LOL oh my god I might as well call this the "redeem Malik chapter"
ya'll act like I hate Malik or somth
This has turned into something about grumpy, sad angry boys trying to find their places in the world while simultaneously being pissed off at each other. People have a (very) soft spot for Malik (who doesn't? he's actually my fav I even have a giant wallscroll of him above my bed and his scars TATTOOED ON MY BACK I MEAN COME ON) - I'm certainly not done developing Malik to where I want him - there will be much more interaction between him, Ryou, and Mariku, for the better, starting here.
Chill, bruh. I got this, fam.
(also its fine if you dont want to read this anymore, I'm not out to please anyone but myself at this point, and to explore my writing style with some of my fav boys, it's my jam not yours, feel free to bail from the dance floor if you don't like it, it's all good)
Also another apology for inconsistencies. I haven't read over older chapters in many, many months. Also for drab writing. I end up working on this in the wee hours after I get off work and finish farm chores, soooo it might not be the best. Goal: to finish this before the end of the year.
And then go back and rewrite it fml
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Ryou didn't care where his father was. He didn't care about school, or the knots and sand in his hair. He didn't care about the ache in his chest, or the sand in his shoes, or the fact that his knuckles hurt really, really bad. In fact, at this moment in time, he didn't care about much of anything. He felt very hollow, his senses deadened, his perceptions and self-awareness null.
Egypt was remarkably cold at night compared to the humid heat of the day, a flipside to a coin draped in ancient marble and dead-eyed villagers. Ryou had become a voyeur to his own horrors, and he was upset at himself for being so terribly angry, and was quite petrified with his behavior. He wasn't a violent person, not really, but it had been such a thing that he had buried himself in so completely. His heart and mind had been in his hands, punching, beating, and there was a glory in it, of retribution, of revenge. The images of a scar on a cheek had been so blurred, and it filled him with so much rage. Where did the spirit - Bakura - get that scar - that hideous hatched cross, a cross that reminded him of Russia's Old Believers? It had a story, a pain, something swallowed in darkness, in the the lost history of the world. Had Bakura been used as he had, a simple victim to a barbaric hell, stripping him of his happiness? He knew, deep down, that it was partially true. He had felt it. He had felt a darkness greater than the Spirit, but he had never been quite sure if it was something oozing out of the Spirit itself or not.
His breath shuddered out of him, rattling his chest. There was no glory in the emptiness in his stomach, or the constrictions in his heart.
"We should-" Mariku stopped, trying to figure out exactly what they should do. They now sat on the roof of an old hut, no longer occupied, easily accessible from the large sand dune mostly covering it - something Ryou had strangely clambered on top of and lay, listless, for nearly an hour, undisturbed due to the madness of it.
Mariku had followed Ryou up and down the hillside of Qurna for a very long time, eyeing Bakura and Malik warily, watching to see if they would follow. At first they didn't, but they watched with piercing eyes as Ryou and he had quietly rounded the corner out of the alley, and Bakura had yelled obscenities after them. Soon, however, he had seen glimpses of the duo, slowly following them through the old streets and sand.
Ryou had wandered further down the cliffside of Qurna, as if something had pulled him, something cold, piercing, ancient yet familiar. It was strangely comforting, and his mind had been caught by this pull - and it made him feel quite lucid, quite sick, like eating too many sweets before taking a nap. Mariku had watched this shambling shell before him, this husk, watching someone he cared so much for fall over the precipice. It burned him, and every time he attempted to touch him, to ask him where he was going, Ryou shrugged him off, screaming at him to leave him alone, and kept walking - seemingly aimlessly.
And now they were on a roof, near sunset, far away from the inhabitated areas of Qurna, and strangely close to something Ryou thought felt like family. Mariku shuffled closer to Ryou on the roof, sand getting into his shoes and pants, "We shouldn't be doing this. Whatever this is. We should go back."
Ryou lay in the sand, and he curled in on himself, feeling sour, "You're so annoying, leave me alone."
It was silent for a long while, and Mariku scraped at the sand with his fingers, as a divine being forming the grooves in the lands he touched.
Ryou sighed, long, forlorn, and heavy, "You're so different around people."
"What?"
"I don't know. You just seem different around other people. Mean? I guess? Weird. You're weird. You're like that around me, too, sometimes. Just weird sometimes. And I don't know what to do, Mariku. I don't know why I came here. This is so stupid. I'm so stupid. My knuckles hurt. I just want to go away, I don't want to be here anymore."
Mariku wasn't hurt by the words, "What do you mean? We can go back."
Ryou turned to glance at him, before looking up into the sky, "Back where, Mariku? Back to Luxor? Where my father still acts like I'm an inconvenience, where nobody thinks you should exist? Back to Japan where I'm failing school and everyone looks at me funny like I'm on the verge of stealing all of their souls?"
"Is that why those girls look at you like that?"
Ryou welcomed the lighthearted comment with a short chuckle, "Shut up. You know what I mean. I just - I don't even know how to explain it. I don't know what I wanted when I came here - just - just to see my dad, to ask him why, and he didn't even have a real explanation for it, and it hurt. I could have just talked to him on the phone, or Skype or something. And then - and then Malik, and his connection with Bakura," he made a face at the name, "I don't know - that's just," he groaned, rubbing his hand into his hair, "it's just stupid. It's all so stupid. I hate all of this. Why is everything like this? Why is my life always like this? Why does everything just go on and on and on like this? This thread is never-ending."
He didn't know where Bakura or Malik were - they could have left him and Mariku - maybe Malik already went back to Luxor, due to the slew of horrible outbursts and Ryou's ill-mannered behavior. Ryou felt ashamed. What had he hoped to gain by confronting Bakura again? It was something simple he had thought at the cabin - but it now seemed like a faraway dream, an old terror of crippling anxiety and cold feet. He couldn't even remember - but there had been a song of fear, of hatred, and just - blind rage when he had seen Bakura. It hadn't felt right, like a wire that had been twisted too many times and suddenly broke under the strain.
Then again, he hadn't felt right in a long time.
"We can still kill him."
