Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Nothing At All
Word Count: 3,220
Rated: PG-13
Romance: Bakura Ryou x Malik Ishtar
Notes: This takes place a few years after the Ceremonial Duel. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
LJ Challenge: This was written for the 12_stories challenge.
Summary: How do you say that you're sorry when your worst sin was to do nothing?

Bakura Ryou sipped the cup of tea he'd ordered and waited for his guest. If guest were the right word. He wasn't entirely certain at the moment. It had been ages since he'd spoken to Malik Ishtar. Come to think of it, he didn't think that he ever had spoken to him. There was that feeling of familiarity that could only have been spun from the events of Battle City, but Bakura himself had never actually talked to him. It had been him. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring.

That's been gone for years now, he reminded himself, though the scars on his arm and chest twinged slightly just at the thought. They always did, whenever something that brought up those days crossed his mind. Whatever he wants to talk about, it's nothing to do with that.

He sipped at the tea again, then looked up when a voice called his name in slightly accented Japanese. It had been years, but he did indeed recognize the blond Egyptian as he came closer. Malik was dressed much as he had back then, but his hair was slightly longer, and though it was hard to tell from a casual glance, he appeared to be more deeply tanned.

"I'm glad that you could meet me," Malik said, sliding into the chair opposite Bakura. One of the waitresses at the open-air café came by as soon as he did, and he quickly placed an order. Despite the accent he was obviously used to speaking in Japanese. Bakura admired that; he had never quite had a gift for languages himself.

"It's my pleasure," Ryou replied, getting himself a little more comfortable. It was a very pleasant early summer's day, so sitting out here with tea and a snack was something he was likely enough to do even if someone hadn't asked to meet with him. "Though I don't understand what it is that you wanted to talk about."

Malik's gaze dropped almost at once to the table between the two of them. Bakura was not the best at judging expressions, but he thought something like guilt had crossed the other's face briefly. "I…I'll tell you, I promise. Just not right now."

"All right." Bakura was more than a touch confused at the moment, but he was willing to wait and see what was going on. It wasn't as if hanging out with Malik was a horrible punishment. Granted, he knew only a very little bit about the other, but now was a good chance to fix that. "How have you been?" It would probably be the best place to start for now, at least.

"I've been all right, I suppose. I've been taking classes through the mail." Malik accepted the cup of coffee that the waitress brought him and took a drink of it. "I want to start my own business soon."

That sounded interesting. "What sort of business?" Bakura wondered. He couldn't think offhand of what Malik would like to sell. He'd given thought a few times to opening a store of his own, perhaps focusing around occult supplies. That was still a fascination of his. He was not going to let the past keep that much of a hold over him.

"Possibly a rare book store of some kind. My family has a lot of contacts in that kind of trade." Malik looked down into his coffee before he took another sip. "I'd like to do something to show people the past, not just guard it." He didn't look up from the dark brown liquid as he spoke. "I think he would like that."

He. Bakura suspected that Malik meant the Pharaoh. "He probably would." Bakura didn't know the other quite as well as he would have liked, though his respect for him was enormous. He owed Atemu his life, after all.

Malik nodded a little, and shifted in his seat some. He's nervous about something, Bakura thought. He couldn't honestly imagine why. They had virtually no history for him to be nervous about.

"I've thought about moving to Domino permanently," Malik said after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence between them. "There's more people that I know who know me here. Cairo is all right, but…" He twitched a hand, as if trying to say something with the gesture that he couldn't in words. "I'd miss Sister and Rishid, but I could still keep in touch with them. And Rishid would probably come with me anyway."

Bakura nodded a little; he rather envied Malik when it came to his family. All he had left was his father, and the older man spent most of his time being anywhere but around his son. Bakura had never asked why. He did not want to know why. He preferred to think that his dad just wanted to travel and go on archeological digs for treasures that could be used for the Domino Museum. He was fine with believing that. At least Malik's family loved him and was more than willing to demonstrate it.

Malik put his cup down suddenly and looked at Bakura, hints of determination in his pale violet eyes. "I'm sorry."

Bakura blinked once or twice. This was a switch. "What?" Malik had simply done nothing. What could he be sorry for?

"Back in Battle City," Malik said, not moving his attention for a moment. "I treated you like…nothing. I used you. You weren't a person to me. You were just a tool, something to be used because I thought I needed it, and I didn't care what would happen to you. All I could think about was what I wanted, all the time. That's why I bargained with the Spirit of the Ring, to get what I wanted…revenge…or justice…or whatever." He shook his head just a little. "You were just nothing, and that was wrong. I'm sorry. It's no excuse, but…I can't just not say anything about it anymore."

