Disclaimer: Don't own, yadda yadda.
Leaning back in his chair and wiping his forehead, he laid his paintbrush aside and took a sip from a small flask, eyes not entirely focused. His painting was nearly done and he felt a flash of pride, having been working on the piece for several days now. He could only work when the light was just right, and when his flask was filled to the brim.
His work frightened the servants, and his newest creation kept them out of his drawing room entirely. The paintings were bred from his nightmares, those sweat-dripped dreams he was unable to escape for even one night unless he'd finished putting them down on canvas; then, he had maybe two, three nights respite, never more. It was as if something was speaking through him, something old and alien, and he couldn't resist the call. The longer he tried, the further he could feel his sanity crack.
He stretched lightly, blinking and trying to focus on his nearly finished painting. His eyes followed the lines and curves and odd shapes and colors, and once, he would have called such a thing the conception of a madman. However, he of course was not a madman, so he was forced to alter his perception – with the slight aid of the contents of his flask – and push on with his work. The dreams were growing frenzied, and a part of him, dusty and ancient and primitive, urged him to finish his task as quickly as possible.
A voice at the door pulled him from his scrutiny, an unwelcome voice bubbling up from the hidden depths of his memories, speaking his name and caressing every syllable.
"Pegasus."
One hand rising unconsciously to his empty eye socket, he slowly turned in his chair to stare rather fixedly on a white-haired form standing in the doorway. The boy – so familiar, and yet so distant, as if part of a dream, remnants of a past Pegasus tried to bury and forget – gazed with amusement at the piles of paintings littering the room. He did not seem the least bit put out by the contents splashed haphazardly and yet with insane care on the canvas, the otherworldly things brought to life by the power of a paintbrush.
His voice wasn't working. There was much he wanted to say – or perhaps he wanted to scream, to call for his guards, before he was assaulted and nearly killed again; he only had one good eye left – but though his mouth worked, no sound emerged. It was as if he'd been struck dumb by the ghosts of his past, tongue torn out and mixed with his paints to birth horrors beyond imagining.
Reflexively, he took another swig from his flask before setting it aside.
The figure approached him silently, coming to a stop mere inches away, dark gaze focused on the gibbering mess of a painting Pegasus was finishing.
"Interesting." Those dark, fathomlessly cold eyes focused on Pegasus, piercing through his skin and rending apart his soul. Shivering, the painter pressed back against his chair but found himself otherwise unable to move, trapped just as he was trapped every night within his tangled sheets and the almost tangible darkness of his bedroom. He was bound to his chair by unseen ties, and sweat beaded across his skin. He forced himself to push down the panic rearing in his mind, trying to devour him whole.
Slender fingers traced over the high curve of a cheek, stroked down his neck, caressing the fluttering pulse. Every touch sent shivers through his spine, icy tendrils leaking through his body, poisoning his blood.
"Do you know why I am here?"
Pegasus still could not speak, could barely twitch, instinctively shying away from the touch that had so long ago – or was it so recently? – caused painanguishthrobbinghurtscreamsdrippingbloodsuchloudhorriblescreamsohgodwashegoingtodie?
Thin lips quirking into a half-smile, the boy continued, "I'm here to save you. I am your veritable Angel of Mercy. You should feel pleased that I have taken it upon Myself to help you. After all, I have always had the best of intentions towards you."
The hand slipped beneath his shirt, fingers tracing unknown patterns across clammy skin. Pegasus jerked, feeling the phantom pain of his missing eye, recalling that day in his tower, when he had lost all hope of reviving Cyndia, had watched his life falling into the yawning abyss that haunted his dreams. The boy had torn from him the last shred of hope he'd had left, severed his lifeline and left him for dead.
Feeling strangely amused by the situation, Pegasus laughed.
"You stole the Eye from me, Bakura," he rasped, throat dry. He longed to take a long draw from his flask, to feel the comforting burning sensation spill down his throat and spread through his system, chasing away the cold and the pain.
"You no longer had any need of it. It only caused you further hardship. You had your chance to rebuild your life, but you failed." Bakura grinned, wide and unhinged. "Now I have come to offer My services again, to help you kick this addiction. Though I do quite enjoy your artwork."
The horrible panic began to spread again, memory of painandbloodandagonyrippingtearingshreddingnolightsomuchdarkness…
"Perhaps you will survive, as you survived before."
A heavy weight straddled his hips, and the buttons of Pegasus' shirt slowly snapped one by one, pale fingers working them off methodically. Twisting, struggling weakly like a child in the claws of a bear, Pegasus stretched towards the gibbering voices in his mind, screaming at him to push aside this distraction and continue with his task, to finish the final painting, to put the demons to rest.
Warm lips pressed against his neck, a moist tongue darting over the hammering heartbeat, while the fingers opened the fabric of his shirt and pushed it aside, every movement filled with mocking tenderness. His paintbrush, the canvas, the paints, all seemed so far out of reach, his goal quickly becoming unattainable, and he could feel the final thread snap.
Pegasus threw out an arm, warding himself from the unseen, knocking into the rickety little table and spilling his paints and his treasured flask. It hit the floor and broke, liquid spilling out eagerly onto the tile, the words "absinthe" broken into pieces.