Ryou adjusted himself, turning his head to look at Mariku. A screaming, purple hue marred his swollen cheek, along with a crust of dried blood on his forehead. He hadn't asked what had started the fight between him and Bakura - but he figured it probably didn't even matter. He, himself, had gone in fists first - how was he any different?
"Kill Bakura?" he whispered.
Mariku hummed and lay down next to him, close, warm, solid, but with a slight breadthe between them - a sign of Mariku's wariness. Mariku was intimidated by Ryou, because he was angry, and tired, and confused and beautiful. He was untouchable in this, tender flesh capable of great violence and seething words. Mariku loved it.
Ryou thought of Malik, of the stories that Yugi and the others had told him of Battle City - including the things he couldn't recall, even though he had been there. The duel with the pierced mime-like individual he had seen at a park, controlled by Malik, and the strange horror-story duel with Arkana, with dismembering saws and manipulative words and notions. Mokuba and Anzu had been kidnapped by Malik, held hostage, and later used as bait for a macabre duel against Jounouchi - with chains and drowning, with an idea to actually squish someone as if they were nothing, just an insect, worthless. The lies, the deceit, this sadistic manipulation and raw horror and disdain for life itself had been who Malik was, and the scar on Ryou's left arm was a testament to this. This had been instilled into Ryou's mind.
He remembered how Mariku had told him things - they were simple, subdued, but they held a superiority over others, over Malik, this unclean disposition that worshiped hate, that worshiped violence, that wanted to take on the world using perverse narcissism to influence and dominate -
- that wanted to destroy its other half.
And Ryou remembered their confrontation in Lishid's living room, where there wasn't any real hate, just real words, a zest for the truth, of retribution and clandestine memories.
Ryou pressed his nose against Mariku's, eyes wide, "Why don't you want to kill Malik?"
Mariku licked his lips, "Because."
Ryou sniffed, rolling his hands in the hem of his shirt, and his knuckles burned from the movement, "Because why?"
"Because of reasons."
"No that's stupid. You hated him, you wanted - you wanted to erase him, to kill him."
Mariku pursed his lips, eyes jittery, "Yeah."
"I heard so many bad things about you," Ryou cringed, his voice straining, "So many. What changed? I can't - being alone and lonely can't change someone so much, not like that. I thought I wanted to kill the spirit - Bakura - I really did, for that split moment, but that's not me, that's not what I want, I don't think it's ever what I wanted. But that was all you wanted - with Malik. And you get this real, physical chance and you don't even mention it - I don't get it."
Mariku rose a hand to Ryou's face, roughly rubbing against his pale skin, offering small, harsh pinches with unfiled nails, and Ryou didn't stop him.
Mariku let out a loud, drawn-out sigh, and kept his eyes pinned on Ryou's forehead, continuing the pinching. "I had talked to myself for days, alone, in the alleys of Luxor - right after, you know? After the sudden - birth, or whatever it was. And then I talked to myself again in a cabin half a world away, just stupid ramblings that really didn't make any sense, now that I think about them. I was nothing - I had no powers, no real goals, but I had a body and that was kinda nice. Kinda different. I was elated, really. Thought I could conquer the world...but not without the Rod." Instead, he had stripped himself naked, ripping a mass out of his chest, his crimes, his hate. He began to crave the mundane, the simplicity of nothing and he had received it in turn, and he appreciated that, and realized that the world's woes didn't really matter, nor did his previous humiliation, the role he was involved in to play - for an ancient king that didn't even know who he was.
"You remember those books I had?"
Ryou hummed in ascertion, "The psychology ones you scribbled all over."
Mariku smiled, "Wrote notes. Connecting things. They taught me about myself, and about Malik - about child abuse that led to certain mindsets and behaviors that I could connect with and connect Malik with, in depth. An intermittent explosive disorder, narcissism, post traumatic stress, a personality disorder, and the dissociative identity that I am. That's what I am. A separate identity in its own body. And it's weird. It doesn't make sense, but whatever, nothing makes sense, not really. Here I am."
Mariku had lost nothing of himself. He knew who he was, in a shallow sense. He knew why. He didn't know how, but maybe he didn't need to know, like children fumbling after the paradox of their blueprints, some sort of sweet deity that made them out of tenderness and warmth, but never finding it. He didn't want that delusion. He didn't need it.
He didn't care about Malik anymore. Not really. Kind of. Ryou had made him realize all of this, even though, deep down, in a locked piece of himself, he had already known, he just needed a reminder, something to pull at that tiny piece of him.
Ryou was equally dumbfounded as he was astounded, and attempted to put his hands in his pockets, but it was too awkward laying on his side, "So you learned all that, just from reading a bunch of old books. Just - figured it all out. Figured Malik out, figured yourself out."
Mariku attempted to shrug, "Most of it. Add a tidbit of dark, dangerous magic and pixie dust."
Ryou couldn't help the small laugh that burst from his chest and a smile pulled at Mariku's lips. Ryou thought of Mariku sitting at the table in the cabin, bobbing his knee, skimming over pages with his tongue sticking out, a small, well-used pencil twisting in restless fingers. Ryou wished he could have found himself in books.
"I don't think Malik knows, though."
Ryou shifted himself, rolling over onto his back, "Know what?"
"Anything. I don't think he's figured anything out. He's still mad as hell. Confused. All that."
Ryou kept the scream at the back of his throat, because that was exactly how he felt, and he felt like Mariku was poking fun, in an unintentionally malicious way. He remembered Malik being incredibly upset by seeing and being around Mariku, how tense he had been, obviously stretching his mental fortitude to its breaking point. Was it because Mariku had taken his body at one point in time - and again, a copycat doppelganger - or because of something else entirely? The things Mariku had done, the people Mariku had hurt? How was that any different from the things Malik had done, the people Malik had hurt?
Malik was prone to violence, but unlike Malik, Ryou had physically attacked his darkness - the Spirit - Bakura. He groaned, "So - so you don't hate Malik, though? I mean, after everything?"
Mariku had to think a moment. He certainly didn't like Malik, and wasn't sure if he ever could, especially considering their situation, their history, "I don't know. I don't know what to think of him. I don't like him, but it's - I don't know how to explain it. It doesn't matter anymore."
