This chapter is a little shorter than the two previous one, which is nice, for me anyway.
Wondering what the hell Ryou is all about? What the fuck is the significance of his character? What crazy plot could he possibly have? Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual. I kid, I kid. I know exactly what's going to happen… as far as you know.
I love the title of this chapter. So simple yet means so many different things… so much symbolic importance. Mwahaha…
No Ryou's were emotionally and physically tortured during the writing of this fic… except in the author's mind… oops.
Chyaputa 9: Starvation
1. a state of extreme hunger resulting from lack of essential nutrients over a prolonged period
2. the act of depriving of food or subjecting to famine
The man dropped two copper colored pieces into Ryou's deathly cold hand."T'is week's pay," he grunted, scratching his sea salt dried hair with knurled callused fingers. "I ekpect ya at work tomorra, good n' early. New shipmen' comin' in. Got dat, kid?" he growled from amidst a gizzly, graying beard, through broken rotting teeth.
Ryou nodded his head, pocketing the coins. The wind coming off the sea picked up, spraying salt on all the hunchbacked workers that were trudging back to their shelters for the night. Giant wooden ships of the British Empire's might fleet creaked and swayed in the merciless gusts of London ports, their great sails tied down making the vessels immovable.
It was late. The sky was black. The streets were pure dark except for a couple of scattered oil lamps that had yet to be knocked out by the sea's wind. The time and a long day of lifting ship cargo weighed heavily on Ryou's eyelids. Like all the other shipyard hands, the English teenager's limbs hurt.
It was cold. Ryou couldn't make out anything through the heavy fog of his breath, even the heavy loaded snowflakes that fell from the sky. He stuck his blistering bitter fingers under his armpits; between the cold and the strain of work the digits were red raw.
Ryou, the teenage, god-fearing, dock laborer, kept breathing. Just a little while longer and he would reach his mother's mistress's house. She worked as a servant for the tiny stank room in the basement and the permission to let her children sleep there at night. Right now she was there alone with Ryou's sister, Amane, no doubt shivering under their one thin blanket.
Ryou turned a corner and there it was, as though gleaming with unnatural light out of the darkness.
A carriage with giant brilliant wheels, a fancy looking door, and a pair of monstrous horses tethered to the front; each of their fury hooves looked about the size of Ryou's skull. It was the most elegant thing Ryou's large brown eyes had every seen. He stopped unconsciously in the middle of the street staring at it, amazed and struck dumb.
"Want a ride?"
Ryou spun, fallen snow fluttered at his cloth wrapped feet.
This couldn't be happening. He was imaging things. A guy with a shiny top hat and fancy looking cane was not talking to him. And amongst the sharp stiff clothes that wafted a musty flower smell around Ryou's numb nostrils, the stranger couldn't be any older than… 18!
"A-a what?" Ryou stammered, still not believing his eyes.
The stranger grinned. The whitest, most brilliant teeth Ryou had ever seen. They reflected out from his unusually dark complexion. "You look cold. Do you want a ride?"
The clouds of fog drifting out of his open mouth were making the stranger's face go all hazy before him.
"Are you sure you're talking to me, sir?" Ryou questioned, despite his bewilderment trying to be humble.
The stranger laughed. His head tilted up and his face hit the flickering light of the nearest lamp. His skin was dark, like some of the old sailors that had been out in the sun too long. Only his skin was smooth and healthy, exotic looking, like the savages in the far south; Ryou had heard stories from the sailors about them.
"Call me Namu." The stranger slipped off his hat and spun it in his hands. Spires of hair the color of dirty sea foam appeared in the lamplight.
A very bad feeling arose in his chest. Ryou wanted to leave but before he knew it the stranger had his arm around Ryou's shoulders, scratchy foreign fabric brushing Ryou's cheek.
"Come now," Namu cooed. "You're not going to turn me down, are you?"
Ryou was inside the carriage, wincing at his ragged appearance next to the stranger's utter and complete elegance. The inside of the carriage smelled good, better than anything Ryou had ever imagined.
