A Warm Heart in a Cold Desert
Dislcaimer: *Checks her calender* Nope, doesn't look like I'll be owning YGO any time this year, folks.
Pairings: Bakura/Ryou, maybe some side Marik/Malik, hinted Seto/Joey in this and possibly other chapter(s).
Warnings/Other: Yaoi (Don't like? Don't read.), death, angst, some Bakura OOC maybe. Once again, a thanks goes out to D.
Summary: -AU- Bakura, an Egyptian prison escapee. Ryou, a contradictory teenager sick of the family life. After Ryou is dragged along on his family trip to desert, he finds Bakura in the back of his car, and decides to run away with him. There's only one problem. They're lost in the desert with no idea where civilization is. YAOI BxR
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After what seemed like an eternity, Bakura finally stopped walking, although it was really more of a limp. He fought to keep his face expressionless as pain seared throughout the bloody wound on his leg, and was somewhat sucsessful, although he couldn't keep himself from furrowing his eyebrows and wincing every time he would put too much pressure on his leg.
Ryou almost walked into Bakura, since he had fixed his gaze on the sandy ground beneath him. Fortunately, he looked up just in time to see that Bakura had stopped walking. He took a step forward, so that he was standing beside Bakura, and blinked, looking around. "Why'd you stop? Is it because of your leg?"
"No." Bakura replied instantly, his voice barely above a raspy whisper. He motioned with his hand for Ryou to lower the tone in his voice as he knelt down, biting down on his tongue to keep back a cry of pain at his wound. "What, or should I say who, I'm looking for should be nearby..." He peered inside a small cave made out of age-old rocks.
Just as the side of his face became visible to the person inside the cave, a mocha hand extended, grabbed his collar, and pulled the tomb robber inside, covering his mouth before any sounds could be made. From the outside of the cave, he could hear Ryou shouting out his name in fear.
Bakura froze as he was suddenly yanked inside the cave and a hand was clamped over his mouth. He hardly dared to breathe, just in case he had been wrong in his assumptions that this was the correct cave. Muscles tense, he fought back the urge to bite his captor's hand until he was set free. He tried to gain Ryou's attention with his eyes, although he knew that nine chances out of ten, it would not work. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins as he remained stiff.
.
"Damn, Bakura. I thought you'd know it was me."
Bakura insantly went lax and squirmed out of the other's arms. He turned around and glared. "You didn't have to startle me like that, Marik." Rolling his eyes, he shifted his gaze to the outside, and noticed that it was distinctly cooler inside the cave. "You got room for one more person?"
A second form stepped out of the darkness. "You brought someone with you, 'Kura? Why in hell'd you do that? I thought you flew solo?" The speaker's golden arm bands glistened in the faint sunlight filtering through.
"Malik and Marik... So you came here together." Bakura noted, nodding slightly. "Yes, I did bring someone along. Again, do you have room for one more person in this cave of yours?"
Marik nodded. "Barely. Is this kid small?"
Bakura thought for a moment, "Yeah."
"Good." Malik said, signifying to Bakura that it was okay to go outside and tell Ryou to come in.
.
"Ryou?" Bakura stepped out from inside the cave, and looked around, squinting as his vision readjusted to the sunlight. He found the lithe British youth scouting the area; he figured Ryou was trying to find a safe viewpoint for peering inside the stone structure. "Ryou! Get down here!" He ordered, catching Ryou's eye.
"Bakura! What happened?" Ryou asked as he hopped down a couple boulders, Bakura's tote slung over his shoulder. "I saw you get dragged in, and--"
Bakura hushed him by placing one finger on Ryou's pale pink lips. "Listen. This is where we're going," he motioned behind him with his thumb. "I'll introduce you to the people inside. Come on."
Ryou hesitantly nodded, then followed Bakura inside, relishing the refreshing shade.
.
"The hell? Bakura, are you playing a trick on us? How come you never told us you had a twin brother?" Marik asked skeptically while he glanced Ryou over. Ryou smiled slightly at Marik, sitting down beside Bakura. Subconsiously, he leaned into his look-a-like, trying to avoid the steady gaze coming from the beach-blonde Egyptian.
Bakura rolled his eyes a second time, "He's not my brother. Yes, he does look like me, but I'm not related to him. You look like Malik, but he's not your brother." He drug his shoulderbag to his side and twisted his hand into the strap.
