Fate: [is pissed off] I hate this dorm sometimes. Fucking spending twenty minutes deciding which love movie to watch. After which point the Internet shuts off. [foams at mouth] At least this chapter gets all snuggly. Aya and Darien snuggly, that is. Muahahaha.

Disclaimer: ....[runs like hell]


[daisuki]

"Do you love me?"

Ryou Bakura choked on his coffee, then yelped as the scalding liquid burned his throat. "Owww! Yami!"

"Is that a no?" Bakura asked.

Ryou decided that putting the coffee aside might be a good idea. "Wh-what kind of question is that? No good morning, no how are you, no I haven't seen you in two days because I've been sulking in my soul room, just...just that?"

Bakura hopped up to sit cross-legged on the table. "I haven't been sulking. I've been thinking. There's a difference."

"Not with you," Ryou muttered, and warily took a sip of coffee.

"So do you love me?"

"Gack!" Ryou squeaked, struggling once more with the hot liquid. "You're doing this to me on purpose!"

"No I'm not." Bakura attempted to look innocent. This didn't...really...work. "I swear on my mother's grave."

"....your mother was incinerated and turned into a hunk of gold jewellery."

"Your point is...?"

"You suck at being innocent," Ryou said flatly, and went back to his coffee.

Bakura stared at him with deep interest and a very odd smile on his face.

Ryou blinked and looked up after a long moment. "What?"

"Do you love..." Ryou yet again nearly inhaled his morning caffeine dose. "...mornings?"

"Yamiiiii! Stop doing that!"

"It's a harmless enough question," Bakura said idly, examining his nails. "Yadonushi, where's my nail polish?"

"I'll get it for you if you stop asking me...that."

"I'll get it myself if you answer me," Bakura retorted.

Ryou rolled his eyes. "Fine. I hate mornings. Get me some more coffee on your way to find the nail polish."

Glare. "What's so great about coffee anyway? And you didn't answer my question." Bakura scooted forwards and put one hand under Ryou's chin. "Do. You. Love. Me?"

"Why are you asking?" Ryou inquired softly. "You've never asked before. Do you even...do you even know what you're asking me?"

Bakura flinched slightly. "No, I don't. That's...that's why I'm asking."

Ryou gave this some thought. "I love you so much I don't even know where to start explaining it," he said with a sigh. "It hurts, sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes I just want to die because I'm not sure that anything living can feel like that. And I want you through it, all the time. I want everything about you to coincide with everything about me. Forever."

"...and what about the coffee?"

Ryou burst out laughing and proffered the mostly empty cup. "Here. Try it."

Bakura solemnly took the cup away from Ryou, put it on the counter behind the table, then scooted forwards again and kissed Ryou. "I like my way better," he said against the other boy's lips.

"Yami...?"

"If what you're describing is love, then...then...then I love you," Bakura said in a rush, the words tumbling out as his hair fell down over his eyes. "Isn't this what...what people do? When they...when they mean it?"

Ryou grabbed Bakura's hands, lacing their fingers together. "It's...it's a start," he said hesitantly.

Bakura kissed him again, soft and cautious and sweet and dark. "I think I love...coffee," he said, his breath stirring Ryou's bangs.

Ryou disentangled one hand and took another sip from the coffee mug. "Then you should try drinking it like a normal person."

Bakura stubbornly recaptured Ryou's fingers. "I'm not normal. And I still like my way better." He grinned, his lips inches from Ryou's mouth. "Don't you?"

"Ye – mmm..."

[-]

"Tell me what being in love with a person is like."

"Eh?"

"I want to know what being in love with a person is like," Aya said impatiently.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Well, haven't you ever been in love?" Aya asked.

I thought about it. Zane...had I ever been in love? Gratitude, lust, desire, anger, confusion. He never believed me, but paid attention to me and was nice to me continually.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "What do you think love is?"

"I don't know either," Aya retorted. "Why else would I ask you?"

"I've...my family died," I said ineffectually.

"Not that kind of love," Aya told me impatiently. "The other kind."

"I had a lover," I began. "For two years. Then he...then he died too," I finished.

"And do you miss him?" Aya wanted to know.

Did I miss Zane?

