Chapter 1 - In which Marik's perfectly good day is ruined by a white-haired nuisance

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Marik stretched out his back as he enjoyed the morning sun on his skin. It had been one hell of a long, boring week and he was glad it was over. He loved his sister, really he did, but helping her push papers around for the museum's new exhibit was not exactly his idea of a good time. Sometimes, being a functional member of society sucked. After a week like this, there were even moments when he kind of missed the madness of the shadow games. At least there had been some excitement in that.

He padded out of his room and was promptly greeted by a purring mass of grey fur at his ankles. He reached down to give Tou a firm scratch behind the ears.

"Good morning, sweet boy. Are you ready to have a nice lazy day? 'Cause I sure am." He leant down and scooped the cat to his chest, and the volume of the purring went up a few notches. "Let's get you fed while you're still happy to see me, hmm? I know your game, you brat."

Marik carted them both into the kitchen, where Tou was as enthusiastic as always to get a full bowl of food. Unfortunately for Marik, the fridge didn't offer any inspiring options for him. Maybe just some caffeine then. He stared at the coffee maker and wrinkled his nose. He was in the mood for something nicer - he'd earned it.

He gave Tou one last good scratch on his way out to his bike. It had been a while since he visited his favourite little café. This seemed like as good a day as any to treat himself. He mounted the bike and revved the engine before taking off, delighting in the loud rumble that always reminded him of freedom. Maybe he'd go for a nice long ride later; it'd been a while since he went up the coast. But first, there was coffee to get. He parked and grabbed a nice latte and a breakfast roll to go. The café was a decent spot to sit and enjoy a meal out, but he was in the mood to settle right down on the couch and ignore the world for a few hours.

He got home, and with a nice warm latte and a lap full of cat, it looked like his morning plans were going to go off without a hitch. He was just about to take another sip when his phone leapt to life. He eyed it suspiciously. Isis was the only one who ever called him this early, and whatever it was he didn't want to deal with it. His latte was only half finished. He'd been planning to check for a last-minute appointment at his favourite spa. This was going to be his day. Ugh.

With a rather disgusted huff he grabbed the phone on its third ring, but paused when he saw "Ryou Bakura" splayed across the screen. It had been a while since they'd spoken outside of work, and he felt a little guilty at how much the name surprised him. For a long time after the pharaoh's departure he'd considered Ryou a good friend, but Ryou's ongoing fascination with the memory of the ring spirit had become grating over time. Dredging up that bit of past was too fraught with emotions for Marik's taste, and he'd found himself avoiding Ryou more and more to dodge the topic. Now, he wasn't even entirely sure of when they'd last gotten together just for the fun of it.

He shook his head to clear it when the phone belligerently rang again, and swiped to answer.

"…..hello?" part of Marik wasn't even sure if he expected a real answer, but it was undoubtedly Ryou's voice that poured through the speaker. It sounded a bit breathy and excitable, which was….odd.

"Oh! You answered! I wasn't sure if you would, you know, since I know this must seem a bit out of the blue. Am I bothering you? My, I hope not, but I rather need your help with something."

"…..you need what?" Marik was reminded rather forcibly about Ryou's tendency to just leap into a situation and expect everyone else to catch up.

"Your help with something, if it's not too much trouble." There was a brief pause and the sound of something clattering to the ground in the background. "Or maybe even if it is."

"Ryou, what's going on? I'm not working today. Whatever it is, I'm sure you can just call the museum and get Isis to help."

"Oh, no no, this doesn't have anything to do with the museum, I wouldn't call you directly for that. I've been working on a… um…a personal project of sorts and it's gotten a little… well …..a little complicated, I guess you could say? I could really use your help with this, it's quite important. I'm sure you'll find it simply fascinating!" Ryou's voice took on an excited edge.

"Ryou…. what did you do?" Marik had a bad feeling about this.

"Oh, nothing to worry about I'm sure, but can you come over for a bit? Preferably right away?"

"You didn't manage to reopen the shadow realm or something, did you?"

"Well, no. Not really."

Marik startled. "What do you mean, 'not really'?!"

"Oh, you'll see when you get here. It's really quite fascinating, I promise! Please come."

Marik set down the last of his latte with just a hint of mourning and reached out to grab his leather jacket off the back of the chair. "Ok, I'm coming over now. But this better not be some kind of new disaster I need to help clean up."

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Marik got to Ryou's apartment faster than he probably should have. Even though Ryou hadn't sounded all that worried on the phone, the whole way over Marik had been having visions of purple and black shadows swirling their way out of Ryou's door when he arrived. But when he got there, he found himself knocking on a perfectly normal-looking apartment door. He only had to wait a second for the door to swing open, and was greeted with the sight of a beaming Ryou Bakura.

