Notes: set after Battle City but before the Memory Arc; assuming that some time passes between the two, and that Ryou is the one who has the ring at that point. Thanks to Mop for pointing out a mistake and an unclarity, I hope it's clearer now.^^

Disclaimer: I don't own Yuugiou, I don't own the characters, I just borrow them for fun and make no profit with it.

Coming Home

He glides into the body, again. It strains under the change, foreign and strange: he has to push through it, retake it, superposing his spirit and this thing of flesh and bones and more. He knows the feeling, from the other side, from millennia ago, when he was the one being overshadowed. He breathes, unnaturally aware, for a moment, of the work of his lungs, in too deep; it takes work, adjusting his vision to his eyes; he flexed his fingers, can feel himself extend to the tips of the – his – fingers. When he was alive, once, there was none of this clear distinction between that was what him, and what was the body that was his, was part of his being; but he only possesses this body. It isn't his own. The other must not know any of this, and won't.

The distinction is dangerous: there is no existence outside of the physical realm, he knows this. The monsters have hung to the stone tablets in the past, and to these fragile and endlessly multiplied cards in the present; the ghosts of Kul Elna who hover above the dust that is all that's left even of the ruins of their village cling, unwilling, to the droplets of blood in the golden artefacts (and so they're his, call to him, all of them: Mahado's cursed ring, of course, and the Ishtar's last two, the necklace and the rod with the treacherous blade so ironically free of gold and blood, and Shadi's hidden ones, and the eye he's licked clean of Pegasus' blood thinking of Akunadin; and even the puzzle with His very soul: his, his, his.).

He has only continued his life over millennia thanks to the ring that's imprisoned him. And there is no life after dead, not for him: Ammut would devour him. So he won't die, never, never, not without taking down the world with him.

But even the millennium items can be fragile, so he's used the ring to let his spirit cling to other parcels of the physical world: the puzzle, again. And this body.

But the body, without the help of the ring, is harder to hold unto than lifeless gold: constantly moving, changing; and there's a foreign will within it, opposed to his, and that is part of this being, without which it would collapse and that may not be destroyed!

In the past, he's had to project his voice into his host's mind, to cajole and threaten, to force fractional control of his limbs, anything to make him reclaim the ring and put its magic into his service again: every time he does, the other one's resolve weakens a little, with the raising exhaustion, the desperation born of his fruitless victories, and the incertitude that comes with his isolation. This is both useful and dangerous: he wants the other one to yield, not vanish.

"You again."

His host's voice is distant; he sounds defeated and surprised even though he's wearing the ring this time.

"Me," he acquiesces; the moment of floating is over: he wears the body like his own, and he's become used, over the time, to its particularities. He's not satisfied with it in all aspects, of course, and he doesn't always agree with the other one's way of treating it, but, well, he doesn't like how it ages either. It's just one of these things that are part of it, and none of them make it less his possession. Finally.

He straightens up: only when he's been gone for a while is he even conscious of it, the way he and the other wear the body so differently. He shakes his head, hair flying – it feels good to have all this again – and looks around: he's in the kitchen of the host's apartment. A quick look on a calendar above the sink tells him that less than a full month has passed. Good. At times he wished he could posses an empty shell instead, but having a host who continues to care for the body not only when he's not in control, but also when he's gone for a long time certainly has its perks.

He looks down: he's standing in front of the table in the kitchen, a half-finished drawing and pencils laid down before him, one of them fallen under the table, probably when his host stood when he began to notice something was amiss, unless he's just stood up to turn on the light, because the room seems a little dark to draw. He cocks his head, considers the drawing: a building much like the apartment complex they live in, with indistinct silhouettes on the street before it; mostly grey in grey, but with a few tints of colour. A host who continues to work on his skills when he's gone, it seems. Even better.

He grins, and moves – easily now, incorporeity feels like a distant memory –, casually pushes the fallen pencil against the wall, ignoring his host's protest, and walks over to the cupboard and the fridge, and snorts in annoyance when he discovers that meat is almost entirely absent. Ah, well.

"Where's our deck?" he asks, still rummaging through the fridge. Bakura Ryou always feels a lot more distinct, complete, and real to him when his own control of the body is the most secure, as if, on reflection, he's a bit more than just another part of the body he inhabits: someone he can ask questions, and who might give answers that stream from elsewhere than mechanic logic or self-preservation instinct.

There's a brief silence, during which he opts for a bottle of one of these painfully sugary drinks, and walks over to the window, sipping it, without impatience. It's raining outside, and the sun is already low: he sees a few people hurry past, hidden behind raincoats and umbrellas. It looks unchanged, and, he reflects, rather similar to Ryou's drawing, if you look at it in a certain way.

"In the drawer by the bed," comes a tired voice from beside him.

He turns his head, surprised to see Ryou's ghost-form stand next to him: he knows that Ryou dislikes doing this, disturbed as he is by seeing his own body from the outside. He smiles at him, showing teeth. There's always some kind of difference in how Ryou appears in spirit form to the actual body: he doesn't know what it is, what it's a sign of, but it means he can only now tell that he's changed very little. He looks apprehensive, and though his voice sounded tired, his transparent body appears very alert.

