Symmachy
Genres: Suspense, Drama
Summary: Delinquent behavior, a man sentenced for a crime he doesn't remember committing, and a woman who will do anything to set him free, even if it means breaking him out of jail. / Dual narrative, AU, Conceitshipping Mai x Yami Bakura, Vigilshipping Mai x Ryou
A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 8.5, Tier Two—the pairing is Conceitshipping (Mai x Yami Bakura), although the story also contains Vigil (Mai x Ryou) and hints of other pairings. The story features a dual narrative. This is very clearly an AU. Warnings for some dark themes. I hope you enjoy!
Symmachy
I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.—Joseph Conrad
A:
He looks down with hardly a thought for the bright lights and the strange surroundings—this is not his house, why is he not in his house?—and instead focuses all of his attention on the pretty shade of red decorating his body, dripping from his hands, marring his shirtfront. One hand clenches a knife, a fairly ordinary kitchen knife, and he knows the pattern, he can remember buying it.
A sudden thudding sound, loud in his ears, and he is swarmed by police officers, tackled from all sides. The knife is wrenched from his fingers and slipped into a plastic bag. Ryou wonders why he's noticing things like this at all, surely it's not important.
As his body hits the ground, the red from his hands is smeared onto the floor, decorating the linoleum, and for the first time Ryou sees the bodies. At least two, maybe three.
"What's going on?" he asks. Scared, worried. "Where am I?"
"What's going on?"The voice that answers him is deep, gruff, and toneless. The sort of voice that one wouldn't expect to give answers so readily. "You're under arrest."
"What for—" The words are already out of his mouth before he puts two and two together—they think he killed them, they think he's guilty, he was holding a knife and there is blood on his hands, his face, his hair—
Ryou screams then, unable to twist his hands free from their confinement, unable to wipethe blood from his skin. Now that he knows it's there he can feel it, sliding down his cheek to curve under his chin, heavier than water, matting in his hair, staining it red.
"It wasn't me!" he screams again. "I don't know anything! I don't know what I'm doing here! I don't remember—oh, these poor people."
He knows now that he should reserve more worry for himself than for those who are more than likely already dead, but he cannot help it; his heart goes out to them and he struggles again.
"Whatever you think I did, I didn't do it! I didn't do it! It wasn't me!"
B:
He throws the soda can and it bounces off the rim of the trash can and rolls into the street. It's too far to pick up as he walks past it, so he doesn't.
"Jou, what do you feel like doing today?" Honda says, resting his fingers lightly against the back of his head, already hating the way his new haircut felt over how it looked.
"Dunno," Jonouchi replies. "I just got paid yesterday. Want to find some girls, spend some money on them?"
"You should pay your rent first, you know." Honda tries not to chastise him; he knows as well as Jonouchi does that he's not one to talk. "Your landlady's gonna kick you out."
"Please, she thinks I'm a saint!" He laughs to himself. "Besides, I help her keep the place in line. No one gives her a hard time, not when they know they'll have me to deal with. She won't want to lose the only security she's got."
Honda's easy smile slides onto his face like it naturally belongs there. Hanging out with Jonouchi makes the act more common, that is for sure. "She could get real security to replace your sorry ass."
"Ouch." Jonouchi clutches his side in mock injury. "When Miho gets sick of you, don't think about crashing with me, then. And it'll happen, trust me. You don't have the way with women that I do."
This time it is Honda who feigns injury, clasping one hand over his heart. "Don't say that! My lovely Miho…she wouldn't do a thing like that twice in one week, would she?"
He finds it difficult to keep a straight face, so after a few seconds attempting it he concedes failure, and claps Honda on the back probably a little harder than necessary. "You've got it bad, you know that?"
"I do," he admits it freely. They cross the road and head left on another street, kicking at pebbles. Just like that, his mood is completely changed. "You know the steam plant on 51st that closed down?"
"Yeah?" Jonouchi pretends to be mildly interested, although his mind is still on his paycheck and the thousand ways he could spend it, not the thousand ways Honda could get them both in trouble.