At the moment, Bakura himself couldn't think of anything that he wanted to say. What Malik had said had simply never crossed his mind before. He struggled to think of something, since he felt as if Malik wanted him to do so, and managed to crank a few words out. "Malik, you don't have to be sorry. I couldn't have done anything to help you…no matter what you wanted then." It had only made sense that Malik would speak to the one of them that could do something, and Bakura Ryou knew he hadn't been that person.

"It doesn't matter. That was your body being used and your friendship with all the others being used, and I didn't care." Malik shook his head, his hair glinting in the sunlight as he did. Bakura's eyes were drawn briefly to that. It was certainly quite attractive.

"If you want to be forgiven, then I do." Bakura turned his attention back to Malik. "What's done is done. That was years ago, and there's no need to keep on stressing about it now." It hadn't really hurt him, after all. It was what he had become used to after the Spirit had held him for so long. And, it wasn't as if he hadn't asked for at the time either.

Malik shook his head a bit, as if he could not quite believe what he was hearing. "You're sure?" His voice reflected that uncertainty, even when Bakura nodded in agreement. "I don't…how could you?"

Bakura could not help but smile a touch. "If I didn't like people just because they were more interested in the Spirit of the Ring than in me, I'd have to start with not liking myself. He was always more interesting than I am." That had been what had started his interest in the Millennium Items, that and the way Yuugi had changed because of his time spent with Atemu. Yuugi had grown stronger and able to survive on his own. Bakura was not certain just how he had grown: if he had at all.

He was caught up in his thoughts for a moment, and almost did not hear what Malik had just said. And when it sank into his mind, he didn't think that he'd heard it right at all. "Pardon? I didn't quite catch that."

"I said, you're wrong about that. At least as far as I think." Malik lifted his head to look at Bakura again. "I think you're very interesting." He glanced away again quickly. "I shouldn't. I know."

Trying to cope with all of this was not one of the easiest experiences Bakura had ever had to deal with. "You think I'm interesting?" That was the only coherent sentence that made it out of his mouth at the moment. He suspected there would be others later. Once he'd actually dealt with the fact someone found him interesting, and it couldn't be for his skill in role-playing games. He doubted if Malik even knew that he played those.

"You are interesting." Malik replied, now managing to look back at him again. "You're nothing like him and that's what I find interesting. Part of it, anyway."

Bakura's mind whirled briefly. Somehow, while he had not expected it, there was nothing wrong with it, either. It did require discussion. It wasn't something that either of them could just do without thinking about it, and talking about it. But not here. Not out in the open. This was something that required a private room to really work everything out in. He finished off the last of his tea before he caught Malik's attention. "I think that we should talk about this somewhere else."

"Somewhere else?"

"Would you like to come to my apartment?" Bakura would not have been too surprised to find there was a slight stain of a blush on his cheeks. That was not a question he had asked many people, much less under these circumstances. "It's more private." He was not going to think what he wanted to think. He was not Jounouchi.

Malik's reply was a slightly hesitant nod, and he quickly finished his own coffee. Once they had both paid, he stood up and gestured off to the nearby parking lot. "I've got my motorcycle if you want to ride."

Bakura had never ridden on a motorcycle. At least not while he was fully conscious. He thought there might have been one way back then, but it wasn't something he remembered. "All right. You do have a spare helmet, don't you?"

"Sister wouldn't forgive me if I didn't." Malik smiled slightly, then led him over to where it was parked. His own helmet hung from the handlebars, and a spare was strapped to the back, which Bakura put on once it was handed to him. In a very short period of time, they were driving down the road. It was just open enough so Malik could make good time, and Bakura kept his arms wrapped around him. He didn't mind thinking about how good this felt. Which was quite good indeed, really.

He managed to tell Malik just how to get to his apartment, which wasn't that bad of a trick given that he had to yell to be heard over the noise of the engine, and his voice just wasn't constructed for yelling at all. And as they headed up the stairs to the apartment, Bakura noticed, perhaps a bit later than he should have, that there was something quite different growing between them. Where it had started, he had no idea. Somewhere with the coffee and the tea, between the confession and the forgiveness, during the ride and with the holding, that was where it had been. He couldn't identify it any more clearly than that. It was just something, something that made walking beside Malik something more than a little pleasant.

His hands did not tremble as he unlocked the door and let them both in. He was quite proud of that fact, all things considered. He switched into his house slippers, offering a pair to Malik, and then headed into the living room. "Would you like something to drink?" Neither of them needed it. They'd just had coffee and tea at the café, after all. It wasn't the liquid. It was an excuse to do something with their hands.

"Yes, please." Malik took a seat and waited. Bakura thought he was looking a little calmer, in some ways, than he had before. He himself was a little jittery at the moment. The thought of dating another guy, or doing more than dating, had crossed his mind more than once in his life. He'd never actually bothered to ask someone else out, though. Not that he hadn't wanted to before. He just generally didn't have to. Most of the people he'd dated had wound up asking him out.