Ryou scooted closer to Mariku, stuffing his hands up Mariku's shirt. Mariku had a great love for cold hands, as they were like death, immobile, dead and gone, tantamount to a life taken. He didn't mind the intimacy of it, and relished in the goosebumps that spread across his chest and arms.
Ryou was quiet, and his next words were like silk, and a great revelation struck him, "Why is that, though? Is it because of what you've been through with him? Or just - or just because he's Malik? How does it not matter? Is it - because nothing matters? Life goes on and all that?"
Mariku didn't know. He had passed through most of his existence outlined on the features of a narcissistic, violent boy. He figured it was a bit of all of it, but if he truly hated Malik, then he hated himself. He had been fed this vanity, this rage, this hate, this fear, bursting through him in a wave of senses, never ending, never yielding. What Malik had felt, Mariku had taken the brunt of, had clenched it in his fists, and readied himself for the unspeakable.
Mariku spoke with a cruel sharpness, "I don't like him because he ignored me. He ignored himself. I wanted to help him. Because he wanted to help himself, but he couldn't. He was scared of himself, of the things he could do, of the possibilities, of his wishes, his dreams. So I - I pushed. And it was ecstasy. But it was a nightmare to him, and he crumbled, and I reveled in that. It felt so good, to not be pushed around, to have my own say - as Malik would have wanted for himself. I just took over for him."
Ryou's belly boiled, "But it wasn't right."
"No. No, it wasn't. It made everything worse. It made him worse. It made me worse. I kept poking at him in the back of his mind without him knowing, even with Lishid there."
Mariku's eyes were bright and sad, and Ryou couldn't look away, "But - what held you back for so long? I don't understand how the presence of someone could do that - what Lishid could have done with it."
"Lishid was everything. He was devotion, he was love, unconditional and eternal. He served without question, and that's what Malik wanted - to be dominant, to have someone subservient to him, to never question him, to let him make his own decisions and dote on him. His entire life he had been told what to do, never had a say in anything, was on a fixed schedule. He hated it. Malik wanted to put his fate in his own hands, to do what he wanted, to rule over everyone else's lives and choices, to have everyone serve him. He wanted to be a king."
"So he attempted to take up the role of the pharaoh."
Both Ryou and Mariku were startled by this sudden voice - and a spurt of butterfly-dread filled their bellies. Mariku immediately drug himself into a sitting position, spine stiffening, and he gently bit his tongue when he laid eyes on Malik - prone muscle and weary mind shuddering in the constellations, smoke from faraway fires driving skyward behind him.
Ryou closed his eyes, shouldering his disdain, his jaded view on the world, and awaited whatever happened next with Malik and Mariku - and he found the view looking outwards down the cliffside suddenly quite nice. His hands still stung, and the warmth from Mariku's chest was no longer present, and Ryou yearned for it back.
"Where-" Malik's face was contorted, his voice filled with raw emotion, "-where have you been?"
Mariku's head spasmed in confusion, a small twitch, "What do you mean," he outstretched his arms, gently swaying himself, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "we've obviously been on a roof, in the middle of fuck all nowhere."
Malik shook his head modestly, "No. No, not here, before, before this, before you came here, before all of this, in that time where you were missing - where have you been? What have you been doing? I -" he stopped, feeling the swell of a lump in his throat. He looked down to Ryou, seemingly disinterested, laying still as a corpse, not even looking at him, "how are you like this? How have you figured all this out?"
Both Ryou and Mariku realized, then, that Malik had heard some - if not all - of their conversation.
Malik wouldn't lie to himself, he felt ashamed, ashamed of not being able to figure anything of this out for himself, of who he was, of his problems that he knew he needed to work on. He had swallowed himself, but never had a chance to chew, and in the end he had made himself sick. The fact that his darkness had sought to do this - seemingly on his own accord - was fundamentally disgusting and embarrassing to him. He wanted to see a psychiatrist, the thought was there, but not pushing him, he never had a real drive - his brother and sister both urged him, gently, but finding the right one was a completely different aspect that had never easily or readily been discussed beyond "consider seeing a psychiatrist".
He figured his psychiatrist would need a psychiatrist. His life had been complicated, and he thought he would be laughed at or told he was delusional. He knew how the world worked, away from the Old Ways, with their magics and cultures lost. He tried his best with his brother and sister, but they seemed to shut down when he attempted to talk of the more darker parts of his past, of the horrible things he had done, almost as if it was taboo. Life goes on, live and forgive and forget, right? Except he couldn't forget, and he couldn't forgive himself - it had begun to eat away at him in ways he couldn't describe, choking him, biting into him. He wanted to atone for everything, for the blood on his hands, the minds he had broken, the lives he had ruined. He tried not to think about it. It hurt, it hurt way more than he cared to admit, but he didn't know the first step to take in order to fix the pain.
Malik's lip trembled, and he asked again, "Where have you been?"
Mariku licked his lips, fidgeting with himself, "I've been across the pond."
Malik watched his darkness pick at his feet, his shoes laying next to him, and something so basic, so mundane, so human, seemed foreign to him, "That doesn't sound like Japan."
"It wasn't."
Malik waited for more words, a description, an explanation, but it didn't come. He sighed heavily, throwing his head back, and flicking his fingers at his sides. He huffed, a cold dread filling his belly. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder - Bakura was standing in the sand filled alley below him, leaning against a wall. He stared up at him, dead-eyed, with a split lip. He was leaning heavily on his uninjured leg, the other wrapped with a split moment tourniquet, already red with blood - he had, quite pointedly, insisted on following Ryou and Mariku, and Malik couldn't disagree with him.
"Therapeutic nihilism, Malik."
Malik looked back to Mariku, his mouth dry, his spine stiff.
"Deep sleep therapy, cordiazal therapy, lobotomies, insulin shock therapy, scalding hydrotherapy, even electrocution was used as a therapy. Quite sick, quite intriguing. These are torturous methods - deemed as therapy, and widely used for a very long time, and openly accepted as treatment."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying that torture was used as a therapy."
A chill went down Malik's spine, and he remembered Mariku's violent, torture-themed deck, and somewhere deep and dark, he remembered Mai's screams. A small, disbelieving, uncomfortable smile rested on his face, and he wanted to suddenly run.
