he didn’t want to look at them either right now.

A nice brush with rounded-off teeth between soft bristles made Ryou thankful that Bakura had long hair too. He hated the thought of having to untangle the mess his hair had become with a rigid comb.

Ryou must have spent more than a half hour perched on the edge of an over-sized kind of bathtub that you only ever saw in movies or plumbing stores –and in addition to a corner shower- brushing slowly at his hair, progressing gradually from tip to root. The slow, even strokes and visible, tangible progress was cathartic, and he kept brushing for a little while after he’d removed all the tangles. He grabbed the towel again and patted out the excess water that had been tied up in the tangles before as he wandered over in front of the mirror. He brushed it out once more, staring at his reflection.

He stood still for a while after that, forced to admit that his hair was entirely sorted and he couldn’t just keep brushing it forever. He stared at himself silently for several minutes, before finally dropping his towel into the hamper and opening the door out to the living room.

Bakura was sitting in the corner of the modular sofa, poking a stylus at a tablet as his eyes flickered back and forth over the lit surface, studying something in great detail. Ryou watched him from the doorway for a few minutes before quietly walking out to the sitting area. As he crossed into Bakura’s peripheral vision, the man looked up sharply, in a not-quite startled, but definitely over-anxious way.

“Ah, you’re... done. Do- if you want to watch TV or something--” he started, sounding almost comically uncomfortable and Ryou might have laughed at some other time.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ryou replied quietly, drifting slowly in the direction of the windows again. “I’m sure that’s very important.” He nodded to the tablet Bakura was holding, and caught a glimpse of what looked like blue-prints as he passed. “I can entertain myself.”

“...Alright. If you need anything,” Bakura left the sentence open, incomplete.

“Thank you,” Ryou replied, stopping at the windows and looking out again. It was getting rapidly darker outside, and the glass was becoming more and more reflective. Within a few minutes it was impossible to see any details but lights. Ryou glanced away from the image of his reflection freckled with street-lights, and his eyes came to rest on a bookshelf. It was out in the living room; there probably wasn’t anything there that would be too sensitive for any guests that might enter Bakura’s condo to look through, so there probably wasn’t anything there that Ryou shouldn’t see.

Ryou’s eyes slid slowly over the spines of books, taking in their titles and quickly discovering that the shelves were organized by subject, certainly more useful than alphabetical order for a personal collection. On the right side, just below Ryou’s standing eye-level, he found books pertaining to art.

Three books on Ming Dynasty porcelain. Four books on the masterworks of the Renaissance that had been missing since World War II. A book on originals of historic Japanese block prints. A book on antique Chinese folding screens. Six books on Picassos. A book on Stradivarius violins. Two books on Tiffany glass. Three books on Faberge. Four books on the leading names in jewelry design of the twentieth century.

From there, the shelf seemed to transition into books pertaining to jewelry and then to precious stones. Ryou looked the titles over, chewing on his lower lip and considering the content. He glanced down to the bottom shelf, which he’d noticed earlier. It was half-filled with one-inch binders containing pages run off a printer or copy machine, baring sticky notes or writing directly on the vinyl with what looked like product series numbers. Perhaps for security systems, Ryou thought idly and trained his eyes back on the art books. He mused that he might have an inkling as to Bakura’s occupation now.

He pulled out the book on Stradivarius violins and wandered over to the couch. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryou saw Bakura drop his head slightly as he turned, shifting his eyes from Ryou back to the tablet. Ryou settled down with his back against the arm rest on the opposite end of the couch from Bakura and pulled his bare feet up onto the cushion in front of him, curling his knees in close to him as he slumped down and opened the book.

Ryou read silently for a while, the book started off with a little biography of Stradivari before it went into talking about why his violins were so special. “Ridiculously over-valued,” Bakura said quietly and Ryou looked up at him. His eyes were still focused on whatever was on the tablet, but he continued in what seemed meant to be a conversational tone, although it was actually a bit strained. “Those things have been restored and rebuilt so many times to keep them from breaking apart, the only thing original on them is the maker’s mark.”

Ryou considered that for a little while, the statement, and also Bakura’s apparent attempt to start a conversation. “So... you’re saying they’re glorified fakes and, in reality, worthless?” Ryou asked softly.

“Not worthless. They’re great instruments,” Bakura corrected, a hint of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “See the people who’ve owned them really believe in the name, so the violins have always been restored by the best craftsmen using the best materials. They’re the best violins you can find, they’re just not the same ones Stradivari made.”

Ryou tilted his head a little and glanced back down at the pages in front of him. “What about the age of the wood? Isn’t that supposed to give them a unique quality of sound?”

“Old-growth makes a better anything,” Bakura said. “But I don’t think Europe had a lot of old-growth, so I kinda don’t think that’s what the guy used.” He glanced up from his tablet, gazing into empty space and looking as though he were trying to remember something. “It’s not the wood itself that’s making them better, it’s something to do with vibrations. If it’s an old violin, it’s been played longer and had more vibrations in it. But violin makers nowadays can fake it by vibrating them with a machine or something.”

“Huh.” Ryou put his arm up against the back of the couch and leaned against it, thinking about the ability of modern technology to simulate time. “So then, a modern violin maker could make a better violin than Stradivari?” he asked.

“I think that gets you into philosophy,” Bakura grinned properly, looking amused as he moved the stylus back and forth over his tablet. “There you have the question of which is more important, laser-precision or the kind of passion that makes a guy spend something like a year making one violin.”

“Science or art.”

“That,” Bakura agreed, this time looking up at Ryou when he grinned.

Ryou felt his own lips pull upwards a little, but he threw his gaze toward the coffee-table. They lapsed back into silence that felt a little less awkward than before. Ryou went back to reading about violins whose relevance was apparently under assault by modern technology. He turned the pages slowly, looking at a printed photo and a line-drawing copy of the Stradivarius makers-mark.

Ryou was halfway through the rather small and picture-filled book when again Bakura broke the silence. “Hey, d’you have a regular job or something? You were always there at the same time- the bus stop... Just- if you want to, you can keep that,” Bakura spoke in an awkward, halting manner, not as though he was having doubts about what he was saying, but like he wasn’t sure if he was speaking understandably. “If you don’t like it then quit, but you can just- whatever you want, y’know...”

“...Thank you,” Ryou said, looking over his book at Bakura, whose eyes were trained on his tablet in a way that seemed more about trying to avoid eye-contact than being busy.

Three quarters of the way through the book, Bakura spoke again, this time sounding more awkward and nervous than he had any time earlier in the day. “You... Are- um- Are you actually queer or is that just a... business... thing...?” his voice trailed off a bit at the end of the question.

Ryou was quiet for a minute, watching Bakura, who was staring at his tablet but the stylus wasn’t moving. There was tension in his jaw and brow, and he appeared to be biting his tongue or something. “...I am.”

The tension in the lines of Bakura’s face dropped away leaving behind a look of relief. “...Okay,” he said quietly, and it seemed like it was the only word he could think of to put that line of conversation to rest.

When Ryou finished the book, he closed it and laid it against his stomach. He sat silently and watched Bakura work, sometimes pushing things around with the stylus, sometimes pulling up an on-screen keyboard and typing. Ryou’s eyelids and body started to feel heavier after a while, and when his eyes were about half open he saw Bakura pause to check something and then look up at him.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize how late it was,” Bakura mumbled, poking the stylus against the screen a couple more times and then sliding it into its holder, the screen going dark. “I... I guess I’ll take a shower now...” he said, awkwardness turned up to full.

“Okay,” Ryou said.

“Okay,” Bakura echoed and stood up.

Ryou sat where he was on the couch, listening to Bakura move around his bedroom briefly and then enter the bathroom through the door in the bedroom. The book he’d leaned against his stomach slid down into Ryou’s lap as he sat up and stared across at the bathroom door for a few more minutes, listening to the water turn on, his mind blank. Finally he got up and returned the book to the space he’d found it, before walking to the bedroom door and taking a step inside.

Bakura’s bedroom was mostly pretty tidy; keys, phone and other pocket-contents had been dropped on top of the dresser, and half the drawers had been left pulled out, but the clothing inside of them was neatly folded. Ryou pushed them shut, he didn’t want to disturb any of Bakura’s things, but he couldn’t stand leaving the drawers like that. The bed was unmade as well. Over-all, Ryou supposed the room looked like one that had been cleaned the previous day and then left as it was after Bakura woke up in the morning; about fifteen minutes worth of careless cluttering on top of a generally well-kept space.

Ryou moved slowly to the bed and started straightening the covers. Making it up completely and tucking in the pillows would just be silly, of course, but he set the blankets straight and folded them back neatly. Then he climbed on top of the bed and sat with his back leaned against the headboard.

He stared at the wall across from him, his mind still blank. He curled his knees up closer to him and waited. The water turned off in the bathroom. Ryou stared at the wall; it was very empty, a kind of wall that would generally have a picture or something hung on it. There were a lot of empty walls in Bakura’s condo. He had books about fine, incredibly expensive things, and he was knowledgeable about them, but there were no fine, expensive things decorating his home. Although, the condo itself had to be a pretty expensive thing, and as much an indication of wealth as an original painting or sculpture by a major artist would have been.

The door to the bathroom opened and Ryou’s eyes flicked to Bakura. Bakura wasn’t looking at him, hadn’t yet noticed him for the moment. He was wearing a plain bathrobe and pulling a band out of his hair that had been keeping it knotted up behind his head during the shower. He walked toward the dresser as he pulled the band out and dropped it next to his keys and pocket-things. His movements looked routine and comfortable until he caught Ryou in the corner of his eye and looked over at him, going still.

“... Should I strip or would you like to undress me?” Ryou asked.

Bakura’s eyes widened minutely before he opened his mouth and tried to form an answer. “I... I realize that you’ve had a really terrible day. You don’t have to--”

“In all honesty, I’d rather establish an idea of how this arrangement is going to work now, rather than brooding about it,” Ryou cut him off in a flat, emotionless voice.

Bakura fell back on the same word he’d been using all evening, “...Okay.” He looked slightly lost for a minute, as though altering routine had set him adrift like an ant out of its line. He glanced back towards the door and asked, “Do you... have a light preference?”

“Off, please,” Ryou whispered.

The lights went off.

Ryou stared into the darkness and listened. Bakura was damned near inaudible, like he was in the habit of moving silently, and Ryou started very slightly when he felt the sheets go taught under his hand as weight pressed the covers down near the edge of the mattress. It was also disconcerting that the mattress didn’t move under him at all; one of those ‘revolutionary foam developed by NASA!’ mattresses from the TV ads probably, with no springs tying it into a connected mesh.

Fingertips touched Ryou’s cheek, hesitant but not clumsy; Ryou wondered if in addition to moving as quietly as a cat, Bakura could also see in the darkness of an unlit room. No, that was silly. He knew his bedroom and he’d seen where Ryou was sitting before he turned off the light. He just had good spatial perception.

Bakura’s hand slid under his jaw and around the opposite side, gently turning Ryou’s face towards him. There was a pause of hesitation, during which Ryou could feel breath buffeting softly against his skin and knew that their faces were very close, then Bakura’s lips pressed softly against his. Ryou guessed that Bakura had never paid for sex before and wasn’t sure how to approach the idea. There was no reason he should have had to, of course; with Bakura’s face and body he could have easily been a playboy without dropping a dime. Although, he didn’t seem to have the personality required for that sort of lifestyle.

Ryou parted his lips and kissed back, momentarily flicking his tongue forward, teasing. He knew how to be good, pleasing, when he wasn’t in the mood. He knew how to be sweet and playful even if he was in pain or just plain terrified. And although he probably should have, Bakura didn’t terrify Ryou. It was easy to kiss him and run a hand slowly up from Bakura’s wrist to shoulder with a feather-light touch. His responsiveness seemed to put Bakura at ease as he kissed Ryou more firmly and put an arm around behind him, pulling Ryou away from the headboard and laying him down on his back.

Bakura must have discarded the robe before he got on the bed, and Ryou’s hands slid over bare skin as he circled his arms around Bakura’s neck. Ryou’s fingers traced over a lot of definition in the muscles of Bakura’s shoulders and back- not the protruding bulk of a body-builder, but the bandy, lean muscles of, perhaps, a climber. Upper body strength built for movement and scaling difficult surfaces rather than lifting. He slid a hand up Ryou’s back, palm flat against his lats and ribs, under the loose T-shirt.

His kisses weren’t very aggressive, seeming tempered by the same kind of subtlety that let Bakura walk without footsteps. He didn’t nip at Ryou’s lip with his teeth or press Ryou down and grip his hair to control his movement. Bakura had a pleasant kiss that demanded response rather than submission. It was a nice change of pace, and Ryou sighed softly into the kiss. He felt Bakura shiver.

Ryou pulled his arms free of the sleeves when Bakura started to pull at the shirt and Ryou’s belly and chest were exposed to the tingle of cool air. Bakura’s hands slid warmly over Ryou’s sides and soft kisses trailed down his jaw to his neck, pausing there to suck at the space just above his collarbone. Bakura was taking such a long time tentatively surveying Ryou’s skin... Ryou was suddenly horrified to realize that his eyes were burning.

No. He was not going to cry. This was going to be great sex, he could tell, and he was not going to cry. He pressed his lips firmly together and wrapped his arms back around Bakura’s neck. Teeth had been introduced to Ryou’s neck, not biting, just lightly grazing the skin, and fingers were playing with his nipple. The endorphins were finally kicking in now, and Ryou was starting to pant and squirm, his nerves lighting off and telling his brain it was time to switch to auxiliary power.

He was moaning by the time Bakura mouth trailed down his chest. This seemed like a month’s worth of foreplay all at once, and Ryou wasn’t having to push himself to warm up faster than his body’s natural inclination. In fact, he was getting really horny and frustrated with the pace. Bakura’s hand finally dipped under his waistband and Ryou whined through his teeth in frustration when the hand gently cupped his ass, Bakura’s attention apparently still focused primarily on exploring Ryou’s chest with his mouth.

Ryou decided it was a good enough cue and dropped his hands down to untie the draw-string holding the pants tight around his hips. Bakura seemed to take the hint and slid his hand down Ryou’s leg, pushing the sweatpants down and then pulled them free of Ryou’s ankles. When that hand came back it went straight to where Ryou wanted it. Ryou moaned lustily and leaned back his head. Bakura slid his other arm behind the small of Ryou’s back, forming the suggestion of an embrace, his forehead leaned against Ryou’s stomach, as he slowly stroked Ryou’s erection.

Ryou just let himself moan, without having to force the sound, his body swaying and squirming with each stroke of Bakura’s hand. The breath breaking against the skin by Ryou’s navel was getting shakier and the strokes were getting faster. When the hand left, Ryou let out a pitiful little whine; he felt Bakura lift his knee, shifting their positions, spreading Ryou’s legs apart and moving between them.

Oh God, he hadn’t seen lube anywhere. Ryou bit his lip and tried not to tremble, lust getting displaced by apprehension, trying to quantify, like he had with the bruises, exactly how much this was going to hurt. An arm slid under one of his thighs, lifting gently to the side as that hand came around and molded to Ryou’s hip. He just started to register that the angle was wrong when lips brushed against him. Ryou’s breath caught and he froze.

He felt the movement of breath and then a tongue pressed against the underside of Ryou’s erection and traveled slowly up from base to tip. Ryou dug his fingers into the sheets below him and stared up into the darkness, his breath starting up again very fast and heavy. Bakura’s mouth closed around the head of his penis and Ryou heard his breathing take on a truly panicked sound.

Bakura moved the hand that wasn’t holding Ryou’s hip and a moment later it was pumping and caressing everywhere Bakura’s mouth wasn’t at any given moment. Ryou thought that he might have been moaning far too loudly as he writhed under Bakura’s touch, but it was hard to tell because the blood pounding in his ears was so deafening.

If Ryou had made a table of things he’d been expecting, this would be under the couch cushions on the other side of the room. Because it was ‘bitches who give the head.’ Ryou lost his capacity for higher brain-function as everything everywhere became irrelevant except for hands and mouth and the shoulder his thigh was resting against and cheek-hair-ear that sometimes brushed past the sensitized skin. It was so hot and wet and amazing.

And then he was orgasming hard and twisting and pulling at the sheets and yelling wordlessly. It took ages to regain his bearings and hear anything but his heartbeat. When he could, what he heard was a muffled coughing and throat clearing. Oh for the love of God, please say he hadn’t choked Bakura. Then there was a little, giddy sounding chuckle, just two notes.

“Wow.”

What did that mean? What the hell did that mean? Ryou silently panicked as he continued failing to catch his breath. He felt Bakura move, crawling up over Ryou until an elbow landed below his shoulder and he could feel Bakura shifting weight onto it. Then he was nuzzling and kissing Ryou’s neck. Softly. Sweetly. Ryou put his arms back around Bakura’s shoulders panting slowly and staring into darkness.

“Wh-what is ‘wow’?” Ryou demanded softly.

“You’re loud!” Bakura laughed against his neck. He started kissing up Ryou’s jaw to his ear and slid a hand up and through his hair on the other side. Bakura’s breath was still shaking and the mouth suckling Ryou’s neck was very insistent. Oh shit, that’s right.

“You’re not finished,” Ryou whispered.

“Oh God I’m close though,” Bakura murmured.

“Do you have any lube?” Ryou asked combing his fingers through Bakura’s hair and staring up where the ceiling would be.

Bakura stilled. “...Whoever did it to you tore you up, didn’t he?” he whispered, his voice shifting from giddy to serious. “I’m not making that worse.”

“That- that’s not--”

“No,” Bakura said firmly.

“B-but-” Ryou mumbled uncertainly. “Then I- I’ll--”

Bakura rolled sideways, pulling Ryou with him so they lay facing each other, then caught Ryou’s hand and guided it to his erection. He leaned his forehead against Ryou’s and made soft, needy little sounds while Ryou brought him to completion with his hand.

000
000

New ‘verse! Actually last month or something I got a review about how happy my reader was that I wrote within the normal Yugioh verse instead of doing AUs. I had just started planning this series about a week before getting that review and I was like ‘oh... damn...’ But, uh, anyway, here’s an urban-AU that’s been kicking around my head for about a month and a half, maybe more, can’t remember specific dates, but I was holding off on it until I finished FE. Now FE is finished, and this one can start living!

'Melody' is Miho’s official English name (the blue-haired girl from season 0), Jeffery is made-up, most of the places where I use obscure or minor characters are in supporting roles and random OCs are all going to be unimportant-to-the-story kind of characters or plot-devises that we don’t really care about too much. The setting here is a generic city, North America-ish because that’s where my strongest cultural reference point is, and generally non specific and unimportant. Any interesting sounding places mentioned are probably made-up and based on generic archetypes. The scenery as I picture it has a look similar to Vancouver, with Victorian houses and urban architecture of every decade mixed together.

Um, hm, trying to think of any other points to address... and failing... Oh, uh, for reference there’s going to be a lot of ‘wow, that’s some pretty angsty back-story’ in this fic because it is the result of me watching 12 years of Law and Order: SVU on Netflix pretty much in a row. I promise more sex to come and more srs business and more Yugioh characters.

Please comment/review, my lovelies.

Final Eclipse THE END

2011-03-28T05:17:19Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Final Eclipse Chapter Eight
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Ishizu Ishtar, Rishid Ishtar, Yuugi Mutou, Atemu, Mazaki Anzu, Jonouchi Katsuya, Honda Hiroto
Rating: M
Warnings: Swearing, violence and sexy times
Summary: I am wrapping this bitch up right now.
Previous:
Delusions
Bad Religion
Interlude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Final Eclipse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Malik was running the food-processor when Ishizu returned home, and by the color she guessed that it was ful. Bakura was standing next to him at the counter, stuffing rice into peppers. They were snickering about something as Malik glanced over his shoulder and gave his sister a grin. He was flushed, she noticed, and then pushed that information into the not-her-concern folder.

“Sister, did you get lamb?” Malik asked, his voice a bit brighter than his usual bright.

“I did,” Ishizu said returning her brother’s smile and walking to the counter to set down her bags. “I was thinking we could grill tonight.”

“Kebabs?” Malik chirped.

“If you like.” Ishizu nodded, pulling a container of eggs out of one bag.

“Ryou’s never had lamb before!” Malik chattered, scraping ful out of the food-processor with a spatula. “He’s eaten cuttlefish and urchin and every weird ocean invertebrate you can think of but he’s never had plain old mutton or lamb!”

“Really?” Ishizu murmured with a soft smile, putting away one loaf of bread and setting another on the counter to go along with lunch. “Do they not eat mutton in Japan?”

“Mm, not really...” Bakura shrugged. “I eat beef and pork and chicken and stuff pretty regularly, and I knew that people do eat sheep, but I just can’t really think of any kind of food that uses it. I don’t know if I’d even be able to find it at a regular store.”

“You’ll like lamb. It’s really tender and succulent and totally different than beef or pork,” Malik rambled cheerfully. “Do you know what a kebab is? I know that one’s been picked up by Western cuisine a bit, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you’d find at the ‘American’ restaurants in Japan. It’s when you roast meat and veggies and things on a stick so they cook fast and the flavors mix together and it’s tasty and easy and stuff.”

“I’ve had roast chicken on a stick,” Bakura replied, handing Malik the plate of peppers he’d finished stuffing. “That’s like, dare-food.”

Malik gave him a puzzled look. “Why is it dare-food? What’s weird about chicken?”

“You eat the whole thing,” Bakura answered with a little grin. “They cut it into pieces to go on the sticks, but you eat all of the pieces. Guts and everything.”

Malik wrinkled his nose. “Like... the intestines and colon too...?”

“Yep. Whole thing,” Bakura agreed, laughing at Malik’s expression.

“Well, I’m afraid we’re only going to be eating halal parts of the lamb,” Ishizu chuckled, putting away the last of the groceries and getting out a knife to slice the bread. “They are rather larger than chickens, after all.”

“Do you know what time Rishid is coming home, Sister?” Malik asked, arranging the peppers on a jelly-roll pan and putting them into the oven.

“The museum closes at five. He’ll probably take your friends back to the hostel after that. He said he’d be eating with us tonight,” Ishizu answered.

“Good,” Malik said with a little nod and turned to lean against the counter.