Marik shrugged. "He could sure pass for you. Where'd ya find him?"
Ryou remained silent. Bakura's friends didn't seem to like him that much. Perhaps he had been wrong in tagging along with Bakura. If he hadn't, he could be enjoying a satisfying lunch right about now, and he could have a roof over his head when he went to sleep, instead of being vulnerable to anything nature decided to send his way. When he had first asked Bakura to let him come with, he hadn't expected the older boy to be as kind as he had been. The first night Ryou had fallen asleep in Bakura's arms was pleasant, but he still couldn't help but wonder if he had done the right thing. He glanced up as he felt eyes staring at him.
"Marik, lay off." Bakura snapped as he noticed a depressed air building around Ryou. "You speak as if he's not even present."
A suspicious glare was then sent Bakura's way from the two blondes. "What happened to you that made you care about someone besides yourself, Bakura?" Malik asked, eyebrow arched in mischevious curiousity. "Or is the infamous Bakura finally lightening up?"
Bakura pinned Malik with a momentary glare as a long, drawn out silence settled itself amongst the four. Marik and Malik looked at eachother and grinned, while Ryou blinked, and Bakura avoided eye-contact with anyone or anything except for the stone wall, a light blush rising in his cheeks.
.
As Bakura engaged himself in a severely intense staring contest, Ryou lifted his head from the silver-haired Egyptian's shoulder and cast a worried gaze at the wound on Bakura's leg. The cut seemed to be infected, and though it had stopped bleeding for the most part, gnarled scabs had formed and some of the skin was starting to die. "Bakura, you can't let your leg stay like that." Ryou stated, shattering the silence. He stood, reluctantly leaving the safety of Bakura's side. "I'll be right back," he dug into his backpack and brought out a small, empty Altoids' can and pocketed it, dashing outside into the sunlight before anyone could stop him.
"Ryou...!" Bakura exclaimed, motioning to get up. His actions were halted by Marik's firm grip on his shoulder.
It was too late; Ryou had set off at a running pace to wherever it was he needed to go, and there was no chance of catching up to him by now.
.
Ryou ran until he found the rotted desert rabbit corpse, thankfully the maggots were still eating at the dead flesh of the poor creature. He knelt down and searched the ground for something he could use in the transportation of the slimy yellow fungus-like creatures, thankful when he found what appeared to be an old, dried up stick of some kind. He didn't want to have to actually touch the maggots. He quickly set to work on scooping them into the tin. A mental note was made to throw the tin out as soon as possible as he finished collecting the maggots. Standing, he started back to the cave, unaware of the cloaked figure hiding behind a rock some twenty feet from where he was.
.
Bakura glared to the outside world from his restrained spot in the cave. Marik still had his arm in a death-grip, and although his arm was starting to numb slightly, he payed it no attention. "Why is he not back yet?!"
"Why are you so worried?" Malik questioned, lavender eyes glinting with mischeif in the reddish orange light from the setting sun.
"Shut up, the both of you." Interrupted an annoyed Marik. Slight jealousy was present in his gaze; he didn't like not having Malik's attention.
Malik and Bakura quieted down in their endless argument. "Bakura, if he's not back in a minute, we can go looking for him, okay?" Malik proposed upon seeing worry clearly written all over Bakura's sharp mahogony orbs.
Glaring, Bakura nodded. "Alright..."
.
Ryou walked at a brisk pace, he had the slight feeling that someone was following him. Shoving the inch-long tin of maggots into his pocket, he didn't dare to look back as he fought against his fear to continue walking, as if he always went down paths at a semi-fast pace. Just to prove to himself that there was nothing to worry about, he stopped walking.
The footsteps behind him stopped.
He started walking again.
The footsteps followed.
Gulping, he slowed down, hoping it was just his imagination.
The footsteps did not slow down.
He broke into a panicked run.
The footsteps sped up until they, too, were running.
His energy failed him, and he stopped running.
The footsteps stopped running as well.
Ryou felt a presence standing behind him, felt eyes boring into the back of his head, hands hovering just above his arms, and a knee right behind his own, waiting to knock him to the floor. As much as he hated to ask Bakura for help another time, in this instance he felt that there was more at risk than his ankle. He opened his mouth to shout...