"Want to see if there's anything valuable left behind?"
The question is posed innocently enough, and Jonouchi shrugs, folding his hands inside his jacket pockets. "Sure. Why not have a bit of fun?"
A:
"I-I-want my phone call!" Ryou shouts, standing instantly the second an officer comes into view from the narrow corridor leading to the holding cells. "Don't I get a phone call? I want to call my girlfriend!"
"We already called her, she'll be here soon," the officer tells him. "A Kujaku Mai, same address?"
Ryou nods, clasping his hands on the bars before him as if trying to press his whole body between the rails to freedom. "Is no one going to listen to me?"
"Oh, we're listening, kid," says the officer, "and believe me, your testimony is a mess and a contradiction. We'll let the courts figure out what to do with you."
He can't help the whimper that emerges from his throat, but it is instantly swallowed as the door to the hallway opens again and a tall, blonde woman is escorted inside. The first officer nods to her escort, who leaves. The officer places a hand on the woman's shoulder, meant to be reassuring.
"Be brief. You've got five minutes."
As she approaches the cell, Ryou throws himself forward, his hands snaking out to grasp at her arms. "Mai…" His voice is muffled by his wide, grateful smile, and she tries to match it with one of her own.
"Oh, Ryou, what are you doing here?" she asks, and he answers quickly, speaking the words as fast as he can.
"It wasn't me, you see!" he says, sure that if he only says it enough times, the whole matter will be cleared up. "They think I killed this family, but I don't remember it at all! One second I'm at home, looking out the window, and the next I'm in a strange kitchen, covered in blood." The memory changes the expression on his face, and he staggers back a step, still managing to hold on to Mai's sleeves. "I didn't do anything, I swear," he insists. "I was set up, or something…I don't understand…why? Why is this happening to me?"
Mai leans forward, and her bangs spill over her face as she moves close enough to kiss his forehead through the bars, leaving the barest smudge of red lipstick on his pale skin. He seems to notice it, focusing on her lips with a wan smile, before that smile grows and his fingers tighten imperceptibly on her arms.
"I did good, didn't I?" he speaks softly, but Mai can hear every word. "I did…better than ever, I would say."
"Your time's up," the officer says, stepping forward from his position by the door. Mai complies, moving backwards, her arms slipping through Ryou's grasp. Her face is washed in the bright fluorescent light, and Ryou again starts to shout.
"Help me, Mai! Get me out of here! I didn't do it—I swear! Don't you believe me?"
"I'll help you," she calls back to him, and the words sound like a promise. "I believe you. Just…stay calm. Okay, Ryou? I'll help you," she repeats, but to Ryou the sound of the door closing behind her isn't a promise at all.
It's a sentence.
A:
"Would you please state your name for the record?"
"I'm Bakura Ryou. I'm twenty-three years old and I live at—" The tape is stopped, and the mechanical whirr tells him it's being fast-forwarded.
"—For ten seconds I'm standing there before the door was knocked down—"
"Ten seconds? Bloodied tracks with your shoeprint were found all over the house. After they were killed, which implies you walked around the house afterwards, after you killed them—"
"—I didn't! I didn't!"
Another whirr, another pause. "One final question. Please, state your name, address, and personal information for the record."
"Shouldn't you have asked me this first? My name is Bakura Ryou! I'm twenty-three years old—"
"I don't understand." Ryou glances across the table—stainless steel, plain, but he bets the edges are sharp—to the city-appointed law official seated across from him.
"We've examined you quite thoroughly, Ryou. Can I call you Ryou?"
"Please," he says, "call me Bakura."
"There is quite obviously something wrong with your memory. All of the evidence…well, it's staggering, to say the least," the lawyer tells him. "We believe…I believe that we should plead insanity."