...

At twilight, Malik had pulled Bakura down to the strip of garden in front of the small apartment complex to watch late-season fireflies. Ishizu was at the counter loading up kebabs when the heard the front door open and shut quietly. “Rishid?” she asked, looking up from her work, a moment before her elder brother came around the corner. She smiled at him. “How did things go today?”

“Fine,” Rishid answered with a little nod. “And here?”

“Bakura’s flight is booked,” Ishizu said, picking up a mushroom and sliding it onto a skewer. “Did you see them in the garden?”

“Yes. They’re throwing a glowing ball,” Rishid noted. “What do you need done here? Have you already made ful?”

“Are they? How cute,” Ishizu said with a little smile before pausing to think for a moment. “Malik made a lot earlier. You can start cooking the kebabs I’ve finished.” She listened to Rishid move over to the stove and start the grill. A few minutes passed in silence as Rishid picked the ready kebabs off the plate next to Ishizu and set them on the grill. Finally she spoke again. “Malik made a suggestion today,” she said quietly. Rishid made no audible response, though Ishizu knew she had his attention. “He wants to go to Japan to teach Bakura how to manage his heka.”

There as another short silence before Rishid asked, “What did you say?”

“I said that we couldn’t have that discussion without you,” Ishizu answered softly.

“I see,” Rishid said. “... I suppose we’ll talk about it after dinner?”

“That would be best, I’m sure.” Ishizu nodded, watching her hands as she finished setting up the last kebab. “... What do you think about the idea?” she asked after another long pause.

Rishid was silent for a while before answering in a slow, careful voice. “Yesterday was the first time I’d heard him laugh honestly in six years.”

Ishizu stared down at the skewered but raw kebabs in front of her. “... Should we let him go alone?”

“He wouldn’t be alone.”

“I realize that,” Ishizu muttered. “But do you think he’s mature enough to live without supervision?”

“... He could be responsible enough. I think perhaps the rest is a decision for him to make.”

...

“Anzu,” Atemu’s voice called quietly as they were ascending the steps back to the hostel after dinner. “May I speak with you?”

“Of course,” Anzu answered, hanging back as Jonouchi and Honda continued up the steps, arguing about something stupid. A moment later, Anzu and Atemu were alone in front of the building, the sounds of the evening city softly blanketing them. “What is it?” Anzu asked.

“You have been a great friend to me, Anzu,” Atemu said quietly, not quiet looking at her. “... I’ve decided I wish to end the spell binding my existence to the Millennium Puzzle.”

“... Oh,” Anzu whispered, her stomach sinking. “N-now?”

“I’ll discuss it with Ishizu tomorrow. I’m not sure how long the ritual will take, and your flight is in three days,” Atemu said.

“B-but- don’t worry about that! This isn’t the kind of thing you can just rush into! You should take more time! We can do it like Ishizu said come back later to finish the spell!”

“Anzu,” Atemu’s voice dipped lower. “The method Ishizu was talking about, for binding my heka, it’s a demon-protection spell. To protect Yuugi from me.” He looked at her seriously. “I’d like to believe that I’m not a demon, Anzu. And I don’t want to become one.”

Anzu blinked quickly. “I- I’m sorry. I’m being selfish,” she whispered.

“Please- don’t,” Atemu said, catching her hands and squeezing them. “The truth is, I wouldn’t mind staying in this world a little longer, I never did have the opportunity to grow up... But the stakes are too high for it. I’m not going to gamble with Yuugi’s soul. Or mine.”

A sob managed to break free from Anzu’s lips before she’d noticed it was coming, and she nodded, feeling tears on her cheeks. “I understand,” she said softly. “It- it still makes me sad, though.”

Atemu smiled at her, though his eyebrows were drawn together. “You’re such a strong, brave girl, Anzu,” he said quietly. “I will look forward to the time we see each other again, aboard the solar ark with the gods and all those we have loved.”

A little smile tugged at Anzu’s lips as she nodded again, sniffling. Then she launched herself forward and threw her arms tightly around Atemu.

...

“I’m sure you realize you wouldn’t be able to go right away,” Ishizu said suddenly as she started picking up plates to carry to the sink.

“What?” Malik asked, confused by the nonsequitur.

“To Japan. You would need to get a visa for an extended stay,” Ishizu explained, sounding utterly casual. “That would take some time.”

“I- I know. How long do you- are you saying I can go?” Malik stammered, glancing back and forth between his siblings.

There was a short pause. “Do you wish to go alone?” Rishid asked, looking seriously at Malik from across the table.

“I...” Malik’s throat went dry as he stared at his brother. “... I do...” he choked softly. “It- it’s not- it’s just that... it’s never been possible before... I thought that I was going to be on a leash my entire life, and now...”

“I understand.” Rishid nodded.

“We can help you apply for a visa, after we’ve seen your friends off,” Ishizu said quietly, gathering the used silverware on top of one plate. “It’ll take a little while to be processed. You probably won’t be leaving for at least a month.”

“Y-yes,” Malik whispered, staring down at the table and then slowly turning to look at the duet sitting next to him. Warm, chocolate eyes stared back into his, dark with emotion. Malik blinked quickly and felt fingers curling around his left hand. He squeezed back.

...

... I’m done, Atemu called inwardly, sliding the deck he’d selected into his left coat-pocket. He could feel Yuugi’s in the right. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

Atemu gave the great, open space that used to be a massive labyrinth little notice as he went to the door and made his way over to Yuugi’s mind. Yuugi was settled in a plump beanbag, idly fiddling with a gundam model, when Atemu entered the cozy space. Yuugi didn’t look up, he just stared blankly at the miniature mech and fussed with its shoulder-joint.

“Yuugi,” Atemu said quietly. “I’m done.”

“... Okay,” Yuugi said, nodding and still examining his gundam.

Atemu sighed softly and walked over. He dropped down into the beanbag next to Yuugi and wrapped his arms around his other half. “I’m sorry, Yuugi,” he whispered.

“N-no, that’s- There’s no- You don’t need to be sorry,” Yuugi mumbled, leaning against him and letting his gundam tumble to the floor. “... Do you have to go?”

“I’m the last one left, Yuugi,” Atemu said quietly, leaning his cheek against the crown of Yuugi’s head. “Maha’ad has finally moved on, and the Blue-Eyes girl... I’m the only ghost still clinging to this world.”

“W-what about the other Bakura?”

“He’s different,” Atemu said, shaking his head. “He was never exactly killed, he was... consumed. Besides, I think what’s there now is less the Thief King and more what Bakura-kun raised from the ashes.”

Yuugi was silent for several seconds before speaking in a low, congested voice. “... If I could do magic like Bakura-kun...”

“Yuugi, shhhh...” Atemu hugged him a bit tighter. “... I want to go with Maha’ad, Yuugi. And Mana, and my father... and I’m afraid of myself, Yuugi. I’m afraid of becoming a demon... I feel like the longer I’m part of the Millennium Puzzle, the less human I become.” Atemu caught the imaginary Millennium Puzzle that hung around his neck inside the contrived space and looked down at it. “I- I told you how Aknadin made these,” he whispered. “This thing is evil, Yuugi. Neither of us should be near it.”

“B-but it’s powerless now, isn’t it?” Yuugi whined.

“That kind of blood can’t be washed away, Yuugi.” Atemu shook his head. “Apep may be gone, but the Millennium Items will always be cursed objects. I need you to promise me something, Yuugi,” he said in a softer voice. “... After I’ve gone, will you make sure all of them are buried, like Bakhura said? Make sure they’re somewhere that no one will ever find them.”

Yuugi nodded slowly, hiccupping.

...

The cliffs were disappearing into the distance, the crumbled entrance to the alter chamber had been indiscernible for a while, and now all of the physical evidence that any of it had happened was out of reach and buried by stone and sand. “I- I guess he did it himself,” Yuugi whispered softly.

Beside him, where they stood, leaning against the railing at the aft of the ship, Bakura turned slightly, maybe looking at him, but Yuugi didn’t take his eyes off the cliffs that were slowly fading into the horizon. “Did what?” Bakura asked, and Yuugi couldn’t tell which one it was.

“Buried the Millennium Items,” Yuugi answered, feeling the wind bite at the wet places on his cheeks. “H-he asked me to make sure they were buried, like you wanted, so nobody could find them again.”

Bakura was silent for a while and then asked, his voice still quiet and impossible to identify which personality it was coming from, “How do you feel?”

Yuugi felt new tears rim his eyes and they broke away, to trail down his face, when he blinked. “... Like I can breath...” he whispered, feeling a stab of guilt at his own words. “Like I couldn’t before and I didn’t even know it...”

He barely heard Bakura sigh next to him, and in Yuugi’s peripheral vision, he leaned forward, putting his weight on the rail. “... You know when you’re sick for a while, and then the first day you’re well again, you feel extra good?” Yuugi watched the last traces of the cliffs disappear as he spoke. “It’s like that... Except right now, I’d rather still be sick...”

“... You’re a better person without him, Yuugi,” Bakura said. “You make better decisions than him...”

“He wasn’t a bad person...” Yuugi rubbed the heel of his hand across his face. “He just didn’t know how to compromise.”

“... I know,” Bakura’s voice was barely audible over the muffled sound of the engine and the splashing of the water. “If one were to take his accomplishments at face-value, he freed both Malik and me from a nightmare,” he whispered, and Yuugi realized that it must be the other Bakura talking. “Unfortunately he shoved us through the eye of hell to accomplish it. I can’t say that anything he did to me himself was more than I deserved, but what he did to Ryou was. It was my fault, but it was his crime.”

“I know,” Yuugi whispered, finally tearing his eyes from the horizon, where the cliffs were no longer visible, to stare down at the churning wake behind the boat. “... Are you both there?”

“... Ryou’s asleep. He naps when he’s upset,” the other Bakura murmured.

Yuugi watched the froth skate across the water of the Nile, dark with the oncoming twilight. “... Why are you comforting me?” he asked finally. “Don’t you hate me?”

The other Bakura was silent again for a while before answering. “I hate him.” His finger tapped idly on the railing. “You tried to take care of Ryou, even though he kept dragging you away, treating Ryou like a diseased limb, you kept showing up.” The other Bakura made a half-hearted almost-laugh. “You know, he almost threw himself at you. Before you woke him up.”

Yuugi felt his face suddenly growing warm. “H-he did?” he mumbled stupidly, glancing up at the other Bakura.

“That might have been preferable,” the other Bakura sighed, shaking his head. “With you, he could have at least gotten some closure... As it is, they’re all just going to be a twisted series of date-rapes...”

Date-rapes? Yuugi frowned softly, confused. Hadn’t Bakura been willing, at the time anyway? Was Hirutani not the only one that had hit him? “I... I don’t understand,” he mumbled.

The other Bakura looked down at him, seeming to read Yuugi. “He was more or less half-conscious for all of it. The bastard gave him a roofie that lasted three months and then passed him around the room.”

Yuugi felt like his stomach had suddenly been filled with ice. “... Oh...” he whispered softly.

The other Bakura turned to look off into the horizon, giving Yuugi a profile view of his face, and Yuugi could see a rim of tears clinging to his eyes in the dying light. “... Ryou knows how to fix me,” the other Bakura whispered, his voice now sounding just slightly choked. “But I don’t know how to fix him...”

“... I’m sorry,” Yuugi breathed, looking down at his hands as they gripped the rail.

“Malik and me’ll try to figure it out,” the other Bakura said quietly, blinking rapidly and dipping his head a little. “I’d appreciate any help you can think of.”

“I... I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try...” Yuugi mumbled helplessly.

The other Bakura thumped his shoulder softly before turning. “He always liked you,” he said in a casual voice as he started to walk away.

Yuugi stayed where he was, watching the other Bakura make his way up the boat. He paused next to one of the cabin doors and it looked like he was talking to someone. He stepped inside and a moment later Anzu came out through the door and walked swayingly down to Yuugi.

Anzu’s eyes were red and irritated and she looked miserable, but she tried to give Yuugi a smile. “How are you?” she asked.

“... Fine... Physically or metaphysically or whatever...” Yuugi said softly, looking away. “I... I didn’t notice that I wasn’t before... I guess it came on really slowly...”

“So your... your heka is doing what it’s supposed to?” Anzu leaned against the railing next to him.

“I guess so...” Yuugi nodded and turned a little to look down at the dark, churning water again. “My body feels relieved... and even parts of my mind... But it’s lonely...”

He started just slightly when Anzu’s arms wrapped around him and he found himself pulled against her. Heat started rushing to his face again and he bit his lip, feeling some strange version of terrified as he noticed that his shoulder was pressed against Anzu’s breasts. “We’re all going to be here for you, Yuugi,” she said quietly. “If you need help, just ask.”

Yuugi closed his eyes and sighed. “I wish we’d been there for Bakura-kun more...” he said softly. “I keep thinking of things I should have done...”

Anzu was quiet for a while, then the hand resting on Yuugi’s shoulder squeezed a little. “It’s all going to be okay. Did you hear that Malik is coming to Japan?”

“No...” Yuugi opened his eyes stared out at the darkening landscape. “That’s... that’s great...” he mumbled.

“We’re all going to get through this whole thing,” Anzu said, sounding confident. “We’ll all be okay.”

“Thanks, Anzu,” Yuugi murmured. Everything always sounded true when she said it.

...

“We’re going to go to the embassy right after this,” Malik said quietly, his hands linked with theirs and foreheads leaned together. “I’ll apply for a visa today and then as soon as it’s processed, I’ll be on the next plane to Tokyo International,” he promised.

“If you need to ship anything, I can cover it,” Bakhura whispered back.

“I don’t really have must stuff. Just my clothes,” Malik replied with a shrug and a lop-sided grin.

“Oh like a queen like you could possibly get all that into a carry-on,” Bakhura snorted. Malik made to punch them and they all laughed, breaking apart for a moment before they grabbed Malik’s hands and pulled him back towards them. “What about your bike?” Ryou asked, grinning slyly.

“It’s a bitch to ship. I’m thinking maybe I’ll sell it and then start looking at two-seaters when I get there...?” Malik raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Get a blue one,” Ryou demanded playfully.

“Vetoed. It must be red,” Malik said, making a stern face.

Bakhura stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry. They started laughing again. After a moment, Malik grabbed them into a fierce hug. “... You need to go,” he whispered.

“... Yeah.” Bakhura nodded as they hugged back. “I s-suppose public gay make-outs would probably be a faux p-pas here,” Ryou mumbled, sniffling a little.

“Probably a good bet,” Malik agreed.

“Okay,” Ryou whispered, nodding, and after lingering a few more sweet moments, they stepped back. They stared into Malik’s violet eyes as the line nudged them closer to the security check.

“I’ll be there soon,” Malik whispered.

“We’ll be waiting,” Bakhura and Ryou said together.

“... Call me when you touch down.”

“We will.”

They turned slowly and followed Ryou’s classmates through the metal detectors. They looked back over their shoulder to the Ishtars, who couldn’t go past the security check since they didn’t have boarding passes. A few minutes later, they were on the concourse, following along behind the cheer-squad on their way to the international gates.

... I’m tired, Ryou complained softly.

Take a nap. I’ll make sure we get on the plane, Bakhura responded, caressing him.

... It would be terrible if we missed the flight, wouldn’t it, Ryou said, not meaning a word.

Bakhura sighed, following along in the path that Honda was cutting through the crowd. Go to sleep, Ryou. I’ll watch over you.

Thank you, Ryou responded in a tiny flicker, and then Bakhura felt him settling down for a nap.

Bakhura monitored the wane of Ryou’s consciousness raptly, following the back of Honda’s jacked on cruise-control. When they stopped in front of one of the gates, Bakhura was slightly startled at having the rhythm interrupted and took a few moments to reorient himself. He shook his head and glanced towards the huge windows in the side of the terminal, looking out onto the taxiways.

He stood still for several minutes, staring out the windows. Their plane wasn’t at the gate yet. They could have stayed on the other side of security check with Malik for another ten minutes or so. If only.

“You look like someone ran over your dog.”

Bakhura glanced over at Jonouchi, who had his backpack slung over one shoulder and was giving him a slightly assessing sort of look. Bakhura was quiet for a moment and then cocked his head to the side a bit. “I think last week Yuugi mentioned something about you beating Hirutani within an inch of his life?”

Jonouchi blinked, looking surprised for half a second, and then his face split into an epic shit-eating grin. “Oh hell yeah, I did!” he declared proudly. “I used a bat!”

“A bat?” Bakhura repeated with interest and felt the corners of his own lips starting to pull upwards. “Wooden or aluminum?”

“Aluminum, of course!” Jonouchi crossed his arms and looked utterly smug with himself.

“Good man,” Bakhura felt himself grinning fully now.

“You’re the other one, aren’t you?”Jonouchi asked, looking Bakhura up and down as though he’d somehow find a physical difference to judge by.

“Is it obvious?” Bakhura asked with slight sarcasm.

“Well, it’d have to be for me to notice, right?” Jonouchi shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “Hey, Honda’s gone soft on me. Want me to give you a call if I have any more beat-downs that need doing in the future?”

“Aw, you sweet-talker,” Bakhura chuckled. “Are you asking me on a carnage-date?”

Jonouchi looked suddenly alarmed. “Wait, what? No I- What?”

Bakhura laughed and clapped Jonouchi on the shoulder. He sighed and glanced out the windows again as a plane taxied towards their gate. “... I think I can do this,” he said in a soft voice. “I think we can make this happen.”

Because Ryou did have a sort of support network, even if it wasn’t the most reliable in the world, and whether it was out of guilt or affection, they seemed willing to help. Bakhura didn’t have a reason left not to let them, and even if Ryou was all he really needed, Bakhura knew he was probably too far gone to fix the tiny fractures Ryou’s soul had acquired in their separation. Malik would be there to help him soon, and until then maybe he and the cheerleaders would be able to handle it.

...

End

...
...

Now it’s time for confetti and a giant song and dance number, because I’m done. I’M DONE!

Yee gads, that’s a huge weight off my brain.

When I say ‘done’, there may be more bits and pieces for this universe down the line, but this is officially the end of the central story. This bitch is wrapped and sent. I am free of the oppressive task of trying to ignore new bunnies while old bunnies molder unfinished. For now anyway. New serials on the horizon, who’s to say how long they’ll end up.

Anyway, a few chapters back I mentioned something about doing a question-answer portion at the end of this fic. That has been upgraded. A ‘chapter’ will be posted some time after this one with answers to reviewer questions as well as some deleted-scenes and plot-points. Valid questions can relate to any fic in the Serpentine series. So, if you have something to ask in a publicy way, ask them now, because I’m inclined to get this thing buttoned up fast.

<3

YGO- Still Waters

2011-03-22T03:49:30Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Still Waters
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Yami-Yuugi, Yami-Malik, Yami-Bakura, Thief King Bakura
Rating: T
Warnings: none
Summary: Pharaoh Atemu makes his way by sacred barque through the sea of Nu in the Kingdom of Osirus. A challenge is put to him in the 12th division of the underworld and Atemu is caught by surprise; this detail was never mentioned in the Book of Gates.

The black waters of the Nu were quiet for a time, as the golden barque drifted slowly, silently through them. Atemu stood at the bow, watching the shadows that shifted restlessly around the vessel. His guide, who appeared as a large jackal, darker than the deepest night, stood just behind him, emanating the quiet patience of eternity.

Atemu saw a flicker out of the shadows surrounding the boat and he glanced to the side. What started as the faintest flicker soon turned into massive walls of fire, roaring up out of the water on either side of the craft, forming a flaming hallway through which the barque continued to glide. We approach the final division, Pharaoh, Anubis said as his charge stared at the flames, turbulent light reflecting off the golden boat and gleaming against Atemu’s adornments.

“... Yes,” Atemu whispered, and soon he found that he could see an end to the flaming corridor, an enormous gate guarded by a sentry more than twice the size of human being. The gate’s lintel was marked on one side by the sign of Atum and on the other by the sign of Khepri, and the doors were blocked by two spears, holding themselves aloft and crossed without the aid of any hands.

He is Pai who guards the entrance, Anubis said and Atemu nodded. Here me, Pai, the Pharaoh, whom is one with Ra, will pass this gate into the Twelfth Division!

Pai bowed his head and the doors swung slowly open as the spears blocking them lifted, leaving a clear path in front of the barque, into an impenetrable blackness beyond. The boat drifted on, without ever slowing, and Atemu strained his eyes, trying to see what was ahead, although knowing it wasn’t possible. The landmarks of the Duat would reveal themselves to him in their time, on their terms, and he could do nothing to rush the process.

Look now, Pharaoh, we come to your final trial, Anubis announced at last.

The boat stilled in the black waters and two monstrous shapes loomed out of the shadows. To either side of the barque lay coiled an enormous snake, their faintly glowing eyes locked upon Atemu. Sebi, Anubis called to the one on the left. Reveal to Heru-Khuti that which is hidden, that he may see that lost soul who dwells in the Shadows.

The snake suddenly shifted, its body spreading, loosening, its head raising up high above the water, and as it uncoiled, a figure, formerly trapped within its grasp, was released. He staggered in a dazed manner and his head slowly lifted to stare at Atemu. Atemu stared back silently, startled and unsure of what he was meant to do.

“... It would be you to decide my fate, wouldn’t it,” the Shadow of Malik Ishtar said, his mouth twisting spitefully. “You wiped me from the earth and now you’ll wipe me from existence.”

“... Great Anubis, what is the trial here?” Atemu asked, his eyes staying on the morose Shadow.

As the Pharaoh is with Ra, and as He decided the fate of the Enemy of Ra, He must now decide the fate of the Enemy of Pharaoh, Anubis said.

“... His fate?” Atemu whispered, faltering slightly and turning to look at the jackal beside him.

Will the Enemy of the Pharaoh drown in the waters of the Nu and be forever expunged from all worlds? Will the Enemy of the Pharaoh remain trapped in Amunet, forever without light? Will the Enemy of the Pharaoh be taken through the gate of resurrection?

Atemu swallowed, looking back at the Shadow of Malik again. The Shadow had been killed, sent to the kingdom of Osiris, but naturally that wouldn’t be the end of his fate. Atemu hadn’t dreamed that he would be called upon to decide the Shadow’s final fate. That it would be up to him whether another being would join the cycle of days or be erased, as though he had never existed at all. Even though he had been the Living Horus, Atemu was still human at his very core; did he have the right to utterly destroy a thinking, sentient soul?

