This little piece of angst-speckled fluff was inspired by the song "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart and a clever little quote I read in a book by Pema Chodron. The point was made that love dwells in the heart of us all; even the most violent. Even the most vicious of animals are tender to their young. Do not let a rough exterior fool you. I thought it an adorable fit for the often, I think, misunderstood dynamics between Ryou and Bakura.

Here is my take on the two pretty bishies.

Tortilla Chips
By: Creature of Habit
Song: "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart

"Everyone loves something – even if its only tortilla chips"

Ryou watched the transparent curtain as it fell outside the open living room window. The clouds had opened up about an hour ago; the languid drumbeat of an all day rain ushering he and Bakura onto the couch to enjoy the liquid orchestra from beneath the comforting warmth of their favorite blue Afghan blanket. Wet weather and cobweb afternoons made perfect for cuddling.

The white-haired youth gazed down at the dozing tomb-robber. Bakura had slipped into a nap somewhere between the budding deluge and fragmented musings over whether or not the basement would flood again. Ryou smiled as he ran a tender hand through the silky, silver bangs of the figure draped possessively across his torso; the long, drawn out purrs increasing to tickle his stomach and hipbone through the thin fabric of his lightweight spring sweater.

As dashing as Bakura was when he was awake, the vision he created when sleeping never ceased to bring a teary sheen to observing espresso eyes. His exquisitely exotic features took on a fragile, borderline sublime sort of elegance; though careful not to lose that alluringly feral edge. One arm was propped, bent at the elbow under his head, to pillow his face, which tilted toward the front door. His other long, lithe arm dangled free to the floor; pianist fingers and sharp nails skimming the glossed cherry wood. The faithful wolf jealously guarding his mate.

It bothered Ryou to no end that others held such mistaken notions and harsh prejudices against his darkness. True. The inception of their strange relationship had been a bit broken and roughewn. Could you blame the thief for being so hard-bitten? How could a soul so inured to loneliness and suffering not violently collapse inward? The lord of shadows had but done the most natural thing in creation. He had stood instead of kneeling. He had overcome rather than succumb. He had adapted to survive the unsurvivable.

Bakura was home to a dynamism that broke the mold on courage and strength. He had turned himself inside out; come to embrace the very weapons and instruments crafted to break him into nothing. The demon had leashed the dogs of war; harnessed that bloodless evil; bent it to his own will; contorted pain into pleasure; made the hounds of hell lick his boots. Yami no Bakura had broken the beast down and designed a better, more bulletproof machine. It had come at a price he could not afford. But that had not stopped him.

"I'm so proud of you." The angelic hikari whispered. He stroked a hand over the satin silver strands before tucking the blanket more snugly around his beloved.

Just what was it about rain that made one so profoundly introspective? Or, perhaps, he decided better, breath hitching as Bakura mumbled a consecrated mine in his sleep, it was less the melodic cloudburst than it was the wild animal that rested so docile against his chest; no longer ashamed to be vulnerable in his presence.

Ryou wrapped slender arms gingerly around the neck of his slumbering lover, leaning in to drop a diaphanous kiss on the pale forehead. This was a side of the dark spirit that just he alone was privileged to know. The shy, winsome Brit was the only one the umbrage would grant safe passage. It was their little secret.

"I love you." Ryou breathed as, like Bakura, he surrendered to sleep.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Bakura inhaled; drawing the blue-black smoke deep into his lungs. After a three second pause, he exhaled.

The rain had abated into lazy sprinkles. The blacktop glistened like slick obsidian under the lambent glow of the near-distant streetlights. The perfume of damp grass and newborn night hung, low and mystical, on the cooling breeze; like the paper lantern blood moon on the black canvas sky above.

Slanted taupe eyes slid to drink in the enchanting boy asleep at his side. Under the wan April moon, his ghostly porcelain skin polished with the sweet sheen of afterglow and diamond sweat, Bakura found it hard to breathe. To label this creature an angel would be a grave insult to his beauty. The most radiant of heavenly hosts would pale miserably beside his lovely hikari.

My beautiful hikari kitty.

But it was not simply his outer splendor with which Bakura found himself so fond. It was the soul of Ryou that enthralled and captivated him to the root. The innocence that never gave up on resurrecting what had died; unearthing what was buried; the unconditional and boundless love bestowed upon a man condemned. He still found it impossible to understand how this boy had come to love him.

But I'm glad you do.

The scars of his past were enduring. Perhaps, he would forever be maladjusted. Maybe, his ghosts would never cease to haunt him. He was learning. But, he had a lot of mountains yet to climb. He wondered so often, on nights like this, as they lay, resigned to the peaceful quietude of the witching hour, tangled up in the sheets and each other ...

Would you be better off without me?

Numb fingers snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedside table. The lukewarm zephyr flowing in from outside was suddenly a mistral on his damp flesh. He might just get his chance to find out. There was rumor that the misplaced spirits should make their departure. The consequences of their lingering in the here and now was currently being weighed and measured and studied under the microscope. A ruling in their favor appeared more unlikely by the day.

The brontide of an approaching storm carried over the treetops into the bedroom.

Like hell they will.

Bakura cradled Ryou to his chest protectively. It had taken him five thousand years; a trip to the most unimaginable of hells; the warping and splitting of his soul. But it was this macabre and sordid sequence of events that had granted him his treasured mate. No one, not even the Gods and Powers that be, would tear him from his light. If the bastards were that suicidal, he would be more than delighted to oblige.

"I'll never leave you." Bakura whispered, tightening his hold on the sleeping Ryou, nuzzling kisses to the moist, cooling skin of his temple and cheek.

He would never, never leave him.

FIN

So? How was it? Let me know what you think.