End Rhyme

Genres: Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Bakura builds worlds from experience. Ryou builds them from regret. / Batteryshipping Bakura x Ryou x Jonouchi

A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 8.5, Tier Five, with the chosen pairing of Batteryshipping! (Bakura x Ryou x Jonouchi) Might seem like an AU at first, but it's more a reinterpretation of canon things combined with some introspective soul room spectacle and a dash of mind-screw. I hope you enjoy.

"What is an

End Rhyme,

Ryou? Can you tell me?"

"It's a rhyme, occurring in the final syllables of a verse," he answers, quoting their textbook directly. With that done, he knows he has some leeway to stare out the window beside his desk, watching the way the wind twists and manipulates the branches of a tall Callery Pear by the front gates. It's late enough in season that the tree should have started to flower, but so far none have appeared.

"—Now, who can give me the scheme for rhyme royale?—"

He doesn't hate his new school. Doesn't love it, either, but he finds it easy to navigate the halls and the time seems to pass more quickly when he's occupied. It's an odd little thing, too, but on his first day someone stuck a flower in-between the metal slots of his locker. It's still there, sitting on the top shelf.

His head hurts a bit, so he nudges the edge of his bookbag with a toe, trying to tilt it enough so he can see inside the small compartment in the front.

"—of a Petrarchan sonnet? What makes this different from the other kinds—"

When the closing bell rings, he shuffles out of the room along with the others, but a classmate stops him in the hall with a light tap to the shoulder.

"Hey, Ryou! I think your brother's waiting for you outside, by the gates."

"Really?" He looks up, surprised, walking faster. He hardly expected him to show up like that, but the other seemed to like walking Ryou home from school, and Ryou wasn't about to tell him to stop something he enjoyed.

Ryou sees him before he sees Ryou, there at the gate with his back to the pear tree. Standing there is Bakura, wearing one of Ryou's blue jackets.

"How was your day?" Bakura asks.

"Fine." The answer is more automatic than authentic, and as they walk together Bakura sticks his hands in his pockets while Ryou lets his own dangle by his sides to swing slightly with each step. "Not much to complain about. My head hurts."

"Ah. I'm sorry," he says. "The new school, it's good? You like it?"

"Of course. I'll give it some time, I'm sure I'll make new friends. It'll be…just like home."

"Ryou, we've talked about this." And Bakura withdraws a hand from his pocket to settle it lightly on Ryou's shoulder. "This is your home now."

He sighs, then, and when they reach their home he lets Bakura open the door and stick the keys back in his pocket. The house barely looks lived-in, just basic furniture, all new, with unpainted walls and a distinct lack of curios. Impulsively wanting to create a mess, Ryou tosses his bookbag down to the ground near a chair, watching some of the contents fall out to the floor. It reminds him of something.

"Bakura, do we have anything for my head…?"

"Sit. I'll take care of you." He rifles through some cabinets, frowning when Ryou refuses to observe his orders, following him into the kitchen to grab a clean glass and move to the faucet.

"Here, your pills," Bakura says, shaking out two of the plain white capsules into his palm. "For your head. You said you had a headache, right? Is it gone?"

"No. It's not gone." Ryou takes them gratefully, swallowing them down with half a glass of water.

He sleeps peacefully that night.

. . .

The following day, he finds he has difficulty concentrating in his mathematics class. Math is a subject that has always come easily to him—there are numbers, and each number connects to the rest and everything can be divined out, like clockwork, equations building and reduced to a single, quantifiable answer. It's always the same.

Today, he cannot seem to get the last problem. It's two equations with three unknowns, and he's solved for them before, but this time the x, y, and z seem to haunt him, making it impossible to solve. He can boil it down to two, but for whatever reason this one problem stumps him. He can't find the answers.

3(5y - 4z + 1) = 3x^y + 10 - z

Another student sitting at the back of the class has the same problem, and their instructor asks the two to remain during their study break to work on the problem some more. He doesn't feel shame at not getting the problem, but he does at being lumped in with the other, a student who seems to have problems solving for just one unknown. Ryou frowns.

"Jonouchi," he says by way of introduction. "You're new, right? Ryou?"

"That's right." He leans over his desk, scribbling away on a piece of paper, rewriting the equation again just for something to do.

Jonouchi leans over to look at his work, at the scribbled-out mass of calculations and reduced equations, each spiraling out into nothing. "There's where you went wrong," he says. "You wrote it as x to the y power instead of x times y, in the first equation. No wonder you were having such trouble."