"You like sweets?" Namu was offering him a tasty bread treat. "Go ahead, try it."
Ryou's stomach roared. Despite his increasing uneasiness in this fancy guy's presence, Ryou snatched up the food. The bread was surprisingly warm and soft, making Ryou's weak hands sting, and it was filled with some fruity jam. It tasted so good Ryou's dry parched mouth felt unworthy.
Namu's impossible pale eyes sparkled in a way that made Ryou feel very unsettled. "Good, huh Ryou?"
Ryou choked on his food. "How d-do you know my name, sir- ah- I mean, Namu?"
Namu barred his teeth. "I own that shipping company you work for."
Ryou blinked, mouth full of jam. A kid, his age, own a shipping company? Even if that was true, that still didn't explain why a damn rich guy knew the name of a poor kid with barely enough money to feed his family.
Namu settled back into his seat as the carriage rattled along the cobblestone streets. "Say, Ryou, do you believe in… demons?"
Ryou breathed. This was a dream, an illusion. Perhaps he had fallen off that ship railing today, dropped into the sea and drowned. "Sorry, sir. I don't know what you mean exactly…"
"It's not a complicated question," the stranger answered, observing Ryou's frail shivering form with an amused eye.
Ryou raised his chin up in a stubborn way. "I believe in God, sir. I'm not a barbarian, if that's what you mean. Why do you ask, sir?"
Namu chuckled, smooth voice reverberating in his chest, as though Ryou's remark had been humorous. "Just curious."
Ryou gulped. His mouth felt dry under that guy's stare, his stomach strangely empty even after the treat he just consumed. This stranger, Namu, was weird, really weird. No matter how cold it was outside or how nice this guy's food was, Ryou was regretting ever getting in this fancy carriage. He wanted to be in his dinky room with his mother and sister, huddled with them under their safety blanket.
"That's all you need to know isn't it?" Ryou could feel Namu's piercing stare even though he continued to face out the snowy dark window. "All humans have to do is breed, create more life, more souls. That's their only job. Well… that and dying."
Ryou was not following. It sounded like the stranger was talking bitterly to himself rather to him so Ryou decided not to answer. He found he had nothing to say.
The carriage jumped as it hit a large stone on the cobble road. Ryou bounced with it. Where was the carriage even going? Did this stranger know where he lived? Namu looked very composed.
"Aren't you all the perfect little crops?" the stranger mused, eyes rolling. "Some land and water and you all take care of the rest. Perfect creatures for harvesting…"
Ryou felt sick. He knew he shouldn't speak but couldn't stop himself. "Harvesting, sir?"
Namu's mouth stretched too wide across his tanned face. "Harvesting souls, of course. You can't have Higher Beings without proper souls."
Higher Beings? Like God? Like angels? Somehow that didn't seem to be the case. Sickness spun into a tight ball at the back of Ryou's throat. "S-sorry sir- I mean, sorry, Namu, sir, but what are you talking about?"
Namu looked at him and it suddenly became very hard for Ryou to breathe.
"Your destiny, Ryou-kun. You see, all this is really about you."
Ryou's stomach was doing crazy jumping tricks while cold panic rushed through his veins. About him? What was this stranger going on about? Destiny? Souls?
"I-I don't und-derstand-d." It had suddenly gotten much colder in that carriage than it had been a second ago.
Ryou turned. Namu was suddenly sitting, not half a foot from him, on his side of the carriage. Leaning in close…
"Tell me, Ryou," Namu began, voice dripping with sweetness. He reached across the very limited space between them and towered over Ryou, hand landing on the bouncing carriage wall behind him, trapping the frail cargo boy. Ryou had to bite his tongue to stop the scream of terror from escaping.
"If you were to die in this carriage, right now, would your precious God save you?"
Ryou stared, panicked and out of his sensible mind with fear. "No."