"Marik! You got here so quickly! Please, come in. Do you want any tea or coffee or anything?"

Marik had a feeling confusion was going to be the theme of his whole weekend at this rate. "Ryou, you said you needed help."

Ryou gave Marik a sunny grin. "Well yes, but you can still have tea if you want, it's not like he's going anywhere."

"Who else did you call?"

"Oh, just you. You really seemed like the only person who might actually be willing to help with this."

Marik had been wrong about the confusion. A creeping sense of foreboding was working his way up his spine instead. "Ryou." He took a steadying breath. "What's going on?"

Ryou's smile faltered for a fraction of a second before he picked it back up. "Well, you see…." He didn't get any further before a loud clattering noise rang out from further inside, and he turned to look back with a fierce scowl. "So help me Bakura, if that was another one of my figurines I will stick you in the freezer, see if I won't."

Ryou turned back, and smiled sheepishly at Marik's stunned expression as he held up a small golden ankh inlaid with a dark red stone. "It's only a little bit my fault, I promise."

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Marik couldn't take his eyes off the little golden ankh in Ryou's grip. He hadn't quite convinced himself he believed what he was hearing yet, but then again he'd lived through far stranger things. He leaned further back into the couch cushions with a weary sigh, trying to ignore the confusing swirl of thoughts and emotions crashing around his head.

"So, you tried to FaceTime the shadow realm, because apparently you didn't get enough of that the first time around. And now you've manage to get the ring spirit permanently anchored to that necklace somehow."

"That's essentially it, yes."

"But why."

Ryou tucked his legs up underneath him, looking for all the world like he was getting ready for a good gossip session rather than discussing forbidden magic rituals. "Well, you know why, really. We never really got to find out what happened to him, did we? I lived with him for ages and never got any answers. We got to see the pharaoh off and all, but I always kind of wondered what happened to the spirit in the ring. I just wanted to find out if he was even out there, or if he went with Atem in the end, or what. I know you weren't keen on trying to find out what happened to the rest of it, but I just couldn't let it go, you know? The spell was only supposed to let me ask a few questions and make sure he was okay. I didn't expect him to leech on to this permanently, but it turns out he was stuck in a sort of shadowy limbo otherwise, so now he won't leave."

"And how the hell do you think I'm supposed to help with this?"

"Well, I don't know a lot about Egyptian spells specifically, and you two have worked together before too, so…." Ryou shrugged a little helplessly. "I really didn't know who else to call. He didn't make many friends the last time he was here."

"And are you really sure it's him?"

"Quite sure, yes."

"How do you know?"

Ryou quirked his mouth in a half-grin and held the pendant out for Marik to take. After a moment's hesitation, Marik reached out to hold the it, and the moment his fingers touched the gold his head was filled with the end of an angry rant.

"…ost, if you hand him that pendant I'm going to knock every single one of your figurines over, don't you fucking DARE pass me off or yo-…" The rant cut off abruptly, and the tone switched from furious to a familiar flavour of 'cocky asshole' in an instant. "Hello, Ishtar."

Marik dropped the pendant like it had burned him. "Holy SHIT."

Ryou's bright grin had come back as he watched Marik's nonplussed expression. "See? There's no mistaking him. He's as polite as ever, isn't he?" He paused for a moment and then carried on when it was clear Marik was at a loss for words. "He's mostly ranted at me so far, and I didn't really have much of a plan beyond checking in on him, so I was hoping you'd be able to help figure out what he wants. He was always weirdly nice to you, after all."

Marik shook his head to try to clear the buzzing in his skull. "He didn't sound very eager to see to me either, Ryou."

"Oh, well yes, I suppose. But I think that's just because he thinks you're on Atem's side or something? He hasn't been all that coherent, really." Ryou leaned forward conspiratorially. "I think he's spent a little too long in the shadow realm, if you know what I me-…..oh shut up Bakura, yes you are." Ryou shot Marik a long-suffering sort of look. "He insists he's quite sane and that his ranting is perfectly reasonable." Ryou rolled his eyes expansively as he said this. "Well fine then, prove it yourself, you…." Ryou shoved the ankh at Marik with a huff. "I so did not sign up to babysit him again. You see if you can get him to make sense."

Marik wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take hold of the pendant again, but he couldn't come up with a way to refuse Ryou's insistent look, so he gingerly reached out to hold it. This time, he was greeted with silence. He glanced up from the pendant to Ryou.

"I think we scared him off."

Ryou scoffed. "Don't get your hopes up, he's a bloody cockroach." He leaned forward and gave the pendant a sharp poke. It remained petulantly silent. Marik glanced up at Ryou again.

"I didn't sign up to babysit any more wayward spirits either, you know."