I.,.didn't think that I did.

Zane was wonderful and nice to me and petted my hair and gave me pretty things, but...

But I could give myself pretty things, I took care of myself. I didn't have to rely on anyone for anything, and never had. So why, all of a sudden, should I have made myself so dependent on Zane?

I didn't know.

It had felt strange and alien and nice for a while, and then suddenly maybe not so nice now that I thought about it.

"I...don't think so," I said quietly.

Aya snorted. "Some lover. What, weren't they any good, pet?"

"Aya!" I glared at her. "And don't call me that!"

"Mmm. Sure, pet." Aya pulled a section of her hair over her shoulder and started idly braiding it. "So what do you think it's like to be in love with someone?"

"Why do you want to know so much?" I poked the fire we'd built with my hands, relishing the strange not-pain sensation I got.

"Doesn't that hurt?"

"Not much hurts." I shrugged. "Why do you want to know?"

"I'll never be in love with a person," Aya said confidently. "I'm going to be a queen. I'm going to rule. I'm not going to have time to fall in love with someone. And I'm curious about what I'll be missing."

"Won't knowing what it is make you want to have it more?" I demanded.

She raised her eyebrows. "Don't you want to know what something is, even when everything tells you that you can't have it? Don't you ever wonder about something you'll never see? Do you want to know what lots of water looks like all together and clean? You'll never see it, not out here. But don't you want to know anyway?"

"I can see your point...maybe," I added, hesitating. "I...I don't know if I ever will, either. I'm not even alive any longer. So it's kind of all a moot point, in a way."

"I will be in love," Aya said suddenly.

"I thought you said you wouldn't be," I replied, confused.

"I won't ever be in love with a person," Aya clarified. "But I will be in love...with myself. With what I am, with my power, with my abilities. With my resources. I will love it with a blinding burning passion and I'll never want to be apart from it."

"I see," I said meditatively. "So you'll never think of another human being like that?"

Aya looked startled. "When will I have the time? Or, moreover, how will I spare the energy?"

I laughed. "I expected no less, Aya."

"I know, pet."

For once, I didn't protest.

[-]

You're probably wondering why I asked you, aren't you? You're curious like that. I should know. But you're wondering, aren't you? Wondering why I've been off in my own world lately, wondering why I'm still not all here. Wondering. You do that a lot.

You're so curious.

When I started thinking about Zane, that made me think about Aya, and that made me think about what she did. She said she loved me, and she kissed me, and she died. And she'd promised never to love a human being, or anything but her instruments and tools. I was her tool. I was her pet. And so she loved me.

Right? Right. Are you following this? Too bad if you're not.

And that's why I asked.

Aya never touched me, or anyone. She'd never kissed a man or woman before me, she had no feelings of romance in what could very loosely be called a heart, she'd never...she was a fucking ice queen, all magic and royalty and evil and sadism.

I told you she seemed the most human, yeah? Perdita was so much like me, but I never thought of myself as... Here the writing fell off into a mess of scribbles and scratched out phrases. Well hell. Fucking blob. Gonna eat us all. Whatever. But Aya was...she reminded me of what I was like when I was alive, but I'd never really been alive, you know? I was dead-alive. But she wasn't a zombie. It was just that she was so alive that she couldn't be. She was all like...she was like me. Breaking barriers with a death wish. She'd do whatever she wanted all-out until it killed her, and she'd love every second, and there was no room for being quite normal or quite alive or quite human in there, but she made sense to me.

You make sense to me.

You... And here it trailed into a scrawled jumble of sounded-out Kemetic.

"Yami!" Ryou yelled, keeping one finger on the page.

"I'm busy!"

"Doing what?"

"They're showing the serial shit on TV! You know, with all the crazy people who do stuff and get away with it!"

"Oh. 'Kay." Ryou sighed and kept reading where it picked up again in a recognisable language. Which happened to be very ungrammatical Korean. "Yami!"

"What now?"

"Your grammar sucks."

"I care?"

Ryou closed the book, still holding the page, and thunked himself lightly on the forehead with it before continuing with his read. I don't understand most people. I don't get them. I don't. Their faces are hard to understand and I don't know what they say. It's crazy. Why do I even fucking understand you of all people? Why are you bonded to me, anyway? What makes you so special?