"I learned that from some books I had. Along with lots of other fun things. Like you. I learned a lot about you. And me."
Malik watched as his darkness flopped himself down backwards next to Ryou, and Ryou shifted, pushing at him, mumbling 'you're being weird' and Mariku laughed in turn. Malik somehow felt jealous, that he had been wronged by his darkness getting close to Ryou before he could. He felt that his darkness had ruined him, had somehow hurt him in ways Malik couldn't yet see, not quite, not exactly. He wanted - he needed - to take Ryou and run, and he knew Bakura wouldn't object.
Malik kept his voice quiet, controlled, "Torture is never a therapy. Ever. Those books were wrong. And those things you learned from those books - those things about me - they sounded like labels, you can't just slap fancy words and descriptions on someone, they're not things. I'M not a thing," he kept his eye on Ryou, who was rubbing at small red marks on his face.
Mariku groaned, because Malik had the audacity to tell him this, even though Malik had implemented many uses of torture in his plans to mentally dominate anyone he deemed necessary. It wasn't, and never had been, a completely physical aspect of him, and perhaps not entirely cognitive in a sense of him being entirely aware of it. It had been a subdued piece of his mind, still there, occasionally darting to the forefront of his thoughts, but never lingering - but they were still there, and he still acted on them. "No, Malik, you're not a thing. But sometimes you gotta put labels on something to better understand an aspect, to better understand yourself. Sometimes labels are all you have, and all you need in order to make yourself feel important. To make yourself feel valid. To feel understood. I needed them. Maybe you do, too."
This - this wasn't something Malik expected. He felt gravity take him, and he found himself sitting on top of the roof as well. He didn't know what he needed. Truthfully, he didn't know what he wanted, either. He felt so lost. Aggrieved. Nothing seemed to be going his way, and that wasn't something he was used to. His darkness was right, in a sense - he had wanted to control things, for everything to go his way, to go smooth. He wanted to talk with Ryou. He wanted for him to talk with Bakura. Nicely.
But neither of these things turned out how he wanted, and he knew he couldn't blame his darkness.
He felt helpless, almost. The power of the Millennium Rod gave him the power for everything to happen just the way he wanted it to. It gave him the power to control minds and wills and bodies - he could control people to do what he wanted, when he wanted, according to his will. He could sit back, let everyone else do everything for him and it would come out just right, just perfect.
Malik brought his hands to his face, pulling at his eyes. He suddenly thought of Lishid, on the blimp, when he had been struck by the fury of the was when his darkness had taken over, had ripped into his mind, into his emotions, into his body. When Lishid - his faithful follower, his servant, his brother - had failed. But it hadn't been just the failure, it was the pain in his chest, the loss of a false persona, the one that Lishid had been playing, the loss of his meticulously thought out plans - had failed. He was back in the catacombs, remembering what he wanted, how he wanted it, and it not going how he wanted. He didn't want to be a tombkeeper, why couldn't Lishid be the heir - he wanted it so badly! But this was childish, and he realized he had been childish for a very long time. It hurt. It hurt his pride, and it stabbed into the frail, tender piece of his heart that still held his brother dear.
Malik heard Bakura pull himself up from the high-sitting window, his foot on the sill and hands on the roof.
"Malik, help me up, I'm getting real sick of all this bullshit and the sand is really hindering me here."
Ryou grimaced at Bakura's voice, and held his hands close to his chest, knuckles burning, and he thought that if Bakura came up on the roof and beat him into a bloody pulp, he'd let him. Maybe. Probably.
Malik looked at Bakura dejectedly, agitated, but offered his help regardless. Bakura snarled as he was drug up, assessed the situation, and promptly laid down himself, in an awkward, sprawled position due to his leg, "This is stupid."
Bakura was still boiling from losing the funds from the fights - and especially from the humiliation that Ryou had brought upon him. He would, undoubtedly, receive many jabs about a small foreigner knocking him out cold for many weeks.
Bakura fingered the wound on his thigh, a strange, cold dampness that he was very familiar with, "You're a little shit, Ryou. You've always been a little shit. A smart little shit, but still a little shit."
Ryou brought himself, very quickly, into a sitting position, and Mariku noticeably cringed away from him, this sudden change in disposition, "You weren't saying that back in the alley. Why did you follow us here? Why did you follow ME here? I don't want anything to do with you anymore, I'm done. I am so done."
Bakura huffed at him, a small snick of a laugh, "Is that all you wanted - just to come find me, punch me in the damn head, and run off into the dunes like some sort of nymph?"
"Nymphs are female, you ass."
Bakura thumbed the side of his nose mockingly, "Could've fooled me."
Ryou was offended, and gritted his teeth, "You're one to talk about just running off! You possess my body, destroy all my friendships, ruin my life, cause physical bodily harm to me, and then you're gone POOF with no explanation as to why - and then your come back, POOF there you are! You appear again and just - just run off! Who knows how many people you've hurt since - since - I just -" he finished with an agitated snarl.
Bakura put his hands up, fingers out, "Poof here I am. This is all old news, are we going to go around and around like this forever? Last time I checked, this motley crew of ours wasn't riding a merry-go-round."
Ryou deadpanned, curling his sore knuckles, desperately wanting to cross the threshold of the roof and clobber Bakura, but mentally - physically - lacking the initiative. Mariku stared, wide-eyed at Malik, who shared an equally exasperated look, as if saying 'yes, this is what dealing with the previous wielders of the Millennium Ring is like'.
Ryou watched angrily, baffled, as Bakura offhandedly picked and pull at his teeth, before, horrifyingly, pulling out an entire tooth. Bakura glowered at it before throwing it at Mariku, and missing terribly, "Here, have a souvenir for your endeavors. From Egypt with love."
They all stared at it, this small white-yellow token among the sand, and a swell of dismay smothered them like a wet blanket. Mariku picked it up between two calloused fingers, small dibs of blood flowing under his fingernails, "It's filed," he was intrigued, and put it up in front of his face.
Ryou's eyes fluttered between Bakura to Mariku, "What?"
