Aftermath of kindness

'He... paid attention to me.' Ryou thought wonderingly. 'He never has before. I've always been nothing more than a convenient body for him to use. And now... even if it wasn't as anything more than a pet-sitter...' He stared lovingly down at the small bundle in his arms. The little Niffler would have been precious no matter what, but the fact that Bakura had found it and given it to him, as well as bandaging its leg, made it doubly so.

Despite the fact that Bakura was an evil spirit that lived in his head Ryou had always wanted the other to like him. He couldn't help himself. Bakura, as the darker version of himself, personified everything he'd always wanted to be.

The confidence and self-assurance Bakura radiated seemed to make up for his own lack in those areas, and he knew that they did. They were dark and light, and they belonged with each other. Not in a romantic sense, Ryou would have been horrified if that had been true, but simply because it should be so.

No one had needed to tell Ryou that. He'd felt it the moment he first put the Ring on. Before that he had always felt alone even when he was in the middle of a crowd. But once he slid the Ring's cord over his head Ryou felt complete. It was strange that he felt safe and happy around the spirit that had destroyed his life, but it hadn't been that much of a life before Bakura came into it anyway.

"How dare he?!" Hermione's voice interrupted his thoughts. He was glad, because he hadn't like the turn they had taken, but he didn't understand what he was talking about and said so.

"He thinks he can just come in here and have us all falling over ourselves to obey him doesn't he? Well he'll soon learn how wrong he is. We're taking that back and I'm going to tell him to look after his own pets."

"He does."

"How so?" Hermione demanded, turning her burning gaze onto Ryou. He cringed backwards slightly. The bullies at school had looked at him in much the same way before they beat him up. But Bakura was here. Ryou relaxed at the thought. The incident yesterday had proved that the spirit still considered him as his, so Bakura wouldn't let anybody hurt him.

"Well he takes care of me doesn't he?" Ryou asked softly, not looking at her.

"You aren't a pet." Harry broke in sharply. "You're a person. And I haven't exactly seen him taking care of you anyway."

"What do you think yesterday was then?" Ryou still hadn't raised his voice, although he was debating it. Keeping a low voice always made people think you were calm and in control of yourself even when you weren't. He had found it to be a useful tool for making people believe what you were saying, even if it was an outright lie. Since Bakura had come into his life he had found himself telling a lot of those.

"Yesterday was him actually being unselfish and doing for you what he should have been eager to do for anyone, rescuing you from Malfoy and that friend of his. You are not a pet."

"Oh, I know that." Ryou smiled at him. "But I'm as close as he's come to having one." A short laugh escaped him. "Something that can think for itself, but has to be protected by you. Wouldn't that be your definition of a pet?"

"Ah, no." Ron said in patent disbelief. "A pet is an animal that you own."

Ryou shrugged. So much for that idea. It had been worth a try, anyway. "That doesn't matter though. He gave me the Niffler out of kindness, not because he didn't want to take care of it."

"How do you know?" Hermione challenged him.

"If Bakura simply hadn't wanted to take care of it he would have left it in the forest."

"But if he had done that it would have died." Ron protested.

"Exactly." There was an uncomfortable silence for several long moments.

"Actually I think he would have killed it himself." Yugi chimed in. "He may be ruthless but at least he isn't cruel enough to leave an animal to starve to death or be eaten by wolves." Yami nodded, backing up his words

Ryou smiled. "Yes, I think you're right Yugi." The others fell silent, seemingly accepting Ryou's explanation now that Yami agreed with it. It was always like this. No one would ever trust him enough to believe him about even so simple a thing. Bakura was the only one who had, and Ryou still wasn't sure whether that was because he could look into his head, or because he actually did trust him.

yaminakathy: Updated. And WHAT do you like about it?

simpleinsanity: Glad you think so. This isn't stretching it too far is it? I've never played gunbound, but I don't often play any games other than neopets ones online. And, while I'm pretty sure that I do have an AIM screen name, I have no idea what it is, and I never so on. We could try email though, if you want.