His mouth falls open, and he is momentarily grateful for the restraints that bind his arms to his chair. "I'm not! I'm not, I'm not! Can't you see? I'm not the kind of person—"
"Bakura, the fact stands that there are inconsistencies on record! You pass a lie detector saying that you are not guilty, yet the evidence stands to say you are! There are times when you can't tell us what you've said in prior testimonies…I even had to introduce myself to you twice. This is the best case for you—at the institution, you can have all the help you need."
Help—he had asked Mai for that, days ago. He does not want it from any place that calls itself an institution.
"The judge will have you committed, that I can say with some certainty," the lawyer says. "So you need to accept that. We're here to help you, Bakura."
"I don't want your help," Ryou says. "I just want Mai. Can I have my phone call?"
B:
Jonouchi swears the next time he sees Honda, he's going to give him a black eye. The thought crosses his mind the second he sees the back of his friend's head, knocking at his front door, with an apologetic look on his face that will do absolutely nothing to help diffuse the blame, although he should probably get credit for trying.
Honda whirls around, and Jonouchi decides to rain-check the black eye. Not that he isn't afraid that he could take Honda, but he suddenly realizes that hitting him would be a good way to lose his best friend. "I got caught, you jerk!" he says. "Some friend you are."
He looks worried, until Jonouchi tells him it's only community service. "Well, that's no problem," Honda says.
"I should get credit for looking out for you," he replies glumly. "What a coward!"
"Hey!" Honda says, affronted. "It's not cowardice, they're survival instincts! Everybody has them!"
"Sure. Tell that to my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the hospital." Jonouchi crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe.
"Well, this friend ordered pizza to make up for it. And I already paid, so you don't need to worry."
"It's a start," Jonouchi says.
A:
He is shown into the cell, past rows of others both occupied and not, through three different doors sealed with electronics and guards, and the two blonds at the front entry to check for guests and deliveries. Ryou knows without being told that it's hopeless.
"Enjoy your stay," the guard tells him, sealing the door closed with a mechanical noise and a series of blinking red lights on the lock. The guard thinks he's being funny, but Ryou is in no mood to appreciate it. He takes one look around the cell, at the completely open bars and the low, padded bench with a few thin blankets folded on the top. He looks at his neighbors—likely real criminals, he thinks—and eyes the one sitting on the floor with his back flush against the bars with a hint of distaste. Why, it would be easy to reach over and strangle him, if he wanted to—
Ryou stumbles backwards, wondering where that thought had come from. He isn't sure.
The man in the adjoining cell tilts his chin up, and Ryou can see his face clearly for the first time. Dark skin, wide eyes. Hair a mess—Ryou wonders if his own will start to look like that after a few days of this.
"Hey," he says. "What're you in for?"
What an odd question. He thinks of a myriad of answers—vacation, seeing the sights, killing a few people—and decides to answer with something a little closer to the truth.
He sinks down until he is seated on the floor, his back against the bench. "I don't know."
"You got a name?"
"Ryou," he answers. "Just Ryou."
"Well, just Ryou," the man says, "welcome to the Domino Madhouse."
A:
"Visitor for Ryou Bakura."
His head perks up, glad to see the flash of green as the guard unlocks the door and leads him out to the visiting chamber, where booths with perforated glass windows are his only consolation.
On the other side, Mai waits, in a purple jacket zipped up to her neck. Ryou is reminded, unintentionally, of a straightjacket, and is glad he hasn't been acquainted with one yet. He takes a seat across from the window, and presses a hand to the glass. On the other side, Mai grins at him and copies the gesture. If not for the glass, he would be able to feel skin, but he pretends the window is soft and warm, and when their hands are withdrawn he can see the faintest smudges of fingerprints and condensation.
She unzips her jacket and lets it fall from her shoulders, revealing a matching purple top cut low and a red scarf. Her shoulders are bare, and he watches the way her hair falls over the skin, thinking about how much he's missed this.
"How are you?" she asks.
"Never better," he tries to joke, and she grins in that knowing way of hers.
"I see your trial was a success." There is the sarcasm, again.