Mariku turned to Ryou, holding it out towards him, "It's filed."
Bakura sneered as Ryou took it, putting his tongue in the empty socket in his mouth, a terrible sting pulsating in his skull, "I have filed teeth. Funny how you haven't noticed."
Ryou stared at the tooth, brows furrowed, before looking over to Bakura, curiously shocked. Bakura suddenly offered a splendidly toothy grin, an invitation to madness - and Ryou was unexpectedly engrossed. Bakura's teeth were filed neatly into pointed tips, brightly shining from the black spaces between them, a series of jagged white against a smooth bronze.
Malik looked at Bakura over his shoulder, eyes dim. Bakura's filed teeth were not new to him, and in truth, he had grown rather used to them, and barely noticed them anymore. He never asked where or why he had gotten them, just like he had never asked about the scar - just like he never asked about a lot of things, and he realized he still didn't know much about Bakura, for as long as he had known him.
"How - how - how why do you have filed teeth?" Ryou stuttered, moving to sit on his knees. He had always been intrigued by body modification - especially tribal, and especially something that could hold a significance that pertained to a certain culture. The fact that it was Bakura did not hinder his interest.
Bakura licked his teeth, sucking the blood down, the coppery tang sliding down his throat, thick and pungent, and the pain in his mouth agitated him, "I had them filed by a Numidian named Jubala. This was in my previous life - or whatever you want to call it. Thousands of years ago." he made a snicking noise and raised his brows, a bitter smile gracing his lips, "They are a sign of beauty."
Malik snorted, "I'll say."
Bakura twisted his body uncomfortably, a expression of pained disgust briefly running over his features, "Yeah, you're just jealous. I think there's still glass in my damn leg," his words were quiet and muttered, as if he were talking to himself, but everyone still heard him.
Ryou furrowed his brows, rolling Bakura's tooth with the pads of his fingers. It felt good to have something tangible, to fiddle with, a physical piece of someone he had, for so long, though as untouchable. He had always dealt with the aftermath of the blackouts, the headaches, the hunger, the wounds, and the way people would look at him. A small voice in the back of his head, poking, prodding, whispering. The tooth was almost strange to him, as was the tanned, scarred individual sitting on the other side of the roof, complaining over his wounds.
He looked down at Bakura's leg, the muddy red now mottled with grains of sand, like stars on a vermilion sky, "How did you get glass in your leg?"
Bakura seemed flustered, and let out a sardonic growl, throwing his arm out towards Mariku, "Same fucker that broke my tooth out."
Ryou looked at Mariku, feeling numb. Mariku met his gaze, pursing his lips, "I don't know anything about that glass, it got there on its own."
Ryou didn't care. He pushed the tooth between his fingers harshly until it hurt, and stood up. He faltered in the sand before clambering over a dune, disappearing down over the hut, where no one could see him.
Malik outstretched his arm, bemused, "Does he always just take off like this?"
A 'yes' was said in unison between Mariku and Bakura. They shared a blank look before Bakura shouted after him, "Where are you going?"
Ryou shouted back, "Away."
"Away where?"
"AWAY."
Bakura shook his head, dragging a hand down his face, "Aye-aye-aye - you can't - you can't just - there's nowhere for you to go!"
Ryou snarled, "I'm going back to Luxor and I'm going back to Japan and I'm going to stay in my apartment until I'm old and gross and I'll order delivery pizza and never leave and nobody's going to bother me ever again!"
Bakura whistled, "Oh, he's lost it."
Mariku stood, slowly, "I think we all have," he attempted to dust the sand off of himself, but failed miserably. He muttered to himself, agitated, "I didn't miss this."
"You can't - you need to tell him that his place is dangerous at night, and I'll be damned if I'm escorting his pissy ass back down those cliffs. There aren't any places for you to stay," Bakura rose his voice to make sure Ryou heard him, "and the port's closed!"
Ryou certainly heard, "Oh, that's fine! I'll just sleep in a pile of sand and rubble because that's all that's here!"
Bakura rolled his eyes, and they all listened to Ryou pace in the sand, kicking rocks. Malik looked at Bakura, startled, "I didn't know the ports closed at night."
"Yeah, something to do with smuggling, I don't know."
Malik panicked, a burst of dread spreading from his heart and belly. He grit his teeth, and looked up at his darkness - who was watching Ryou fumbling in the sand below them, feet bare "Ok, so. So what - what do we do?"
Bakura cocked his head, fluttering his lashes sarcastically, "We sleep in a pile of sand and rubble, of course, because that's all that's here."
Malik blanched, "No. No you have a home, I know you do."
"Do you? As far as I recall, you've never seen it."
This was true. Malik had never asked to see where Bakura lived, and Bakura had never offered to show him. For all he knew, Bakura lived back down the cliffside, or in a tent somewhere.
"And even if I did," Bakura continued, "I don't know if I'd let you sorry lot in to muck it all up. I'm very proud of my castle, my little kingdom. Suits my fancy just fine," he smiled at Malik, a toothy grin - his teeth were covered in blood - and he pointed up over a ridge, just a few hundred feet away, "I live right over there."
Malik wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, but he was starting to feel Ryou's frustration - this helplessness, this situation he couldn't back out of, and, like him, he felt like huffing in the sand, kicking stones.
"Hey, you dark thing," he rose his voice at Mariku, tilting his head back, "can you - can you TELL RYOU THAT WE CAN ALL CRASH AT MY PLACE SINCE HE DOESN'T SEEM TO LISTEN TO ANYONE ELSE."
Mariku looked worried and bewildered, before Ryou let out a dreadful, frustrated wail that echoed across the sand - Bakura's heightened tone had, in fact, been a sarcastic directive towards him.
Mariku's voice was faint but solid, like the petals of a wilting flower, "He doesn't listen to anyone. And I don't think he wants to go with you."
Bakura gave him a frightening, impish grin, and the blood staining his teeth and the angry shrieking of Ryou left both Malik and Mariku feeling perturbed, "Well I guess we'll just have to drag him."