“... Shadow, what do you regret?” he asked at last.

The Shadow narrowed its eyes, glaring at him. “Losing to you,” he said.

Atemu was quiet for another moment, before taking a different tack. “What memory do you cherish most?”

The Shadow looked suspicious for a moment and then turned his head away sharply. He didn’t look Atemu in the eye, but he couldn’t have lied in this place if he’d wanted to. “... Holding Malik. Telling him to stop crying... and he did.”

Atemu studied the Shadow for a long time, its posture, its distrusting glare, its standoffish, defensive manner. Then he lifted his hand and held it out. The Shadow blinked, surprised. The serpent surrounding him sank into the black water, completely out of sight, and the shadow was left standing on a small, solidified patch in the Nu.

Below Atemu’s extended hand, the water at the side of the barque seemed to freeze and spread out like frost across a window-pane, reaching out and connecting to the ice beneath the Shadow. The Shadow stared down at it, and then back at the Pharaoh, pressing his lips together and looking doubtful, although the odium had left his features.

Slowly, hesitantly, the Shadow took a step, and then another, inching his way across the bridge and faltering with every movement. When he drew near, he stared apprehensively at the Pharaoh, looking as though he expected at any moment for Atemu to laugh in his face and push him into the water, then he reached up his hand. Atemu caught it with his own, and tugged gently, urging, as the Shadow dubiously climbed over the side of the boat.

Inside the hull, the Shadow promptly crouched down, his eyes shooting about nervously, filled with confusion and apprehension. After a moment, Atemu looked back to Anubis. It was hard to tell, as every feature of the jackal’s face -with the notable exception of his eyes- was as black as his fur, but Atemu thought that Anubis seemed to be smiling.

Anubis nodded to him and then turned his head toward the remaining giant snake, coiled to the starboard side of the barque. Reri, he called out. Reveal to Heru-Khuti that which is hidden, that he may see that lost soul who dwells in the Shadows.

The second snake uncurled just as the first had, and Atemu was fairly sure he knew who it was going to reveal amid its coils. However, he was startled again when there appeared not one body but two loosed from the serpent’s grip. They stumbled, as the Shadow had, and slowly came to notice the Pharaoh in the barque.

The Thief King Bakhura met Atemu’s eyes for a moment and then slumped down to his knees wearing a despondent look. Beside him, an image of the modern-world’s Bakura, only with blazing red eyes, stared back at Atemu, and then, as his companion collapsed, turned his attention to the Thief King, and rested a hand on his shoulder, his expression so soft he looked like the real Bakura Ryou at that moment.

“... Apep was destroyed,” Atemu said quietly, his brow pinched.

He was, Anubis agreed.

Atemu frowned, looking at the two bodies that should have represented only one soul, the opposite of how it once was. “Why are there two Thief Kings?” he asked, turning his eyes to Anubis again.

You see the Thief King whom you fought and slew three thousand years ago, and you see the servant whom took up his sword and his Ba, Anubis replied.

Atemu looked back to the two, the Thief King slumped on the ‘ground’ and the ‘other Bakura’ -he was back to being that- standing protectively over him, glaring at the Pharaoh. Atemu took a steadying breath, before attempting the same question he’d asked Malik’s Shadow. “Bakhura, what do you regret?”

“... Living,” the Thief King whispered, not looking up, and the other-Bakura’s face twitched. “... He used me. It was always Him, from the very start. He took everything, devoured all of them to feed Himself... and then He made me worship Him.” The Thief King finally looked up at Atemu, a bitter smile on his lips. “To think that I might have had my revenge... if I’d been on your side.”

Atemu stared at him, too stunned to speak, for a long time. When he finally managed to open his mouth, all he could think to say was to repeat the second question. “... What memory do you cherish most?” he whispered.

The Thief King made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh, and seemed of the opinion that such a question was stupid and pointless, but he answered anyway. “A pet asp I had once, for only a little while. He was white as a cloud...” He leaned his head against the other-Bakura’s thigh and smiled very slightly.

Atemu looked more carefully at the other-Bakura. A white asp? Was the other-Bakura a fusion of the Thief King’s Ka with his mind upon death? Like the Dark Magician? “... Asp,” Atemu called, for lack of a better name, “what do you regret?”

“Failing my Master,” the other-Bakura answered easily, without a moment’s consideration, but then he gripped the fabric of the Thief King’s coat in his hand and added. “My real Master. Not the Dark One.”

Atemu nodded slowly. “And do you have a cherished memory?”

The other-Bakura thought about that one for a moment, before a slow grin spread across his lips and he locked eyes with Atemu. “I liked playing with you. You were an excellent opponent.”

Atemu found himself smiling, although he wasn’t sure it was entirely appropriate. Of course, if the other-Bakura was a Duel Monster at his core, it was only natural that games should be his joy in life.

When Atemu had extended his hand to Malik’s Shadow, the tone had been somber, but now he could feel himself smiling as he held out his hand again and watched the second serpent sink into the Nu as another ice-bridge began to form, crackling its way across the water toward the Thief King and other-Bakura’s island. The other-Bakura gave him a startled, suspicious look, like Malik’s Shadow had, but the Thief King just glanced at Atemu’s hand and then grinned softly, letting out a small puff of a laugh, before pushing himself to his feet.

The other-Bakura followed behind the Thief King, practically stepping on his heels, and glanced nervously at the Nu, while the Thief King kept his eyes locked on Atemu, taking no notice of his footing, and when he reached the boat, took Atemu’s hand firmly. Atemu’s smile widened a bit more, something in him feeling much lighter suddenly, and he pulled the two aboard the ark.

Once standing within the golden vessel, the Thief King didn’t let go of Atemu’s hand, but instead gave a sudden, sharp tug, surprising Atemu and making him stumble forward. Then the Thief King surprised him further by wrapping his other arm behind Atemu’s shoulders and embracing him. “Thank you,” he murmured.

“... I’ve no reason to condemn you to oblivion,” Atemu said slowly, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

“No,” the Thief King said, releasing Atemu and stepping back. “I’m thanking you for destroying Him.”

Atemu nodded slowly, and then blinked and looked around, realizing that the barque had started moving again. Slowly, ahead of it, a gate immerged from the darkness. It was gleaming gold, and ahead of the sentry stood two women of unearthly beauty. Your mothers, Anubis announced. Isis and Nephthys. And he is Akheki who guards the exit.

Atemu dropped to his knees, staring up at Isis and Nephthys, towering giantesses whose loveliness could have made the stars themselves weep. They smiled fondly down at him. Atemu, Isis said in a soft yet penetrating voice. She was the first person to call him by his given name since he started his journey through the underworld. It is a joy to see you, you who has done what none of us could. She bowed her head to Atemu and he couldn’t quite process it.

Atemu, Nephthys said, her voice every bit as heartbreaking as her sister’s. You have broken the cycle, precious child. The Great Enemy is removed, no longer will he crouch at the horizon, no longer will he threaten our Sun. She bowed her head as well.

“It- it has been my greatest honor to serve You,” Atemu whispered, and he could feel hot tears cutting a path down his cheeks.

Where do you wish to go, Atemu? Isis crooned.

Atemu opened his mouth and it took him a while to form his confusion into words. “I... I don’t understand, Great Isis.”

Nephthys smiled, crouching down, bringing her enormous form closer to a level with the occupants of the barque. You have done a great thing, and preformed a great favor to Ra, she explained. Now Ra offers you the choice. Will you finish this journey with Anubis and go forth in your spirit body? Or will you finish this journey on Khnum’s wheel, and go forth in a body of flesh?

Atemu stared, caught entirely off guard by the offer. It had never been part of the verses, nor occurred to him in any form, that anyone should be given this choice. He had died, three thousand years ago, and so naturally he had to pass on into the next life. But the opportunity to grow up? To return to his friends and learn more about himself and the mysteries of the world? That was something that he had never even thought to hope for.

“... I think I would like to grow up,” Atemu whispered.

Nephthys stood back up, she and Isis both beamed down at him. There was a rustle beside him, and Atemu looked over to see Anubis jumping out of the boat and onto the surface of the Nu. It didn’t bother to solidify under his feet, he stepped across it as easily as a water-skipper and sat down at Nephthys’ side. The ark started to move again and Atemu’s eyes turned forward, where the enormous, golden gateway was opening. Unlike all the previous ones, which had shown only darkness on the far side, this time the reason Atemu couldn’t see beyond was that there was so much light pouring through.

...
...

Putting this together was a mighty task for my powers of magical-bullshittery. The gods and goddesses mentioned at the gates all come out of the last chapter of the Book of Gates from the Sarcophagus of Seti, although in the text, Isis and Nephthys appear as uraeuses (that cobra sticking out of King Tut’s head) and are more part of the scenery than people you interact with. Also, the whole trial there was completely made up; Sebi and Reri are the serpent-guards for the last gate. Apparently snakes hang out around gates (it’s how they keep getting onto all the planes).

Oh, and Nephthys mentioned ‘Khnum’s wheel’; Khnum was the god who made humans out of clay on his pottery-wheel, and after they got that creation stuff out of the way, he continued to make all the babies to stick into ladies wombs. Basically, he’s responsible for bodies. And as a ceramicist, I just have to say, I don’t know how the hell he managed to make a people-shape on a pottery-wheel, what with the arms and legs and all.

So now I’ve pretty much got a set-up or explanation for an infinite number of fics on FFnet where ‘why’ was glossed over. I solved for Y! The original goal when I first started poking this idea was to write an explanation that would make Bakushipping not cracky and not AU. Which was silly, because I didn’t even have any ideas for Bakushipping fics in the first place. But maybe I’ll come up with something, now that I have this perfectly good set-up lying around...

Final Eclipse Chapter Seven

2011-03-06T08:38:56Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Final Eclipse Chapter Seven
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Ishizu Ishtar, Rishid Ishtar, Yuugi Mutou, Atem, Mazaki Anzu, Jonouchi Katsuya, Honda Hiroto
Rating: M
Warnings: Swearing and sexy times
Summary: Explanations and more magical-bullshit, some logistics that need taking care of and some more bonding time.
Previous:
Delusions
Bad Religion
Interlude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Final Eclipse 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Malik put a stop to Bakura’s laughter by driving an elbow into his stomach, which also had the side-effect of allowing him to free himself. Over on the couch, things were more subdued in the wake of Bakura’s taunting. Yuugi was staring blankly at the carpet and Anzu was pulling at the base of her skirt, fraying the edge.

“But- But why is Yuugi’s soul so much weaker?” Anzu whined.

“Age factors in,” Ishizu said quietly, looking at the girl while she spoke, though Anzu was still staring down at her fingers as they frayed the skirt. “But it can be made a small factor when others are weighed against it. I believe that the Thief King’s soul came to Bakura in a deteriorated state, with little sense of identity.” She glanced over to Bakura, who coughed and nodded, rubbing his stomach where Malik’s elbow had landed.

Ishizu returned her gaze to Yuugi and continued. “Self awareness, a strong sense of identity, knowing oneself, all these are important to defining a soul and they are also put in danger when two souls come into competition with each other.”

“Hang on. Atemu didn’t have any memories until two days ago,” Honda pointed out. “He didn’t have any sense of identity because he didn’t know anything about his identity.”

“He didn’t have conscious access to his memories,” Ishizu said slowly. “But his tacit knowledge was intact, the things one learns and is taught without explicit instruction. His subconscious remembered how he was trained to perceive himself and the world, and so, though he lacked any specific memories as to how he had come to think the way he does, his personality remained well established.”

“So then you’re saying that Atemu’s been gnawing on Yuugi just because he’s more confident?” Jonouchi asked, giving the Millennium Puzzle a suspicious glare.

“That’s only one factor in many, and the cause and effect could just as easily be switched for each other” Ishizu sighed, shaking her head. “Pharaoh’s personality might be rather dominating, whereas Yuugi is unassuming, but that wouldn’t necessarily cause an imbalance in and of itself. I believe the primary reason in this case is that the Pharaoh’s heka is so far above a normal person’s.”

“Heka?” Anzu asked, frowning.

“Ki,” Bakura supplied, his voice calmer than before, and it sounded like it was Bakura Ryou speaking now. “The natural energies that are in everything, the same as ki or mana.”

“Yes,” Ishizu agreed, nodding a thanks to the boy; she had forgotten the Japanese word. “And in this case, I am referring to a person’s ability to control the natural heka of their surroundings, as well as having particularly strong heka within their own body. Bakura is a good example for comparison.” She gestured toward Bakura as she continued to address his school mates. “Bakura has a very high capacity to manipulate naturally occurring heka, but he does not hold an unusual amount within himself. He merely pushes and pulls the heka surrounding him.” Ishizu then turned her attention to the Pharaoh. “The Pharaoh, on the other hand, holds uncommon levels of heka within his own body. This was normal for those of Pharaonic heritage.”

“The ability to summon the god-cards,” Yuugi said suddenly. Ishizu smiled and nodded at him. “Because it couldn’t have just been about Millennium Items since Kaiba could do it.”

“That’s correct,” Ishizu agreed. “Kaiba Seto has a strong ability to control natural heka as well, which has mostly manifested in the form of uncanny luck- a very common way for the gift to present itself these days. His belief in an outcome alters and increases the probability of that outcome occurring, which is most easily observed in the winning streaks he is able to maintain against any opponent other than the Pharaoh. He is a skilled tactician, but he is also extremely lucky.”

“I knew he was cheating!” Jonouchi growled quietly, looking livid.

“But if it’s heka that lets someone use the god-cards, why couldn’t Rishid?” Anzu said quietly, looking over to where Rishid had settled himself quietly off to the side, leaving the explanations to Ishizu. “He’s a priest-magic-person just like Malik, isn’t he?”

“Rishid and I control heka primarily through the use of talisman,” Ishizu explained and lightly touched the jasper stone on her forehead. “Using talisman is a skill that can be taught, rather than a natural inclination. Specific talisman are used to direct specific types of heka.”

She glanced back toward her brother. A compromise seemed to have been reached, as Bakura had settled to lean against him now and had his head rested on Malik’s shoulder. “Malik has been trained to use talisman, but he also has a talent for controlling heka directly. The demon Mot exploited that ability in order to create a bond between them.” She watched Malik stiffen slightly at the name, and then relax again as Bakura laced their fingers together.

“So... It’s because Atemu has so much heka that he’s overpowering Yuugi?” Anzu asked slowly.

“Most likely.” Ishizu nodded.

“But... isn’t there something that could be done?” Anzu pressed.

“You could bind him,” Malik’s voice broke in. Ishizu turned to him sharply, Malik was gazing down at the rug, then his eyes flicked up to meet Ishizu’s. “You and Rishid made it so Mot couldn’t access its heka. Couldn’t a modified version of that binding process be used to restrict the Pharaoh’s?”

“Malik, this is a very different circumstance. The Pharaoh is not a demon nor is he a malevolent spirit. Jailing him would hardly be an appropriate course of action.”

“We could make it weaker, so that it puts a cap on his heka rather than disabling it,” Malik insisted. “We could make Yuugi the arbiter.”

“That would work?” Anzu asked, sounding excited.

Ishizu looked back at her, frowning. “He is talking about shackling the Pharaoh’s soul,” she said quietly.

“But it wouldn’t be like that because the seal would work on Yuugi’s terms,” Malik protested.

“Malik, that’s not--”

“Ishizu,” the Pharaoh’s voice broke in; Ishizu quieted and looked back at him. “Strictly in terms of feasibility, would what Malik is talking about be possible?”

Ishizu pressed her lips together and thought about it for a minute. “Almost certainly,” she said finally. “At full power, against a hostile entity, the seal we used to protect Malik freezes the spirit’s abilities to use heka or exert force over the host’s body.”

“It can only talk,” Malik whispered, and Ishizu nodded without looking at him.

“In theory, we could rewrite the seal to simply restrict your capacity for heka, potentially we could design it so that your accessible heka would always be kept a match to Yuugi’s,” she said.

The Pharaoh nodded slowly. “I need time to think about this,” he said quietly.

“What’s to think about?” Jonouchi squawked suddenly. “We are not letting you keep eating Yuugi!”

“Nobody was suggesting anything of the sort, Jonouchi,” Ishizu interjected. “The question is to whether the Pharaoh intends to stay with Yuugi or to move on to the next world now that he has finished his work in this one.”

Jonouchi turned to her, frowning softly. “... You mean... die?”

“The Pharaoh’s existence is not tied to Yuugi’s as the Thief King’s has become to Bakura’s,” Ishizu explained quietly. “When Bakura Ryou grows old and dies, both the souls housed within his body will move into the next world together. When Yuugi grows old and dies, the Pharaoh will again be trapped within the Millennium Puzzle. Perhaps for eternity.”

All the teenagers on the couch were staring at her now. “The Pharaoh’s soul will be allowed to move on only when the spell which bound him into the Millennium Puzzle is brought to a close,” Ishizu said calmly. “The ceremony could be done at any time, of course, it would require only that Yuugi remain in possession of all the Millennium Items and that he return to the correct ceremonial location to perform the ritual.” Ishizu pursed her lips a moment. “But I am unable to guess how a binding charm placed upon the Pharaoh’s soul might effect his ability to complete that ritual.”

“... As I said,” the Pharaoh murmured. “I will need time to think about the possibilities.”

...

Rishid had taken Ryou’s classmates to the National Museum, leaving his siblings to look after their house guest(s). The explanations and crowd out of the way, Ishizu turned her attention back to Ryou and Bakhura. “We need to buy a ticket for you to go home,” she said calmly, fetching the cordless phone and a directory.

“Right...” Ryou’s voice said in a quiet melancholy. “I suppose I have school next week.”

Ishizu set the phonebook on the table and started flipping through it. “Do you think you’ll be able to arrange it by phone or do we need to go to the bank?” she asked, running a finger down the page.

“I can do it by phone,” Bakhura answered. “Assuming somebody there speaks... hm, I suppose English would be the best bet?”

“I doubt you’ll find anyone with Japanese,” Malik agreed softly, sliding his hand over Ryou’s back as they stood up and walked over to where Ishizu had the phonebook open. “I can help you, it’s just the financial information you’d have to approve and stuff.”

“This is the number,” Ishizu said, marking a pencil line on the page.

“Thank you,” Ryou mumbled, taking the cordless as she handed it to him and keying in the number. Even though Ryou was able to find someone on the other end who spoke English, neither he nor the ticketing agent could really understand each other’s accents and Malik ended up doing most of the talking, only handing the phone off to Ryou so that Bakhura could recite the numbers for his bank account.

It went smoothly enough though, and within twenty minutes, Ryou had a seat reserved for the same flight back to Japan that his classmates would be on. He clicked the end-call button and sat, staring silently down at the phone afterwards, the reality that he was going back probably just truly sinking in.

“Sister,” Malik said quietly, glancing to where Ishizu had settled herself on the other side of the table. “What do you plan to do about Ryou’s heka?”

Ishizu sighed, leaning forward against her elbows. “He needs instruction.” She settled her eyes on Ryou as he lifted his head, tearing his attention away from the silent phone and tuning into the conversation. “I’m sure it would be easy to find a teacher for meditation in Japan, and that will be important, but you should have more a specific education in the proper fielding of your talent.” Ishizu folded her arms on the tabletop and gazed down at the wood-pattern. “Hopefully my contacts in Japan will be able to put me into communication with someone who could teach you.”

“Sister...” Malik mumbled, staring down at his hands, folded on top of the table. “...I could teach him.”

There was a stretch of silence in which Malik didn’t look at anyone, keeping his eyes fixed on his hands. After a while, he shored up the courage to continue. “Ishizu, our family’s mission is over. I- none of us have to be here anymore. We’re free...” He slowly lifted his gaze to meet his sister’s, feeling even more unnerved by how blank her expression was. “Sister... I hate Egypt,” he whispered.

Ishizu stayed silent for more than a minute before replying in a soft, neutral voice, “We cannot have this discussion without Rishid, Malik.”

Malik nodded, looking down again.

There was another stretch of silence, and this time Ishizu broke it. “I need to buy groceries,” she said quietly.

“Do... you want...?”

“I can manage by myself,” Ishizu said, pushing her chair back and standing. “Please look after Bakura’s sunburn. The salve should be reapplied soon.”

“Yes, Sister,” Malik whispered, staring at the table again.

He listened to Ishizu walk out into the hall and collect her shawl, purse and shopping bags. The door opened and then closed and there was quiet again.

“... You’ll come with us?” The voice was too quiet and squished to tell whose it was.

Malik lifted his head to finally meet Ryou’s eyes, feeling weak and embarrassed. “I want to,” he said. “I- I have to convince them... That I can handle it.”

“Malik...” they breathed and reached out, catching Malik’s hands. Ryou’s eyes danced with too many emotions for Malik to sort out. They stood and tugged Malik up and then pulled him into a tight hug.

Malik closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Ryou’s shoulders, sighing. “I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you,” he whispered.

There was a short, almost laugh. “It seems like half the time we’re with you, we’re either torn apart or passed-out,” Ryou said, just a touch of humor edging his voice. “But we’ve liked the rest of it.”

Malik combed his fingers through Ryou’s hair and buried his face against their neck. “I love you,” he said in a tiny, barely audible voice. “Y-you don’t have to love me, I haven’t earned it. I just... need to tell you.”

“... I- neither of us are sure of our emotions right now,” Bakhura mumbled. “Too many people have been fucking with them lately.”

“I know.” Malik nodded. “I don’t want to do that. I just want to be with you for a while.”

Bakhura chuckled softly. “You should have been with us when we were hyped on adrenaline,” he murmured and kissed Malik’s ear.

Malik smiled against Ryou’s neck. “Maybe I could get you excited again?”

“It’s a distinct possibility,” Ryou purred.

“Bed?”

“Oh yeah.”

...

“This is so weird...” Jonouchi complained in a low voice. “I mean, Rishid’s a great guy and all, but I don’t think he’s said more than ten words since we’ve been in Egypt!”

“Not everyone can be a motor-mouth like you, Jonouchi,” Anzu snorted.

