The procrastination AU is not going to become a Thing it's not. No. It won't. I've got too much on my plate already. Aaaaaagh.
Tornshipping. Implied puzzle. Will this oneshot based AU have conspireshipping eventually? I dunno. Like I said in one of the earlier installments, there's not really a timeline for this AU - at least not here. If I ever cross-upload this to AO3 I'll try and make things chronological.
Unbeta'd. Be warned, melodramatic morons ahead.
Malik's come home to many strange things over time, but this is perhaps the third most unpleasant. Atem is here for some fucking reason and he's glaring at Bakura, which is pretty typical. But Ryou is glaring back at him with ten times the force, shielding Bakura behind him, which is decidedly not. Yugi is nowhere to be seen, making Malik wonder if he even knew Atem was coming over at all. A little warning before forcing his way into their home would've been nice.
He can't see Bakura's face, because it's buried in Ryou's back, hands clinging to his shirt. Also not typical - showing any weakness in front of Atem goes against everything Bakura is.
"What the fuck is going on?"
They all jump at the sight of him. He doesn't miss the way Atem's proud stance falters as he stands beside Ryou. Did he really think he'd go to him? Malik doesn't know if he should laugh or not.
"Malik, could you get him into the bedroom?" Ryou asks, gently prying Bakura's fingers off himself. "Atem has something to discuss with me-"
"With him, this has nothing to do with you."
"It's me or you can explain to Yugi why he needs to resurrect you again."
Atem has the decency to look shocked, though Malik can't blame him. He's never heard Ryou threaten anyone and here he is facing off against the manifestation of Horus on earth. That takes a few balls. He's also taking on his best friend's soul mate, which needs way more. Ryou takes his silence as agreement and carefully pushes Bakura into Malik's arms. He's shaking and Malik almost falls over with the way he sags against him, like he can barely stand.
What the hell did Atem want?
He walks Bakura back into their room, Ryou closing the door behind them as he lies down with Bakura. He still hasn't said a word, but he can feel his shoulders relaxing under his arms as his fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck.
Half an hour passes, a half hour of him praying for Bakura to say something. That said he's pretty sure Bakura's fallen asleep, with how his breathing's smoothed out. He's had his face pressed so hard against Malik's neck that he's pretty sure he'll have an imprint of that scar across his eye on the skin.
Malik can just about make out the sound of the door opening, then closing again. A few minutes later there's a knock at the door. "If that's Ryou, come in."
If it's Atem, fuck off goes unsaid.
"It is. Atem's gone, we're all clear."
Bakura's definitely asleep now, he doesn't move as Malik sits upright. He pulls one of their many blankets over him. Ryou's got a weird look on his face when Malik looks back - tired, but not in an unpleasant way - but it's gone so fast that he wonders if he imagined it. He's ninety nine point nine percent sure Atem and Ryou aren't hatefucking behind everyone's back so who knows why. "What did he want?"
"Doesn't matter now, he's been convinced of an alternative. Sorry for the trouble, I wouldn't have let him inside if I'd known this would happen."
"Something to do with Necrophades?" He'd long stopped using the dead god's first name. It belongs to Bakura's stupid dog now and nothing else. Looking around he spots said dog snoring away on their pillows and Malik never lets him in the bedroom, so he knows exactly who's fault that is.
"Kinda."
"So what's the 'alternative'?"
"Nothing you need to know. Do you think Bakura will wake up soon? Should I start cooking dinner?"
He's been warned about this by both Bakura and the others, but this is the first time he's seen it aimed at himself - Ryou being cagey and trying to deflect is when you need to press him most. It's so transparent that it's almost insulting and he wonders how anyone ever fell for it before. "If what the alternative is for has something to do with the Shadows, I think I need to know for Bakura's sake."
"It doesn't matter, Malik. Not anymore. Bakura doesn't need to be involved."
"But you do?" It's a shot in the dark but it hits its mark. It's a subtle movement, the way his eyes flicker to the left for a fraction of a second. Nobody else would've noticed, except maybe Bakura.
"Ryou, what did you agree to?"
It takes Malik half a second to realize that he didn't ask that. Bakura's awake and he's got his nerve back, because he's glaring at Ryou the way he should've done at Atem, maybe even worse. Whatever brave face Ryou had been trying to put on fades away.
That can't be good.
Atem has had a vision from Mahaad. The other Malik wasn't destroyed inside the Shadows, he was embraced by them. His consciousness remained even when Necrophades was destroyed. The Shadows, or at least what's left of them, are desperate for something or someone to contain them, to give them a means to define chaos and order. If someone doesn't intervene before he melds with them completely and wields them the way he did the Millennium Rod, he could become a god in his own right. And, unlike Necrophades, there would be no opposite to retain the balance.