A hand slapped his mouth shut as a strong arm grabbed him round the waist. Eyes wide with fear, Ryou did the first thing his instincts told him to: He bit the hand of his captor as hard as he could, and didn't stop until he felt the coppery tang of the other's blood enter is mouth. Once he had bought himself a few seconds of time, he took a deep breath and shouted for all his worth. "BAKURA!" He struggled to get free of the man holding him as he spat out the blood. "Let me go! Stop it!" Kicking his legs around as he was lifted into the air, he managed to kick the man's knee.
His mouth still hadn't been covered again, so he shouted a second time, "BAKURA!"
"Listen, boy!" The man growled, throwing Ryou to the ground and whipping out a knife from somewhere inside the cloak, "If you want to live, you'll shut up! Get off the ground! I said GET OFF THE GROUND!" He held the knife out to Ryou's face, smirking as the boy, now an almost ghostly pale, shakily stood up. "Good. You can follow orders." Cloak still masking his identity, the man circled Ryou slowly, until he was behind him. Duveil, the man, kicked Ryou's back until he started walking. He pulled the cloak away from his face, revealing short, inky black hair and eyes just as dark. The knife was held just close enough to Ryou's neck to put pressure but not induce outward blood flow. "Now walk. And if I hear you calling out to this 'Bakura' of yours, you're as good as dead."
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Ending Notes: Bakura will now murder me. Oh, and 'Duveil' is Dutch for 'devil'.
Bakura: *Glares at Shori* WHAT do you have planned?
Shori: Uhm... ^_^ I gotta go now, bye everybody! *Runs off*
Bakura: ... Well, since the authoress has dissapeared, I'll update you on the review counter. She now requires 75 reviews to continue. That's... *Counts* 15 more. That's right, she did say she was uping the counter by fifteen every chapter.
Shori: (From other side of world) TELL THEM TO STAY TUNED, AND THAT I LOVE THEM, AND THANKS FOR REVIEWING, AND TO PLEASE NOT MURDER ME!
Bakura: ... You heard her. *Walks off and turns off light on the way out of computer room*
Dislcaimer: *Checks her calender* Nope, doesn't look like I'll be owning YGO any time this year, folks.
Pairings: Bakura/Ryou, maybe some side Marik/Malik, hinted Seto/Joey in this and possibly other chapter(s).
Warnings/Other: Yaoi (Don't like? Don't read.), death, angst, some Bakura OOC maybe. Once again, a thanks goes out to D.
Summary: -AU- Bakura, an Egyptian prison escapee. Ryou, a contradictory teenager sick of the family life. After Ryou is dragged along on his family trip to desert, he finds Bakura in the back of his car, and decides to run away with him. There's only one problem. They're lost in the desert with no idea where civilization is. YAOI BxR
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
After what seemed like an eternity, Bakura finally stopped walking, although it was really more of a limp. He fought to keep his face expressionless as pain seared throughout the bloody wound on his leg, and was somewhat sucsessful, although he couldn't keep himself from furrowing his eyebrows and wincing every time he would put too much pressure on his leg.
Ryou almost walked into Bakura, since he had fixed his gaze on the sandy ground beneath him. Fortunately, he looked up just in time to see that Bakura had stopped walking. He took a step forward, so that he was standing beside Bakura, and blinked, looking around. "Why'd you stop? Is it because of your leg?"
"No." Bakura replied instantly, his voice barely above a raspy whisper. He motioned with his hand for Ryou to lower the tone in his voice as he knelt down, biting down on his tongue to keep back a cry of pain at his wound. "What, or should I say who, I'm looking for should be nearby..." He peered inside a small cave made out of age-old rocks.
Just as the side of his face became visible to the person inside the cave, a mocha hand extended, grabbed his collar, and pulled the tomb robber inside, covering his mouth before any sounds could be made. From the outside of the cave, he could hear Ryou shouting out his name in fear.
Bakura froze as he was suddenly yanked inside the cave and a hand was clamped over his mouth. He hardly dared to breathe, just in case he had been wrong in his assumptions that this was the correct cave. Muscles tense, he fought back the urge to bite his captor's hand until he was set free. He tried to gain Ryou's attention with his eyes, although he knew that nine chances out of ten, it would not work. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins as he remained stiff.