“But he’s not saying anything!” Jonouchi protested. “I mean, it’s all right when Ishizu or Malik is around, but when he’s just following us around, not saying anything, it’s just creepy! And with Yuugi not talking either...”

“Yeah, it kind of feels more like having a chaperone or a chauffeur than hanging out with a friend,” Honda agreed.

“Well maybe if you actually tried to start a conversation with him,” Anzu sniffed and then stepped away from the glass case they’d congregated around, looking back and spotting Rishid as he gazed solemnly at a nefer-bead necklace displayed near the wall. She turned and made her way across the floor, hearing Jonouchi whisper her name with a ridiculously urgent tone.

“The guide says that nefer means ‘beauty’,” Anzu said as she came to a stop next to Rishid. “It talks about these necklaces in general, but not all the specific ones the museum has. I guess because there’s a lot, it would take too much space.”

Rishid nodded slowly. “They were put in a lot of graves,” he said.

“Does it say who this one belonged to?” Anzu asked, looking up at him.

“... The wife of a priest from the twenty-first dynasty,” Rishid answered, reading the Arabic on the informational plaque next to it in the case. “But she probably never wore it in life.”

“Ah...” Anzu gazed at the different colored beads woven together into the large piece of jewelry that was almost a garment. “Did they usually put new things into the graves? Ones that hadn’t been used?”

“It would have been different depending on the time period and the class the deceased was from,” Rishid explained.

“Did you and Malik and Ishizu wear that sort of thing ever?” Anzu wondered, trying to picture it in her mind.

“No,” Rishid said, shaking his head slightly. “There wasn’t any use for decoration in the sanctuary... The priests, and everyone, just wore plain linen.”

“There were other priests?” Anzu asked, surprised.

“There were four others, besides Malik’s father.”

“What happened to them?”

Rishid sighed, looking a little pained.

“Ah-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be nosey. Forget I asked,” Anzu said quickly, waving her hand dismissively.

“Malik drove them into madness with the Millennium Rod and chased them away.” Rishid’s gaze was distant, a detached sort of sadness wrinkling his brow just slightly. “I don’t know whether it was permanent or if they’ll recover. I don’t even know where any of them are now.”

“... I’m sorry...” Anzu whispered.

“I’m grateful to you and your friends,” Rishid said and Anzu looked up at him with a bit of surprise. “And the Pharaoh. For freeing Malik... I could only keep the demon from controlling Malik’s body, I couldn’t stop it from influencing his mind.”

Anzu was silent for a while. “I keep wondering... trying to understand what the demons could have said to them, made them believe, to manipulate them like that... Because it doesn’t seem like they were hypnotized, more like they were just... crazy...”

“... That they were alone.”

Anzu frowned softly. “What?”

“They demons started by convincing them that they were alone, that the demon was the only one they could depend upon,” Rishid elaborated.

“But... Malik always had you and Ishizu with him, didn’t he?” Anzu looked back up at him.

“I was always by his side...” Rishid’s voice was soft and distant. “Except during the endowment ceremony... Neither Ishizu or I were allowed to be there.”

“Endowment?”

“... His back,” Rishid said.

“Oh...” Anzu whispered. “That must have been terrifying.”

Rishid just nodded. Anzu looked down, her eyebrows drawn together and her hands fisted tightly at her sides. She felt a little sick to her stomach at the horrible unfairness of it all. She was startled out of her brooding when Rishid started speaking again, unprompted.

“Yesterday...” he started softly, “I heard him laugh...”

...

The weather was really hot, even though it was October -and the Ishtar’s didn’t seem to believe in air-conditioning- but it was a dry-heat and infinitely more comfortable than the thick, muggy air of a summer afternoon in Domino. The heat could be ignored here, and didn’t repel them away from the burning warmth of another body pressed against theirs.

Did he have tan-lines during Battle City? Ryou wondered with a silly giddiness as they pulled off Malik’s top and leaned forward to nip at his neck while running their hands over his ribs.

No. He’s turned into a surface-dweller over the summer, Bakhura agreed as they sucked the soft spot behind the corner of Malik’s jaw.

“What are you thinking?” Malik whispered, his voice coming out a little whiney and his brows were squished in towards the middle when they pulled away to look at his face.

“Tan-lines,” Ryou chirped with a tiny smirk.

“Tan-lines?” Malik asked, looking confused.

“Tan-lines,” Ryou agreed and tackled him down onto the mattress. “You got a ta~an,” he sang and then licked Malik’s neck.

Malik laughed in the way that meant he was being tickled, and it was delicious, so they softly nibbled at his neck some more with just their lips, and were rewarded with more giggles and squirming. He hates being out of the conversation, Ryou noted, feeling slightly guilty and trying to make up for it with a long, deep kiss.

If we said everything out loud, it would keep our mouth from better things, Bakhura pointed out logically. Compromise is key.

“Nn, it’s true...” Ryou mumbled as their lips came away from Malik’s and moved to his ear. “Talking gets in the way...” Their tongue traced the curve of Malik’s ear and they squirmed to get into a better position to grind their hips together with Malik’s.

“Mmnhnn...” Malik moaned, his arms tightening around them. “I- I want to kn-know...” he panted.

“R-right now,” Bakhura whispered next to his ear. “We’re just ba-babbling about how f-fuckin’ hot you are.”

Malik mewled and buried a hand in their hair. “I l-love your voices,” he mumbled, lifting his knees and squeezing his thighs around their hips.

“‘S really not poetry,” Bakhura assured him, moving a hand to slide up one of the thighs now constricting him. “God damn, you have an amazing ass!” Ryou swore, squeezing Malik’s buttock and getting a moan that turned into a laugh in response.

“Mnn- It could feel a lot more amazing,” Malik whined, fingers exploring Ryou’s chest and sides.

A surge of lust was caught up short in them as they remembered why that hadn’t happened yesterday. “I- I need to...” Ryou mumbled, feeling a slight tremor run through their body.

“You don’t have anything. I promise you don’t,” Malik whispered, sounding desperate. “Even if you did -which you don’t- I don’t care because this isn’t some one-time thing! I want to be with you forever and I don’t want to be careful, I just want you to fuck me and not hold back or play it safe or any of that.” He stared into their eyes, pleading, horny, as he rambled. “I want you! I want you to fuck me! I want you to cum in me!”

“Malik I- I’m not comfortable with it!” Ryou protested, shaking their head. God, he wants it so bad! And we want it! And if it weren’t for Hirutani- If I’d just--

It’s not your fault, Bakhura snapped.

I just can’t believe I’m so pathetic!

It’s not your fault!

“Nonononononono,” Malik babbled, flinging his arms around their shoulders again and pulling them in tight. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! God, I’m being such a dick!” There was a slightly hysterical edge to Malik’s voice as he shook his head, cheek brushing against theirs. “I’m sorry! Forget it! I’m just being dumb! Please, please, frot with me or something?”

They trembled and sank down against Malik, arms circling around him as they let their weight settle on top of him. “W-why are you freaking out?” Bakhura whispered next to Malik’s neck.

“It’s stupid,” Malik muttered, shaking his head.

“What?”

“I- I’m scared that I’ll never see you again,” Malik whispered in a tiny voice.

“You’re coming with us!” Bakhura protested, even as Ryou jabbed him with scolding feelings to not pressure Malik.

“I w-want to...” Malik whimpered, shaking. “B-but what if I can’t? What if when I can finally see you, you don’t want me anymore?”

“Malik...” Ryou pressed their face against Malik’s neck and tightened their arms around him.

“You shouldn’t want me now! Not after everything I’ve done to you! It was all my fault in the first place, and I didn’t fix it! I didn’t even do what I could have! I didn’t even hardly talk to you because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself!” Malik sobbed. “You should blame me! You should hate me!”

“You should shut up and stop telling us what to do!” Bakhura snapped in a vicious tone.

Malik’s grip around their shoulders loosened and he radiated uncertainty. “I- I’m sorry,” Malik whispered.

“... You stole from us,” Bakhura said quietly, right next to Malik’s ear. “But you didn’t fuck with our head.” Malik sobbed again and nodded. “You’re the one who made Yuugi break it,” Ryou said. “He was rambling about you before... before I woke up.”

“I should have been with you,” Malik whined softly. “I shouldn’t have trusted them to take care of you, I knew they didn’t know how...”

“We need you,” Bakhura and Ryou said together. “Forget before,” Bakhura said. “We need you now,” Ryou continued. “We can’t go back there and face them if we don’t have you backing us.”

Another tremor ran through Malik’s body and he whimpered, “... I love you.”

“So stop ruining it and take your pants off,” Bakhura suggested sardonically.

Malik laughed and it sounded like tension disappearing down a drain. Their mouths came together again and they resumed making out, trying to get back to where they were before, only without the hysterics. Bakhura jerked their weight to the left and dragged their body and Malik’s onto their sides, freeing their arms from the task of supporting their weight so that they could shift their focus to dismantling Malik’s belt-buckle.

...
...

A/N: Sorry this has taken so long, there were technical issues and also some life issues. I... can’t think of much to say in the note here... I don’t seem to have written anything before and now I’ve just finished up the third edit and find myself too tired to write a good author’s note. Damn. Well, anyway, let’s declare the polls closed, I’ve decided what I’m doing with Atemu, but y’all are just going to have to wait another chapter or two and see about it. Please review, I do so love to hear from you.

PS: I rewrote Making Choices and Taking Chances, it is now going by the title of Delusions and on FFnet has just replaced the original and on livejournal got its own post so the original can still be found hiding away.

Pictures of Malik's back-tats?

2011-03-01T19:01:19Z

Hey fanditos, does anybody have any high-rez pics of Malik's back, or does somebody own the manga and could do a quick scan of one of the shots of his back for me? My OCD is kicking in and I need to figure out the right sequence of characters that's written on him...

Wading: Moving Day

2011-02-19T18:48:41Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Wading
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Thief King Bakura
Rating: K
Warnings: none
Summary: A series of snap-shot drabbles about Bakura growing up alone on the banks of the Nile.

Moving Day

When the merchants started to recognize him, that’s when it was time to move. They didn’t have anything on him, of course, because if he was caught, he’d be flogged immediately, but when they could look up and identify him as ‘that urchin who was watching my stand the day before I was robbed,’ that was when Bakhura knew it was time to leave town.

And so he’d stolen into town at night for one final shopping trip and collected some supplies before setting off several hours before sunrise. He was well out of site of the village before anyone else was awake. He walked along the river, sometimes on banks, sometimes beaches and listened to the sounds of insects give way to the sounds of birds.

He didn’t know how far away the next town would be or how far he’d be walking, and so kept an eye out for palms, radish leaves or lilies as he went, and stopped for anything edible that presented itself on the shore or in the shallows.

Moving was tiring and risky, but Bakhura enjoyed walking and looking at things. And while he was walking between villages, away from the people and their livestock and cracking whips, listening to the birds and the animals that stayed close to the nurturing bosom of the river, he stopped feeling lonely.

Yugioh: Wading

2011-02-08T06:46:03Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Wading
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Thief King Bakura
Rating: K
Warnings: none
Summary: A series of snap-shot drabbles about Bakura growing up alone on the banks of the Nile.

Locust

He lay there in the rushes with his knees curled up close to him. Two inches of water and mud lapped against his side, soaking and soiling the tatty rag around his hips that used to be a kilt. The tall stalks and grasses hid him from the people walking past on the shore and the fishing boats drifting on the river. He’d even found a nice tuft of sod to rest his head on. It was a comfortable way to spend the hot afternoon.

Bakhura yawned, his eyes half-closed and gazing vaguely through the stalks to the expanse of water beyond. He could hear the voices of fishermen in the distance and the splashes of the nets. The soft, distant sounds mingled with the steady lapping of the water against the beach, lulling Bakhura into a light doze within his wet nest.

His consciousness didn’t drift off too far though, because he heard the buzzing of fast-beating wings and the tiny thump of a large insect landing on a reed. Bakhura opened his eyes slowly, keeping the rest of his body very still, and spotted a fat locust on a stalk near his head. He stared at it for a few seconds, and then snapped out his arm as quick as he could and, with great satisfaction, felt his fingers close around the locust.

Bakhura smiled. He moved one finger to look at the struggling locust in his hand without letting it escape, and he examined it for a moment before shoving it into his mouth and biting down quickly to stop its squirming. He chewed it for a while so that the legs wouldn’t stick in his throat. The taste left a lot to be desired, but Bakhura wasn’t going to pass up food that dropped itself in his lap.

He sighed and let his eyes drift shut again, listening to the soft sounds of the river.

Social Intercourse, continued

2011-02-06T20:35:18Z

Series: YuGiOh
Title: Social Intercourse
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Malik, Malik Ishtar
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Previous: Chapter One
Summary: Smut! Ryou wakes up the morning after his yami and Malik spent the night together but it isn't Malik he wakes up with. Philosophy and the question of what is consent ensues.

Ryou opened up the freezer and pulled out two cup-sized containers of cooked rice, stored for occasions when he forgot to set up the rice-cooker or he got home famished and couldn’t wait the time necessary to make fresh rice properly. He dropped them into bowls and stuck the silicone microwave-lid onto one of them before pushing it into the appliance and hitting ‘defrost’. It was inelegant, but Ryou was hungry and irritated and had no interest in doing a better job.

He was cracking eggs into his large skillet when the shadow immerged from Ryou’s bedroom, now dressed in jeans but no shirt. Ryou cast him a slightly scathing look, though, dressed in a bathrobe, he wasn’t exactly the arbiter of proper dress-codes at the moment. The shadow returned an impish grin and swaggered over to sit on one of the stools by the kitchen island. “You’re prettier in proper light,” he commented, leaning against the counter.

Ryou scowled and watched the eggs slowly firming up in the pan.

“You’re upset,” the shadow sighed, sounding dejected.

“Oh really?” Ryou glowered at the eggs. “Thanks for pointing that out to me.”

“Why so terse suddenly?” the shadow asked. “You were so thoroughly charming earlier, and it seems hard to believe that physical release would put you out so badly.”

“Physical release?” Ryou scoffed. “More like loss of control. I let you manipulate me. Of course I’m annoyed.”

“Manipulate?” the shadow sounded slightly offended but also amused. “Do you think I was being delusive? Didn’t you like the story after all?”

Ryou groaned and flipped the eggs over with a spatula. “Whatever. I don’t even care.”

“Aw...” the shadow pouted. “I care. I think you’re lovely and I should very much like to know you better.”

“Oh please,” Ryou snorted. “You had your fun, you got what you wanted, now would you please stop bothering me?”

“Bothering...” the shadow sighed and leaned his cheek down against his arm. “You know, until Malik came along, it had been several centuries since I’d interacted with another person on any relevant level,” he said quietly. “And before that, any social function was always in the interest of maintaining the Tomb Keeper lineage... Perhaps it’s just a fascination for this brave new world of yours, but I find myself wishing to experience a romance before I finally die.”

Ryou turned off the gas and checked on the rice in the microwave. He put both bowls in together and set them to heat for another minute, before pouring hot water over teabags and setting a cup in front of the shadow. “And what a convenient target I would make for your experiments in affection,” Ryou noted, scooping the eggs onto plates and handing one to the shadow as well, before the microwave called for attention, announcing that the rice was hot.

“You are quite convenient,” the shadow agreed with a nod, “since we find ourselves in close proximity so often, thanks to our counterparts.” He plucked at the string on his teabag, bouncing it gently. “But convenience isn’t a great priority to me. I think I should find it far more enjoyable to inconvenience Malik a bit more. But I do believe you have managed to win me over, bunny. You are just so very...” the shadow paused, seeming to have difficulty finding a word, “infatuating.”

Ryou snorted again and leaned against the counter as he carved apart and ate his egg with a fork. “Am I not allowed to have one normal thing in my life? Not ever?” he grumbled and shoved a jiggling piece of egg into his mouth.

“Normal...” the shadow leaned on an elbow and took a thoughtful sip of his tea. “Your circumstance is so very abnormal, do you really think you’d be comfortable inflicting it on a normal person?” he asked, giving Ryou a curious look. “If you were to have a normal lover, how do you think they would feel about your ‘tenant’? I frankly don’t see a normal relationship as being a possibility for you because, even if it were to be with a normal person, there would surely be issues of jealousy and so much more that would complicate the courtship and lead to its inevitable demise.”

Ryou glared at the shadow and slowly chewed a mouthful of rice longer than necessary before swallowing it and responding. “So basically, what you’re saying is that you’re the best I could hope for?” he said in a low, dangerous voice.

“All I’m saying is that you should consider the possibility,” the shadow replied with a shrug. “I merely point out that there is a high potential for compatibility formed simply by the fact that we are able to understand each other’s situations.” He nibbled at his egg and then cast a small smirk at Ryou. “Although I’m not saying that is the only compatibility I see.”

Ryou snorted. “Well if my romantic options are limited to magically sentient shadows, I rather think I’d prefer Yuugi’s,” he said curtly. The shadow across the counter raised an eyebrow in the sort of way that said ‘you’re joking, right?’ Ryou looked away and snorted again, “Whatever.”

The shadow chuckled and took another bite of his egg.

Ryou finished his rice and glared down at the bowl. “You are just another thing to remind me of the great unfairness of my life,” he said quietly.

“The number of persons who have lived lives as or more unfair than yours is immeasurable,” the shadow replied easily. “Even now, despite your extra baggage, you are still being allowed to live your life with a great deal of freedom. Your shadow seems to only take from you small hours of your life, these days. Perhaps no more than the practice of a sport or art would cost you.” The shadow finished his egg and rice and sat sipping his tea. “Does it really seem so terribly unfair of him to take ten or fifteen hours out of your week, for the only time he himself has any opportunity to live?”

Ryou glared at the wall, curling his hands around his teacup and soaking in the uncomfortable heat. “He already lived. Three thousand years ago,” Ryou said quietly.

“Yes, of course,” the shadow sounded cruelly amused. “And we all know what a very fair life he had back then.”

“Shut up,” Ryou growled. “Having one’s own rights violated isn’t an excuse to violate someone else’s.”

The shadow chuckled. “You certainly are a cold bitch, aren’t you?”

Ryou turned his glare back on the shadow. “Shut up,” Ryou repeated. “You’re a murderer- he’s a murderer, and you’re calling me cold? I’ve never even tried to hurt anyone.”

“Of course not,” the shadow said quietly, smirking lazily at him. “What reason would you have? But do you honestly think that if you had been put in the same position as him, you would still be so soft and innocent as you are?”

Ryou glared away at the wall again.

“It is so very easy to judge, isn’t it?” the shadow whispered.

“None of this is even relevant,” Ryou said after a long pause, irritation at feelings of nebulous guilt adding to the general irritation of his morning. “It’s got nothing to do with you, what happens between me and him.”

“I apologize,” the shadow said calmly, setting down his empty teacup. “You’re right, that doesn’t concern me. What I find most concerning now is what happens between you and me.” He smirked and cast Ryou an upwards glance through his long eyelashes.

Ryou felt his face heat up and turned his head away again. “You really ought to go home,” he said, fidgeting nervously.

“Why?” the shadow asked in a lilting tone. “Did you have important plans for today?”

“It’s none of your business,” Ryou snapped.

“Why are you hiding behind the counter, bunny?”

“I’m not hiding,” Ryou bristled.

“You ate your breakfast standing up, is that normal for you?” The shadow balanced his chin on laced fingers and grinned at Ryou. “Or did you just want to keep a solid object between us?”

Ryou snorted and looked away, which made the shadow laugh. “Now the more interesting question is whether the counter is to stop me, or to stop you,” the shadow’s voice dropped into a lascivious murmur. “I wonder, are you afraid of ‘losing control’ again?”

“This is stupid!” Ryou snapped, grabbing the plate and cup from in front of the shadow and dropping them into the sink along with his own breakfast dishes. “Go home. I’m tired of you.”

“In all honesty, I rather would prefer to avoid ‘home,’” the shadow said with a shrug. “They don’t really care for me much there. Something about possessing their darling baby brother.”

“Whatever!” Ryou threw back. “I don’t care where you go, just leave!” The shadow didn’t move; he just stayed where he was sitting, his chin still supported by his hands, and gazed at Ryou with a little smirk. Ryou glared and then threw his hands up. “God!”

The shadow probably just wanted to wind him up further. It was like his parents had always told him as a child, just ignore bullies. So Ryou set to work ignoring the shadow perched at his counter. He washed the dishes from breakfast and set them in the drying wrack, and then he stormed out of the kitchen and down the hall, ignoring the shadow all the while. He pulled the bathroom door closed with a slam and then let out a frustrated little roar and stamped his foot.

Ryou leaned against the door for a few seconds, taking deep breaths, closing his eyes and calming himself. His unwelcome guest had put him too out of sorts and he needed to just relax and get on with his usual routines. Ryou sighed and pushed himself away from the door, meditating on the feeling of cool tile under his feet and the quiet around him. After managing a little serenity, Ryou opened his eyes again and shucked off his robe to hang on the hook behind the door.

Showers had always made him feel better, no matter what the ailment. The heat and the steam soothed away headaches and relaxed muscles, and the water gently washed away sweat and filth. And this morning he was particularly sweaty and filthy. He didn’t bother to put his hair up, wet hair was a price he was willing to pay for the feeling of water flowing freely over his scalp and every inch of skin.

Ryou put the showerhead up into the overhead holder and then stepped under the flow once it had warmed up. He sighed deeply, tension easing away as the droplets joined together and trickled down his face and body. He closed his eyes and pressed a hand against the wall to lean on, letting the heat slowly soak into him.

Minutes passed listening to the water singing in the pipes and pattering against his body and the tile. Ryou was just starting to contemplate whether or not he wanted to shampoo his hair today, when he felt a hand land on his shoulder. He jerked around suddenly and his foot slipped against the wet floor, sending him plummeting downwards only to be caught in strong, bare arms and be left staring up at his assailant and rescuer.

The shadow pulled Ryou back to his feet even as he captured Ryou’s waist with an arm. “W-what the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Ryou demanded, his cheeks burning.

“You didn’t expel me from your home and you left this door unlocked. It seemed rather an invitation,” the shadow replied with a calm voice and a licentious grin.