"I missed you," he says, still smiling dangerously, and makes a single step closer, looking his host up and down.

Ryou doesn't flinch back – even as he traces over his face with one finger, from the top of his forehead, over circling eyes and nose and mouth, to his neck, as if needing to remind himself of the traits that he's wearing himself at this very moment – but he looks away.

"You – when you shielded me," he says, stubbornly staring out of the window. "You did it for yourself, not me."

His smile widens, because he knows his host, and what this statement means: the "thank you" is at the tip of his host's tongue, and if he looks for reasons not to say it, it's because he's afraid of admitting to owing a debt.

"Same thing," he answers dismissively, and draws small circles over Ryou's throat, then gently turns his chin to him. Ryou blinks up at him and is silent. "Any new cards?"

Ryou doesn't answer, but the guilty, fearful look that crosses his face is answer enough, and he can't help but laugh. A host who thinks about providing all the necessary upgrades while he's gone as well, apparently. He probably owes a lot of rent for the time everything has been taken care of while he was gone.

"Don't worry about it," he says breathlessly, and buries a hand in Ryou's soft hair, and lays the other arm around his incorporeal form to draw him closer; Ryou lets him, and he feels him tremble against him: he must be lonely, craving for contact, and that's why he's chosen this form that lets them touch. Where, then, are the pharaoh and his friends, he wonders? "We'll be using something else this time anyway."

He's had time to plan while his existence hung to the parts of his very soul he left behind in the world, and this next one will be an endgame, and one the pharaoh can't win.

"What...?" Ryou, stepping back, asks in a guarded tone, like he's expecting him to produce a new, dangerous weapon here and then: which is laughable, considering he's dutifully kept his actual weapon safe for him, hanging from his neck; he's a creature of habit, his host, and clearly, the few weeks of freedom have not been enough for him to form new ones.

He grins, and idly plays with the ghostly cord of the millennium ring replica on the host's chest.

"You have some talents it'd be a waste not to use."

Ryou stares at him and doesn't push further, and so he leaves it at that as well. They'll have this argument later. He's in no hurry.

They both turn back towards the window; during the short interval of their exchange, the sun has receded from the street, leaving it dark. He takes another sip of his drink, then puts it down to open the window: he glances at his host when the latter look like he's about to say something, but when he catches his eyes, Ryou just gives a weak shrug, so he pulls the window open, letting cold, rain-heavy air fill the room. For a few moments he only breathes deeply, before he faces Ryou again, leaning against the counter.

"Have you eaten?" he asks. His host shakes his head. "You should." He doesn't mention that this is because there's nothing he'd enjoy eating in the house: Ryou might end up buying something on his own, but if he doesn't – it's not worth the hassle any more than the pleasantness of the cool raindrops dripping over the skin he wears is worth rethinking destroying the world. "And you can finish your drawing."

He pushes himself off the counter, stretches, and closes the window as the air is beginning to get unpleasantly cold. Ryou is staring at him:

"You're not going to do anything?"

He shakes his head.

"Later."

Ryou presses his lips together, and he can tell that this won't be too easy; he's sure he'll win, though: his host is too used to his victories being nothing but small delays to truly believe they could be anything but. Ryou turns and walks away from him, and when he reaches the wall by the door, tries to switch the light on; he freezes when he realises he can't.

He quickly walks up to the motionless ghost, presses the switch for him, and then lays both arms around him, hands joining on Ryou's stomach, and rests his chin on his shoulder and lazily licks and nibbles at his neck.

Ryou remains stiff, and then turns round slowly, careful that contact between their bodies is broken as little as possible.

"Don't – " he protests, when he presses him against the doorframe and is about to go on kissing him; his eyes are wide. "Not like this."

Right: Ryou doesn't like this. He's never quite figured out why, but from the little his host has said and what he's figured out from his brief searches of his thoughts, he guesses it's because there's – for every living being that's self-aware enough to notice it, possibly – something very wrong and scary about being able to look at, to touch your own body from the outside like this. He's surprised that Ryou doesn't seem to have figured out that the fact his parasite clearly feels none of this is a clear sign of how much more this body is his own and part of him. But facing your fears gets strenuous: it's much, much easier and more satisfying, he knows from experience, to accept, internalise and own all of the threatening darkness: Ryou's just very timid about it, but it's there.

He rolls his eyes, and in an instant – so easy, once control is back, magic so gloriously abundant! – they've switched places. He learns his head back against the doorframe and spreads his legs a bit, and pulls Ryou, who's standing before him with his hands on his shoulders, close against him. Ryou leans his head to the side a little and kisses him a few times, long, longing kisses, and he's changed a little in ways he can't define; then he buries his head against his shoulder as if to hide, except the movement is made less childlike by the tongue that keeps licking at his neck, right over the hem of his shirt. He sighs out and caresses up over Ryou's back, to his bent neck, and idly plays with the cord of the ring: for a few days he'll have to be careful, maybe even – the five wounds on their chest still sting at times.

He shifts a little against doorframe and wall, and bumps against the light-switch: the room briskly becomes dark again; Ryou has closed his eyes against the darkness when he lifts his chin to kiss him again. Ryou's warm, even breath tickles over his upper lip as they stand motionless and keep their lips locked for a long time.

- Fin -