0000
Bakura promptly took his shoes and pants off without shame, hissing as the cloth scraped and peeled at the wound in his leg. A 'click' was heard, followed by a dull light from a small solar-powered lantern - something he had won from a fight. He sat on a broken block of stone, spreading his wound open under the light to get a better look at it, a disgusted grimace marring his face as he began to pick at it, finding tiny fragments of glass still embedded, "Bullshit."
Ryou's face was red from anger and from screaming, and the three of them sheepishly stood in the doorway, looking at Bakura somewhat bashfully before taking in his 'castle'. The glitter of metals and jewels was one of the immediate things that met their eyes under the light, and the sheer magnitude left them in mild shock.
His home was not much bigger than the others that were in shambles or covered in sand - small but livable. A small unlit mud oven was in a corner, a chimney smartly curling outside, obviously newly made. A pedestal was in the middle of the area, with an ornate bowl, and a hammock hanging the opposite side of the oven. There were chests and boxes and baskets - but piles and piles of jewels and artifacts lined all the walls, some nearly reaching their knees.
Ryou laughed in disbelief as he walked over to the hammock, and he pulled at it with his fingers before promptly claiming it for himself, flopping into it, "You're like a dragon up here, up in the cliffs, sitting on your hoard of treasure. How quaint."
Bakura looked at him and the hammock pointedly, obviously irate that Ryou was in in, but not willing to start the argument.
Malik walked around swiftly, clearly startled, "Where did you get all of this?" He picked up something at random, something easy - an engraved copper plate. He knew where Bakura got all of it. He just didn't believe it. It disgusted him, it was appalling, and all of it - every bit of it - belonged in Museums, to be studied, to be cherished and preserved. Not - not in some personal collection in the middle of nowhere in ruins in a giant pile.
Bakura grunted, "Here and there," he pointed at a basket, fingertips covered in blood, "Give me that."
Malik turned to him, "No. No this - you shouldn't have any of this!"
"I tried to give you some of it but you denied my pretty gifts. Princesses like jewelry, so I've heard." It was a joke, followed by condescending smirk, and Malik walked up and slapped Bakura's wound harshly before reaching for the basket. Bakura yelped and groaned, seething, "It's like we're already married."
Malik looked inside the basket, only to find jars of salve and honey and bandages. He didn't know what he should have expected, but he tossed it at Bakura's feet in contempt, "It's my duty as an Ishtar to protect Egypt's history - which means protecting its tombs and everything in them," he threw his hands out, "which means all of this!"
Bakura popped open a jar, pouring its liquid contents onto his leg. He groused in a language none of them knew before dabbing it with a bandage, "You must not have heard my old title - King of Thieves," he offered another bloody grin and opened another jar, rubbing a honey-salve deeply into the wound, "Although, not all of this is from my own little excursions, some I won fair and square. You'll have to forgive the fact that nobles decided to bury their dead in my old decrepit village. But I think we've already had this discussion countless times before."
Malik was boiling, "People should not be inhabiting Qurna. They should not have access to priceless artifacts so easily, and it's disgusting that you're supporting this."
Bakura started to bandage the wound - he was very quick, Ryou noticed - and the light above him cast marvelous shadows over his bent, sweating form, bare thighs and bruised hands. It was almost erotic.
"Yeah, yeah, people can walk out of their kitchens into a tomb. We're all living on the necropolis your clan was sworn to live in and protect, yadda yadda blah blah. Which also happens to be the site the Millennium Items were made, but hey, that's apparently none of my business, not like I'm still haunted by the ghosts of Qurna or anything," Bakura sullenly thought of how these very ghosts, these phantoms, had congregated towards Ryou, had pointedly led him to Old Qurna, quietly, as wisps in the night - up towards Bakura's home, "Were was your clan living, exactly?"
Malik grimaced at him, "Sheikh Abd el-Qurna."
"Yeah, that's it. Where the Tablets were, where the Door was. Where all the slaughtered people were fully utilized. All that fun stuff."
Malik swallowed heavily, staring at the floor, "These artifacts and tombs need to be protected, to preserve our history. What happened here, to Qurna - that was long ago -"
"Not for me!" Bakura's tone was very sharp, almost violent, and he stood, suddenly, and repeated, a near whisper, tenderly, "Not for me."
Bakura walked past him, and thumbed a wad of linen into his mouth, stuffing it into the empty space between his teeth. He went over to the round, burnt oven, picking at the bread laying on top before bringing it to his mouth. The back of his thigh donned dry, flaking blood, and this stripped form, bloody, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and fitted boxers was simply singing. The low light of the solar lamp embraced him from across the room, and left something uncouth in its wake.
"I find it funny," he swallowed a mouthful, his voice somewhat cottony, and he turned to look down at Ryou, who was stubbornly denying Mariku access to the hammock, "that you're not wearing your contacts."
Ryou blinked, annoyed, pushing at Mariku's hands when they latched onto the hammock, gritting his teeth, "Why? How is that funny?" then, baffled, "Why would you even notice something like that?"
Bakura licked his fingers - blood, salve, crumbs and all - before digging in a larger basket filled with clothes, "You always wore them. I thought they were stupid. Covered up the real color," he pointed at his eyes, "my color," then waved his hands at Malik and Mariku, "our color."
A lump met their throats as Bakura slithered into a pair of sweats. An implication was there, but they couldn't completely figure out the end of it, just an odd and interesting coincidence, bringing them further together. Bakura began throwing blankets all over the floor, taken from a large basket - quilts made from scrap shirts and angora goat wool, "I'm not sharing my good comforter, it was hard won, got my nose broke for it, you can all fuck of."
Ryou squawked when Mariku attempted to clamber into the hammock with him, before he promptly sent Mariku to the floor in a heap. Mariku's form went limp in defeat, and he stared up at Ryou like a sick dog, "Mean."
Bakura walked over to them, a giant, poofy, expensive looking comforter draped over his shoulders, "Interesting how you found Malik's darkness and Malik found yours. Now get out of my hammock."
Ryou's mind twisted at the dissimilar sentences, strangely divergent. He began sinking further into the hammock, wriggling, and tightly wrapping his fingers around the worn, frayed rope. It stunk of fish, but he didn't care - he knew this was petty, but he wasn't moving. He glared fiercely at Bakura, "No."