.
"Damn, Bakura. I thought you'd know it was me."
Bakura insantly went lax and squirmed out of the other's arms. He turned around and glared. "You didn't have to startle me like that, Marik." Rolling his eyes, he shifted his gaze to the outside, and noticed that it was distinctly cooler inside the cave. "You got room for one more person?"
A second form stepped out of the darkness. "You brought someone with you, 'Kura? Why in hell'd you do that? I thought you flew solo?" The speaker's golden arm bands glistened in the faint sunlight filtering through.
"Malik and Marik... So you came here together." Bakura noted, nodding slightly. "Yes, I did bring someone along. Again, do you have room for one more person in this cave of yours?"
Marik nodded. "Barely. Is this kid small?"
Bakura thought for a moment, "Yeah."
"Good." Malik said, signifying to Bakura that it was okay to go outside and tell Ryou to come in.
.
"Ryou?" Bakura stepped out from inside the cave, and looked around, squinting as his vision readjusted to the sunlight. He found the lithe British youth scouting the area; he figured Ryou was trying to find a safe viewpoint for peering inside the stone structure. "Ryou! Get down here!" He ordered, catching Ryou's eye.
"Bakura! What happened?" Ryou asked as he hopped down a couple boulders, Bakura's tote slung over his shoulder. "I saw you get dragged in, and--"
Bakura hushed him by placing one finger on Ryou's pale pink lips. "Listen. This is where we're going," he motioned behind him with his thumb. "I'll introduce you to the people inside. Come on."
Ryou hesitantly nodded, then followed Bakura inside, relishing the refreshing shade.
.
"The hell? Bakura, are you playing a trick on us? How come you never told us you had a twin brother?" Marik asked skeptically while he glanced Ryou over. Ryou smiled slightly at Marik, sitting down beside Bakura. Subconsiously, he leaned into his look-a-like, trying to avoid the steady gaze coming from the beach-blonde Egyptian.
Bakura rolled his eyes a second time, "He's not my brother. Yes, he does look like me, but I'm not related to him. You look like Malik, but he's not your brother." He drug his shoulderbag to his side and twisted his hand into the strap.
Marik shrugged. "He could sure pass for you. Where'd ya find him?"
Ryou remained silent. Bakura's friends didn't seem to like him that much. Perhaps he had been wrong in tagging along with Bakura. If he hadn't, he could be enjoying a satisfying lunch right about now, and he could have a roof over his head when he went to sleep, instead of being vulnerable to anything nature decided to send his way. When he had first asked Bakura to let him come with, he hadn't expected the older boy to be as kind as he had been. The first night Ryou had fallen asleep in Bakura's arms was pleasant, but he still couldn't help but wonder if he had done the right thing. He glanced up as he felt eyes staring at him.
"Marik, lay off." Bakura snapped as he noticed a depressed air building around Ryou. "You speak as if he's not even present."
A suspicious glare was then sent Bakura's way from the two blondes. "What happened to you that made you care about someone besides yourself, Bakura?" Malik asked, eyebrow arched in mischevious curiousity. "Or is the infamous Bakura finally lightening up?"
Bakura pinned Malik with a momentary glare as a long, drawn out silence settled itself amongst the four. Marik and Malik looked at eachother and grinned, while Ryou blinked, and Bakura avoided eye-contact with anyone or anything except for the stone wall, a light blush rising in his cheeks.
.
As Bakura engaged himself in a severely intense staring contest, Ryou lifted his head from the silver-haired Egyptian's shoulder and cast a worried gaze at the wound on Bakura's leg. The cut seemed to be infected, and though it had stopped bleeding for the most part, gnarled scabs had formed and some of the skin was starting to die. "Bakura, you can't let your leg stay like that." Ryou stated, shattering the silence. He stood, reluctantly leaving the safety of Bakura's side. "I'll be right back," he dug into his backpack and brought out a small, empty Altoids' can and pocketed it, dashing outside into the sunlight before anyone could stop him.
"Ryou...!" Bakura exclaimed, motioning to get up. His actions were halted by Marik's firm grip on his shoulder.
It was too late; Ryou had set off at a running pace to wherever it was he needed to go, and there was no chance of catching up to him by now.