"There was never meant to be one," he tells her. "There should never have been an arrest! I should never—"
"Don't worry your pretty little head," she says. "I'll get you out of here, I promise. Whatever it takes."
He frowns, more for the little than the pretty. "I'll hold you to that."
"Or you could just hold me." Mai glances up at him wistfully, and she places her hand once again on the perforated glass separating them. "I wish…"
"Yes?" He stretches out the word, as if encouraging her, although they both know what she means.
"I wish, sometimes…nothing! Never mind," she snaps, and yanks her hand back to rest in her lap, shifting her scarf with the downward tilt of her head.
"Mai?" he asks, and she glances back up, noticing the way that the room is too bare, too white, too impersonal, and the way that the skin around Ryou's eyes is darker; the skin itself is pale as ever, although Mai bets that if she were to touch his skin, she would find it sweating and clammy.
"I don't like this place," he continues. "The people…everyone is mad here."
"Mad?" The word hangs in the air—not insane, not crazy, not mental, but just mad. It's the safest of the designations.
"Yes," he says, and so rationally and calmly as to be unsettling, "if they only put mad people here, does that mean I'm mad, too?"
"Ryou, you're not mad," Mai tells him. "If there's one thing I know, it's that." She pauses, leaning closer. "I meant what I said—I'll get you out of here. We'll try the courts again…or…"
"Thank you. Will you visit me again, later?"
"I'll see you again," she says with a determined grin that runs from her lips up to her eyes. "Hopefully it will be soon."
B:
Jonouchi checks another ID and runs the guest's belongings through the x-ray machine—just a small umbrella and purse—and he wonders why the city seems to think the small, elderly woman can be dangerous. He waves her through after her stuff checks out. Really, there was a checkpoint before visitors even got to his own station, and he often wonders about the redundancy of his position.
"Next," he calls, waving a taller man through. Behind him, in a line, a familiar face emerges, clutching a brown paper fast-food bag.
"Honda…" Jonouchi mutters warningly, but his friend has already set the bag down on the counter.
"I figured I'd drop by and visit, and I brought you a snack!" Honda says. "Can burgers go through an x-ray?"
"I dunno. I suppose I'll have to do the inspection by hand." He snatches up the bag, rifling through it and pulling out a foil-wrapped sandwich. "Suppose I ought to check for poison the old-fashioned way." He pulls a corner of the foil away from the bun with his teeth before taking a bite out of the burger.
"Nope, definitely not poisoned. Although I think I'll have to eat the other one too, just to be safe."
A whistle jolts Jonouchi out of his inattention, and he turns to see one of the other guards, glaring at him from across the partition.
"You shouldn't have personal visitors, Jonouchi!" The guard calls, angrily. "You're on break, soon—take him to the door and send him on his way!"
"Will do," he says, waving the guard away. He turns back to Honda, taking another bite and speaking through a mouthful of burger. "See what you just did?"
"Sweet setup," Honda remarks. "But the job looks kinda boring. You seen any crazy people yet?"
"Other than the ones I work with?" He turns away sharply to hide his grin, sure that the guard might have overheard. "Nah, not many. No one really comes or goes here—they just stay locked in their cells."
"Good for them," he says. "This place creeps me out."
"Tell me about it. I could press a button right here"—he points to it, unlabeled, black and unassuming—"and it would cut the lights to the whole wing. Then at least I wouldn't be able to see this place."
"Do it, man!" Honda says, leaning over the console to get a better look.
"Back off!" Jonouchi pushes him away, and Honda takes the opportunity to snatch back the fast-food bag, reaching inside for a fry. "Haven't you gotten me in enough trouble?"
"Ah, but that'll only be true when you're behind the bars instead of guarding them," Honda says, as sagely as he can between fries.
A:
Someone, far off in another cell, is screaming. Ryou places his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the noise. He isn't sure how long it's been going on—his incarceration, the screaming—but he knows it's probably been about the same length of time. Beside the bars, his neighbor is doing a good job of tuning it out, instead whistling something vaguely familiar to cover up the sound.