Bakura offered an expressionless mask before looking down amusingly to Mariku, who, in turn, closed his eyes and rapidly shook his head, silently telling him it wasn't worth the fight. Bakura sat down on the cold limestone and baked mud, grumbling to himself, "Beat me up, embarrass me, slice my leg open, make me walk miles after you, give you a place to rest and you take the place I sleep. My feelers are hurt." He fluffed up his blanket, wrapping it around him like a cocoon, fully enveloping everything but his face. He adjusted his jaw, gnawing down on the linen in his mouth. He looked at Ryou, sneering mockingly at him, "You ARE mean. I don't remember you being so mean. And quit glaring at everything, your face will get stuck like that."
Ryou thought, very quickly to himself, that he never remembered the Spirit being so human.
Ryou's eyes dove up to Malik, who was still fretting at all the ancient valuables lining the walls. "Your sister didn't like you seeing Bakura. She really went off when you left," Ryou's voice was solid and low, without any teasing, "just kept squalling about it."
Malik's gaze suddenly stuck to him, and he pursed his lips.
Bakura looked from Ryou to Malik, "Oooho, you never told them? This whole time? You never told your precious brother and sister you were visiting little old me?"
Malik growled at the back of his throat, his eyes wild, "No."
Bakura grinned lecherously, "Oh, that's naughty! So I'm your dirty little secret."
Malik's eyes rolled dramatically, "Yeah, well...Lishid knew. He'd been having me followed."
Bakura's grin faltered, and an insecure noise rumbled in his throat.
Ryou adjusted himself in the hammock, stretching his legs out in an attempt to get more comfortable, and he stared up at the cracks in the ceiling, "Why did you come instead of Lishid? Today, I mean."
Malik's stance suddenly changed, and his body visibly stiffened. A flurry of thoughts and explanations went through his head, and a deep heat began to destroy his core. He look at his darkness, still laying flat on the floor, then to Bakura, then nowhere, "I - I don't know. I felt - I just - I wanted - I don't know." His mind was muddled from this situation, from the hoard, from his darkness laying just a few feet away from him.
"Very nice Shakespearean, Malik, you have me in tears," Bakura rolled himself down onto the floor, several feet away from Mariku, grunting as he attempted to find a comfortable position, kicking the blanket over the bottom of his feet, "Bravo."
Malik felt like choking him with one of the treasured necklaces from the hoard, and he sighed heavily, vexed and anxious, "I just - wanted to come with. I felt - I felt like this was something I needed to do, to be a part of, without anyone backing me up." He rolled his shoulders, eyes darting from Ryou to Mariku and to the floor.
Ryou attempted to adjust himself in the hammock again, but found it difficult due to the stretching, sinking movement of it, and began struggling with it, "You've been visiting Bakura for awhile, and somehow expected to smooth things over just by affiliation? Is that it? Or did you want to make sure the nasty beasty you made from your mind wasn't preying on poor little me? Or is it a bit of both?"
Disbelief caused Malik's vision to blur, because it was partly, if not completely, true, but it certainly wasn't the true reason whey he had come. He had come to speak with Ryou, in an attempt to get somewhat closer to him, to understand him, to just - to talk with him."No, I - Ryou - I wanted I wanted to talk with you - I wanted to apologize."
Ryou stopped fighting with the hammock, now enfolded within it at an awkward angle, and he grimaced at Malik, "Apologize for what?"
A flame established itself and was released in the hollow feeling in Malik's gut, filling him, hurting him, healing him. He smiled a distressed smile, with a devastated, petrified look to his eyes, "For everything. Everything. For using you, for hurting you, in Battle City, for hurting your friends. It was wrong. I was so, so wrong, and I'm so sorry. I never got to say this to you, I never had the chance, never had the courage, never had the right timing - I still don't, this isn't an ideal setting, but that's - that's out of my control. I'm sorry."
Bakura was strangely still and quiet beneath his blanket, and Ryou glowered at Malik, judging him, straight, stretched stiff and unmoving. He reached a pale, bony hand down to Mariku, poking at his face, his unblinking stare never leaving Malik, "You should go get me some of that foodstuffs that's on that oven over there. And a blanket. Not one of those scratchy wool ones, either," it was a modest command obviously directed towards his darkness, but Ryou's stare was unsettling, as was his apathetic response.
Ryou felt empty, and numb. This was incredibly surreal to Ryou, and strangely domestic, and it felt wrong like this - with Bakura, with Malik, with Mariku. Individuals who had, for so long, been a marring plague to him, with bad reputations based on short personal experiences and hearing about them through the words of others. But they were physical, real, right in front of him and they told jokes and fought and worried, and spoke and bled. It was like putting demons into mortal bodies, human and corporeal and he was fascinated by this comparison, by this authentic, humbling setting that left him overwrought with an outline of what life was. It was difficult, and flawed, and unfair, and he wasn't sure if he could forgive anyone, even if one had apologized among priceless ancient gems and gold, even if one had followed and physically and emotionally attached themselves to him, even if one had been metamorphosed into a blanket burrito filled with sarcastic, spitting wisecracks, with filed teeth and nice thighs.
His knuckles hurt.
0000
Mariku sat right outside the door for a long time, picking at the rocks and sand, watching the stars blink back at him. It was cold, and his breath burst forth from his lips in a mist of white.
Malik, too, had found his way outside to lean against the open doorway, seeking comfort in - in nothing, actually. It was dark out, and quiet, and his darkness sat outside next to him on the ground, and they glared at each other periodically, exploiting their disdain, but not speaking. Malik's remembrance of his darkness wasn't so muted, so somber, and he certainly never expected to be next to him in an abandoned sect of Qurna staring at the stars with Ryou and Bakura in their midst.
Malik's brother and sister were probably worried sick, as there wasn't any cell phone service this far out. He thought of how upset Isis had been about Bakura - this sudden detail in his life that they had thought long gone. It wasn't fair to be so upset about him, so adamant about his flurry of bruised knuckles and crooked grins.
He understood the worry, he really did, Bakura had been a strange consistency that he found a solace in, but the deeds of his past were filled with misgivings and narcissistic voyeurs. Perhaps she still thought of Bakura in such a manner. He wished he could call her and tell her he was okay, that he was safe.
