Something random and fluffy for you, enjoy!
Diclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! It belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. I do not make profit from this story ¬_¬
He listened to his breathing as he panted, his sweaty face in his shaking hands so the sound seemed amplified but dulled down at the same time. He gulped every few seconds trying to swallow the panic and he felt his heart pound a fast irregular rhythm in his chest and throat, stuck somewhere between the two.
It had been a long time since he'd had a dream like that. A dream so bad he had sat bolt upright and cried out as he awoke. A nightmare. He used to have them all the time about his childhood, because Bakura didn't have a normal childhood. He had watched as his family were brutally murdered and then their bodies used to create the millennium items, along with the rest of the inhabitants of his village. He had had to struggle to survive on his own from a young age and then he had been possessed by a demon, who fuelled his rage for the Pharaoh and his family, and used him to fight a war which left his soul sealed in an inanimate object for three millennia.
It had been this which he had dreamt of tonight. The long, almost delirious, time he had spent shut in a small cell within the millennium ring. No windows, and one door with no handle, no way to open it from the inside, no lock to pick in order to gain exit. Just a thick, black, metal door with a blank, staring eye in the centre.
Even as he sat in his warm double bed, peeking out through his fingers at the dark room around him and rocking slightly backwards and forwards with the force from his shallow, shuddering breaths, his fingers hurt from the scratching at the edges of that door, searching to find any minute crevice to try and prise the door open. His throat felt raw from the screaming and harsh sobbing that came with thinking he had been sealed away again. It was one of his biggest fears. It was a testament to how far he'd come to be able to admit to fear. Though only to very few.
Usually, after one of his nightmares, he would possess the body of the boy who looked so much like himself and concentrate on the feeling of being in control. He would move the body up off the bed and down the corridor to the living space, then across to the kitchen where he would fill a glass with cold water, so cold it almost stung as it hit the stomach, and relish in the numbing sensation it brought to everything it touched as he drank it down.
Now though he had his own body, some stroke of brilliance from the Tomb Keeper's psychic sister. He didn't any longer feel the need to prove to himself that he had a body, the pain he felt was proof enough that he did.
Instead of waiting to calm down, Bakura pulled the sheets away and slowly lowered his feet to the carpet before shakily standing and padding across the room to his door. He slipped through it still breathing slightly heavier than usual and crept down the corridor to a door on the other side, hissing as his bare feet made contact with the cold wood flooring. He paused for a second, hesitating until a wave of fear still emanating from the all-too-real nightmare pushed him to open the door.
He leant his head in first to check the occupant was sleeping before slipping fully into the room, wincing when the catch on the door clicked loudly as it closed. Ryou didn't stir. Bakura tiptoed over to the bed and crawled onto it, trying not to displace the mattress too close to his former host so as not to wake him. He settled himself down under the covers and lay on his side watching Ryou, who was oblivious to the attention and slept on his back, left arm by his head, his right stretched out towards Bakura, curled fingers barely centre metres from his chest. The thief smiled as he realised his breathing was normal and his heart wasn't bruising his ribcage anymore.
He felt cold though, shaky. He couldn't get rid of the lingering sense of fear nightmares tended to leave. He watched as Ryou sighed in his sleep, a small change in expression flickering across the pale face before disappearing and the fingers in front of him twitching. He lifted his own fingers and drew faint, swirling patterns on the palm of his light's hand, almost laughing when the fingers twitched and flexed, brushing against his chest. He drew a line that went from Ryou's palm, up his wrist, onto the soft sensitive flesh of his forearm where he drew more swirling patterns.
He liked being able to do this. Being able to reach out and touch his light with his own fingers. It was yet more proof that he had a body of his own. Ryou let out another soft sigh and shifted his elbow slightly, so Bakura moved his invisible artwork onto the small patch of skin exposed by the v-neck collar of the light blue sleeping shirt, across the thin collar bones and the hollow in his lights throat.
He concentrated his attention there for a while, writing and drawing in his old language before a whisper made him jump.
"What are you writing?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Ryou took Bakura's hand and brought it up to his mouth where he kissed the palm, before moving up onto his side and pulling himself closer to the other body in the bed.
"You didn't. What were you writing?"
"The words to a lullaby." Bakura automatically wrapped his arms around the smaller figure, hugging him close and breathing in the calming scent. It was like a drug to him, he could never get enough of the smell of his other half. Ryou had joked that they were soul mates, and when Bakura had found out what soul mates were, he had secretly agreed. They did seem perfect for each other. Ryou could practically still read his mind, and he could almost sense how Ryou was feeling from the other room.
Ryou was never surprised to see his darker half in bed with him when he woke up. In fact he was disappointed the mornings he woke up alone. He loved the way they just seemed to fit together, like puzzle pieces.
"It's pretty." Bakura snorted softly.
"You don't even know what it said."
"I don't need to." He pressed his forehead to his dark's throat, feeling the little repetitive flicker of life there. He sighed as Bakura's hand rubbed light soothing circles on his lower back now that it couldn't continue the tracing. "Why don't we always share a bed? It's seems silly to sleep in separate rooms when we always end up together anyway."
"Ok, I'll sleep in here from now on, if you want me to." Ryou nodded gently. He was getting tired. He knew he was going to fall asleep again. Bakura seemed to know too because he shifted himself until they were both lying comfortably so that if they did, they wouldn't ache in the morning.
He stayed awake for as long as he could, and what surprised him is that Bakura fell asleep first. His dark's deep even breathing soothing him and making him feel like the luckiest person in the world to be near him. His eyelids fluttered closed and his last coherent thought before the dreams came was that the simplest things in life were often the best.
Like falling asleep with the person you loved, that was definitely one of the best.
Lame ending, because I can't end things :[