"So"—he pauses in his whistling to ask the question—"I don't feel like being myself today. How about we pretend to be astronauts?"
Ryou ignores him, slumping against his bench. He hopes it's just his imagination that his bed seems to get more comfortable as each day passes, and not the fact that he's getting used to it.
"Hmm, doctors, then?" He grins. "Nurse, prep the patient for surgery! He's lost his head and the neck is gushing blood, but we can still save him!"
He growls, shifting to lean against the wall, his back in the cell's corner. "I'm not playing doctor with you."
His neighbor glances back at him, threading one arm through the bars to rest there, making the position look comfortable. "You're the one who brought that up, my good friend. Are you my friend today?"
"I'm your friend when it suits me," is the response.
"You're trading one prison for the next, you know," his neighbor continues, casually. "The mind is such a glorious one…makes me wonder if you're the one trapped or if you're holding the key. I wonder if there even is a key, in your case."
"Well, there's no doubt in my mind that you're insane," he says.
"And I for you, my friend." His eyes turn less mocking, more serious. "I think, for a day, I'd like to be him."
"Who?"
"Ryou," he answers.
"You can't always get what you want," he says with a smile.
His neighbor shrugs, and goes back to whistling. He can place the tune, now; it's a theme song for a popular medical drama. How fitting.
He looks up, at the grimy mirror set into the wall above his bed, the edges darkened with rust or water damage or something else, he isn't sure. He can see an imprecise vision of his reflection, and glances at it. He makes faces in the mirror.
He flicks his tongue over an even row of teeth, before opening his mouth wide to peer inside, wondering what it would be like to see all the way down into his body and past his throat to his stomach. His heart beats faster, under the cover of his skin, and he glances down at his chest, feeling the organ pulsing within.
Ryou wonders why he's feeling so anxious. He doesn't feel sick; no, that was day two, and this must be at least day seven, an entire week spent in a box of white inside the asylum room, inside these blank, empty walls, emptiness everywhere. It's a metaphor for something, he's sure of it.
The more he looks at them, the more he notices how unclean they really are. White at first glance, but the corners are covered in dirt, grime and dust traveling up the walls, clinging like so many cobwebs in the corners. The ceiling is pitched in places, cracked. He can see more cracks in the paint, places where the color is shinier than others.
Even still, the walls are probably safer to look at than the bars. With the bars, there is no pretending.
"How many days has it been?" he asks his neighbor, in a rare moment of lucid clarity. He needs to know.
"Thirteen days, today," he replies, tsking. "Poor Ryou—I'm assuming—losing track of time in addition to your mind, are you?"
"What?" He doesn't understand.
The tone he adopts is professional again, businesslike. "The subject has asked me on separate occasions to call him both Ryou and Bakura. I stand to reason that you're not sure which you are anymore, and when you're not yourself." He grins, widely. "I'll take a message for him, if you do something for me in return."
"Which is what?"
"A favor to be named later. One you're not in any position to grant, anyway."
Ryou nods, uncaring. "Sure."
"…And the message?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"I'll see that he gets it." He strikes up the whistling, again, and the tune has changed—it's more triumphant, but to Ryou it sounds desolate, irrelevant, and even more tuneless.
B:
The café is crowded on Tuesdays, and Jonouchi wonders why that is—it's not even very good—but it's cheap and the crowd that populates it is young and probably doesn't have any better things to do than hang out in coffeeshops on weekday evenings.
He greets Honda was a firm clap on his shoulder, gesturing absently with his other hand towards a table in the back. "You gotta meet her, man. This girl is something else."
"Then what's she doing with you?" He has to shout to be heard over the dull din of conversations and orders. The line moves forward two places.
"Ha, ha, very funny," Jonouchi says flatly. "Listen, hurry up and order and then I'll introduce you. She's a stunner. I'm a lucky guy, Honda."
"Does your luck ever run out?" He leaves the question open as he orders, just a basic coffee. He doesn't drink the beverage that often, and prefers it plain instead of adding all the frills and syrups the coffeeshop offers.