Those horrible unearthly pale eyes above him locked on Ryou's weak petrified stare. It was as if someone had stabbed him through both eyes with a pair of knives, blades slicing up into his brain cavity. The pain that erupted in his skull was almost unbearable, piecing his mind. Ryou opened his mouth to scream.
Then nothing. The pain was gone, it had never happened. Ryou was being pinned against the side of the carriage, his limbs frozen to his sides in terror.
Namu revealed all of his perfect white teeth behind his thin, dark lips.
Then the stranger leaned down so that awful mouth was up against Ryou's ear. "Is she safe?" Namu whispered.
For a brief moment curiosity over came Ryou's terror.
'She? Who? Mom? Amane?' Ryou wondered. But before he could find an answer, his body had bolted out of the carriage was already halfway down the street.
Was he imagining it or had he heard maniacal laughter from the carriage before it rattled off down the snowy cobble stone street?
…)(-)-(Starvation)-(-)(…
The present day Ryou hadn't realized that he was screaming until his bedroom door slammed open. Shadows were spinning crazily in random patterns around the room, knocking over his desk, dresser and mirror which smashed as it hit the floor. His vision was going in and out of focus, blacking out for what might have been hours at a time. The only thing he understood was that there was pain everywhere, in the air, in his lungs, traveling through his skin, drilling into his brain.
Somebody had grabbed his arm. Ryou threw his claws at the someone and there was a cry. The sent of blood entangled his nostrils and Ryou immediately dove for it, snapping hungrily at that someone with his foot-long fangs. His jaws enclosed around the someone's arm, drawing more of its blood into his mouth.
No, its not right, wrong blood… wrong, wrong, wrong…
Ryou drew away, splitting the distasteful blood from his mouth, all six of his elongated limbs thrashing.
"What the- Atemu, what in Hell is-?" a horrified voice questioned from the doorway from a face Ryou could not see.
"Don't just stand there! Hold him down!" another voice, closer by, ordered fiercely.
Ryou was blind but he felt the body fall down on top of him, using its own weight to try to restrain him. The demon tore at the body that had fallen on top of him, his giant black wings flapped frantically, smacking the sides of the room in desperation and sending great gusts of demonic wind ricocheting off the apartment walls.
"Atemu! I can't keep a grip on him much longer!" the first voice cried over Ryou's continued frantic screams and the destruction of their house. Ryou's clawed foot came in contact with somebody's chin. The first voice grunted. "Fucking hell, Ryou!"
"Hold his head still," the second voice instructed. Hands clasped onto Ryou's skull and neck. No matter how much he spat and writhed under his captors' grip, they would not let go.
All the sudden a disgustingly foul order entered Ryou's super sensitive nasal cavities. His olfactory senses went on the fritz, the smell stinging his brain and dissolving its way down into his blood stream.
It was as though someone had slapped him awake from a horrible nightmare. Ryou blinked for a moment. His large black eyes examined Jounouchi, who had been holding him down, and Atemu with his outstretched arm still holding onto the flask of some vile smelling liquid under his nose.
Then Ryou's limbs went limp and he was suddenly aware of how thoroughly exhausted he was. His demon body collapsed onto the floor.
"Ryou!" Jounouchi cried but it was Atemu who rushed forward. He wrapped his arms around Ryou's shivering body and lifted him onto the bed again.
"He took so much," Ryou mouthed urgently to Atemu, clawing at his shirt as he tried desperately to fight off tiredness. "He took so, so much. I've got nothing left-"
"Ryou, Ryou can you hear my voice?" Atemu asked urgently. Ryou nodded his head which made the world start revolving again. "I need you to look at me. Ryou, are you listening to me?" There were kind hands on his head, gently guiding him so that he was looking upward. Atemu's blurred worried face swam into Ryou's view. "Can you see me, Ryou?"
"Yes," Ryou mouthed through his overly large fangs.
"Do you remember my name?" Atemu asked firmly, not letting go of Ryou's head. Ryou knew what it was but it took a while to get his demon tongue to cooperate with his fangs.
"Atemu-kun," Ryou answered softly.