Not that he would admit that he was staying with Bakura, Ryou and his darkness in the ruins of Old Qurna.
He looked down at his darkness, watching him fidget and twitch, bobbing his knee like a disgruntled child. It was different, seeing him like this, he realized. Physical. Up close. He looked like a haphazard mess, with horribly tangled hair and clothes covered in sand. He looked lost.
"Where did you learn how to play the oud?" the question spilled from Malik's lips before he could stop himself, as if his mind wasn't filtering what he should keep to himself first. It was a question that had been plaguing him for a long time, especially since it provided an insight into the fact that his darkness was capable of growing - learning, doing, making his own memories - in a positive manner, as far as he was aware.
"I don't know how to play the oud. I know how to play the guitar. Kind of. They're sort of alike."
"Who taught you?"
"I taught myself, mostly. Just fiddled around."
It was quiet awhile, and Malik thought on this, his soul ringing, "I-" he faltered, furrowing his brows. He realized he didn't know what to call his darkness - did he have a name? He never heard anyone say it - "I don't - I don't know what to call you."
Mariku hummed an apprehensive titter, "I didn't have one for a long time. Ryou decided to call me by the Japanese pronunciation of your name - Mariku. Mah-dee-koo. It's different enough from 'mah-leek', and I just went with it."
Malik felt a wave of horrified annoyance tilt him, and had to focus heavily on his breathing. He wasn't sure if he liked his darkness even having a name, considering who - what - he was, but this name...it was just too similar to his, regardless of the pronunciation. Bitterly, he realized it was an ironic haunting of who he was - of who his darkness was, and how connected they truly were, "I...I guess that makes sense."
"You don't like it."
Malik wheezed, "No."
Mariku gnawed on his lips, tongue occasionally twisting out to run across them, "What happened afterwards?"
Malik rose his brows, beckoning his voice not to crack, "After what?"
Mariku's face twitched, and he stared fiercely at a hole in his pants, and began to tear at it, "After I lost the duel."
Malik turned a petulant gaze to him, silent, and not particularly wanting to talk about this. Lead settled in his belly. It had been a time in his life where he felt he had hit rock bottom, had annihilated himself, had been beaten and splintered. He took a deep breath, in, and out, and decided to answer, "I hurt. I don't know what you were doing to make my body hurt so bad, but it was like I ran 1000 miles in the span of a day. I," he looked away, sighing, "was exhausted. Physically and mentally. But it was like seeing the sun for the first time, after all that dark."
Mariku continued to pull at the hole, tearing it, pulling at the strings, "And? What about the Pharaoh?"
Malik leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms. He stared down the dark expanse of a forgotten area of Old Qurna, pushed back into a cliff, rising up to the peak. It was all in shambles, broken limestone and mud, covered in sand. "I showed him the scars. The Rite. I showed all of them, everyone that was there. I was - I was almost proud of them, like I had finally accepted them as who I was, as a part of me, something that was important to my family and me, as a person. I felt - I felt like I had finally did was I was originally set out to do, a huge goal that was finally met. Almost."
"Almost?"
"The Pharaoh didn't even recognize symbols from The Rite."
Mariku let out a noise resembling a grunt and a laugh, "What, like he couldn't read them?"
"Nothing. He didn't know what it said, he didn't know what it meant. It didn't help him. It never helped him. What - what was the point of all this suffering? The suffering of my family, my clan, for centuries - for millennia? What was the point of MY suffering? What was the point of living for someone else for such a long time, devoting so much to them, your life, your happiness, your sorrows? So many people lived and died for him. So many people had The Rite. What was the point of trying to BE like someone, to ruin so many other people's lives like I have? What was the point of all of this? It's like some big, cosmic joke."
Mariku sneered, "There wasn't a point. Not a damn thing. Your life has been shit, trying to live for someone else, trying to BE someone else. It's time to live for yourself, it's time to BE yourself." he looked up to Malik, the hole in his pants now a large tear reaching to his inner thigh, "Don't you think?"
The savage look on Mariku's face told Malik that this was exactly what Mariku had figured out for himself. It was harrowing.
Malik had been in Egypt, home, this entire time, and was still stuck on the past, coping with his wrongdoings, attempting to redeem himself, but coming up short. He had been doing the same things as Mariku had, day in, and day out. He didn't have any hobbies. He festered, miserable and angry. Feeling sorry for himself, for the people he had wronged, resentful towards himself, and to things and people he could no longer control. He hid in fear, in fear of himself, in fear of his other half, in fear of those seeking revenge. He questioned his life, his sister's and brother's life, his mother's - his father's. The problem was he didn't care as much when he was younger - or so he thought - and all the emotions assailed him at once when it was all over. A dread had pulled him into the pits of his own mind, and it didn't matter if he left all the lights on or not. But Mariku had found his way out, through - through playing guitar, through researching, for trying, for living.
Malik turned to look inside the hut at Ryou, tangled in the netting Bakura had fashioned into a hammock. He wasn't surprised to see he was awake, and met Malik's stare with a cold, dead look, tightly wadded in a patchwork quilt to keep the cold out - twisting something small between his fingers - Bakura's tooth? Bakura himself lay directly below Ryou on the floor, his back facing away, gently snoring in the giant comforter blanket he had gotten his nose broken for.
Malik's lip twitched, "You're right."
0000
Ryou's been in a constant state of PMSing and it's my favorite.
This might turn into agonyshipping.
Crap.
That's fine that just means I get to practice writing a foursome : D
no im kidding
...maybe
I'd like to think Millennium World was actually based during the Late Period or Ptolemaic Period, especially since there was so much...stuff that wasn't really Egyptian. I KNOW it was just "Ancient Egyptian inspired" but like c'mon. The clothing especially, and the fact that NOBODY SHAVED THEIR DAMN HEADS. It had an "end of Ancient Egyptian culture and rule" feel to it, honestly.
(So, to anyone that knows who Jubala the Numidian is and what exactly he's from - you da best xoxo)
Reviews are nice! Please inform me of any mistakes, or if you have any questions or critiques. Thank !