Ryou opened his mouth to protest, but before he could get a single word out, he was being passionately kissed. He made to push the shadow away, but the shadow’s other arm wrapped around him and pulled their bodies closer together. The feeling of hot, naked and wet skin against the same was beguiling; Ryou became distracted and failed to deliver the push he’d been intending.

The shadow kept assaulting Ryou’s mouth with salacious abandon as he groped Ryou’s thighs and rear and rubbed against him. Ryou had wrapped his arms around the shadow’s shoulders at some point, pressing their chests together so firmly he could feel the shadow’s heartbeat next to his own. Everything was heat, the connection of their bodies, the water and steam surrounding them, the erotic need flooding Ryou’s body.

Ryou found himself pushed up against the wall, the tiles against his back cold by comparison to the air in the room, and the shadow’s body hot against his front, pinning him there. The shadow caught behind Ryou’s knee and lifted his thigh up and to the side, giving him a better angle to grind his forming erection against Ryou’s. Ryou moaned into the shadow’s mouth and dug his fingers against the soft skin of his back.

He made a little sound of protest when the shadow’s lips pulled away from his. Then his breath hitched as the shadow pressed a soft bite to his neck and started kissing a trail down his chest. Ryou made soft little whimpering sounds, his eyes closed and the steam invading his mind to drown his entire consciousness in a blanket of warm pleasure.

The hand that had been holding Ryou’s thigh aloft shifted slightly and Ryou cracked his eyes open to look down at the shadow, who had his knees resting on the tile now, one an inch from the foot Ryou still had on the floor. Ryou’s fog-filled brain tried to process the change in position for a few moments before the shadow leaned forward and kissed his inner thigh. Ryou gasped and tilted his head back into the wall, his eyes closing again.

The shadow slowly kissed, bit and licked at the soft skin, inching his way up Ryou’s thigh as Ryou moaned repeatedly and shook with frustration at the torturously slow progression. The shadow’s cheek brushed against the side of Ryou’s erection and Ryou keened, pressing his palms flat against the tiles behind him as strands of the shadow’s hair fell and pulled across his glans, feeling like threads of fire.

“Aaaahhhuh!” Ryou wailed and curled his toes when the shadow’s tongue swept against his scrotum. Curling his toes turned out to be a mistake. As Ryou’s weight shifted onto his single heel, it slipped against the wet floor and suddenly he was plunging downward, shrieking. The shadow moved quickly and managed to catch Ryou before he slammed into the tiled floor, but Ryou’s head cracked painfully back against the wall.

Ryou groaned, his eyes pinched shut as he rubbed the back of his head, while the shadow gently eased him down onto his lap for the second time that morning. “Ow...” Ryou whimpered. “The floor is too slippery...”

“You’re right,” the shadow whispered next to his ear. He leaned forward, which caused his stomach to push up against Ryou’s erection, making Ryou moan and wrap his arms around the shadow’s shoulders once more. The water shut off a moment later, the sounds from the pipes and the drops hitting the tiles cut short, and the shadow leaned back a little again, wrapping his arm under Ryou’s buttocks, pulling him closer and a little higher.

Ryou made a sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh and curled over a little, pressing his face into the shadow's wet hair. A moment later, the shadow’s arms tightened and suddenly Ryou was being lifted up. He gasped and pulled his head up, terrified; if the shadow slipped or dropped Ryou on the tiles, it was going to hurt like hell. “What are you doing?!” he whispered.

“Like you said, the floor’s too slippery. Let’s go someplace a bit safer,” the shadow suggested, getting to his feet, Ryou held tightly against him.

“D-d-don’t drop me!”

“Shhhhh,” the shadow breathed, next to Ryou’s shoulder, and turned towards the door, complete confidence in his movements.

Ryou sighed a breath of relief and closed his eyes when they were on the carpeted floor of the hallway. Danger averted. It was only then that his brain started to make any attempt to process the rest of what was happening. It wasn’t processing very well though; as the shadow carried him, Ryou’s erection pressed and slid against his great abs, and Ryou’s thighs squeezed tighter around the shadow’s waist. He whimpered softly as he was carried down the hall.

The shadow rolled them down onto Ryou’s bed and the sheets clung to their wet bodies and tangled. An irritated little voice in the back of Ryou’s mind bemoaned the state of the bedding. He could hear the Millennium Ring rattling down on the floor next to his bed again, and his brain vaguely compared it to the sound the water had made against the tile. He was pulled out of his idle musings by the shadow’s mouth covering his again, tongue invading and twisting with Ryou’s.

The kiss was briefer than before and the shadow broke away and crawled backward, toward his previous position relative to Ryou’s body before the fall. He gave a lick and not-quite-bite to one of Ryou’s nipples on the way down, and received a loud gasp as reward. Moments later, the shadow was blowing gently over Ryou’s glans from an inch away, the sensation was equal parts blissful and frustrating as Ryou’s body screamed for so much more.

Ryou’s head tilted back and he uttered a loud sound, not quite a scream, not quite a moan, as the shadow licked the underside of his erection and then closed his lips around the head. Ryou was panting and moaning and he thought he might have even been shouting actual words but he couldn’t quite catch any of them, as though he were speaking a foreign language that he didn’t know.

All at once the shadow’s movement arrested completely. Ryou let out a plaintive little wail as the shadow drew back. Something indiscernible caught Ryou’s attention though, and he cracked his eyes open to look at the shadow. The shadow’s head was still tilted downwards and Ryou couldn’t see his expression, but the lines of his shoulders were strained and he might even have been trembling very slightly. Cold from the water still clinging to them?

“No... not now...” the shadow whispered, and it sounded like it came through gritted teeth.

“W-what are you doing?” Ryou mumbled through heavy panting, frustrated with the delay. He pushed himself up against his arms, staring down at the shadow who was definitely trembling now.

“Nng-- Huh?”

Ryou felt the ripple, the heka sliding over the shadow’s form for just a moment and then the person crouched between Ryou’s legs gave a start and sat up suddenly, staring at Ryou with wide, confused eyes. Ryou’s stomach dropped through the floor as he stared back at the real Malik Ishtar.

“B-Ba- n- Ryou...?” Malik whispered. The shock on his face was just starting to give way to something else when Ryou shoved Malik so hard that he tipped backwards off the bed and onto the floor.

Ryou jumped off the bed and ran past him, back to the bathroom. This time he locked the door.

Ryou turned on the shower again and stood under it before the water had reached an equilibrium. He stared at the tiles for a few seconds, one hand held over his mouth- to stop him from screaming, he realized. Shame, humiliation, guilt were surging up inside of him, and along with all of them the most terrible frustration.

Ryou grabbed the shampoo bottle from in front of him suddenly and threw it across the room, letting out a furious scream, before turning back to the wall and leaning his forehead against it, putting his hand back over his mouth as he whimpered shamefully. It was only a few seconds before his neglected arousal started to scream louder than his mortification at the position he’d just been found in.

He dropped the hand over his mouth to his erection and stroked himself to a quick, unsatisfying release, just wanting to get it over with. He pressed his other arm against the wall just above his forehead, supporting himself against it as he shook and kept whimpering. Could anything have been more humiliating than this? What must Malik think?

Ryou closed his eyes and sniffled a little as the falling water carried away the evidence, before shaking himself and standing up straight. He grabbed the washcloth and soap and set to work quickly scouring himself until his skin started to turn a little bit pink in places. Then he dropped the cloth on the floor, it needed to be laundered now too, and shut off the water. Ryou stood there shivering for a few minutes, though he wasn’t cold, the heat of the steam around him was keeping his body at a very comfortable temperature even now that the water had been turned off.

Finally, Ryou walked over to the towel rack. He pulled down his towel and scrubbed it over his face before ducking down to dry from his feet upwards and finally wrapping the towel snugly around his body. He let out a long sigh, squaring himself, and then opened the door.

Malik was standing against the opposite wall, fully clothed now and clutching the Millennium Ring -which had calmed down- in front of his chest as he stared at Ryou with an absolutely stricken expression. “... I am so sorry,” he whispered.

Ryou stared at him for several seconds, trying to process what on Earth Malik had to be sorry about. Realization slowly dawned that Malik naturally must have assumed the worst of his shadow. Ryou turned and stomped back into his bedroom. Of course, Malik thought that he was so weak. That anybody could take advantage of poor, little Ryou! Ryou fumed silently as he pulled open his dresser and yanked clothes out of it, not even looking at what he was selecting.

“R-Ryou...” Malik’s voice whispered from the doorway.

“Are you still here?!” Ryou demanded, slamming his shirt drawer shut and leaning against it, not looking at Malik.

“I- I’m sorry,” Malik whispered again and Ryou could hear him setting the Millennium Ring down on a wooden surface, the desk, before there were retreating footsteps and finally the front door opened and closed.

Ryou trembled, staring at the front of his dresser as minutes passed. His towel was starting to loosen and slip over his hips, and the need to catch it finally broke Ryou out of his trance. He slowly dressed himself, staring vacantly ahead as he did so, and then stood still for a few more minutes before turning towards his desk.

The Millennium Ring was laying still on the corner of it, the Thief’s fury apparently abated. Ryou walked over and looked down at it, chewing on his lip. The cord was broken on one side. Ryou knew he had more braided leather cord in his footlocker of craft supplies and so he focused his attention on finding it and tried to tune out the other thoughts vying for his attention.

...
...

A/N: The thing with the frozen rice in the first paragraph seems insignificant from a Western perspective and makes one say 'why did you feel this was worthy of mentioning?' but rice is not only the staple grain for Japan, it also holds a huge amount of cultural significance. One of the Japanese emperor's big roles is as the demi-god-person who makes the rice grow (and he still keeps his little rice field to this day) and the kami who presides over wealth is the one associated with rice (Inari). Rice is the most formalized part of a meal, while the rest of it is kind of 'whatever works,' rice has specific traditions and a marked elegance to it- rice is traditionally served by the household matriarch, which may be Mom or Grandma, depending on whether Grandma and Grandpa have declared themselves retired. So, all this explanation boils down to- when Ryou's like 'fuck it, eat your frozen rice,' this is rather crude.

So... there, have some shower-sex. Or, interrupted-and-relocated-from-the-shower-sex. And then cock-blocked by Malik. Er... Anyway. I have at least three more scenes planned out in my head, based around various reactions/conversations, which I’ll probably try to get all out in the next chapter. Aaaand... then I don’t really know how long I plan to take it from there. Probably some kind of vague resolve, I don’t want to turn this into a long series- I have too many of those yelling at me right now, two new universes have started assaulting my brain and I want to be able to give them my attention after I finish Final Eclipse, which has... two more chapters coming- I hope. The new universes that have crawled into my brain and taken up residence both promise a high ratio of sex scenes, so don’t worry my pretties, after this mini-series is gone, there will still be smut for you.

Anyway, y’know what you should do now? You should review!

Yugioh: Effigy

2011-02-05T05:33:27Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Effigy
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura
Rating: G
Warnings: Macabre symbolism?
Summary: Ryou goes to have a talk with his shadow, and he is unnerved, as always, by Bakura's 'parents'.

Ryou arrived in his soul-room, leaving his body and the throbbing pain in his left hand behind in bed after a late-night emergency-room visit. He paid it little attention to the scene, however, before walking out into the hall and stepping across to the opposite door.

It was barred today, a heavy beam having appeared across it, and the door looked like it could have withstood a head-butt from a bull elephant. Ryou laid his hands softly against the wood. The board was much too big for him to have moved if it were a physical reality. But it wasn’t a physical reality and Ryou willed it to disappear without too much effort.

The rest of the bolts and locks came loose and Ryou was soon stepping into the dark cell beyond. He let the door swing shut behind him and stood on the platform behind it, looking down into the lowered cell, where the Thief was pacing and mumbling, obvious distress on his features. Ryou steeled himself and descended the stairs that clung to the wall of the cell.

He stopped a few steps from the bottom of the stairs; he never ventured all the way down to the floor. But then, The Thief didn’t actually stand on the floor either. From wall to wall, the Thief’s soul-room was populated by tiny, clay figures, about the size of a man’s thumb and half-buried in sand. They were lumpish and indistinct, only vaguely suggesting the shape of a human, with no identifiable limbs or features, save for two cavernous eye-holes in the head-area of each one.

They were the Thief’s parents.

His real family probably existed somewhere among the throng of lilliputians, but the Thief wouldn’t have been able to tell them from the others, and they wouldn’t know who they were themselves. To call the people of Kul’Elna ‘ghosts’ would be giving them too much credit; they were nearly-anonymous, broken pieces of human souls. All things that had defined them as individuals in life having been stripped away, as all that they had been was torn apart in the violence of their slaughter.

None of them knew who exactly they were, but they all knew Thief King Bakhura; he was their legacy, their memory, their last hope, their precious child. Every fractured soul of his miniature, terracotta army considered the Thief to be their own flesh and blood.

At first, Ryou had thought it odd for the Thief to be treading upon the spirits of his ‘family’. It took a while for him to understand that what he was actually witnessing was the lost souls of Kul’Elna holding their son aloft, supporting and strengthening him, lifting their progeny up and imbuing him with all the will and power they had left to them. All their hate, all their anger, all their love.

“Thief,” Ryou called quietly.

The Thief whipped around to look at Ryou, apparently only just noticing his presence, having been distracted by his conversation with the pigmys. Ryou could only ever hear faint, distant whispers from the tiny figures, but the Thief could make out their words at times, though his throng apparently had a habit of always speaking in a deafening, simultaneous clamor.

“You helped him!” the Thief accused, giving Ryou a reproachful look. “You helped him and now he’s taken away all our friends!”

Ryou frowned down at him. “I told you, you can’t collect people who are still alive. That’s why we had to move, and you promised you wouldn’t do it again.”

“But this is different!” the Thief insisted. “It’s different because it was him! And now he’s taken all our friends and we don’t have any left at all!”

Ryou tilted his head slightly, not particularly surprised by the Thief’s complaint, but his explanation was odd. “Who? You mean the ‘Other Yuugi’? Who is he?”

“That was Pharaoh!” the Thief shouted furiously, as though the fact was obvious and Ryou should have known.

This new revelation was surprising, and Ryou settled down on the steps to consider it for a while. “You should have told me. How was I to recognize him?” Ryou said at last. “And you shouldn’t have involved the others. They have nothing to do with it, do they?”

“They’re helping him!” Bakura protested.

“I’m pretty sure they don’t know who he is either,” Ryou pointed out. “They were nice, Thief. Don’t punish them for his crimes.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt them,” the Thief sulked. “They could have been our friends.”

“But you promised you wouldn’t do that anymore,” Ryou reminded him.

“I needed to neutralize them,” the Thief said defensively. “So that they couldn’t get in the way.” His face crumpled into a glower. “And then you got in the way!”

“And you hurt me,” Ryou said in a flat, cold voice, returning the glare.

The Thief looked away, guilt dampening the anger on his face. “You wouldn’t stop fighting. I was just trying to fight back.”

“Thief, hands are complicated,” Ryou groaned. “It might never work right again. Musicians and artists can be ruined for life if their hand gets injured badly.”

The Thief’s eyes snapped back to his, wide and alarmed suddenly. “Is it bad?” he whispered. “Did I break it forever?”

Ryou sighed and leaned against his knees. “I don’t know...” he said quietly. “None of my tendons got severed. It hurts a lot, but I can still move my fingers. I don’t know how well it’s going to heal, but either way, it’s going to take a long time.”

“... I’m sorry,” the Thief mumbled, his gaze near Ryou’s feet. “I didn’t think about it.”

“I know,” Ryou sighed.

There was quiet between them for a while, and Ryou could hear the faint whispers of the parents, but the Thief didn’t seem to be paying attention or responding to them, so it must have just been their usual background chatter. “I found Pharaoh,” the Thief said quietly after a while. “But I don’t have all the keys yet...”

“So what were you even planning to do with him then?” Ryou asked irritably.

The Thief shifted uncomfortably. “Keep him until I was ready?” he hazarded.

“I don’t think you’d be able to keep the Pharaoh the same way as a normal person,” Ryou said, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t try to keep hold of him any longer than absolutely necessary. Not at all, if you can help it.”

The Thief nodded, looking scolded.

Ryou sighed. “Stay hidden for now. Pretend you’re not here and I can stay close to the Pharaoh while you find the other keys.”

The Thief smiled a little, meeting Ryou’s eyes again. “You’re a good master,” he said quietly, then his face darkened a little with worry. “Be careful. I don’t- we can’t let him hurt you. He’ll try. He hurts people.”

Ryou nodded. “I know,” he said softly. “I’ll be careful.”

The Thief smiled again and walked over to Ryou, atop the heads of his parents. He dropped his hands onto the steps and crawled up to bring his face level with Ryou’s and kissed his lips gently. Ryou tilted his head into the kiss and lifted a hand to pet the Thief’s hair. When they broke, the Thief eased back and sat down a few steps below Ryou, so that he could drape against Ryou’s lap.

Ryou considered, for a moment, complaining about how uncomfortable his seat on the stairs -and this ‘room’ in general- was, but he brushed it aside. The Thief obliged to spend more than a fair amount of their shared time within Ryou’s soul room; Ryou could tolerate these little visits with the Thief’s parents now and then.

...
...

A/N: The image that inspired this fic is one of my favorite installation art pieces, Antony Gormley’s ‘Field’. He traveled all over Greece and collected the local clay in each little town where he stopped and asked locals to sculpt him quick (like, maybe 5 minutes by the look of them) statuettes of people, giving them all the same amount of clay and the same object to poke eyes with for an element of uniformity, while all the people are completely different in their lumpiness. When he finished collecting statuettes from tons of little villages around Greece, he had *thousands* of them.

Delusions:: rewrite of MCTC

2011-02-03T05:29:22Z

Series:YuGiOh
Title: Delusions
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura
Rating: M
Warnings: Swearing and sexy times
Summary: A rewrite of Making Choices and Taking Chances. Circa episode 38. Bakura Ryou finds himself forced to choose his allegiance, between his friends from school and his darker half. While it's an unsettling decision, it's not one he lingers on for very long.

This is a rewerite of Making Choices and Taking Chances.

“I got rid of it! I chucked that thing as far as I could!” Honda shouted up from the arena.

Ryou stared, feeling numb. “Oh...” he said feebly. “Okay...”

“Would you watch Mokuba while we go after Pegasus?” Anzu called up to him.

“... Okay...” Ryou repeated, gripping the rail to keep his hands from shaking. He watched his four class-mates run off down a weird-looking hallway, chasing after their vanished host, and then he looked down at the unconscious ten-year-old propped against the railing next to him. What was wrong with Mokuba?

Ryou clutched at his chest, where the Millenium Ring should have been, and grasped only the fabric of his shirt. No. They were supposed to be his friends, weren’t they? How could they take away the one person...

A loud, tearless sob worked its way from Ryou’s throat and he looked around, feeling trapped, even in such a large space. He took off running, forgetting about Mokuba, and blundered down unfamiliar hallways, flinging himself at every door he saw until he found one that wasn’t locked. He was outside suddenly, where he was greeted with sunlight and gentle wind on his face. He panted and stared out at the small, wooded island.

Honda said he’d thrown the Ring. It must have been outside, right? Into the forest? Another sob passed Ryou’s lips and he closed his eyes, picturing the ring in his mind. He’d always been able to find things before, concentrating on what he wanted, following the silent call of his query, but that was when he’d had the Ring to guide him...

There was a warmth in the peripheral of his mind and he focused on it, turning his body slightly to the East to face the glimmer in his mind. As he concentrated on it, it became clearer, shining in the darkness and calling back to him. It felt so close, like it was right in front of him.

With his eyes still closed, Ryou reached out his hand, and his fingertips brushed warm metal. He grabbed the object firmly with both hands before opening his eyes to see the Millenium Ring glinting in the sunlight, its lanyard hanging loose, waiting to be hung around his neck where it belonged.

I found you, Ryou thought to it, sighing with relief and hugging the pendant to his chest.

Why?

What? Ryou frowned, still hugging the pendant like a living thing.

You obviously prefer your little ‘friends’ over me, the Thief’s inner-voice was acidic. So what business do you have calling me back?

That’s not true, I just didn’t want you to hurt them... Ryou protested, shaking his head. They don’t deserve it.

One of them does, and the others are guilty by association, the Thief snarled.

He was bitter, angry, betrayed; this wasn’t the same jealous rage he’d radiated on the previous occasions when he’d lashed out at Ryou’s friends from school; this was different. They weren’t even close friends, they were casual lunch-time friends, there was no reason for the Thief to be feeling threatened by them.

What is it? You’re acting strange, Ryou said, poking at the Thief’s mind and meeting an unusual barrier of hostility

... The midget is hosting him.

The pronoun was so charged with emotion, Ryou didn’t have to wonder for a second who the Thief meant. ... The Pharaoh?

Ryou found himself being pushed down and he didn’t resist. The Pharaoh? The Pharaoh was inside of Yuugi? That must have been ‘the other Yuugi’ he’d seen during the Shadow Game. He must be tied to Yuugi’s Millenium Puzzle the way the Thief was tied to the Millenium Ring.

Ryou opened his eyes and found himself sitting in his soul-room, with soft, warm light coming in through the shaded windows. The Thief was outside, controlling Ryou’s body and not letting him see out through his own eyes. Maybe he could have if he tried, but right now he didn’t really want to. What the Thief had said, about Yuugi and the Pharaoh being with him... This time it was different than one of his jealous fits. This time it made sense.

Ryou hugged his knees against his chest and bit his lip. The Puzzle had made Yuugi, and therefor the other three, the Thief’s enemies. But not just that. Honda had taken the Millenium Ring from Ryou, had tried to loose it... Of course he didn’t understand, but still... Doing something like that without even bothering to ask Ryou... Honda had blatantly stolen from him. What kind of friend does that?

Ryou closed his eyes and shivered. The friendship of Yuugi and his friends, and the constant, ever-present companionship of his Thief were mutually exclusive. He couldn’t have both.

In the last week, Ryou had been a fifth wheel among Yuugi’s friends. He was treated with the politeness of a casual acquaintance, left out of their jokes and forgotten in conversation. Even when they said he was their friend, he still felt like an outsider, isolated while surrounded. And Honda had stolen from him, taking the one thing Ryou would have run into a burning building to save...