"That's right, Ryou, Atemu. Now, Ryou I need you to follow my instructions exactly, can you do that?" Ryou nodded again. "Your body needs to hibernate, you need to return to your human skin to be able to sleep, ok?"
"But I don't want to," Ryou protested, grabbing Atemu's arm. There was a sharp intake of breath; Ryou's claws had accidentally pierced his skin again.
"Ryou, you have to get better," Atemu insisted, stroking his friend's sweaty forehead while gently extracting the giant claws from his flesh. There was a pause before Ryou nodded again.
Slowly at first, Ryou felt the familiar feeling of sinking backwards. His senses immediately dulled as though smothered, and his stretched pointed limbs shrunk back to their dwarf mortal size. His large black wings quivered with distaste as they were forced back into their repression. A tingling sensation rose throughout his skin as his pale human flesh covered up the white and black patches of skin.
"That's good, Ryou. That's real good," Atemu breathed, finally beginning to relax again. "Now I'm going to give you something to help you sleep."
"He doesn't like it when I take potions," interjected Ryou as Atemu asked Jounouchi to hand him the small purple bottle on the end of the shelf.
"He's not here, Ryou," Atemu told his feverish friend. "He's not here anymore."
"He took everything, Atemu-kun. Everything, everything…" Ryou ranted, clutching Atemu with his human hands this time as he tried to keep himself together.
"It's ok, Ryou. Here, take this." There was the rim of a glass bottle pushing into Ryou's lips. Ryou opened his mouth obligingly and swallowed a mouthful, too exhausted to protest.
"He'll get angry," Ryou said as Atemu lowered him onto the bed, the only furnishing in the room that still remained intact.
"Don't worry about that now," Atemu said as he pulled the blankets over Ryou's shivering form.
"He always gets so angry," Ryou mumbled. He could feel the drug Atemu had given him soothing his muscles, already his eyelids were becoming harder to keep open.
Atemu leaned down and kissed the top of Ryou's head like a mother would kiss her child goodnight. Ryou's mind flashed back to the moment where Bakura had given him a kiss of his own that night outside Domino Park. It had been shy and awkward but nice. Real nice…
'Why am I thinking about him now?' Ryou wondered as he let his eyes fall closed. Balancing on the edge of sleep, Ryou imagined instead of the blankets Bakura's bronze arms were encircling him. The thought sent a warm glow through his aching chest that comforted his pained muscles as he finally drifted off to asleep.
…)(-)-(Starvation)-(-)(…
"Atemu, what the fuck was that?" Jounouchi questioned, after Ryou finally went to sleep. The blonde was still quite a bit shaken after his meeting with full-blown demon Ryou. Atemu closed the door to Ryou's room behind him then searched for a roll of bandages to repair his arm which Ryou had bitten and clawed.
"I was afraid that this was going to happen," Atemu commented. "He can't go three months in human world without a blood transfusion nowadays."
"What do you mean?" Jounouchi asked curiously, still pacing the room to work off his nerves. "Are you saying Ryou's what? An addict?"
"An extreme one," Atemu confirmed. "This is what he's like when he goes into withdraw." Jounouchi stopped pacing. Blood transfusions were all good when it came to health reasons but… Ryou, the top general of The Kingdom of Hell's Army, addicted to blood transfusions?
"But, that's impossible," Jounouchi said horrified. "Only the lowest level demons get addicted, Ryou can't…"
"It's really not all that surprising," said Atemu before collapsing on the nearby couch with his bandages, which had been once located in the room across the hall before hurricane Ryou hit. "They try to cover it up but most demons that high up in the military ranks are addicts."
"What?" Jounouchi exclaimed.
"How do you think you get that much power, Jounouchi?" Atemu explained calmly. "They steal power from other higher demons through their blood and add it to their own."
Jounouchi lowered himself onto the couch next to Atemu, trying to get a hold on this entire confusing situation. "But you can't steal another demons power from simple blood transfusions, you'd have to…" Jounouchi turned sharply to Atemu, eyes wide in disbelief. "Oh fucking hell, not Ryou."