Which means someone who can survive the depths of the Shadows has to go in and either destroy him, or pull him out. Atem can't, for the light of a pharaoh's soul would chase the Shadows away. Yugi can't, because he's never truly accepted those Shadows and they would reject him. The same applies to Malik, as hard as it is for him to believe. Then again, he's never liked the dark; it's not that unreasonable that the dark wouldn't like him in return. If he can't enter the Shadows, he can't find the other him.
Bakura could, but he can't. Because those Shadows used to be his family and they might not let him go. Atem had faith that Bakura could destroy the other Malik, who would be weaker than he was as Battle City, and also thought Bakura would be able to escape. Bakura decided against returning to the eternally screaming conglomerate of his family's shattered souls, to Atem's shock and dismay. His attempt to convince him otherwise and Ryou's refusal to let Atem anywhere near him was what Malik had walked in on.
Ryou, to Malik's surprise at his complete lack of surprise, is the alternative. The Shadows won't give a damn about just the shadow of their boy and the other Malik wouldn't care about getting revenge on just 'the host'. Meaning Ryou might be able to convince him to leave on his own accord, or catch him unawares and destroy him. Malik knows which outcome he wants.
The chances of Ryou getting himself killed and being lost to the Shadows forever are high. He could succeed and still be trapped forever and they'd never have known either way.
At least, they'd never know if Ryou had any say in it, apparently. "So what, we're not worth telling the truth?" Bakura spits, his voice filled with venom once it all sinks in.
"I didn't mean it like -"
"Because it sure looks like that from here. You were gonna jump into the Shadows and if something happened we'd just have to get on with our lives without you? Would you have even told us you were leaving in the first place, or would you just vanish one day for no goddamn reason?"
Instead of saying of course I'd tell you or even that he planned something as shitty as a farewell letter, Ryou stammers out, "Bakura, that's not -"
"Fuck you."
Bakura storms off, out onto the balcony. Malik is torn between following him and staying with Ryou, who looks like he's about to shatter into little pieces. His decision is made for him when Bakura storms back in about ten seconds later and stands in front of Ryou. He grabs him by the chin.
"If you thought we wouldn't care, you're wrong."
"I know."
"Then why?"
"If I told you, would you have let me leave?" he replies. "Would you have even let me suggest myself in the first place?"
Then it's like something snaps, some surge of anger swelling up as he suddenly grabs Bakura's wrist and pushes it away from himself. Bakura is forced to back off or lose his balance but they're still in each others faces. "You don't have the right to be angry at me. You wouldn't have told me either and you know it!"
Bakura wrenches his arm free. "That's not the fucking point!"
"Then what is?"
"I care about you!"
"You think I don't?!"
"I think that you think I don't!"
"You're both idiots," Malik interjects because holy shit, they're loud and people three floors down are probably getting ready to call the cops. Or at least the building security. If Malik wasn't the former leader of an international crime ring, he probably would've flinched at the way they both stared at him in near perfect sync. Maybe not even then because once you get past the initial narrowed eyes and snarls twisting their pretty mouths they both look like they're about to burst into tears, and he's barely capable of handling himself when he cries, let alone two other people at once. He can't even count on the fucking dog to help out. He does his best to channel Rishid's patience and Isis' iron.
"Ryou's right; you wouldn't have told him if it were you going to the Shadows, or me for that matter" he says, as calmly as he can manage. "But, Bakura's right too - you shouldn't have kept this from him." From us.
He hopes his scolding's had the right effect, and even if it hasn't, at least they've stopped screaming at each other. He throws his arms around their necks, pulling the two of them in close. "Now kiss and make up, because I'm getting a headache."
Bakura stares resolutely at the ground, and if they weren't so close they wouldn't have been able to hear him. "I've already almost destroyed the world for my family once. Don't think for even a second that I wouldn't do it again."
Ryou's fingers trail down his face, his scar, his chin, gently coaxing Bakura to look up. "There's a total eclipse two weeks from - Atem thinks that's when the barrier between our world and the Shadows will be weakest. The museum basement's our best bet - it was exposed to so much Shadow magic it'll be easy to sneak through."
"Don't die. I'll never forgive you if you do."
"I won't. I survived you, I can survive anything."
When Ryou leans forward Bakura does too and Malik lets go, quietly backing away as they kiss. It's not about him, at least not right now. He feels like he's intruding. He doesn't make it two steps before both of them grab his shirt and drag him back, then they break apart from each other and attack him instead. Malik awakens the next morning using Ryou as a pillow and Bakura as a blanket, and wonders if he should thank Atem the next time he sees him.
...
Nah.