He grabs his drink and Jonouchi is already propelling him forward, through a crowd to a small table in the back. She's got her back to them, but he can already tell that this woman is beautiful.
Jonouchi takes a seat next to her, and as she notices them her mouth curves up in a smile, and as she turns to Honda he gets the full effect. He thinks there's a reason people use the term knock-out.
Blonde hair, bright eyes—definitely Jonouchi's type, if he would ever admit to having one. Honda takes the last remaining seat as Jonouchi makes the introductions.
"Honda, I'd like you to meet Mai. Mai, this is my best friend, Honda." Jonouchi looks between them and smiles, with the kind of hopeful expectation that lets Honda know in no uncertain terms that he's looking for his friend's approval. He's only too happy to give it.
"You wouldn't happen to have an older sister or anything…?" He jokes, earning an elbow from Jonouchi. "Relax!" he continues, "I'm a one-woman man, just like you."
Mai laughs, masking the motion behind her own coffee cup.
There's just one more thing he needs to know. Honda looks at Mai, watching the way that she watches Jonouchi—not with any kind of visible devotion, but with a sense of palpable fixation—and notices her nice clothes, probably designer. The hand that grips her coffee cup is manicured, and he knows that this kind of girl isn't who he ever would have expected to be seen with Jonouchi.
"Oh! I'll get napkins," Jonouchi says, and jumps out of his chair to get them. Seizing the opportunity, Honda leans forward and addresses Mai.
"You know him," he says. "You know what kind of man he is…what kind of people we are. He's not the best man out there, that's for sure. I want to know why you're with him."
"What can I say?" Mai answers. "I like dangerous men."
He's still not satisfied. "And your intentions?"
"Trust me, honey, you don't need to look out for me. I can do that just fine on my own."
He nods, appreciatively. She's a strong woman; that's probably what drew Jonouchi to her in the first place, although something about her demeanor suggests that it wouldn't surprise him if it was her who made the first move, and not him.
Jonouchi returns, plunking a stack of napkins on the table. After a minute of heavy eating, he uses one to mop up the crumbs from an apple pastry, and leans back in his chair with a satisfied sigh.
"Hey, Mai," Honda says, "if you and Jounouchi are free on Thursday, we can double-date with Miho? She'd really like you. I mean, she likes everybody–" He pauses, laughing.
The smile Mai returns is tinged with regret. "I wish I could, but I'm busy that day."
"Alright," Jonouchi says, and to Honda's ears it sounds like he regrets it too. "We've got to hang out later this week, though."
"Of course," Mai says, before submerging her lips in her oversized coffee. When she emerges, she licks the last traces of coffee away, her red lipstick still immaculate. "I'll surprise you."
A:
"You mentioned a favor?"
His neighbor glances up, a look of perpetual boredom tainting his otherwise smooth features. "Yes, I did."
"What is it?"
He glances back, at the white-haired man lying on the floor, a thin pillow underneath his head and his knees drawn up. He stares at the ceiling with a look of immense interest.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you've got a plan to, ah—blow this popsicle stand, as the saying goes?" He looks back at the Ryou-and-not-Ryou. "I want a little consideration, when the time comes."
"I'll consider it, then," he replies idly.
"Hmph."
"Did you know"—and there comes the smooth, cultured voice again, in his own little way of striking up a conversation—"that human beings are an anomaly? The basest of us are superfluous. The world—"
And here he pauses, caught up again in his reflection in the dirty mirror above him on the wall, almost too high to reach even while standing. Here, glancing up, he can see his face perfectly, and almost imagines the red glint in his eyes. He offers a toothy smile to his reflection.
"I asked you once why you were here," his neighbor says. "We're all here for the same reason. The world doesn't want us. There's no place in this world for people like you and me."
"I think the world's asleep," Ryou mumbles. "I think I'm asleep."