"So I'm assuming you have heard of it," said Atemu, tone surprisingly even.
Jounouchi had. A Blood Ceremony, in which one demon drained another. It was a dangerous activity, demon blood was severely addicting. During the ceremony demons usual lost control and took too much blood, completely draining the other. It was also excruciatingly painful, although the pain was seen by some demons as pleasurable, though Jounouchi had never thought of it that way.
"Don't get the wrong idea," Atemu insisted firmly. "Ryou has been forced into the Blood Ceremony multiple times ever since his soul fell."
"Forced?" Jounouchi mouthed. He had always thought of Ryou as a prodigy, an idol to look up to, this- this couldn't be true. "But how? I mean, if Ryou was forced into it and has been gaining power ever since… he would have had to have participated in the Blood Ceremony with a much stronger demon and well, there's no other demon stronger than him!"
Atemu's expression remained unchanged as he tied off the end of is bandage on his arm and ripped off the excess with his teeth.
Horrible shocking realization hit Jounouchi hard. "You can't- you don't mean- the Master can't…" Jounouchi mumbled, standing up from the couch restlessly. He stopped and turned back to Atemu, already seeing the answer in his crimson eyes. "The Master? The Master? Come on, Atemu, I'm sorry but that's just not possible."
"Why not?" Atemu accused as he stood up as well. "The Master can take form. The Master has been calling Ryou and Ryou alone to his palace for ages. Haven't you ever wondered what those black burns covering Ryou's skin are?"
Jounouchi's mouth opened but he didn't speak.
"The Master's poison has been building up in Ryou's system, destroying his appearance. Or do you not want to believe it because you don't want to admit that the all-powerful Master has been preying on once-innocent souls for simple pleasure." Atemu's tone had gone so nasty and caustic that Jounouchi thought his human skin might just curl up and dissolve right there. Atemu's voice was deadly soft, as though waiting to explode and let loose the flood of hate that lingered behind his calm expression.
Jounouchi remained silent for a while. He fell back down on the couch in despair, absorbing all this heavy news. Ryou's seemingly random statements suddenly made sense.
"He took everything, Atemu-kun. Everything, everything…"
Jounouchi bent his head. Now that he thought of it, he had believed Ryou's burns were a little peculiar. He remembered thinking it was weird that Ryou never got new burns, the old ones just seemed to grow…
'How could I not have noticed!' Jounouchi cursed at himself, shame burning in his gut.
"When I first met Ryou," Jounouchi began after he found his words again, "It was in the Tar Bath House, you know. I used to go there every day to, I don't know, in some hopeless attempt to wash away the Bleaching," Jounouchi admitted gravely. "I saw him struggling to get into a bath once. I was passing by so I helped him. I had no idea he had just gone through… well, I didn't even know who he was at first but once I found out he insisted I not bow, he said he hated it when demons bowed to him." Jounouchi grinned and Atemu sat down beside him again. "You know, even though I was Bleached he treated me exactly the same, as if I was normal. He never even brought it up."
"Sounds like Ryou," Atemu muttered.
Jounouchi nodded and rubbed his scalp. "Hey, Atemu".
Atemu turned curiously toward him. "Yes?"
"Why don't you just date Ryou? That would be much more convenient, wouldn't it?" Jounouchi asked.
Atemu frowned, looking half amused and half appalled, if that was possible. "Oh, I'd never date Ryou. I have to handle too many of his emotional problems as it is. Can you imagine having to put up with him romantically? That would be a hassle."
Jounouchi laughed.
…)(-)-(Starvation)-(-)(…
Bakura's scowl deepened as he glared down yet another group of teenagers, whispering to each other and sending furtive glances his way. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. So Malik had been right, the whole school really did know about his movie-going and, like Malik, assumed he was doing it simply to… to do whatever sexually active humans did on those date-things.