He’d tried to take away Ryou’s Thief. The one person he depended on to always be with him. The Thief was his life-line, the most loyal and constant anything that Ryou had ever had. More dependable than friends, and certainly more dependable than Ryou’s father; Ryou would have felt confident saying that the Thief would never betray him.

But now he had betrayed his Thief.

“I’m sorry,” Ryou whispered, then he closed his eyes and thought the apology harder, focusing on conveying the sentiment to his Thief. I’m sorry.

There was silence for several moments before the response came, whispered directly into his mind. I was careless. I didn’t mean to involve you. There was a long pause, and Ryou could feel that the Thief was distracted by something. Can we please finish this later? I’m doing something very important right now.

... What are you doing?

Reading a fortune. I’ll read yours later, if you like, but I have to concentrate right now.

Ryou frowned to himself. Fortune-telling? That was completely out of left field. Ryou shook his head and sighed. He felt tired suddenly, and his soul-room seemed to have conjured up a futon in the corner as it tended to when the Thief was out for a walk and Ryou needed a nap. He stood up, rolling his shoulders, and moved across to the warm, inviting bedding, feeling very much in need of a nap.

...

“Ryou.”

Ryou’s eyes flickered open to the feeling of someone stroking his cheek. He looked up into eyes nearly identical to his own, which gazed back at him with a quiet anxiety. Ryou smiled and lifted his arms to wrap around the Thief’s neck. The Thief melted into him, pressing their lips together and settling around Ryou, one hand combing gently through Ryou’s hair.

They hadn’t spoken for a full night and day, not since the shadow-game with Yuugi -no, the Pharaoh. Ryou had felt lonely without the Thief’s voice, without the constant presence at his back, and it was a relief to have his Thief back here with him in his soul room, that wonderful little slice of unreality where they could touch like this. Ryou sighed into the kiss.

As the Thief pressed his body against Ryou and deepened the kiss, Ryou suddenly noticed something that made him freeze. The Thief was trembling. Ever so slightly. The Thief pulled back a few inches and looked at him, Ryou cupped a hand against the Thief’s cheek and searched the brown eyes above him. There was relief and need painted there and Ryou opened his mouth, trying to formulate a question.

“I was going to leave,” the Thief whispered.

Ryou blinked. “Leave?” he asked, puzzled.

“I found a body without a soul in it,” the Thief explained, looking away. “And since you chose your friends over me...”

A jolt of fear and desperate loneliness shot through Ryou and he grabbed the Thief’s face, pulling his eyes back to his own. “Don’t leave me!” he whispered in a panicked little voice. “Please!”

The Thief’s face crumpled up as he looked back at Ryou and then he leaned down to bury his face against Ryou’s neck. He was trembling again and his breath was fast and hitching. Ryou brought his arms tight around the Thief’s shoulders, pulling the Thief’s comforting weight onto him, and kissed his ear.

“... I killed someone,” the Thief whispered, barely audible. He didn’t lift his head, keeping his face close to the pillow where Ryou couldn’t see him. “A few hours ago.”

Ryou was silent, staring up at the ceiling with his mind blank, unable to form a reply, unable to even understand what the Thief had just said.

“Cold blood. Mutilated the corpse and everything,” the Thief’s voice had the tiniest hint of a whine to it, plaintive, begging for some kind of response.

“... Who?” Ryou breathed, knowing he needed to say something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to figure out what was the appropriate response to the Thief’s admission.

“Pegasus,” the Thief whispered back, still not lifting his head, keeping himself where Ryou couldn’t see his expression. “He had the Millennium Eye.”

The Millennium Eye wasn’t like the Ring or the Puzzle; it wasn’t removable. It might not have been possible to take it from Pegasus without killing him, even if it was done by a surgeon. The fact that the man could see with it indicated that it had integrated itself into his brain with some kind of shadow-magic. Ryou should have seen this coming, really. Of course the Thief would have to kill Pegasus to retrieve the Eye.

Even reconciling that, a point still bothered Ryou, seeming out of character, even in light of the necessity for murder. “... You mutilated him?” he asked.

“I... I couldn’t get a grip on it...” the Thief said, his voice sounding like it was trying to crack even though he was still just whispering. “... I took a paper-weight and I broke this part.” He finally pushed himself back so that Ryou could see his face, and he tapped above his eye.

Ryou stared silently at the spot the Thief had pointed out. It was the outer edge of the eye-socket, just in front of the temple, where the bone formed a curve from the eyebrow to the cheek-bone. It was perfectly logical, Ryou thought to himself. The Millennium Eye was metal, inflexible, and it had looked big, bone would have to be moved to get fingers around behind it...

The mental image of the Thief’s fingers sinking into Pegasus’ eye-socket, scooping out the Millennium Eye, made Ryou clench his teeth as his stomach turned. Sick sick sick.

“I didn’t leave fingerprints!” the Thief said, panicking at the expression that must have come over Ryou’s face. “I wore my gloves the whole time. When we get home, we’ll put everything you’re wearing in the incinerator and there will be nothing to put you in that room. Not even a hair. I was careful.”

Ryou nodded slowly, trembling. The Thief hovered above him, his expression worried, almost scared as he pet Ryou’s cheek and tried to reassure him. Ryou hadn’t even thought about murder investigations and forensic evidence yet. If the Thief killed somebody, he did it through Ryou’s body, and that meant any shred of physical evidence, at any crime scene left by the Thief, lead solidly to Ryou. That thought was terrifying, but he knew he could believe it when the Thief said he’d been careful. He knew how to be invisible, and he understood what modern genetic analysis could do.

“Y-your shoes weren’t keeping the water out anymore, so we need to get you new ones anyway,” the Thief said, looking at Ryou’s collar rather than his eyes. “And- and I checked the things inside your pockets, and your wallet and your phone and things didn’t get any blood on them so they’ll be okay. I covered all the little drops so nobody can see them, and as soon as we get home, we’ll put it all in a bag and then you can take a shower and put on nice, clean clothes, and then we’ll take everything right down to the basement and put it in the incinerator ourselves instead of using the chute, and then you can see that it’s gone and you won’t have to worry.”

Ryou nodded again, feeling numb. “It’ll be okay,” the Thief whispered, still not looking at Ryou’s face. He was trembling again, it was more pronounced than before. “I’ll take care of everything. Nobody can ever find you. I was careful.” The Thief closed his eyes and bit his lip, trying to calm himself down. “I- I-” he mumbled, his eyes still closed, his shaking unceased. “... This isn’t going to be the last time, Ryou,” he said, his voice tiny.

He opened his eyes again, finally looking back at Ryou properly. “I can’t let anyone get in the way. I can’t let anyone stop me. I have to do whatever it takes. I’ve come so far, Ryou, I’m almost there,” the Thief’s voice was desperate, pleading. “I can almost make him answer for what he did! I’m so close! I can’t stop now. I can’t. This is why I exist. This is what I am.” He dropped his head again, hiding from Ryou, their cheeks just barely touching. “I have to be a murderer, Ryou. I have to be the same as him... I have to win.”

Ryou pressed his eyes shut against the threat of tears and nodded again. “I know,” he whispered. “Wh-what can I do? How can I help you win?”

The tension in the Thief’s shoulders suddenly melted and his face pulled back a bit to find Ryou’s mouth again. Ryou parted his lips and invited the Thief’s tongue inside with his own. “You’re doing it,” the Thief whispered when he pulled away, just the tiniest bit. “You’re keeping me sane.”

Their mouths came together again. The kiss was deep and desperate, charged with emotion and need. Ryou kissed back just as desperately, one hand sliding into the hair at the nape of the Thief’s neck and the other moved to grip his shoulder. Ryou noticed vaguely that the shirt had disappeared and his palm was pressed against bare, heated flesh now. Clothing, like everything else in his soul room, faded away when it wasn’t wanted anymore.

Because it was all imaginary; the room and everything in it, even themselves, was just in their minds. Ryou’s body was sleeping somewhere, and Thief’s body was long gone. Every time they touched, it was an imaginary touch. Imaginary kisses, imaginary caresses, imaginary hands on imaginary skin.

His councilor used to say that Ryou’s ‘fantasy worlds’ were his way of escaping reality, a mechanism for shutting out the parts of life that were difficult and hiding behind a delusion. She thought he was one of those pathetic ‘2D-lovers’ or something, because she thought the Thief was one of his ‘delusions.’ The Thief was what separated Ryou from the guys with their pornographic body-pillows or their giant, silicone dolls. He wasn’t avoiding the difficulties and heartbreak of a real relationship; he’d let himself fall into the most difficult relationship he possibly could have found.

The lips on Ryou’s neck felt real, because his brain was processing them the same as it would if they were. Ryou closed his eyes and let out a happy sigh as hands gently slid up his sides, ticklish against his ribs. The Thief shifted his weight and kissed along Ryou’s collarbone, eliciting a soft mewl. The warmth of his Thief’s body and the softness of his lips weren’t real, but the intent was, the affection was, the perception and the memory left in its wake -the interaction- was real.

Yuugi was just the latest proof that the Thief wasn’t the sad creation of a damaged mind; another piece of evidence that vindicated Ryou and told him he wasn’t insane. That this wasn’t a dream. It was imaginary, but it was also real, because it was shared between the two of them, two autonomous psyches sheltered within one body. It wasn’t his fantasy; it was their fantasy, and that made all the difference. Their fantasy was collaborative, synergistic, a cadavre exquis of the mind. Art.

The Thief’s tongue slid over Ryou’s nipple and his breath hitched. He slid his hands over the back of his Thief’s shoulders, reveling in the feel of smooth skin over dynamic muscles. One of the Thief’s hands supported his weight, the other caressed Ryou’s thigh as he slowly moved lower, nipping softly at Ryou’s belly.

Ryou moaned as his Thief crouched between his knees and leaned down, gently blowing hot breath against the head or Ryou’s erection. Moments later, he’d taken Ryou into his mouth as a hand slid between Ryou’s thighs and stroked a burning line down his perineum, eliciting a deep groan from the bottom of Ryou’s throat. The Thief kept licking and sucking avariciously at Ryou’s erection as he worked his fingers inside and gently stretched Ryou’s entrance, with Ryou moaning shamelessly all the while.

Finally his fingers withdrew and the Thief crawled over Ryou, gazing straight into his eyes as he lifted Ryou’s hips off the bed. Ryou gasped lustily when his Thief pushed into him, throwing his head back and arching his spine. The Thief rocked into Ryou again and again. Ryou mewled with pleasure and reached his arms up, capturing his Thief and dragging their bodies closer as they moved together in synchronized rhythm.

The Thief leaned his head down and pressed his mouth against Ryou's neck, panting, kissing, biting, and the pace grew faster and faster, their bodies moving with more and more passionate force. Ryou had his head thrown back and eyes closed, blocking out sight to focus all his attention on the sheer sensation, submerging himself in feeling and the low, gasping grunts his Thief was making near his collarbone.

It all became a fevered upheaval of incredible pleasure as they hit the crescendo, brain synapses firing wildly as imaginary bodies crashed against each other. Ryou dug his fingers into his Thief’s hair and back and he screamed with complete abandon, desire reaching its zenith as they climaxed together, with the perfect synchronization that could only come from being inside each other’s heads.

After riding out the orgasm, they panted and kissed wetly in the afterglow, it seeming impossible to get enough of each other even as post-coitus exhaustion tried to claim them. When they finally succumbed, they nestled themselves snugly in each other’s arms, basking in the heat of each other’s bodies. There was flawless comfort and warmth in their imaginary embrace. Hollywood perfection that couldn’t be constructed in real life or in real bodies. Their foreheads rested together on the pillow, sweat and tangled, white hair mixing indistinguishably.

Their faces were too close to have focused in a world bound by natural laws, but Ryou lay with his eyes half-open, gazing at his Thief’s face. Nothing here was real except the things that really mattered. His Thief’s face wasn’t real, but the relaxed, happy expression on it was. Their bodies weren’t real, but the closeness was, the touching was. The warmth, the connection, the trust.

Ryou tilted his chin forward and pressed their imaginary lips together softly. A tiny smile played across his Thief’s lips. “Thief,” Ryou whispered and his Thief gave him an attentive look. “I love you,” Ryou murmured.

At Ryou’s words, his Thief’s eyes went wide with shock, confusion and a trace of fear that both pained Ryou and made the feeling stronger. His Thief’s mouth opened a bit, as though trying to find some kind of response and failing. Ryou leaned forward and kissed him again. “Shhhhhh...” he crooned. “It’s okay...”

The sudden confusion and apprehension eased out of his Thief’s face as he relaxed again, but his arms squeezed possessively around Ryou and might have trembled very very slightly, as he held him almost too tight. Ryou closed his eyes and let himself sink into sleep.

...

Bakhura generally tried to avoid waking up in his own soul room. Partly because Ryou wouldn’t be there, but mostly because he hated it. Spending time there was an unpleasant chore. It was dark and cold and empty. But it was never quiet. There were always things whispering at him. The things unnerved him, made him wonder if he was still in control of his own mind.

Today, he woke up to the whispers. He blinked his eyes open and swatted at his ear. A huge, black serpent darted its head away to avoid the slap. Bakhura had never had any particular dislike of reptiles, not like most people who loathed the creatures simply for existing, but the black snake that coiled itself around him whenever he was in this dungeon, that one made him nervous.

He didn’t like the things it said.

Your boy is gone, you know. It whispered.

Bakhura glared at it and sat up, looking around at the sand-covered floor of his stone prison. He didn’t remember coming in here, when had that happened? The serpent’s answer certainly couldn’t be trusted. No. His host would be just on the other side of that door.

Bakhura pushed the snake’s body off of him and struggled to stand up. The creature scoffed and slithered around his feet. You don’t believe me? Humans can not be trusted. The boy has gone and left you alone.

“You’re full of shit,” Bakhura grumbled, stepping over the snake and making his way to the narrow, sandstone stair-case.

The serpent followed him up, slithering right over the top of his feet, and nearly tripping him several times, as Bakhura cursed and kicked at it, before they finally reached the platform in front of the wood and iron door. The snake pooled at his ankles, forming a soft circle around his feet and giving him a haughty, challenging look. Bakhura ignored it and pulled on the door handle.

It didn’t move. He pulled again, more insistently, as the serpent started to snicker cruelly. The door still wouldn’t open. Bakhura lifted himself up on his toes and looked through the tiny window in the door. Outside of it, he saw only darkness. There should have been Ryou’s paper door just a meter away, but it wasn’t there.

Didn’t I tell you? the snake hissed and snickered derisively.

“Shut up!” Bakhura shouted at it and then turned back to the window, straining his eyes. Ryou’s door had to be there!

He’s gone. Your precious boy has left you. Because you let him. He should never have had the freedom to escape. Haven’t I told you that humans are made to be used?

“SHUT UP!” Bakhura screamed again, hysteria starting to set in. He couldn’t get out. He couldn’t open the door. Because there was nothing outside of this room. Ryou’s mind and Ryou’s body were gone.

He’d discarded the ring. Why? Had he changed his mind? Had he run from Bakhura like the serpent said? But why? He’d said he loved him! Why had he left?

“RYOU!” Bakhura screamed at the tiny window, trying to push his hands past the bars. As soon as his fingers went beyond the edge of his door, out into the darkness, they disappeared from view, like being dipped into some black liquid. “RYOU!” Bakhura screamed again, desperate and scared as he felt the snake crawling up his body, circling, squeezing, pulling him to his knees with its weight.

“Ryou...” he whimpered, clawing at the door so desperately his fingernails began to tear.

The snake’s head was right next to his ear now, its tongue tickling him as it whipped out between breaths. He can’t hear you. He’s gone. Just like I told you he would be. You have no use for human affection, Bakhura. It’s a filthy habit that you really need to break.

“N-no. It’s an accident. It has to be a mistake,” Bakhura whispered, sinking closer to the ground, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. “He’ll come back. He loves me.”

LOVE! The snake scoffed. Love is a meaningless word! That boy feared you, as he should, and because of your unwillingness to face reality, he has escaped from you at his first opportunity!

“That’s a lie! He could have gone before if he’d wanted to!” Bakhura protested. “He didn’t. He didn’t. And he’s not gone now. He’ll come back...” He pressed himself against the door, resting his cheek next to his bloody fingertips.

Do you never tire of living in delusion? The snake hissed next to his ear. Do you not have the immortality of a god? There is no frail human heart within your chest. And yet over countless ages, you have failed to complete your revenge!

Bakhura trembled, pressing his face harder against the door and feeling a few splinters sink into his skin. “Shut up,” he whispered. “You don’t know anything.”

The snake just snorted.

Bakhura dug his nails into the wooden door and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, biting down on his lip and trying not to hear the serpent’s voice. It was lying. It was lying. It always lied.

Suddenly he heard a sound, like a muffled thump, and it had come from outside. Bakhura’s eyes snapped open and he looked up at the little window in the door, he could see light coming through it now. “RYOU!” he screamed desperately.

A moment later, the sounds of a dozen bolts and locks coming undone greeted Bakhura’s ears and then the door he’d been leaning on gave way, letting him tumble into the hall. He heard Ryou’s voice; he gasped and then shouted in a frightened, angry sounding voice, “Let go of him!”

Bakhura looked up to see Ryou and the snake glaring at each other. The snake was hissing viscously at Ryou, its head bobbing back and forth slightly as though readying to strike. Bakhura’s hand shot up and grabbed the serpent around the neck as he struggled and kicked at its lower body, still tangled around him.

With Ryou’s help, he managed to get free of the serpent’s coils and they both shoved the angry creature over the ledge, back down into the dungeon, as it hissed and screamed insults and threats at them. The next moment, Ryou grabbed Bakhura by the arm and all but threw him out into the hall, slamming the prison door shut.

Then they both stood in the hallway, panting and staring at each other. Bakhura was the first one to speak. “You left me,” his voice sounded whiney and pathetic to his own ears.

Ryou lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it would be this bad,” he said quietly. “It was only for a little while.”

“Why?” Bakhura asked plaintively. He was confused, and maybe upset, when Ryou looked back up at him and smiled.

“Let me show you,” he whispered, catching Bakhura’s hands and pulling their bodies close together. He closed his eyes and Bakhura followed suit, floating up towards consciousness.

A moment later, their eyes opened. Ryou’s body was sitting at the kitchen table with his head rested on his arms. Ryou sat up, while Bakhura watched passively through his eyes. He then pushed away from the table and walked toward the bathroom. When he got there, Ryou proceeded to take off his shirt.

What are you doing? Bakhura asked curiously as their sight was momentarily obscured by fabric.

“Look,” Ryou instructed as Bakhura again caught sight of their reflection in the mirror. There was a rectangular bandage carefully taped to Ryou’s chest, just bellow the collarbone on the left side, above his heart.

What happened to you?! Bakhura demanded, internally searching, and finding, a slight, burning pain under the bandage. Who did this?!

He was baffled at first when Ryou just smiled, looking very smug, and raised his hands to carefully peal back the tape. Ryou leaned closer to the mirror and focused on the mark that was being uncovered by the removal of the bandage, and Bakhura’s mind went blank, not quite able to process what he was seeing.

He stared at the finely drawn black lines carved right into Ryou’s flesh. The shape of a cartouche outlining tiny, perfect, ancient characters that Bakhura couldn’t help but recognize.

... My name...?

“Your Ren is part of me now,” Ryou whispered. “Permanently. No one can steal it. Not even you.”

Bakhura just stared, unable to even begin to think of a response.

“Your Ren, right next to my Ib, because you are my Sheut and I cannot live without you.” Ryou closed his eyes, smiling with satisfaction. “Our Baw are connected.”*

... Come inside. Bakhura couldn’t even identify what emotions he was feeling. There were too many pressing at him to sort out, and so many of them were completely unfamiliar. Please?

Yes. Ryou opened his eyes again and carefully put the bandage back into place, again covering the fresh tattoo to protect it from infection. It was far precious to allow anything to mar its perfect lines. After he was satisfied that the bandage was in order, Ryou walked out of the bathroom, flipping off the light, and went to his bedroom. He settled himself on the bed and then his consciousness and Bakhura’s slid down into Ryou’s warm, afternoon-lit soul-room.

...
...

* Ryou was naming several parts of the soul in Egyptian tradition. The Ren is a person’s name and their existence post-death is tied to their name, thus why writing someone’s name down as many times as possible (or destroying every instance of someone’s name if you don’t like them) is extremely important within ancient Egyptian religion. The Ib is the heart, which also makes up part of the soul and is counted independently of the body (the Ha). The Sheut is a person’s shadow, which is linked to them and neither can exist without the other. Baw is the plural of Ba, which is the personality.

A/N: So this has been a rewrite of the original version that I posted 10 months ago. When I first wrote it, I was still kind of experimenting and getting a feel for the characters, and then this fic ended up being the beginning of a much larger story-verse (the Serpentine Series) and so when I came back three fics down the road from the first version of this one, I found that some of the characterization I’d written in it didn’t fit the way I’d ended up shaping the characters in the later fics. If you want to read the original version of this fic, it’s available on my livejournal still, but it’s really of a lower quality in my opinion.

If you want to continue with the Serpentine Series, the next fic I wrote after this one was the one-shot Bad Religion. And no matter how much time passes, I always appreciate an out-of-the-blue review.

Bits and Pieces part 14

2011-01-28T02:31:33Z

Series: YuGiOh
Title: Bits and Pieces
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Yami-Bakura, Kujaku Mai, Jonouchi Katsuya, Kaiba Mokuba, Yami-Bakura, Mutou Yuugi, Yami-Yuugi
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Swearing
Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11a, 11b, 11c, 12, 13
Summary: The usual "What if a yami or two gets their own body at the end of the series there?" set-up; people get bored waiting for their turn to duel at the tournament.

Two sevens.

Bakhura slammed his palm down on the pile of cards as Mai was just starting to reach out. She swore and laughed as Bakhura grinned and pushed the cards together before adding them to the bottom of his stack. “Getting’ kinda slow there, ain’cha?” he jeered.

“Well I guess not many people have hands quicker than a thief,” Mai shot back, smirking.

“Shame you couldn’t stinky up the deck, huh?” Bakhura started the pile again with a three.

“Hard to do when I’m playing a gangster who always insists on using his deck,” Mai retorted, throwing down a queen.