Well, I'm fucked if I know. Bastet, get off. Basteeeeescribble.

Ryou paused for a long minute.

"I'm not special," he said softly, keeping the page bookmarked with a finger and padding out to the living room.

Bakura was sprawled on the couch face up, one hand over his eyes.

"They start doing autopsies?" Ryou asked, shutting the TV off.

"Mmmph." Bakura hit the back of the couch with one fist, then went back to covering his eyes. "Stupid fucking heathens. They should be cutting up the other people."

"Didn't you do worse?" Ryou teased.

"He deserved it," Bakura said sulkily. "Turn the light off."

"Yami, it's nearly midnight, and I need you to look at something," Ryou protested.

Bakura sat up, sighing. "All right, fine," he said, wincing as his eyes fluttered open. "What is it?"

"What's this say?" Ryou asked, pointing to the incomprehensible scrawl in the middle of the passage.

Bakura stared at it for a long moment, so absorbed that he didn't even notice when Bastet climbed up the back of the couch and draped herself in his hair. "You...you make so much sense to me that it hurts with a blinding burning passion that I never want to be apart from and it hurts so much that I always want to cry and it hurts so much that I want to die but I'm already dead and since nothing living is like this then I don't know what's going on." Closing the book, he reached up and extracted Bastet quietly, staring at her. "Where did you come from?"

"She's been there for about five minutes," Ryou said dryly. "Was that a quote? It sounded like it."

"Aya...Aya said some of that, once. She was trying to describe her power lust," Bakura said hesitatingly, putting one hand over his eyes again. "Can you turn the light off now?"

"Sure." Ryou took the book, tossed it onto the floor with the DVDs, and shut the light off. "You have a headache or something?"

"I don't know." Bakura shrugged, looking somewhat miserable.

Ryou touched Bakura's temples. "You've got a fever at least."

"I'm not sick," Bakura retorted defensively.

"I don't think you are," Ryou agreed. "I'd know. But you're burning to the touch. All over," he amended, fingers trailing down the other's face and along his neck. "What does it feel like to you?"

"Like I'm on fire," Bakura complained. "That hurts like a bitch, let me tell you."

"You've been on fire?" Ryou inquired, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah. Fucking painful," Bakura added.

"Tell me," Ryou said, scooting closer and startling Bastet out of her position between them on the couch. She indignantly scrambled onto the back of the couch as Ryou ran his fingers over Bakura's temples again.

"Are you promising me sexual favours if I tell you a story?" Bakura deadpanned.

Ryou squeaked and elbowed Bakura hard in the ribs. "No! Dammit! What's with you lately?"

"Maybe I just like coffee," Bakura replied solemnly. "Ow! Ow! Hey! Ow! Don't kill me! Ack! Jesus, yadonushi, you're fucking violent when you get angry! Ack! Hey! All right, all right, I'll tell you! Oww! Ack, Bastet, no, bad claws! Bad claws!"

[-]

"You want me to what?"

I was sitting on Darien's desk, swinging my feet and toying idly with my necklaces. Unlike Zane, I was dressed pretty because it made Darien look richer. Dressed was, of course, a relative term.

"I want you to destroy these three cities," Darien said, pulling out a map and marking them with ink circles.

I squinted at the map. Talking in Darien's language was fine and dandy, but reading it was completely another matter. "What're they called?"

The slap knocked me back a good two feet. "If you can't read it, then just guess," Darien growled.

I wiped the blood off the edge of my mouth – Darien's slaps held a lot of force, as well as plenty of extra pain from the rings he wore – and scowled at the map again. "Can I take it with me?"

"Memorise it," Darien ordered. "And be back before tomorrow morning."

"How far are these places?" I demanded. "There's no cities anywhere nearby."

Darien put one hand under my chin. "My dear little spirit-whore, use your imagination." He tugged on the Ring hard enough to jerk my head foreward, then reached into one pocket. "Another trinket for you," he added, making some sort of facial expression that was aiming for a smile but landed in the general region of a leer and tossing a heavy cuff inlaid with dark jewels at my face.