The very thought of Malik made Bakura's anger stew. He was still extremely pissed off about Friday night but… well, he hadn't really known what to expect when he went back to school on Monday, certainly nothing like this.
He had encountered Malik sooner than expected that morning. The annoying human who had once followed him around had been with two other male students Bakura was sure he had never seen before. They had stopped and stared openly at Bakura when he approached, like all the other students in the school.
"Hey, Malik," one of them hissed, elbowing the Egyptian in the side. Malik had looked up, spotted Bakura and then turned immediately back to his locker, without saying a word. This made Bakura annoyed though he wasn't sure why.
"You have other friends?" Bakura commented coldly.
Malik turned on him furiously, face all puffy with rage. "Yeah. I, unlike you, have actual social skills. Imagine that!" Malik squeaked angrily. "You'd be surprised what happens if you're nice to people once in a while!"
"You must have been pretty desperate to pick up these lame cronies," Bakura sneered, squinting at the two guys degradingly. The two looked at each other insulted.
Malik took another step forward, eyes glowing with indignation. "They're not my cronies! They're my friends! Do you even know the definition of that word? It means you don't take advantage of people who might actually want to hang out with you!" Malik practically screamed. Then he spun around and stormed off down the hall.
"Hell, didn't have to scream," Bakura spat nastily.
Malik swerved back and Bakura could have sworn his lilac eyes were inflamed.
"Not everything is about you!" Malik shrieked and with that he was gone, his two new friends running after him.
Now Bakura was alone at his locker, Malik-less. It was a very strange sensation. He could suddenly hear himself think without constantly interruption. No one was there to question him incessantly or follow him around or explain random human concepts to him. School was suddenly a much quieter place.
But Ryou wasn't at school. Bakura had entered his first period class to find no fake-smiling, girlie, white-haired teenager there to greet him. Bakura tapped his foot irritably on the tile floor of the school hallway. Where could Ryou be? Was he avoiding him? That didn't seem like something Ryou would do. Maybe Bakura was such a bad kisser that Ryou never wanted to see him again?
Not that he cared about being a bad kisser. He hadn't really tried- he hadn't wanted to try-
"Bakura-kun?" a voice near his elbow asked. Bakura glanced down to see Yugi. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Bakura grunted bad-temperedly, tapping his foot agitatedly again.
"Liar, you're more moody than usual," Yugi stated. Bakura snorted. Yugi was just about the only person who could get away with calling him a liar.
"I saw Malik this morning," Yugi prompted vaguely.
Bakura's mouth twitched unpleasantly.
"He looked really miserable."
"Good," Bakura spat.
Yugi looked concerned. "You guys have a fight?"
"What would we have to fight about?" Bakura accused defensively.
"Fine, fine, forget I asked," Yugi sighed. "By the way have you seen Atemu, I've been looking for him."
"Why the hell would I know where that idiot is?" Bakura snapped. He didn't like Atemu. Aside from Yugi inviting him into their house, without asking, the guy had been really obnoxious when he had drove Bakura home on Friday.
Yugi rolled his eyes. "Nevermind, I give up. You're impossible to deal with when you get like this."
Bakura grumbled dark curses under his breath.
"Ryou's not here either," Yugi observed.
That statement jogged Bakura's brain. For some reason Yugi mentioning Ryou was… unsettling.
"I've noticed," Bakura growled grudgingly.
"That's strange. Neither one of them has ever been sick before and now suddenly both of them aren't here," Yugi pondered curiously.
Bakura's nervous foot froze. "He's sick?" Had his kiss made Ryou ill?
Yugi shrugged. "I don't know. He looked fine on Saturday when I saw him."
"You saw Ryou on Saturday?" Bakura questioned.
Yugi looked confused. "No, I saw Atemu on Saturday," he corrected.
Bakura's expression darkened. "What were you doing with Atemu on Saturday?" he accused suspiciously. Yugi's cheeks flushed pink, a sign, Bakura knew, that Yugi was hiding something.
"We went to a game shop, that's all," Yugi muttered, carefully not looking at Bakura.