Two. Eight. Bakhura swore as Mai swept up the pile. “Are you accusing me of cheating?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t give you that much credit!” Mai laughed, dropping a six.

“Them’s fighin’ words!” Bakhura declared.

“Ooh, bring it on, tough-guy!”

“Hey McGrumpy! Are you hitting on my girl?!” Jonouchi demanded, drifting over to their table as his conversation with Yuugi apparently ended. They were on a balcony overlooking the stage with the tournaments other contestants who weren’t currently playing a match.

“Joji, I think you’re confused,” Bakhura said, smirking and gesturing towards Mai. “This is not a ‘girl.’ This is a ‘woman.’” He moved his hands through the air, outlining imaginary curves, as he said the word.

Mai burst out laughing and Jonouchi flushed, now looking genuinely concerned. “Hey, back off, man!” he snapped, slamming his hands down on the edge of the table. “Quit eyeing her!”

“What, you mean I’m not supposed to look down her blouse?” Bakhura asked, lifting himself a few inches and peering at Mai’s cleavage with great exaggeration. “Why is it so low in the front then?”

Mai started laughing harder and Jonouchi turned fire-engine red and fumed. “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

“Well then,” Mai said, still laughing, “you’d better slap-in!”

Jonouchi looked blank for a moment, apparently forgetting to be angry in his confusion. “What are you playing?”

“Ratscrew!” Bakhura answered and then slapped a pair of fours. “Ha!”

“Son of a bitch!” Mai exclaimed, more laughs falling from her lips. “Jonouchi, you’re distracting me! He’s gonna win!”

“I’ll win either way!” Bakhura countered, dropping a nine. “What’s wrong, your little-girl hands can’t keep up?”

“I thought I was a ‘woman’,” Mai reminded him.

“Yeah, I thought so too!” Bakhura snapped back and received another laugh.

“God damn it!” Jonouchi exclaimed, red and furious again, pulling at his hair. “Stop flirting with each other! What are you, starting a harem or something?!”

“I should have a harem,” Bakhura agreed, keeping his eyes on the pile.

“Hm, that job come with a benefits package?” Mai asked, making Jonouchi go inarticulate with rage.

“Diamonds!” Bakhura declared.

“Ooh, that’s a girl’s best friend!” Mai noted, teeth showing between her grinning lips as Jonouchi started sputtering.

Bakhura laughed. “I may not be a gentleman, but I do prefer blondes,” he shot back with a wink.

Jonouchi lost it and tackled Bakhura, which had the unfortunate effect of tipping over the table and spilling the current pile, along with Bakhura’s hand, across the floor. “Nooo! I was winning!” Bakhura laughed and blocked Jonouchi’s fist with his forearm before wrestling him into a headlock. Mai laughed hysterically through the whole thing.

“Hey! No fighting!” the voice of Commissioner Kaiba Mokuba shouted at them, though one of his bodyguards had the back of his shirt and wasn’t letting the eleven-year-old run into the fray.

“Self-defense!” Bakhura protested, laughing and keeping a solid grip on Jonouchi’s head as the teenager struggled and clawed at his arm.

“Jonouchi-kun, I think maybe you should just watch the match...” Yuugi suggested from the sidelines.

“You know, you’re really not helping, Mai...” Atemu added with an eye-roll.

“Y-you can’t buy entertainment like this!” Mai declared, still laughing.

...
...

A/N: So part of the back-and-forth between Bakhura and Mai, “I may not be a gentleman, but I do prefer blondes” refers to the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, where Marilyn Munroe sang Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend. So, I'm breaking the culture wall here and throwing in an American pop-culture reference (well, pop culture of the 1950s, anyway) because it was funny at the time. For the purposes of the joke, I’ll consider Ryou platinum-blond...

Oh, and they’re playing ‘Egyptian Ratscrew.’ Hahaha, I’m so clever.

Hm, I don’t know if I have anything else I want to write for the tournament... Not sure where I’ll pick up with the next drabble...

YGO- Social Intercourse

2011-01-26T09:02:53Z

Series: YuGiOh
Title: Social Intercourse
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Bakura Ryou, Yami-Malik
Rating: M
Warnings: SEX!
Summary: Smut! Ryou wakes up the morning after his yami and Malik spent the night together but it isn't Malik he wakes up with. Philosophy and the question of what is consent ensues.

Ryou woke with a weight on his chest. It reminded him of when his grandmother’s cat would sleep on top of him. But it wasn’t the New Year’s holidays, so he wasn’t at his grandmother’s house. He blinked blearily up at the ceiling; sleep was being slow in draining away this morning, like he’d slept particularly deeply. He couldn’t remember being especially tired last night though...

Actually he couldn’t remember anything from last night.

The last thing he remembered doing was putting away his text books after finishing his homework in early evening. Well, at least the Thief was respecting his study schedule. Ryou sighed and it reminded him of the weight on his diaphragm. He lifted his head a few inches and looked. There was not a charcoal-gray cat laying on his chest, but a head of mid-length blond hair and a deeply tanned arm.

Ryou groaned and dropped his head again. Well, now he knew why he felt sluggish.

He glanced sideways at his alarm-clock. It had been turned off. That’s right, it was Saturday. Well, there was another thing to be thankful for. He sighed again, letting his eyes drift shut. He must have dozed off, because he started slightly when the body draped over and against him stirred. Ryou bit the inside of his lip, more irritated than dreadful of the scene that was about to ensue, it had been unbelievably awkward the first few times, but by now it was almost routine.

He felt the head lift and then heard a soft groan that sounded somewhere between annoyed and resigned.

“Again, Malik...?”

That was not been the voice Ryou had been expecting to hear. His eyes snapped open and he lay absolutely still. He watched silently as the other half of Malik Ishtar pushed himself up sleepily. The shadow sat there for a moment, leaned forward with part of his weight supported on his arms, and yawned. After a few moments, his head lifted and turned toward Ryou.

Ryou’s eyes widened and he inhaled sharply, only then realizing that he’d been holding his breath.

“Oh...” the shadow said raising an eyebrow. “Hello there.”

Ryou just stared, his heart and lungs picking up a panicked pace.

“Bakura Ryou, isn’t it?” the shadow asked, his lips pulling into an amused grin.

Ryou nodded silently.

The shadow chuckled, tilting his head. “Well aren’t you a cute, little bunny,” he said, turning his body and moving closer to Ryou. He lifted a hand and brushed the back of his fingers against Ryou’s forehead, before trailing them slowly down the side of his face. “That face is so much prettier without a scowl on it,” he mused, moving in towards Ryou’s nose and then trailing the pads of his index and middle fingers slowly out over Ryou’s cheek and down around the curve of his jaw.

Ryou stared up at the amused, fascinated expression on the shadow’s face and felt cold with fear. Malik’s light side was on a level of morality with Ryou’s shadow. His dark side... Ryou’s schoolmates had related to him the psychotic brutality and murderous intent of this sadistic creature that was said to be barely recognizable as human.

The shadow’s fingers brushed over Ryou’s lips, pulling his bottom lip down with the friction of his fingertips. There was a pause, then the shadow’s fingers pushed between Ryou’s slightly parted lips. A surge of outrage momentarily suppressed the fear and Ryou jerked his head to the side, clamping his teeth shut.

The shadow laughed again, louder than before. “Ah, so you’re not a doormat then,” he said, grinning and retracting his hand, which he proceeded to rest firmly on Ryou’s thigh, so far up that his thumb rested over Ryou’s pelvis. “Good... I like that,” he said in a low voice, leaning down a bit closer.

“What, do you want me to fight back or something? Make it more interesting?” Ryou whispered, regretting the words before he even said them, but unable to stop himself.

The shadow’s eyebrows lifted a little and his smile widened. “Well, found your voice, did you?” he asked. “And so articulate. Fully expressing defiance without the bitching and the tantrums... So much more effective and respectable.”

“Implying there are people you respect?” Ryou asked.

“A person in total is rarely respectable,” the shadow chuckled, using the hand that wasn’t occupying Ryou’s thigh to brush at his hair. “But individual personality traits worthy of respect? Much easier to find.”

“I see.”

“And the fact that you’re not a whiney, little bitch? Quite respectable from my point of reference,” the shadow explained, shifting, moving the hand off of Ryou’s thigh and trailing it slowly up and across his chest. This action had apparently been for the purpose shifting his position again, putting his elbow down on the far side of Ryou’s chest so that he could lean down over him.

“All I know about you is a list of your victims and would-bes,” Ryou said quietly. “The list of successes seems quite short for the psychotic killer you’re described as, indicating that either your murderous intent has been overstated or that you’re not very good at it.”

“That sounds a bit like a dare,” the shadow noted, his smile unfaltering.

“Just an observation,” Ryou replied without blinking. “I’m still trying to guess what you intend to do now. The blatantly sexual tone you’ve taken suggests that rape is on the menu. You’re not giving much indication of an intent to kill me, but then, I don’t know your mannerisms well enough to decide that, so I’m left wondering just how much you plan to take from me today.”

The shadow was silent for more than a minute, just studying Ryou and smiling. He traced lines on Ryou’s chest with his index finger. “Incidentally, what tone should I take when I wake up in bed with somebody who I apparently had a very busy night with?” he asked.

“I wasn’t there,” Ryou asserted quietly. “And I rather doubt you were. He doesn’t seem to like you very much.”

“Hnn.” The shadow smirked. “The feeling is mutual,” he said and then shifted a little bit, frowning and sighing. “And he is rather rough to this body, although, I’m sure Malik encourages it.”

Ryou’s eyes flicked to a series of crescent-shaped bruises on the shadow’s -Malik’s- neck and shoulder. There was also a fainter, less noticeable ring around the wrist of the hand he was petting Ryou with. Ryou was willing to bet there would be a matching mark on the other wrist, most likely from a silk rope or padded hand-cuffs.

Ryou’s own body didn’t have any particular damage; he was thankful that Malik seemed to be the sub in their sadomasochism games. “So why don’t you enlighten me,” he asked, leveling his eyes with the shadow’s. “Are you going to give it back bruise for bruise? Or do you plan to be more creative, using me for your canvas?”

The shadow laughed. “Are you afraid of me, bunny?” he asked in a whisper. “Afraid that I’m going to tear you apart, just because I can?”

“Can you?” Ryou asked. “I don’t think you outweigh me, not by much at least. But I’ve noticed that Thief seems to be physically stronger than me. Is that part of the magic that ties you to us? Or a side-effect of your nature?”

“A little of column A, a little of column B,” the shadow said with a shrug, stroking Ryou’s chest slowly. “And the question of whether I can do any little thing that strikes my fancy to you? I assure you, bunny, I can.”

“Could you if it were him?” Ryou asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, keeping his tone curious rather than challenging. “From experience, I would say that he always tunes in very quickly when I’m in physical pain.”

“Really?” the shadow asked, his smirk spreading a little wider as his fingers continued to gently pet Ryou’s chest. In a sudden flash of motion, the shadow’s arm whipped out to the side and a line of burning ran across the back of Ryou’s neck. He turned his head just in time to see the Millennium Ring slam into the wall before falling to the floor.

He stared blankly at the space on the wall where the Ring had impacted for a while. When had the shadow cut the cord? How had he- with what? Slowly, he turned his face back towards the shadow hovering above him. “So I suppose that’s your answer? Of what you plan to do to me?” he whispered.

The shadow shrugged again. “Maybe I just don’t want to run the risk of having to listen to that gutter trash flattering himself,” he suggested. “Whatever I decide to do with you, I don’t much care to be interrupted.”

“So you still haven’t decided.”

“Hnn.” He stroked his hand through Ryou’s hair, brushing against his ear and his neck. “What to do with a pretty bunny and no interruptions...” he mused. “You know, I do find myself rather enjoying our conversation.” He caressed Ryou’s neck and cupped his jaw. “I do so rarely have the opportunity to engage such a charming boy in social intercourse.”

“I suppose not,” Ryou said. “Most people seem to be rather terrified of you. And Malik’s personality doesn’t lend itself well to attracting much friendly company.”

The shadow laughed. “So true!” he agreed. “And as for my own reputation, I must point out that my actions have always been purely in the interest of self-preservation.” He sighed, his smile looking more thoughtful and less anticipatory as he smoothed his hand against Ryou’s collarbone. “Is it so evil to cling to one’s existence? I struck at the persons who have spent the last six years attempting to destroy me.”

“In and of itself, it couldn’t be considered evil unless one was to consider all living things evil.” Ryou looked evenly back into the shadow’s eyes and spoke without hesitation, in a tone with which one might deliver a paper. “At the heart of natural-selection is the idea of one organism using any advantage it has to live while others of its species die. The stronger will always prevail over the weaker in a natural environment.”

“And supposing, for the sake of argument, that I am stronger than Malik? Why did I lose that battle?” the shadow asked, shifting his weight again, moving to balance more of his body over Ryou’s.

“You lost your bid to replace Malik because others were helping him,” Ryou replied easily, carefully giving the shadow’s movement no acknowledgement. “Cooperation within a community of organisms does have its place in natural-selection as well, but the problem with your particular situation is that Malik was not part of a community with the Pharaoh,” he continued. “The Pharaoh helped him because of a very human characteristic. He made a value judgment, and he judged your life to be worth less than Malik’s.”

The shadow smiled deeply, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “And you, little bunny?” he whispered, positioning his thigh between Ryou’s and pressing against his groin. “What is your value judgment, hmm?”

Ryou’s breath hitched and he clenched his teeth briefly before forcing his jaw to relax and answering. “I prefer to avoid making judgments before I know the facts on which I should be basing them.”

The shadow’s grin pulled wide and his teeth showed. “So wise, so young, bunny!” he praised, easing his thigh back and then pressing in again. “So tell me, what makes a boy like you so contemplative?”

“Ng!” Ryou dug his fingers into the sheets and clenched his teeth again. “Having my life- ngh- ripped out- uhh-of my c-control,” he bit out as the shadow continued to grind against him with an air of leisure.

“Ahh,” the shadow whispered, his face inches from Ryou’s. “What a marvelous thing it must have been, to at some point in time had control of your fate, or even an illusion of it...” The shadow leaned down, cupping the side of Ryou’s jaw in his hand again as he slowly licked around the curve of the opposite mandible.

Ryou focused a great deal of attention on not making any vocalization that might have sounded appreciative, though he couldn’t stop himself from panting. This didn’t feel much like he would have imagined a prelude to rape. The gentleness of the teeth and lips teasing at the sensitive skin below his ear seemed to very much dispute the violent image he’d been given of this being. “Ec-explain?” he panted, his body swaying involuntarily with the slow rhythm the shadow had established.

The shadow kissed slowly up Ryou’s jaw and brought their lips together, sighing softly as he pressed his tongue into Ryou’s mouth and explored it with great care. When he pulled back, he did so only by the breadth of a hair and when he spoke his lips brushed repeatedly against Ryou’s. “I have spent three thousand years as the tool of men long since dead and buried.” His damp breath rolled along Ryou’s skin, over his chin and against the base of his nose. “Conscious, unlike the Pharaoh or your little friend... My sole purpose in unlife has been to serve as a living ledger.”

“How are you- huh-hhhh- connected?” Ryou mumbled, fighting with himself not to squirm. “There’s no- mn!- Millennium Ite-ah!”

“I am the item,” the shadow hissed. His hand abandoned Ryou’s jaw and moved down to find his wrist. Ryou let go of the bed sheets as his hand was guided to the shadow’s back and pressed against the scarred lines of hieroglyphics there. “Renewed every fifteen or twenty years... over and over, as I travel through the ages and through the blood of my descendants...”

Ryou moved his hand slowly over the shadow’s back, feeling the variation in the texture of the scars and the unmarred flesh between. The shadow went back to work behind Ryou’s jaw, moving slowly down the line of his neck and then up again to nibble on his ear. What the shadow seemed to be telling him was that his essence was carried within the shape of the words and symbols themselves, tied to the meaning rather than a single, physical object like the Thief or the Pharaoh.

“H-how did- ahhhaaah!” Ryou tilted his head back and his spine arched as the shadow slid a hand under him, squeezing Ryou’s buttock and shifting his hips slightly to put more pressure against his crotch.

“Mmhmhm,” the shadow chuckled, nuzzling behind Ryou’s ear. “Do you want to have story-time, bunny?” he asked.

“Y-yes,” Ryou whispered quickly and closed his mouth before another involuntary sound could be pulled from it.

The shadow pulled his head back and found Ryou’s mouth again, pressing a deep, lingering kiss on him. He started to pull away but then seemed to be drawn back for a fraction of a second, to place a quick, follow-up kiss to Ryou’s lips before speaking. “All right, bunny,” he breathed, sounding indulgent. “Just because you’re so very attentive.”

He propped himself back up on his left elbow and hovered over Ryou, looking straight down into his eyes. “Do you know much about how magic was worked in those days?” the shadow asked, tilting his head just slightly. “Do you know what a medium is?”

He wasn’t grinding as insistently and Ryou dared opening his mouth to speak, managing to do so without any unintentional vocalizations, though he was still breathing very heavily. “Mediums talk to the dead,” he panted. “The old folk beliefs in Japan had mediums, priestesses who channeled spirits through themselves to speak to the living.”

“Hm.” The shadow looked thoughtful. “Women? They wouldn’t use females for something like that in the old country. Their nature as life-givers makes them more open to attack by spirit forces. They were protected from such things for the sake of their health and any children they might bear.”

“Japanese priestesses aren’t married,” Ryou explained, his voice uneven.

“Interesting,” the shadow said with a nod. “In the old country, mediums were made from boys, ones just on the brink of puberty. You see, it’s the age when the soul is the most malleable and versatile.” The shadow’s eyes wandered from Ryou’s to watch his own fingers lightly caressing the curve of Ryou’s shoulder. “A boy between ten and twelve years would be transformed, by the clergy, into a human nexus between the world of the living and that of the dead.

“My father was a low level priest in the primary temple of the Living Horus three thousand years ago, a man of little particular importance, but he had a son just the right age, and he proudly sold his child into eternal servitude to the Pharaoh and the Gods.” The words seemed contemptuous, but there was no hint of that in the shadow’s voice, just a calm, conversational tone. It seemed just a bland stating of the facts, for which he had no particular interest. “He gained rank among his peers for his sacrifice... and I became a creature which belongs to neither this world nor the hereafter.

“Not long after becoming a tool of the priests, I was presented with a wife, and when I was fourteen years of age, my eldest son was born.” His eyes had returned to Ryou’s and there wasn’t any hint of resentment there. “Ten years passed and I was groomed and transformed into a high ranking priest within the Pharaoh’s temple. When my son reached his tenth birthday, he was taken, as I had been, and prepared to become a medium.

“It was my task to initiate him through the ceremony that I had undergone at his age, wherein his body itself became the vehicle of the spell.” The shadow sighed softly, and finally a touch of emotion crept onto his features. “It came as a shock to everyone, at that time, that as I connected the last, bloody line, completing and binding the heka into my son’s body, my own heart stopped.”

The shadow paused for a while, brushed his fingers through the hair just above Ryou’s temple, his gaze following the action. When he started speaking again, his voice was just a little softer than it had been. “I think it was a terrible shock to my son. He felt great personal guilt for my death, despite the ceremony having been forced upon him,” he said slowly, the flicker of a frown crossing his brow. “It took over three years before I regained myself enough to speak to him.

“From then, for the next twelve years, I guided and advised him and he grew into a more competent priest than any around him.” A soft look, that seemed completely out of place on the shadow, crossed his features. “I loved him dearly, we were closer than any teacher and student, parent and child or husband and wife could ever be. And then, when his heir turned ten and was inducted, my son found that he was suddenly alone within himself for the first time in many years.”

His eyes came back to Ryou again and he smiled, not as soft as his previous expression, but still much softer than his smirks from before. “It took me only six days to sort myself out that time, and I spoke to my son again through the lips of my grandson, and I was happy again for a time...” He glanced away, eyes distant and unfocused, and his smile became wistful. “I existed within the body of my great-grandson when at last my beloved son died, peacefully and in his old age,” he said, his voice becoming quieter.

“I continued that way, passing from heir to heir within my family for generation after generation, traveling by knife-point,” the shadow continued, his voice again becoming conversational. “I taught them, I guided them, I loved them...” Now his expression shifted, the corners of his mouth didn’t turn down especially far and his brow didn’t tighten particularly much, but something in his face became bitter and contemptuous. “But every time it got a little harder, every time they became a little more despicable, until eventually, I found myself hating them.”

The shadow wasn’t looking into Ryou’s eyes now, he was gazing, almost glaring, at a point thousands of years beyond Ryou’s ear. “I stopped teaching them. I stopped talking to them. I stopped even making them aware of my presence. In time they forgot me, and though it’s what I wanted, I despised them all the more for it,” he spat, then he turned his attention back to Ryou. “Do you really think Malik’s father is the first one I killed? He was a particular blight to me, but he certainly wasn’t unique.” He snorted, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “I was trapped within that impotent wretch’s decaying body for more than thirty years waiting for an heir. It was a relief to be rid of him, so much so that I almost found myself fond of Malik for a time.” He let out a bitter, one-note laugh and then his lips formed a sneer. “I enjoyed killing that man.”

There was quiet for a few moments and Ryou turned the story over slowly in his mind a few times, before addressing the shadow again. “Which made you bitter? Existing for so long without a body or life of your own, or watching generation after generation of your children die?”

The shadow looked down at him, his face blank for a few seconds before breaking into a smile as he dropped upon Ryou and nuzzled him. “Such a clever, thoughtful boy you are, Bakura Ryou!” he praised, tickling a hand gently up Ryou’s side and then down again. “How I wish my descendants could have been more like you,” he sighed and kissed the underside of Ryou’s jaw.

“Somehow, I find the thought of you treating one of your own descendants like you’re doing with me now rather disturbing,” Ryou noted, rolling his eyes.

The shadow laughed at the comment. “Did you like the story?” he asked in a playful voice and licked Ryou’s ear lobe. “It’s customary to pay the story-teller, you know.”

“I don’t know it,” Ryou replied. “I doubt anybody from the modern world knows that custom. There aren’t story-tellers anymore.”