"I don't need a Ra-damned babysitter, Ishtar."

Marik glanced up from the necklace and raised an eyebrow at Ryou, who shook his head. "I can't hear him when you're holding it. I guess it's a one-way call." Ryou gave a bright grin. "But now that he's talking again, I'll just go make us both a pot of tea, shall I?" And with that, he hopped off the couch and bolted from the room, leaving Marik to talk to a small chunk of metal. Marik sighed and caved to the inevitable.

"Then what am I supposed to do with you, spirit? Or should I still call you Bakura? Or Thief?"

"Call me whatever the hell you want, tombkee-"

"I am NOT a tombkeeper anymore."

The spirit scoffed.

"What do you want, Bakura? Are you planning to possess Ryou again?"

"Already tried. Didn't work. Besides, I don't see any point trying to take over a new vessel in this state."

"Good. I don't think unleashing you on the world again is a great idea."

Bakura scoffed again. "Don't worry your pretty little head, I'm done with the world domination plans. You saw how well that worked out last time when your precious pharaoh won out in the end."

"I told you, I'm not a tombkeeper anymore. He's not my pharaoh, if he ever really was."

"Sure sure."

"What are you planning? You must be planning something. Why else would you stick around?"

"Zorc is long gone, there's hardly any point in planning some grand scheme even if I still wanted it. And I refuse to go back to the shadows. Isn't that reason enough to stay?" The spirit's voice sounded almost weary.

"Do you expect us to find you a body of your own or something? You want to grow up to be a real boy?" Marik smirked at the necklace, even though he didn't know if Bakura could see him.

"I don't want to walk around in some wooden monstrosity, you idiot."

"And I don't want you living in my head forever. I've done my time with that. So has Ryou."

"Well hopefully I won't be living in your head for long, then."

"And where would you go?"

"Away."

"….. 'away'. Away to where, with your not-body and not-plans?"

The spirit growled. "AWAY, Ishtar. Just…away."

"Your plans are as spectacularly useless as ever, you know that?" Marik imagined he could feel the metal heating up with the spirit's anger, and he couldn't help but grin. Bakura had always been good for a fight.

"Shut the fuck up, you petulant brat. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Apparently, neither do you." Marik was pretty sure the necklace would be vibrating with rage at this point if it could.

"I know exactly what I'm doing here. I've always got a plan!"

Marik gave a dubious 'mhmm' and grinned to himself as he waited for the spirit to snap. He didn't have to wait long before the spirit let out a wordless, frustrated yell.

"I want to go HOME. Just home. Zorc is gone. The games are over. My people are lost, and will never have their justice. There's nothing more I can do but see if they're…I just want to go home to them." By the end of his rant, Bakura's voice had trailed off almost down to a whisper.

Marik blinked and sat back in the cushions. Of all the things he thought he'd hear, that was at the bottom of the list. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed deeply before replying.

"…..ok." He didn't get an answer.

Ryou poked his head around the corner, a mug in each hand, trying very hard to look like he hadn't been waiting for something that sounded like the end of the one-sided conversation. "Have you figured it out, then?"

Marik gave him a weary grin. "Yeah."

Ryou handed him a mug as Marik set the little ankh on the table in front of them. "Apparently he just wants to go home."

"To Egypt?"

"No, to his family."

Ryou blinked. "That's actually kind of…. sweet."

"I have no idea how to help with that, though."

"Neither do I. You probably know more about it than I do though, with your family and all."

Marik sighed and shook his head. "I wasn't the greatest student for anything that didn't involve getting the pharaoh out of my way."

"Still though! You'd probably have more luck with it than me. And apparently he's willing to talk with you. I just knew he would be!" Ryou turned his best, widest puppy eyes on Marik. "So, you'll take him, right? You'll probably have so much more luck keeping him under control and finding good leads than me." Ryou paused for Marik to comment for all of about half a second, before plunging forward with a too-sweet grin. "Oh good, that sounds like a plan. I'll see what I can find here on my own, but it just makes so much more sense for you to hold on to him this time."

Marik opened his mouth to object, but Ryou was already happily handing him the little golden ankh. "Here you go. We'll be in touch, I'm sure. I've really got to get ready for work now though, so we'll talk more later." Marik found himself being shuffled toward the door before he could object further. "Good luck! He shouldn't be too much trouble. You can always stick him in the freezer again if he gets too annoying." And with that, Ryou gently but insistently closed the door on the spirit's angry sputtering and Marik's unvoiced objection. Marik held up the ankh, watching the little red stone glint in the morning sunlight.

"Well shit."

~ o ~ o ~ o ~

A/N: Since FFnet won't let me tell you how long this is, this is Ch1 of 12. There will be 14 total "chapters" including the prologue and epilogue. :)

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