"Uh-huh, right," Bakura drawled unbelievingly. "I wouldn't hang around with that jerk if I were you."
The pink in Yugi's cheeks was spreading to his ears now. "Look, I think I can take care of myself," he said as fiercely as his gentle demeanor would allow. "I got to meet up with Jounouchi-kun and the others, see you at home," he said and walked away down to the hall in the direction of the lunchroom.
"Whatever," Bakura growled, his bad mood increasing.
…)(-)-(Starvation)-(-)(…
Throughout the previous day, the London alley had filled up with snow. The white powder clung to the corners of the brick house Ryou the Englishman, the dockhand, the cargo laborer, used to sleep in.
The house that was currently full of screams.
After jumping out of the elegant carriage ride the previous night, Ryou had found himself extraordinarily on the steps of his mother's mistress's manor. Not thinking, he had rushed into the house and down into the basement…
The mistress had been expecting guests the next afternoon. When they had arrived, they had found no one there to greet them, except a sixteen-year-old boy, huddled with his mother's and sister's bodies for warmth. The cold had kept the unholy sent of fresh corpses from consuming the whole street.
The mistress's entire household, including servants, was dead.
Night had fallen once more. Ryou was in his alley, wrapped in his family's only possession, a thin, tattered blanket, now splotched with dark stains. No one asked him what happened. No one asked him why he hadn't alerted the neighbors when he had first found them.
No one asked him about Namu. Ryou was certain they would. Eventually someone would see. Someone would know that it was all his fault. So as the house filled up with mourning, wailing people, Ryou had slipped out unnoticed, utterly invisible.
"Tragic, isn't it?"
That voice made Ryou want to die.
His head lifted, and he saw Namu's golden face staring down at him underneath his shinny top hat.
The dirty alley got much, much colder. Ryou's insides were shrieking with terror and if Ryou had been smart he probably would have been too.
Namu had a strange object in between his teeth. A wooden tube, with smoke wafting out of the end like there was some small hidden fire in there.
"Tobacco," Namu commented, noticing how Ryou's brown eyes concentrated on the blue gray smoke swirling in the wind. "Imported, from the New World. Don't try to wrack your brain, your society won't hear of it for another fifty years."
Ryou did not comprehend his words. All he knew was that Namu was breathing in that fire like it was air. The smoke curled out of the corners of his lips and each nostril.
"How… Why are you h-here?" Ryou questioned, voice very small. His knees felt weak like he was going to collapse at any moment. "Are you f-following me?"
For some reason, he had the over whelming notion that he was about to die, right there in that alleyway and some unexplained notion was telling him that no godly force in the universe could prevent it.
Namu targeted Ryou with his pale eyes.
"Only a little," he taunted. Ryou went numb; he was scared out of his freaking mind.
"Were you- did you- do you know-" Ryou stammered helplessly.
"You want to know if I had anything to do with your mother's and sister's murder and that of your employers?" Namu smirked. "What if I said no? Would you believe me?"
Ryou's throat was too swollen for speech and Namu chuckled.
"You have good instincts," he commented casually. "I like you."
Ryou wanted to scream but his jaw was clenched too tight.
"Are you going to kill me?" the human boy asked, trembling like mad.
To Ryou's great shock, Namu laughed. "Why? Do you want to die?" he chuckled gleefully, blue gray smoke shooting from his mouth and nose. Ryou did not answer. "Don't be so serious."
"Are you a demon?" Ryou asked.
Namu paused, breathing out another puff of venomous gas. Something was stirring behind his gleaming pale eyes.
"Now that," he stated, tapping the end of his pipe as though to stir up the fire, "Is a very personal question. I don't think I know you well enough to answer just yet." The smell of his rank breath in the freezing winter air stung Ryou's nostrils. Namu inhaled a long draft and coughed. "Nasty stuff."
Ryou watched him in horrified wonder. "What killed them?" he asked, fearing the answer.