He thinks—oh, he thinks—and remembers, with ease, the many facets of his life. His routine, from office to pre-packed lunches, to coming home and Mai—things shift, and he remembers the feeling of holding the knife. The way the color spread, darker than he would have thought. He does not know how he ended up in that house. From the back of the police car, he had seen landmarks that placed him on the opposite side of town. According to the police, they had proof that he had chartered a taxi that dropped him off at a nearby apartment complex. Ryou does not remember this, but he knows—oh, he knows—that it could not have been anyone but him.
"If not me, then who?" he whispers bleakly, already knowing the clear answer, the one that doesn't need to tell him by flashing lights or the sound of an inmate's screaming. The glances from the guards, the hushed whispers—"The man is insane"—he has heard them all along, but never accepted them.
"Oh God." He staggers back, feet and legs slipping against the floor as he presses his back to the bench, unwilling to look at the mirror, unwilling to see the looks on the faces of those around him. His eyes are drawn to the bars framing his cell like a painting.
He knows it then, somewhere deep in his mind, that something is not right. There is a part of him somewhere that delighted in sinning, in committing horrifying acts of crime, and Ryou stares at his own chest, wondering where it is. Is it in his body? Can he cut it out and stare at that piece of himself? Can he assign it blame?
No—it is a face without a heart. It is real, and Ryou knows that it is not normal. He isn't normal. How much of his life has this thing eaten away?
"By the way," his neighbor adds casually, ignoring the loud, panicked breathing emanating from the cell next door. "I have an answer to your question. He told me to tell you."
Ryou looks up despite himself, locking eyes with his neighbor's.
—"Why are you doing this?" he had asked—
"Why not?"
AB:
Jonouchi has just barely decided that the day isn't going to get any more interesting when Mai saunters up, a smoothie in a plastic cup in one hand, two straws poking out of the lid. "Hey, you," she says, and the flirtatious smile alone makes his heart flutter awkwardly against his ribs.
"You look down," she continues. "Is everything okay?"
He spares a glance to the two guards on the other side of the checkpoint, deciding that if they're chatting with each other, then he can definitely chat with Mai.
"Actually, it's not," he tells her, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Someone cut the central power cables in the night. We're running on back-up generators until maintenance fixes the problem, so the illusion of safety is just that—an illusion." He leans back and laughs shallowly. "If only the inmates knew all it took was a strong push—"
She holds her breath for a moment, before taking a long drag on the smoothie, offering the other straw to Jonouchi. He leans closer and accepts, and she hopes her real boyfriend will forgive her for not visiting more than once—she's good, but she isn't good enough to fool the guards into thinking she's dallying with their temp when they saw her the day before visiting one of their prisoners.
She notices one of the guards glancing their way and sets the smoothie on the table, pulling Jonouchi towards her by his crooked tie. "Hey," she says, "kiss me."
He does, burying one hand into her hair, effectively hiding her face from view as she reaches behind him, trailing one hand up his shoulder as the other hits the console table behind him, fingers searching for a small, black button. She finds it and presses it with a knuckle.
Suddenly, the entire wing is thrown into darkness.
AB:
Ryou glances up sharply, his whole body jerking in surprise at the sudden darkness that leaves him unable to see more than two feet in front of him. The silence is almost worse, but then with a thump the emergency lights begin to turn on, spreading in a solid row from the main door down the length of the hallway.
He sees them moving steadily towards him with a growing sense of panic. The blaring red lights are mounted every few feet high up on the walls, the light scoring and reverberating off of the ceiling, washing the stark whiteness in a bloodied hue.
—The red of the blood coating his hands—
—The red of Mai's scarf—
—The red flash of the electronic locks—
—The red, the red, the red—
The red of the lights join them, and he knows he cannot fight it. He cannot fight the other part of himself, bubbling up within him, making for the surface with the speed of a sprinter. He stares open-mouthed, knowing it is hopeless.