"Oh." And he fixes it, his pencil suddenly leaping into action, writing out the rest of the calculations and feeling like an idiot. "If you know that, why are you here…?"

Jonouchi shrugs. "I know that much, but that still doesn't mean I know how to solve it. Help me out?"

Ryou pauses, half-way through the calculations, and slides his desk closer, tilting the paper so Jonouchi can see. They solve the problem together.

x = 5

And when Jonouchi asks him to hang out after school—"you should see the build-up of problems I haven't done yet, you could really help me get it"—he refuses, knowing without being told that Bakura is waiting for him again, and he cannot disappoint his brother.

. . .

"I had a nightmare," Ryou says, recoiling even as he thinks about it, the last tendrils of the dream fading away into smoke as he reaches for them desperately, finding it important yet wanting nothing more to do with it at the same time. "I don't understand…"

"Tell me about it," Bakura prompts. They sit on the longest sofa together, on two adjacent cushions, although there are two other chairs nearby one of them could have sat on. Bakura has his arm draped over the top of the sofa, his fingers almost close enough to touch Ryou's neck.

"I don't remember. I think you were in it. I think father was in it too. He had given us a gift. Or was it me? I don't remember. I didn't like the gift, but I couldn't give it back."

It is as if time itself has stopped, the air feels so thick and heavy, like swimming. Bakura's voice restarts it, speaking lazily. "What was the gift?"

"I…don't recall," he answers honestly. "Whatever it was…I think I gave it to you, instead. But I didn't know what it was…I think it hurt you? Or was it m—"

"It doesn't matter." Like popping a bubble, the tension in the air is gone, replaced with something muzzy and uncertain. "Forget about it."

"I think I already have," Ryou says. "Distract me. Tell me about a dream of yours!"

For the first time, Bakura lets his fingertips brush the edge of Ryou's collar. "I don't dream. I don't have anything to share with you."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll just have to share mine with you, then."

Bakura nods, his mouth on the edge of a smile, and the act reminds Ryou of something he cannot quite place. He thinks he's seen it somewhere before, and the thought crosses his mind that it might have been one of his dreams. Strange that the only thing he can remember would be that expression.

. . .

A letter from their father arrives in the mail. He reads it mechanically, flipping through the photos of his current dig site, leaving them on the counter for Bakura to see later. He's late for school that day.

"—Today, we shall compare the Petrarch to the Wyatt—"

With the text open before him, he stares at the words as various classmates are called upon to read each stanza or line. Both poems are similar, and he finds it difficult to imagine that the words are not being spoken directly to him. On second thought, he wonders why they should be so effective, when all they are is a series of words written by dead men. He hates the Wyatt more.

"—And graven with diamonds in letters plain, There is written her fair neck round about, 'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am—"

Ryou remembers his dreams, this time, and finds them odd. He is not the only one in the class dozing today, but when the instructor calls on him to finish the Petrarch he stands clumsily, finding the lines after a second of stumbling.

"And the sun had already turned at midday; my eyes were tired by looking but not sated, when I fell into the water, and she disappeared," he read.

"—Excellent! Now who can point out similarities in the two texts—"

He imagines it read in Bakura's voice; any poetry, really, would do, he has the voice for it. He imagines it next in Jonouchi's, the sound like rocks rolling around inside a drum. He stifles a laugh, and gets a few strange looks from it. He imagines it next read in his father's voice, who would insist upon the original Italian, and pronounce it like falling water. He is suddenly stricken with a sensation so direct and overwhelming he can barely give a name to it; he calls it nostalgia, and wonders why.

. . .

Ryou is eating lunch by himself when Jonouchi sits next to him, container of noodles, half-eaten, clutched in one hand. "Mind if I sit with you?" he asks after he has already made himself comfortable.

Ryou nods, and the conversation Jonouchi strikes up begins in the middle.

"So I had a video chat with my sister last weekend—she's such a great kid, you know? And I get to see her in a couple weeks." He sighs, wistfully, simultaneously stuffing several noodles into his mouth. "Isn't it great?"

"Yes," Ryou agrees. "It is. It must be nice to have a sister."

He brightens instantly. "Oh, definitely. I like having someone to take care of."

"I had a dream once," Ryou begins, "where I had a sister."

After a few seconds, Jonouchi adds, "I had a dream once where I was a sandwich."

"Do you think dreams ever mean something?" he asks. "Like, what do you think they mean? I dream some really weird stuff sometimes…"

"I woke up and I was hungry." Jonouchi shrugs, scratching his stomach as if bothered by the very memory of it. "So yeah, I think so."

