A/N: For Round 9 of The Yu-Gi-Oh Fanfiction Contest. The pairing is Gemshipping (TKB x Ryou). I had a rather nice plunnie for this that I got ~2000 words into, but then Real Life whacked me upside the head with a mountain of finals and other inconveniences. So, I present to you this... ficlet. Less than 1000 words, even. It's like a record for me.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Much love to Ryou VeRua and all the other forumers at the time of my mini-freak-out - you're all awesome. :)
Alluvial
Zorc-in-the-Thief-King's-guise walks up, smiling grimly and meeting the Thief King's eyes with his own. "You will stay here and guard your soul room while I search for the Pharaoh in this vessel's body."
Bakura scowls at him. "I will do no such thing—I thought we had an agreement that I would be allowed to kill the Pharaoh on my own."
"There is still much to do before that, and much to plan," Zorc interrupts him, and Bakura muses that it is indeed strange to see the demon facing him with the form of a human, eerily similar to Bakura himself. "You will have your chance for vengeance later. For now—"
Zorc turns and unlocks the door to the soul room, his hand fisting on something in the dark corridor and easily lifting it into the air. He tosses a teenager—not yet seventeen years old—into Bakura's arms and watches in silence as the Thief King's eyes widen in surprise and he automatically catches the boy. "—for now, you may watch him to make sure that he does not escape. The body is mine for the night."
"Thanks for the warning," Bakura bites out before the boy begins to squirm in his arms, struggling to get free.
Bakura stares down at him, pensive, easily restraining him. "Are you my host?"
"No, I'm not!" the boy splutters. "I'm Bakura Ryou, and I don't know what I'm doing here or how I got here—"
"And I'm Bakura, King of Thieves, and I'm relatively certain that I was here before you were," Bakura says, setting the boy down but barring his way to the exit.
"I—I—" Ryou appears to be searching for words and failing, retreating from Bakura's wicked grin on his hands and knees. "Let me out!"
Bakura tilts his head, mocking. "Allow me a moment to consider that… no."
This results in a brief scuffle, in which Ryou dashes for the door to Bakura's soul room and Bakura grabs him by the shoulder and pins him to the ground, holding him there with one firm hand. "Remind me, Ryou… what did I say about escaping before?"
He twists beneath Bakura's grip, teeth gritted and muscles tense. "Let—go—of—me!"
"No," Bakura repeats, frowning at him. "Tell me, do you really have anything to go back to out there?" He is taking a chance here, taking the chance that Ryou may have a family and friends and perhaps even a lover, because he knows Zorc too well to think that the demon would ever leave a victim ties to a previous life.
Ryou slumps to the ground, and his voice is muffled by the carpet when he speaks. "…No."
"Exactly." Bakura relishes in the one word; it is always pleasing when a guess turns out to be correct. It is always exhilarating to take a risk. "So why are you so desperate to leave?"
"Because he—he said he'd be killing someone with my body!" Ryou bursts out, and the horror on his face makes Bakura raise his eyebrows in surprise.
These modern-day children have absolutely no backbone to speak of, it seems...
"Killing someone?" Bakura says. "And you think that's bad?"
Ryou is silent.
"Have you ever considered that he's only killing someone? That he's not killing people? That you should count your blessings that you have nobody to care about, so he cannot kill someone you love?" He shakes Ryou by the shoulder; the boy does nothing to resist. "Use your brain, idiot! Be grateful! You have more than others might!"
"I don't have anything," Ryou says softly, and his voice shakes as he continues. "My mother and sister are dead, my father couldn't care less about me, my friends have fallen into comas whenever I try to spend more time with them—"
Bakura smiles bitterly—this is a bragging right of its own, a thing to be proud of; in the long millenniums when he and Zorc had none but each other for company, they have remembered their pasts and compared. "My entire family is dead. I have no friends. I would say that I'm worse off than you."
"I don't know," Ryou says thoughtfully. "You seem happy enough the way you are."
"Happy?" Bakura snorts, and the blunt honesty in his tone astonishes even him. "I'm never happy."
There is silence, Ryou absorbing the Thief King's words, and then: "That must be a miserable life to live."
Bakura flinches at the pure pity in the boy's voice glances down at him again, their eyes locking and remaining like that for one long, long moment. "I manage."
"No," Ryou murmurs, "I don't think you do."
They stay frozen in that position as the minutes drag on, the tension and something else in the air preventing them from moving, as dust motes drift through the space around them and the sound of their breathing is the only thing that resonates within the room.
"I will manage," Bakura says finally, quietly, and Ryou nods in understanding.
"And so will I."
They know without saying it that they have decided. They know without saying that they have an agreement. They know without saying that they will not see each other again, because Zorc is too clever to let their relationship pass by.
I'll try to help you escape from Zorc. I'll stop him from interfering with your life like he did with mine.
I won't forget you. I won't give up.
Do you promise?
I promise.
end.
A/N: Many apologies for this; I really don't like it, I churned it out in half an hour or so, and it could really use some character development and transition.
Alluvial means of or relating to loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments - which I think certainly fits this ficlet in more ways than one. Since I wrote this while making a Global study sheet, my thought process was something along the lines of: "I could have sworn I saw a nice word in that handout on Mesopotamia's environmental diversity..."
Please review; tell me what you liked and what you hated! Concrit is especially loved :)