.
Ryou ran until he found the rotted desert rabbit corpse, thankfully the maggots were still eating at the dead flesh of the poor creature. He knelt down and searched the ground for something he could use in the transportation of the slimy yellow fungus-like creatures, thankful when he found what appeared to be an old, dried up stick of some kind. He didn't want to have to actually touch the maggots. He quickly set to work on scooping them into the tin. A mental note was made to throw the tin out as soon as possible as he finished collecting the maggots. Standing, he started back to the cave, unaware of the cloaked figure hiding behind a rock some twenty feet from where he was.
.
Bakura glared to the outside world from his restrained spot in the cave. Marik still had his arm in a death-grip, and although his arm was starting to numb slightly, he payed it no attention. "Why is he not back yet?!"
"Why are you so worried?" Malik questioned, lavender eyes glinting with mischeif in the reddish orange light from the setting sun.
"Shut up, the both of you." Interrupted an annoyed Marik. Slight jealousy was present in his gaze; he didn't like not having Malik's attention.
Malik and Bakura quieted down in their endless argument. "Bakura, if he's not back in a minute, we can go looking for him, okay?" Malik proposed upon seeing worry clearly written all over Bakura's sharp mahogony orbs.
Glaring, Bakura nodded. "Alright..."
.
Ryou walked at a brisk pace, he had the slight feeling that someone was following him. Shoving the inch-long tin of maggots into his pocket, he didn't dare to look back as he fought against his fear to continue walking, as if he always went down paths at a semi-fast pace. Just to prove to himself that there was nothing to worry about, he stopped walking.
The footsteps behind him stopped.
He started walking again.
The footsteps followed.
Gulping, he slowed down, hoping it was just his imagination.
The footsteps did not slow down.
He broke into a panicked run.
The footsteps sped up until they, too, were running.
His energy failed him, and he stopped running.
The footsteps stopped running as well.
Ryou felt a presence standing behind him, felt eyes boring into the back of his head, hands hovering just above his arms, and a knee right behind his own, waiting to knock him to the floor. As much as he hated to ask Bakura for help another time, in this instance he felt that there was more at risk than his ankle. He opened his mouth to shout...
A hand slapped his mouth shut as a strong arm grabbed him round the waist. Eyes wide with fear, Ryou did the first thing his instincts told him to: He bit the hand of his captor as hard as he could, and didn't stop until he felt the coppery tang of the other's blood enter is mouth. Once he had bought himself a few seconds of time, he took a deep breath and shouted for all his worth. "BAKURA!" He struggled to get free of the man holding him as he spat out the blood. "Let me go! Stop it!" Kicking his legs around as he was lifted into the air, he managed to kick the man's knee.
His mouth still hadn't been covered again, so he shouted a second time, "BAKURA!"
"Listen, boy!" The man growled, throwing Ryou to the ground and whipping out a knife from somewhere inside the cloak, "If you want to live, you'll shut up! Get off the ground! I said GET OFF THE GROUND!" He held the knife out to Ryou's face, smirking as the boy, now an almost ghostly pale, shakily stood up. "Good. You can follow orders." Cloak still masking his identity, the man circled Ryou slowly, until he was behind him. Duveil, the man, kicked Ryou's back until he started walking. He pulled the cloak away from his face, revealing short, inky black hair and eyes just as dark. The knife was held just close enough to Ryou's neck to put pressure but not induce outward blood flow. "Now walk. And if I hear you calling out to this 'Bakura' of yours, you're as good as dead."
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Ending Notes: Bakura will now murder me. Oh, and 'Duveil' is Dutch for 'devil'.
Bakura: *Glares at Shori* WHAT do you have planned?
Shori: Uhm... ^_^ I gotta go now, bye everybody! *Runs off*
Bakura: ... Well, since the authoress has dissapeared, I'll update you on the review counter. She now requires 75 reviews to continue. That's... *Counts* 15 more. That's right, she did say she was uping the counter by fifteen every chapter.
Shori: (From other side of world) TELL THEM TO STAY TUNED, AND THAT I LOVE THEM, AND THANKS FOR REVIEWING, AND TO PLEASE NOT MURDER ME!
Bakura: ... You heard her. *Walks off and turns off light on the way out of computer room*