Bakura made two cups of tea and brought them out, setting one in front of Malik and taking his own usual seat. He tried to think of somewhere to start the conversation that would make sense. "Interesting?" That didn't make a great deal of sense but there wasn't much else he could think of.

"Yes." Malik didn't drink the tea, but just sat with it in his hands. "I'd like to know more about you. I'd just like to know you. I think I…" He paused, gathering the words carefully before he finished the sentence. "I think I like you. I think I could like you if I knew you."

There was quite a lot that wasn't said with that, and Bakura thought he knew some of it. Would Bakura like him? Did he want to get to know Malik like that? What if they didn't like each other after all? The list of questions, if they had all been written down, could have reached from where they sat all the way to Egypt or farther.

What is it going to hurt? If worst comes to worst, then I get a new friend out of it. At the best… Bakura wasn't certain what to think of what the 'best' might be, but it was something worth trying for. And the thought of actually having a real and good friend in Malik was something worth trying for in his opinion.

"I think that's something we can try," he said after a few quiet moments. "And we don't know each other all that well, do we?"

"No, we don't." Malik shook his head some. "That's why I can't…couldn't believe that you'd just forgive me like that. It's like I didn't do anything to you at all." The wonder that touched his voice was almost tangible.

"You didn't. You didn't hurt me, the Spirit did it. It was all his own idea." Bakura rubbed his arm a little. "And it's not the first time that he ever did it. Then…it didn't matter to me what he did to me, as long as my friends were all right." He stared at the cup of tea. It was really quite fascinating, tea was. "It wasn't the first time that I would have been ready to die for my friends. Or the first time that I did die for them."

Malik's eyes gleamed slightly with curiosity. "What do you mean?"

"It started before I even moved to Domino," Bakura said, casting his mind back through all those years. "My father gave me the Millennium Ring not that long after my sister and mother died in a car crash." Saying that out loud didn't cause the pang that it once had. Time did heal some wounds, it appeared. "Not long after that, the people I would play role-playing games with would go into comas after we played. I didn't know for the longest time what was going on, but it turned out to be the Spirit of the Ring. He claimed to be paying 'rent' for using my body by putting my friends' souls into the figurines for the game, so I could play with them forever…like I'd said that I wanted." His fingers gripped the teacup a little harder.

Malik listened carefully, nodding a bit, and Bakura went on to tell the rest of the story, about how he had come to Domino and Yuugi and his friends had latched onto him by their mutual love of games. When they had come over to try to convince him that his paranoia about playing games was nothing but that, the Spirit of the Millennium Ring had taken over, shoving Bakura himself into the deepest parts of his mind, and had begun to spin his dark web to trap them all into figurines. Only through a very unusual set of circumstances had he been able to take even minor control back, and in the end, he had sacrificed his own life to enable them to take down the Spirit.

"I was lucky. My own avatar in the game, White Wizard Bakura, was able to cast a spell that would revive me, with the help of the Pharaoh's spirit," Bakura said at last. "It took all of his energy and experience to do it, but that's why I'm here now."

"I'm glad." Malik's voice was quiet and soft now, and Bakura looked at him with a faint smile. He couldn't deny that he was, too. Living was good. "You said that wasn't the first, though?"

"No. The next time was the last time, though. We were at Pegasus's tournament in Duelist Kingdom, trapped underground. It had been weeks since I'd heard from the Spirit, and I thought that he was gone forever. But while we were trying to find out what was going on and a way out of there, he spoke up. I didn't think we'd have any other way out of there, so I promised that he could have my body when he needed or wanted it, and I wouldn't try to fight him anymore…as long as he left my friends alone. He promised…" Bakura dropped his gaze to the floor and spoke very softly. "I didn't really believe that he would, though."

"You still tried." Malik's voice was still soft, and he was suddenly closer to Bakura than he had been, having moved to the couch. "You made what you thought was a fair bargain. It isn't your fault that he lied to you. I…Everything that I did, even everything that my other side did, I did because I wanted to. Because all I could think about was revenge for something that wasn't anyone's fault. At least not anyone that I could get to." A hint of anger laced through his voice before he shook his head. "That's all in the past for both of us."

Bakura nodded slowly and lifted his head, smiling just a touch. "Why don't we not worry about the past?" That was the source of many of his arguments with his father, after all. Acknowledging and learning from the past was one thing. Wallowing in it was something else. "There's a future we could be thinking about instead."

A slow smile touched Malik's lips. "You're right. So…you've told me about you. How about I tell you about me?"

The smile was now matched by one on Bakura's lips. "I'd like that." One of Malik's hands wasn't that far from his own, and he reached out to touch it with the tips of his fingers. "I'd like that a lot."

Malik's smile widened and warmed, and at that sight, Bakura almost wished that the other had done something to him worth forgiving. After all, forgiving him for doing nothing looked like it was going to turn out just fine.

The End