Namu took the time to breathe out the remaining smoke in his mouth before answering. "You're getting braver," he observed mildly.
"I saw their bodies," Ryou continued weakly, arms crossing over his chest as if to protect himself from the memory. "They were… that wasn't…" He could still see them in his mind. Bits and pieces of the mistress and her family, the gardener, the butler, the cook… his sister, his mother… All there to greet him. Parts, unrecognizable flesh hanging, strewn, scattered…
"Are you going to cry?" Namu asked suddenly. He was serious this time, judging Ryou's reaction carefully.
Ryou paused, not sure what Namu meant. It seemed like a very odd question. He hadn't even been thinking about it.
"No…" Ryou admitted truthfully.
Namu smirked. "I'm pleased. You're a fast learner." He flipped his pipe and some brown smoldering mess dropped into the icy snow with a hiss.
Immediately, Ryou scrambled backwards.
"Stand still," Namu ordered and for reasons beyond his control, Ryou obeyed.
Namu brought his hand up to his own mouth and then bit the tanned skin on the edge of his finger until it bled. Ryou winced; he had always been queasy at the sight of blood. Namu grinned and then offered his hand to Ryou, holding it an inch above Ryou's mouth. A drop of the crimson liquid was hanging from the end of his finger, quivering tantalizingly above Ryou's lips.
"Taste it," Namu ordered.
"What?" Ryou questioned horrified. "No! I'm not going to-" But a deadly look from Namu's pale unearthly eyes silenced him.
"I don't reveal myself to just anyone, you know. You should be flattered," Namu spoke savagely.
Ryou flinched.
"Taste it," he commanded nastily. For the first time since he and Ryou had met, he sounded irritated. Perhaps… impatient?
'This is wrong. So, so wrong,' Ryou told himself. He watched his timid mouth lift, leaning forward. 'No, please don't make me… I don't want to do…' The edge of his tongue barely grazed the tip of Namu's finger. He could feel the drop of blood slide down the back of his mouth, into his throat and land like a rock in his stomach. It singed Ryou's flesh as it went and the boy bent over double, coughing violently in revulsion. God, it hurt! He felt Namu patting him on the back.
"There, there, not so bad, was it?" he said, almost proud.
"W-hy?" Ryou croaked, coming back up.
"So you can always be a part of me," Namu answered simply. There was a hand on his chest and Ryou suddenly found himself backed against a wall.
Namu's arms closed Ryou, their two bodies pressed together. Ryou's skin was writhing as though on fire, his body shivering with fear and repugnance to Namu's closeness.
"You have an intoxicating smell," Namu moaned, hands running through Ryou's long fluffy hair. "So fresh… nearly ripe for the picking…" There was something wet and cold on the soft spot between Ryou's neck and shoulder. "I can't wait…" The saliva burned Ryou's pale skin like acid leaving a permanent mark. "We're going to have so much fun together."
Ryou wanted to scream but his brain wouldn't allow it.
…)(-)-(Starvation)-(-)(…
Woah. Symbolic demon rape right there. Not that I support rape. Cause I don't.
So… I love this chapter for obvious reasons. Originally Ryou's back story scenes were in modern times and then I was like, "DUH! He's 2 hundred years old!" Had to rewrite the whole scenes. Awful. Except I added that lovely "Do you think your God will save you?" line with makes me all shivery. I don't actually know if they had cobble stone streets back then though…
Bakura is amazing. I love his and Yugi's interactions. But then I wrote an entire fic about that. Mwahahaha…
NEXT CHAPTER!: I'll give you a clue, the next chapter is called Infatuation, teehee. Get over yourself Bakura! Aw, you know you don't like that alarm clock or contemplating the meaning of life as much as you like Ryou. Jou invades Kaiba's house, oops.
For another successful week of being me, and you, I suppose. For Bakura's deliberate lack of subjects in his sentences:
REVIEW!!
It's true! See: "Hell, didn't have to scream," and "Like that, huh?" very curt, boorishly delightful.
REVIEW!!