I blinked, snatched it out of the air, and stared at it. "What is it?"

"Give me your left foot," Darien said, not even waiting for me to comply. He grabbed the cuff, locked it around my ankle, then trailed one hand up my leg. "Do you like it, spirit mine?"

"I've got a name," I spat.

"And I really could care less," Darien replied. "Now hadn't you better be off?"

"Hmph." I slid off the desk, glaring at him. "What if I don't come back?"

Darien smiled for real this time. "You'll be back." He turned and went to the door, opening it. "Ba-ku-ra."

I would be back.

I snatched up the map and glared at it, the demon-summons running through my head. "Doma," I whispered, keeping the general locations fixed in my mind. No towns had seemed to be around the cities, so I had little chance of miscalculation. I turned and strode out onto the balcony, holding out one hand. "Doma!"

Strange dark tickle at the back of my mind and the creature was there, floating in a murky haze that curled around my feet. I walked over and grabbed its arms, drawing its attention. "I know your name. Know me," I hissed. "Take me to the city on that horizon," I said, pointing to the farthest of the targets. "I'm going to turn it to ashes."

Everything went dark and swirled.

And so I found myself smiling up at the guards. I didn't feel like blasting the city from the outside; I planned to find a nice high spot on the inside and tear it to shreds from there. Which meant I had to get in.

Being as I was wearing copious amounts of jewels and not a lot else, it really didn't take too much. While the guards were busy ogling me, I was busy summoning Hane-Hane. They were still staring when their heads rolled across the ground towards me.

Rather macabre, actually.

I left Doma at the gates to feast on the bodies and scaled the wall, looking for the nearest high spot. The cathedral looked promising, so I jumped to the nearest roof and started going from there, building the spell in my mind as I went. I'd never used it before, but I'd seen the aftermath of it, heard the tales. Had stolen the sacred scripts and gotten someone to read it to me over and over until I knew it.

The air was turning thick and dark around me, but no one seemed to notice. It served as much more effective camouflage in the twilight than my appearance did, that was certain.

I grinned down at the city, almost smothered by the darkness. "World Suppression!"

My world exploded in fire.

It was like being eaten alive, my skin being shredded from my shattering bones. I screamed, and screamed again, and kept screaming until it all went dark.

[-]

"Darien was mad at me for a long time," Bakura said softly. "He hit me around a lot for being so stupid. But I'd done as he asked. I destroyed all three cities in one hit. I destroyed a complete ring around his castle somehow. Everything just went up in fire, melted into the ground, and was...gone." Bakura traced Bastet's spine idly, ruffling the fur up on the kitten's back. "It was like Kuru Eruna. The wreckage, I mean. I went to look, and...I couldn't go back. I couldn't move at all. I could only...stare." He smiled faintly. "Darien had to go knock me out and take me back himself."

"Why did you do it?" Ryou asked quietly.

"Why did I destroy the cities?" Bakura clarified.

"Not just that," Ryou said softly. "Why did you do...everything for him?"

"Whore myself, you mean?" Bakura smiled mirthlessly. "Turn myself into a faceless shell with pretty jewels and barely any clothes who draped myself seductively over inanimate objects or Darien's lap or chained myself to his throne and killed on his command?"

"You could have fought," Ryou whispered. "You fought everyone else."

"Ah, but I didn't," Bakura said just as quietly. "I didn't know how to fight, or what to fight. Zane said he loved me, but I didn't know. Aya said she loved me, but I didn't know. Micky said he loved me, but I didn't know about him either. Darien said I was his tool, his slave, his slut. I think...he was the first one I thought was completely honest to me in everything."

"What did you look like?" Ryou asked without thinking.

Bakura, oddly enough, didn't start teasing Ryou. "My hair grew the most with him," he said thoughtfully. "He put jewels in my hair, and basically dressed me in jewellery."

"Did you wear any clothes?" Ryou wondered.

"A lot of the time? No," Bakura said simply. "But sometimes."

"Dare I ask what they looked like?" Ryou inquired after a pause.

Bakura grinned. "Why?"

"...I'm curious?"