The consciousness within his own—no, he realizes suddenly, as the awareness shifts underneath him, the feeling of it so physical it is as if the floor itself has become tilted. There is another possibility, one he has not yet considered. As the lights draw closer, he realizes he has been confusing the feeling all along.
The other presence is not moving forward. He is receding.
Ryou sinks to his knees, hands clawing at anything in reach to block out the thought. He is not in control. He was never in control. He is not the real one—he is merely the shadow, the fragment, the alter. He is the anomaly.
He can hear screaming again, but this time it is coming from him.
AB:
In his haste he had clawed at the door, and Bakura is glad to find it unhinged. The rescue is made so much easier by this convenience.
He strides forward, reaching his neighbor's door and opening it just as efficiently. Inside, he scrambles to his feet.
"Here's my consideration," he says. "Come on."
In the hallway, they watch as the others in their cells realize the same thing, and Bakura knows he's only got a few seconds. "Go out that door, and take a right on the first hallway. The guards will have been disposed." He turns, making for the other direction.
"Where are you going?"
"I've got to pick something up, first," Bakura says.
"What?" he asks, suspicious.
"We'll need weapons, won't we?" In the dim glow of the flashing lights, his wide grin is made all the more uneven.
"Of course." They part, and Bakura spares the slightest of sympathies for the scapegoat heading to the slaughter. A lie, of course—a decoy, meant to lure the guards away from his path. His escape will be clear.
AB:
Mai clutches Jonouchi in mock distress, trying for a few tears to strengthen the effort. "What's going on?" she asks. "What's happening? It's…just some kind of test, right?"
The guards have already moved, reacting quickly, surely heading to ensure the prisoners are detained. Suddenly, an alarm sounds, and Jonouchi curses, hesitating between comforting Mai and glancing in every direction, unsure what to do.
"That sound means one of the patients has escaped." He doesn't know why he tells her this; it can't be comforting, and to her it isn't.
"I'm scared," she tells him. "Take me out of here, please! To the front of the building…please, Jonouchi!" Long fingernails scrabble against his shirt again, and she can see the uncertainty in his eyes.
"Alright," he relents, taking her hand and leading her down the hallway. She won't let herself smile, but she knows the way is now clear for anyone heading down that path. "It'll only take a few minutes."
"Thank you." She doesn't have to feign the relief she feels, not this time.
Even in the lobby, there are no guards. "The place is in lockdown," he says confidently. "Only the one prisoner escaped—the guards must be chasing him down. You don't have anything to worry about."
"What about you?" she asks. "What will you do?"
"I have to go back to my post," he says. "I really shouldn't have left it."
"Thank you," she repeats, offering him a grateful smile. He turns to leave, convinced that she will do the same. He has no reason to look back at her, to assume anything different.
She has to wait no longer than sixty seconds. A figure walks forward casually, looking more at home in the darkness than in the white jumpsuit he wears. It isn't until he is standing next to her that she turns to walk beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulders as they walk together towards the entrance and out of the building, where her motorcycle rests at the curb.
"It's good to see you again…Bakura," she says, and he grins down at her, copying her gesture by placing his arm around her waist.
"Took you long enough." The keys are still in the ignition, and as she turns them he notices that the gas is full. "I knew I could count on you."
They leave the complex alone and without pursuit, their backs to the slowly dying red sun.
End.
Notes:
1) Symmachy is defined as "fighting jointly against a common enemy" (definition courtesy of The Phrontistery). I like the symbolic connotations of the initial uncertainty of the associations between Ryou, Bakura, and Mai. The Conrad quote is from Heart of Darkness, which I re-read recently and adore. I took much of my inspiration on my portrayal of the characters' madness from Shakespeare (Hamlet and King Lear), and bonus points to you if you can find the few quotes I incorporated! (Wow, there's no way to have said that without sounding pretentious xD)
2) The section titles (A, B, and AB), in addition to representing the two narratives, also reference the different blood types. The two narratives converge into "AB," which is also Ryou's blood type.
3) The "neighbor," while never named, is meant to be Marik. xD
4) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews!
~Jess