"I don't like to dream," he says, reminded again of Bakura, who said he never dreamed. Right now, Ryou would trade that with him in a heartbeat if not to have strange dreams of a different family, one that made him so wistful and confused upon waking. His head hurts again just thinking about it.

That night, his sleep was not peaceful. That night, he didn't sleep for a second.

. . .

They pass the time in pleasantries and pointless pursuits whose only purpose is to waste time. Bakura isn't so good at this, and keeps finding ways to interact with Ryou, himself doodling away on a piece of paper after he'd finished his homework.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Thinking," Ryou replies.

"About what?"

"…I'm wondering what it would be like to be a sandwich."

Bakura doesn't laugh, but an amused sound emanates from his throat, swallowed back down after a second or two. "You never cease to surprise me, Ryou."

"It's better than wondering about other things," he says, and the room appears to stop again, time stopped as the air itself is frozen in place.

"What other things?"

A particular line from the Wyatt poem jumps into his mind, but Ryou shrugs, glancing down at the string of doodles on the white paper. Interlocking squiggles frame geometric shapes, and Ryou considers finding some sort of equation to group them all. An unsolvable equation, with three variables, that he could take an entire day and an entire notebook to fill and still not come close to figuring it out. He likes the idea.

"Games, mostly," he says. "I remember playing some good ones once, but I can't remember now what they were. We should go to the store and get some, we can play them together."

"Would you like that?" Bakura asks.

"Yes, it would be nice. It would help the time pass faster," he says.

"That's right," Bakura replies. "It leaves less time for thinking when you're busy."

. . .

Ryou is doing math in his head when Jonouchi asks him to hang out again. "I like going to the park after school," he says. "There's basketball, and a playground, and a pond with ducks…?" He lists them all, hoping at least one will bite.

"I want to," he answers, "but I can't. My brother—"

"What? Doesn't want you to have friends? Monopolizes your time?" He takes a closer look at Ryou. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes," he says. "No. I don't know. I'm not sure." He glances back at Jonouchi, almost pleading. "I haven't been getting enough sleep…or too much, I just don't know. Do you ever dream that you're trying to fall asleep, so it shocks you when you actually wake up?"

"So much talk of dreams," Jonouchi says. "You're more fun when you talk about math. Either way I still can't understand you. But I'll be at the park, if you change your mind."

He knows his mind has the capability to be changed. He wants it to, but something is holding him back, some nameless, placeless pain, that if he could just find the source or the provider it would disappear and things could return to normal. He thinks about math.

2 +2 = 5

It makes sense to him.

. . .

Inside the kitchen, he glances down to see the smallest edge of color. He nudges the trash can with a foot to settle the contents, and notices the photos his father sent in the trash among the wrappers and discarded paper. He looks deeper and sees more glossy paper, so he bends down and reaches in, his fingers touching the corner of a photograph of a little girl with light-colored hair, dressed in formal clothes. She looks so startlingly like him that for a moment he cannot breathe. He has dreamed about this girl, and here she is.

There is gum sticking to the back of the photo. With a grimace, he cleans it and sets it onto the counter for lack of a better display place. Then, he searches for Bakura.

He finds him in his room, and cannot help first asking him, "would this have been her room?"

Bakura looks up, standing from his seat in a chair at the corner of the room. "What?"

His voice is so dangerously low, so different from the persona that Ryou knows, that at first he hesitates to go any further. He knows what it would mean—does he really want to know? Can he handle knowing? He's never smelled gunpowder but he thinks this could be like it, the sensation that the air was charged with something that could go off and explode into fire at any moment, with only the right spark.

"The little girl," he says, his voice stronger now. "My sister. Was she our sister? The picture…in the trash! Bakura, I want to know what it means, and you will tell me."

"I have been careless with you. It was unintentional."

"You're a liar," Ryou tells him, trying to hold on to more of his dreams, finding them whisked away from his grasp just as quickly. "You're such a liar!"

"Am I?" he asks, still so serious and calm, and when he smiles at Ryou the effect is revolting. "Are you sure you'd like to know?"

"I've never wanted anything more in my life!"

"You'll find you're quite wrong on that count," Bakura says. "But fine, you shall have what you want."

He takes a deep breath, his words crashing upon each other like waves on a shore, roaring with the same ferociousness as the break. "Yes, I took her place in your life, in your mind. Yes, you had a sister—I use past tense because she is dead. Your dreams are quite the unfortunate side effect of your past life, but I'll help you remember. Your father gave you a ring, a beautiful, beautiful ring—"

"—Stop—" Ryou clutches his head in both hands, closing his eyes.