Bakura sat up straight, still smirking, and waved his fingers in a summoning gesture. When Ryou moved closer, he leaned over, draped both arms across the other boy's shoulders, and whispered something in his ear. Bastet made an affronted noise and scrambled from the couch.

Seconds later, Bakura having finished describing...what he was describing, Ryou made a funny squeaky noise, turned brilliant magenta, and stared at Bakura for a very long moment. "You're fucking kidding."

Bakura looked amused. "I'm not."

"You really were a whore," Ryou blurted out, then clapped one hand over his mouth. "Omigod, I'm sorry! Sorry!" he gasped through his fingers.

Bakura reached over and quietly took Ryou's fingers in his burning hot ones. "Yes, I really was a whore, for four whole years. You see?"

"...you're giving me squicky mental images, yami."

"Mmm. I was always submissive, you know. Just for clarification."

Ryou 'eep'ed and blushed. "Why did you tell me that?"

"Yadonushi, I've fucked some of the most horrible, craziest people in the known world, to put it lightly. Or at least my known world. I don't have delicate sensibilities any more," Bakura said impatiently.

"I do!" Ryou complained.

"Really now," Bakura said speculatively. Then he flopped back onto the couch and covered his eyes again. "Really now," he repeated. "You're right."

"It doesn't mean I don't want you to tell me everything," Ryou said quickly. "I do. I want to know everything about you. Everything. It's just...I'd never really, you know, thought about you...you know..."

A very strange smile crept across Bakura's face. "Really?"

"Really."

"Really?"

"Really!"

"Are you really sure about that one?"

"...yami, what are you implying?"

"Nothing," Bakura said innocently. "Nothing at all."

"I think you're still feverish," Ryou said severely, putting one hand to Bakura's forehead.

"So you're sure," Bakura continued in a tone of complete disbelief.

"Yes, yami. I'm sure I've never...um. Yeah."

"Do you plan to in the near future, now that you know all this?"

"Oh for god's sake!" Ryou burst out. "I'm not planning to throw you down and ravish you just because everyone else has done it!"

Bakura removed his hand from his eyes and took Ryou's fingers from his forehead. "That's...not really what I was asking."

"Was it a part of it?" Ryou demanded waspishly. "Yami. I'm not one of your sex-crazed stalkers from the past. I'm me. I've never even really...made out."

"Aren't you innocent," Bakura replied, sounding deeply amused. "Would you like that to change?"

Sigh. "All right, listen. I. Am. Me. You don't have to fucking do anything...you know." Ryou looked thoroughly embarrassed. "Really, you don't. I'm not...I don't...I love you."

"I know," Bakura said, nodding. "You explained. No one else ever explained."

"I'm not just anyone else. I'm me," Ryou insisted. "I'm yours."

Bakura smiled in a truly predatory fashion. "Mine," he said quietly, pulling Ryou closer and wrapping his legs around the other boy's waist.

"Meep! Yami..."

"You said you'd never made out seriously," Bakura breathed in his ear. "I asked you once. Want that to change?"

"I don't know how!" Ryou squeaked.

Bakura grinned against his neck. "I do."

Ryou stared down into dark red, half-open eyes, hands braced against the other's shoulders. "I love you," he repeated.

"Mine," Bakura agreed, his fingers sliding up Ryou's face. "Mine..."

"Yours..."


Fluffy: [cough] Yes. The present-day bits are gaining something of a plot. Or, well, progressing noticeably in the plot. [twiddles thumbs and waits for the Internet to turn back on]

Bakuras-Hell: XD Oh good.

Higashikaze: Kittens are awesome, yes?

tamashiipurizuma: Here you go!

QueenOfGames: Is that where it was from? We just remembered it and threw it in there. Ehheh,

Kerei Kitsune: As of now, there's four more chapters.

Liviania: Can't sleep clowns will eat me is a pretty decent darkness, now that I think about it.

viva rose: Thanks! [blush]

DreamingChild: I might get kinda sued though. [sweatdrop] Could try it with my original stuff though...[plots]

Yami hitokiri: Hiya! WHERE DO YOU GET THE BAKURA QUOTES? [gnaws on ze quote] Yanno, never thought about it in that light, I didn't. Oh. Bad pun. [hits self with smacky fan]

Duel: There. Internet power. Review?