“What a pity that is,” the shadow sighed dramatically. “But if you’re short on coins, I’ll gladly accept just the pleasure of your company,” he said, grinning against Ryou’s neck and stroking his thigh, before pushing himself up a bit to seek out Ryou’s mouth again. He sighed into the kiss and ground his thigh against Ryou again, eliciting a strangled hiccup noise in the back of Ryou’s throat.

It was getting harder and harder to hold back unwanted sounds, and Ryou was just getting harder. There was sweat dampening his skin and his breath was getting too labored. Ryou had to open his mouth to pant, no longer able to suck in enough oxygen through his nose. That was his downfall. Moments after opening his mouth, he was groaning throatily. The shadow purred against his neck.

“Mm? Is that right, bunny? Tell me more,” the shadow chuckled, nipping and then sucking at Ryou’s neck. The shadow’s thumb was moving over Ryou’s nipple, brushing lightly across and then pressing and rolling a circle. Ryou’s back arched against his will, pressing his chest up into the shadow’s, and three short, breathless moans escaped him. “Such an excellent conversationalist, bunny!” the shadow murmured against his skin.

The shadow shifted their legs again, getting his hips between Ryou’s thighs and grinding their erections together. Ryou had gotten beyond worrying about his pride and keened loudly, twisting his hands in the sheets and pressing wantonly against the shadow. His eyelids drooped and he watched the shadow moving above him through half-shaded eyes.

After a few agonizing minutes, the shadow moved his arms, wrapping them around Ryou’s waist and behind his shoulders, and suddenly Ryou was being pulled up off the bed. One breath in the tempo of his panting turned into a startled gasp as he was relocated, and now found himself straddling the shadow’s lap. Ryou glanced around in confusion, unsure of the new position. This was all definitely erotic, and it was definitely getting him off, but it was failing to progress by the familiar script of a porno and Ryou was getting lost.

He’d seen anal-sex from this position in pornos, but that didn’t really seem to be the shadow’s plan here. The shadow’s arms circled around Ryou’s waist and pulled him in closer, bringing their bodies together as the shadow spread his legs, dropping Ryou lower in his lap. One hand slid down around Ryou’s buttock and squeezed as the shadow kissed his neck and whispered, “Come on, bunny, move.”

That was the plan; he wanted to put Ryou in control of the motion, the friction between their bodies, to change what was happening from molestation to consensual frottage. Forcing Ryou into not being forced. Ryou snorted, turning his head a bit and glaring off into space. “I’m not that easy to manipulate.”

The shadow shivered, making an odd vocalization that sounded both frustrated and delighted. “In all your clever little comments, you haven’t once asked me to stop,” he breathed against Ryou’s jaw.

“I also never said you could start,” Ryou countered, keeping his teeth pressed together as he strained not to do exactly what the shadow wanted.

“You’re so hard, bunny,” the shadow whispered.

“You’ve been fondling me for half an hour,” Ryou gritted.

“You didn’t try to cut our conversation short.” The shadow was trembling slightly, apparently making a great effort not to push Ryou down and finish him off. “You asked questions...”

“Maybe I was hoping to stall until Malik woke up,” Ryou retorted.

“... Bunny, please...” the shadow whined, more than a hint of desperation creeping into his voice as his arms tightened around Ryou.

“Just take what you want,” Ryou hissed.

“... I can’t,” now it sounded like the shadow was speaking through clenched teeth.

Ryou’s breath started coming a bit quicker. Why was it starting to feel like the cards were in his hand now? “Sure you can,” he said. “You’ve got me at your mercy, haven’t you? What could I do to stop you? You’ve put Thief out of my reach and I haven’t got any other weapon.”

clink

Clink?

The shadow made a sound that was just frustration now, no delight. “I think I’m the one at your mercy now, bunny,” he nearly whimpered. “If I took it, I wouldn’t get what I want.”

“Is that right?” Ryou felt an odd thrill running through him. “What is it that you want?”

“You!” the shadow whined against Ryou’s neck. “You! I want you!”

ca-clink

What was that?

“So what’s the problem?” Ryou whispered. “You could easily take me right now.”

“N-no, I could take your body,” the shadow corrected. His voice sounded truly desperate now. “I want your mind, your soul.”

Ryou’s breath hitched; why were the shadow’s words so elating? Because this was officially Ryou’s game now? A loud rattling suddenly started up from the floor, metal clinking loosely against metal and thumping on the wooden floor. Oh, that’s what that was. A very pissed-off Millennium Ring. A new spark of anger flickered to life within Ryou; what was he complaining about? So he was allowed to do whatever he wanted with Ryou’s body but god-forbid Ryou ever get off for himself?

The muscles in Ryou’s legs tightened, he lifted his body just a little way and then dropped again, sliding against the shadow clinging to him. The shadow made a relieved, thrilled sound and the Millennium Ring kept rattling angrily from the floor. Ryou quickly picked up a rhythm, rocking up and down in the shadow’s lap, rubbing their erections together as the shadow bit and kissed and licked at his neck and shoulder, mumbling little praises.

Ryou noticed belatedly that at some point he must have put his arms around the shadow’s neck to improve his leverage. It was dangerously close to an embrace, but Ryou couldn’t seem to care enough to drop his arms back down to his sides. The pounding of his heart and the shameful little noises he was making as he rubbed brazenly against the shadow were drowning out the Millennium Ring’s clatter now. The pace was getting faster and Ryou was starting to get frustrated with the position, it was too awkward, he wasn’t getting enough contact. As if reading his thoughts, the shadow suddenly pushed Ryou onto his back again and shifted their erections next to each other down their full length.

Ryou moaned throatily, pressing his head back into the pillow and digging his fingers into the shadow’s back. Before he could make another gratuitous utterance, the shadow’s mouth was covering his, their tongues were rolling over each other’s and Ryou moved a hand to grab at the shadow’s hair, as though to hold him there. The shadow made desperate mewling sounds, the breath escaping through his nose because Ryou wouldn’t relinquish his mouth, and ground against him frantically.

Ryou yanked on the shadow’s hair hard and screamed at the top of his lungs when he peaked. He couldn’t tell if the shadow’s strangled wail was because of the hair-pulling or simply his own completion. Previously taut muscles lost interest in holding the shadow up and he collapsed against Ryou, panting. Before either of them had got their breath back, the shadow was kissing him again, pressing deep into Ryou’s mouth, his full weight still resting on Ryou.

Ryou pushed him away after a while to let himself pant unencumbered, and the shadow moved his assault to Ryou’s jaw, ear and neck. Ryou’s primary thought, when the thick haze began to clear from his mind, was irritation at the discovery that he was apparently a screamer.

He watched the ceiling blankly as his breathing slowly normalized, listening to the angry rattling of the Millennium Ring and the muffled little murmurs from the shadow. The post-coital bliss fought against aggravation that Ryou had let himself get swept up in that scene, but his annoyance found an excellent target in the shadow whom was lavishing affection on his throat. He let out something between a sigh and a snort before complaining, “I’m hungry.”

“Mm?” the shadow mumbled, lifting his head to meet Ryou’s eyes; his own were still hazy with lust.

“I’m hungry,” Ryou repeated and gave the shadow’s shoulder a shove. “Get off.”

The shadow obediently crawled off of Ryou, letting him sit up and grimace at the semen sliding down his stomach. He grabbed a corner of the sheet and wiped the mess up with that; they had to be washed anyway. “You like things clean, don’t you, bunny?” the shadow observed; he was wearing an amused little smile when Ryou glanced at him.

“Whatever,” Ryou snorted and pushed himself off the bed. He walked for the door, grabbing his bathrobe off the chair at the desk as he went and continuing to ignore the Millennium Ring’s insistent rattling. He paused in the doorway as he stuck his arms through the sleeves, and tossed back over his shoulder, “I’m not making anything special. Rice and a fried egg. If you want something better, go home.”

There was a quiet pause as Ryou tied the robe and started down the hall, then from behind him came a quiet, “That sounds perfect, bunny.”

...
...

So you haven't heard from me in a couple weeks. I've been writing little pieces of disconnected things that aren't anywhere near ready to be posted, and I've been practicing writing smut. Here's an example! I've also worked on FE, I've got one scene finished that I'm happy with for chapter seven, and then I'm kind of not sure what I'm doing from there... I mean, I have a destination, but I'm not sure how I want to get there.

But anyway, here, have some 'deathship' (why is it called that?) I'm calling this a one-shot for now, but I'm kind of debating whether I want to expand it a little, and use it as basically writing-practice for smut. I'm finally at the point where I seem to be getting comfortable at writing sex-scenes and also they're coming to me a lot easier now, which is delightful. So, if I did poke this around some more, I don't anticipate giving it epic plot or anything. I don't know, FE is being such a bitch to work on that I keep wanting to wander off and write less plot-intensive vignettes.

Review/comment!

Bits and Pieces part 13

2011-01-10T02:21:57Z

Series: YuGiOh
Title: Bits and Pieces
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Kaiba Mokuba, Yami-Bakura, Jonouchi Katsuya, Honda Hiroto, Mutou Yuugi, Yami-Yuugi, Bakura Ryou
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Swearing
Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11a, 11b, 11c, 12
Summary: The usual "What if a yami or two gets their own body at the end of the series there?" set-up; Who doesn't need more Mokuba in their life?

Mokuba pressed his cheek against the tinted window, trying to look down the street ahead of the car. He wished he could sit in the front seat, but he had to sit where his body-guards could sit with him, which put him in the back of the limo where he could only look out sideways. He kicked his feet and squirmed, wanting to be there already.

Finally the car slowed to a stop and he eagerly threw his seatbelt off. “Wait a moment, please, Mokuba-sama,” Okui said, holding up a hand as he squinted out the dark windows. “There’s an unsavory character loitering here.”

Mokuba leaned over and looked out to the tall wrot iron gates supported between brick pillars. A man was leaning against one of the pillars looking at the limo curiously. It took Mokuba a moment to recognize him, he’d only seen the guy’s real face once before. “That’s Shadow-Bakura!” he said, grabbing the backpack next to his feet and pulling it on one shoulder. “He’s the guy who wanted to kill Shadow-Yuugi,” he explained for his guards’ benefit.

The body-guards glanced at each other, exchanging nervous looks. “Mokuba-sama, do you think it is wise--”

“It’s fine!” Mokuba dismissively, opening the door before the chauffeur had walked around to do it for him.

“M-Mokuba-sama!” Sone tried to grab the back of Mokuba’s shirt but missed as Mokuba hopped out onto the sidewalk.

“Hi, shadow-guy!” Mokuba called with a wave, listening to his bodyguards scrambling out of the car and catching up to stand on either side of him.

“It’s the mini-Kaiba!” Shadow-Bakura said with a grin. “What brings you to this humble place?”

“A Halloween tournament!” Mokuba answered ignoring his bodyguards’ unhappy sounds and walking right up to him. “D’you want in?”

“My deck was made for Halloween!” Shadow-Bakura grinned and squatted down, putting his head level with Mokuba’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” Mokuba laughed. “Well, I mean, I wasn’t really sure if it was your deck or regular-Bakura’s, actually,” he admitted.

“We built it together, but Ryou doesn’t really play much,” Shadow-Bakura said with a shrug. “He likes games that are more story-intensive.”

“That’s cool, I guess,” Mokuba said, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the pavement. “Do you think he’d want to play in the Halloween tournament?”

“I don’t know,” Shadow-Bakura said, tilting his head a little to the side. “You can ask him. I’m guessing your brother sent you to invite a Yuugi or two?”

“Yep!” Mokuba grinned. “Well, I decided to deliver the invitations personally, but they were already on Brother’s invite-list.”

“Well you have got... six minutes before class lets out,” Shadow-Bakura noted, checking the clock on his cell-phone.

“Yeah, I left pretty early because I wanted to make sure I caught them all,” Mokuba said, putting his arms behind his head and looking up at the huge analog clock on the front of the school. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I like to walk Ryou home. I don’t have much to do until the doctor says my ribs are good again.” Shadow-Bakura shrugged.

“You come every day?” Mokuba asked. Was waiting outside a school really the least boring thing this guy could think of?

“Most days.” He nodded. “I go for a walk and then end up here before school lets out.”

“Wow, that sounds boring.”

Shadow-Bakura laughed. “Sometimes. Malik’s usually eating breakfast around now so I call and bug him sometimes.”

Mokuba wrinkled his nose. “That guy’s a douche-bag,” he said, thinking of the Battle City fiasco. “And he looks like a girl.”

Shadow-Bakura laughed significantly louder than before and at the end of it he had to wipe away tears. “That- that is very true,” Shadow-Bakura agreed, patting Mokuba on the head. “I wonder if he’ll be sad about missing a tournament... but I think he should probably stay off your brother’s radar for a while yet, huh?”

“We don’t like cheaters,” Mokuba agreed with a nod, crossing his arms.

“Well, it was very charitable of your brother not to have him arrested for fraud,” Shadow-Bakura said with a smile, looking like he might laugh again. “I appreciate it.”

“Well, the whole split--” Mokuba stopped and looked up as the tones that sounded more like a synthesizer than an actual bell sounded from speakers around the school.

“School’s out,” Shadow-Bakura observed. “Now, the fan-club usually gets down here faster than the cheerleaders and Ryou, but they’re harmless, so don’t be alarmed.”

“The fan-club?” Mokuba asked, frowning. “The fan-club for what?”

“For anything they think is ‘cute’,” Shadow-Bakura answered, poking Mokuba’s nose. “You might be at risk.”

Mokuba was skeptical, and thought that Shadow-Bakura was probably joking, until three girls arrived, then two more, then another, and started talking in fast, high-pitched voices and giggling non-stop.

“Oh my gosh, Diabound-san, is that your mafia limo?!” “Juri!” “But if it’s not--” “What?! Really?!” “That cute little boy?” “What’s your name, sweetie?” “Seriously?!” “You know him personally, Diabound-san?” “Who are those guys?” “Oh wow, really?” “What are you doing at our school?” “It’s obviously because of Yuugi-kun, dummy!” “Diabound-san, you play that game too, right?” “Of course we’ll come watch!”

They were terrifying. Mokuba stared at them, feeling like he was surrounded by lions, ready to pounce and eat him at any second. He was impressed at Shadow-Bakura’s ability to calmly chat with them, sorting out what they were asking when there was always at least two of them talking at once, and not look the least bit nervous. Being taller than them probably helped, the way they loomed and formed a living cage around their prey was definitely freaking Mokuba out.

His bodyguards were looking pretty worried too, trying to keep the girls at a safe distance from Mokuba. He almost missed the sound of somebody shouting from the other side of the girl-wall because of the clamor they were making.

“Hey! D’ya mind?! We got business!”

“Is that Jonouchi?” Mokuba asked, perking up and trying to see past the girl-wall.

“Let’s find out!” Shadow-Bakura suggested and suddenly caught Mokuba under the arm-pits and hoisted him into the air.

Mokuba startled and then laughed in surprise as he was lifted up over the top of the girl-wall and could see his friends on the other side, looking back up at him. “Hi, guys!” he called, grinning and waving awkwardly. The girl-wall finally parted in the middle and the group was allowed past.

“Hey, Mokuba?” Shadow-Bakura called, still holding Mokuba up in the air. “Could you do me a favor?”

“What is it?” Mokuba asked, twisting his neck to look down at Shadow-Bakura’s head.

“Could you ask your bodyguards to please not tase me when I put you down?”

Mokuba blinked and then looked at his bodyguards, who were standing in ready-to-fight postures on either side of Shadow-Bakura, their tasers out and ready. “Hey, Sone! Okui! Don’t tase him! He’s not hurting me!” Mokuba called down and the two bodyguards cast doubtful looks up at Mokuba, but reluctantly switched their tasers off and put them away. After that, Shadow-Bakura set him back down on the sidewalk, exchanging suspicious looks with the bodyguards.

“Hey, Mokuba! What’s up?” Jonouchi asked, grinning at him.

“A Halloweeeeen tournament!” Mokuba giggled, pulling his backpack off his shoulder and digging inside for the invitations.

“Halloween? Does Kaiba ever spend more than a week planning his tournaments?” Honda asked shaking his head.

“We’ve been planning it for a while, Nii-sama just likes to wait until the last minute to announce them, then they get lots of publicity and nobody has the chance to get tired of them!” Mokuba explained, picking out two invitations and holding them out. “Nii-sama’s inviting Yuugi and Shadow-Yuugi!” he announced.

“You can call me Atemu now, Mokuba,” Shadow-Yuugi said, looking a little nervous and glancing around as he took his invitation.

Mokuba turned back towards Shadow-Bakura, and now regular-Bakura was standing next to him, having some quiet conversation and then lightly tapping the back of Shadow-Bakura’s head in a pretend slap. “Hey, Bakura, do you still play?” Mokuba asked as he handed an invitation to Shadow-Bakura.

Regular-Bakura gave him a surprised look and flushed a little, looking embarrassed. “Er, no, not really. It’s not really my scene,” he mumbled.

“Okay, I wasn’t sure,” Mokuba said with a nod.

“Hey Mokuba, where’s my invitation?” Jonouchi asked, crouching down, eye-level with Mokuba, his arms rested on his knees.

“Nii-sama said not to give you one,” Mokuba said, looking back at him blankly.

“Wha- That bastard!” Jonouchi shouted.

“Buuut- I printed one for you anyway!” Mokuba laughed, holding the last invitation out to Jonouchi.

Jonouchi blinked and then grinned. “Y’know, you are the only one bringing any respect to the Kaiba name,” he said, roughly tousling Mokuba’s hair before taking the invitation.

...
...

I considered continuing to drag this scene out, but I didn’t have any particular inspiration and I decided that was a good breaking point. So... I do not know anything about this game and I am not going to write any matches because of that and because I usually find them pretty uninteresting and ridiculously melodramatic. But I’ll write a vignette or two for during this tournament thing before moving on, probably.

Bits and Pieces part 12

2011-01-06T04:35:27Z

Series: YuGiOh
Title: Bits and Pieces
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Bakura Ryou
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Swearing
Previous: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11a, 11b, 11c
Summary: The usual "What if a yami or two gets their own body at the end of the series there?" set-up; Some sort of compromise has been reached.

Bakhura sat on the sidewalk, leaned back against the pillar that supported the gate, absently flicking pebbles and holding his new phone to his ear. “It would probably cost more to ship it than to just sell it and get a new one... Are you really attached to that bike?” he asked, finding a black, pea-sized pebble and flicking it in the direction of the street.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about trying a different kind of build. Maybe a rice-rocket is the way to go,” Malik replied in a slightly nasal voice; he sounded like he was laying on his back. “I guess this is a good opportunity to try it out.”

“And maybe one that can take a passenger more comfortably?” Bakhura suggested, grinning softly and flicking a gray stone that was in the ambiguous range between pebble and sand particle.

“Oh so I’m going to be your chauffeur now?” Malik snorted. “Well in that case, I think you should buy me a new bike. A red one.”

Bakhura made a sound between a hum and a laugh. “Are you trying to take advantage of my generosity? I don’t know if I like you that much,” he said, holding his finger up to see if he’d split the nail on the last flick. There was a little crescent-shaped chip hanging onto the tip by a hair-thin corner. He switched to flicking with the middle finger.

Malik laughed. “I’ll win you over with my boyish charm.”

“Ryou has boyish charm,” Bakhura corrected, grinning to himself. “You have feminine wiles.”

“Dick.”

Bakhura snickered and then tilted his head back as he heard the chimes start up. “Ah, school’s out,” he noted.

“So now I suppose you’re just going to leave me alone -so very alone- and go play with Ryou,” Malik accused, an amused note clinging to the words.

“I thought you were working at the museum today,” Bakhura said.

“Yeah, I am,” Malik admitted. “So I’m going to go work while you get to go play.”

“The time-zones are not my fault,” Bakhura reminded him with a chuckle. “And you’re the one who got all bitchy about the time-zones, if you’ll recall.”

“I was three AM!”

“It was almost lunch-time,” Bakhura corrected.

“It was three AM!”

“Pansy,” Bakhura snorted.

The clamor of students exiting the building grew louder and they started spilling past the gate. The ones coming out the near-side noticed Bakhura seated on the pavement as they came. Most skirted a rather wide perimeter around him, but after a few minutes, one of them broke the bubble of empty space with a loud exclamation.

“Diabound-san! Oh my goodness! I didn’t think- I mean- that is to say- are you all right? Why are you down there?”

“Oh, the women are here,” Bakhura noted for Malik’s benefit, though he was pretty sure Romi had been loud enough for him to hear over the phone. He cast her a cheerful grin and climbed to his feet.

“Well I’d hate to keep you from your fan-club,” Malik chuckled.

“We’ll call you later,” Bakhura promised.

“Oh don’t worry about me!” Malik replied. “I’ll be fine. Alone. And miserable... Bye.”

“Bye,” Bakhura said with a snort and ended the call, before turning his attention to Romi. “I’m fine,” he answered giving her a friendly smile.

“Really?” Romi asked, looking unconvinced. “I- I’m so glad you came back- I mean- it’s nice to see you again, Diabound-san!”

Several more voices called out to him and the peanut gallery started to coalesce rapidly, asking hesitant, indirect questions, some of them looking worried, some excited. They were about half a dozen strong when two of them gasped and they all stared past Bakhura’s right shoulder.

He turned his head to look, just as Ryou’s hand lighted against the back of his arm. “I need to go to the store today,” he said, pausing next to Bakhura as the girls made plenty of space for him to move freely.

Bakhura smiled, feeling it all the way up to his eyes this time. “I can carry bags,” he said.

“You can carry one,” Ryou corrected sternly.

“Pffffff,” Bakhura blew through his teeth, rolling his eyes. The doctor had told him not to lift more than ten kilos, and Ryou was not letting him forget it. “Fine.”

“I want to go to the drug store first,” Ryou said, starting to walk down the sidewalk and guiding Bakhura along with him.

Behind them, girls squealed and cheered.

...
...

Don't pick up the can of hot bacon grease and put it in the freezer. Wait until it is a can of cool bacon jelly and then put it in the freezer. You're less likely to burn yourself. Or spill grease all over the freezer.

This is the end of the daily updates, my back-log is now gone. I've got a bunny for the next one though, I'll work on it tonight and see how well it comes. The problem is I've got stuff planned out for a month (story-time) down the line, but haven't thought enough about the bridge between here and there.