"—and when you put that ring on, you awakened me, and we played a little game. You liked games then, and you were quite good at them. But I won, as I always do, and with the game I won the use of your body. And I am a generous tenant, dear Ryou."

"But why?" he asks. "Why do all this?"

"Because it's what you want," Bakura says. "I'm giving you everything you've wanted. You wanted your family to be whole—I've provided that. You wanted friends, and I've replaced your old ones with these new constructs. You want peace, and I've given you that, too. Up above I am in control, where I can get what I want while you live comfortably below, in our mind."

"At what cost?" he asks, livid. "At the cost of my life, my individuality, even my name?"

"Yes, landlord." And Bakura twists the features of his face into something indescribable, a smirk so belittling and knowing that Ryou wonders if his own face could ever accomplish the act. Of course it could, if Bakura's can. "Exactly that."

Ryou feels weightless, and just setting his feet back on the ground as he takes two steps backwards brings a sensation just like stumbling. He glances down at his bare arms, imagines himself aggrieved and bound with false shackles, wishing above all else that they would go away.

"You know what the funniest thing about this is?" Bakura asks, continuing without waiting for an answer. "I asked you then, before I buried you in your mind, whether you'd like to remember any of this—the losing. You said no-!" He laughs then, pounding a fist into his empty palm, the gesture over-exaggerated.

"—Stop." He tries again, but Bakura continues to speak between bouts of laughter.

"Is this better than the alternative? You could have this or a meld of emptiness and smoke and silence. You could have the darkness. Would you prefer it?" His laughter grows louder, as if to prove the point.

"On the surface," he mumbles, "you said it's just like this. Does that mean…my friends are there? Jonouchi, and…" He pauses, feeling the faintest hint of melancholy. "And what does he think of me?" he asks.

"You? He's never even met you."

"You said I could have whatever I wanted?" Ryou asks. "Then I'm going to leave now. And I want you gone."

For the first time—he thinks—Ryou turns his back on Bakura, turning his back on the room, the house, and eventually, the street. He wishes he would have thought to grab a jacket before he left.

Inside, Bakura resumes his seat, his laughter finally ebbing away. "You may be able to leave," he murmurs, "but you'll never get rid of me."

. . .

He finds himself walking the familiar path towards the school until he decides to take a right, heading towards where he believes the park is.

He thinks about the sister he doesn't know and the life that isn't his. He thinks about the flower on the top shelf of his locker, neglected for weeks, the petals and stem now shriveled and dried-up. Only the memory of it exists in its complete form; there is no physical reminder that it was once perfect and whole. He thinks about the fact that he has absolutely nothing to remind him of whatever his old life might have been besides a few misshapen dreams and whatever else he might find buried in their trash.

He has memories of Bakura, growing up together, birthday parties and holidays, but if he thinks of them too hard his head begins to hurt again. It is so hard for him to distance what he knows from how he feels to what he's learned. Each is different, and each is more painful than the next. He almost pities Bakura, if there was anything at all to pity. He builds his world from experience, while Ryou only builds them in regret. Perhaps, then, he should only pity himself.

It's still bright outside, and as he walks across the park he spots Jonouchi sitting on a swing, half-heartedly kicking back and forth. Ryou joins him, dropping into the empty swing beside him and wrapping his hands around the chains.

"You showed." It's more a statement than a question, but Ryou knows there's one hidden in there somewhere.

"I'm fine, now," he assures him before kicking off. His swing is going higher than Jonouchi's, and he can't have any of that.

He is breathless, his hair in his face from the wind and the effort, and as he digs his feet in the ground to stop he turns to Jonouchi, watching him go by in a blur.

"Say it," he says. "Say that all of this isn't real. If you tell me, I'll believe you."

Jonouchi stops, leaning around the chain to look at him fully. "Why would I say something like that?"

Stunned, he laughs, surprised that he still can. "Never mind. Forget I said anything," he says, kicking off again, swinging leisurely this time, staring into the sunlight. This is one dream he'd rather not wake up from. He doesn't want it to

End.

Notes:

1) The Petrarchan sonnet quoted briefly is number 190. I've used a translation by Robert M. Durling. Noli me tangere, from the Wyatt poem, means 'touch me not.'

2) In my headcanon, this is a prequel to Secondhand and Discursive, both found on my LJ, for the similar themes and ideas present in each, although they're all perfectly stand-alone, too.

3) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.

~Jess