Comments: This was for a writing challenge on Live Journal. The contestants chose items from a list of categories and put them together into a fic.
Things You Should Know:
"Bakura" refers to Ryou, and only to Ryou. Yami no Bakura iscalled "the spirit of the Ring", or "the thief", or some other vague term--this is because I wrote this story from Ryou's perspective, and I don't think he'd use his family name on what he views as a parasite...but maybe that's just me.
Part of this takes place after the end of the series, and the other part takes place just before the Memory World arc. I took liberties with Thief King Bakura's age when Kuru Eruna was massacred. 'Cause gosh-darnit, why shouldn't he have been seven during all of that?
To follow the terms of service with this site, I've had to take out a portion of this story. You're not missing much without it (just somelyrics from AFI's song "Bleed Black", and I only included it because of the contest rules), but if you really want to see this story in its entirety, go to my bio and follow the link to my writing journal.
Lastly, I'm giving even more thanks to Talia Ali and Kieran for betaing this for me. Thanks, guys!
Sleepwalker
By Pachelbel
Malik started writing to Ryou in July. The first letter had been short, just a few lines to say "Look where we are!"
Ryou loyally wrote two letters each week after that. One was addressed to Amane, which he kept in his desk drawer until the end of the month, when he burned everything he wrote to her. The other letter he sent to whatever address Malik had told him they'd be at next.
He bought a camera and tried to include pictures, too, since Malik wanted to compare the scenery. He had been getting really good at the photography, until one day he tripped and the camera skittered out into the road and was crushed. Malik teased him about that in his response, but he kept asking for pictures anyway. Ryou took to doing small sketches for him.
The Ishtars' news, as far as Ryou was concerned, was more interesting than anything happening in Domino. Ryou had done quite a bit of traveling as a child, when his mother and father had still wanted to spend time in each others' company, so he was able to write about that. There was a "nice cafe" in Madrid, or a "very pleasant view" in Lyon that he thought Malik might like to hear about and visit; between the sketches and the travel advice, there wasn't room for anything personal.
In October, Malik began asking Ryou to tell him about what else was going on. How was Yugi doing without Atemu; how was Ryou doing?
Ryou never really answered. It was nice to have someone expressing concern or even merest curiosity over his welfare, but he didn't know what to write.
How could he say that Yugi was doing fine, as far as he knew, since they hadn't spoken to each other since their return from Egypt? How could he say that Honda had begun to suspect that Ryou had been helping the thief, that Ryou had been the one who had controlled him? How could he say how much harsher things were now that people consciously ignored him, instead of simply "not seeing" him?
Those were petty grievances, after all. Childish. Unimportant.
At least he was alive, and at least he could convince them that he was as much a victim as they had been—enough that they wouldn't try to hurt him, anyway. Ryou knew it was pointless to try to stop the current of doubt running beneath his exchanges with his one-time friends. At least he was alive. That was all that mattered.
If Malik noticed that his questions were being dodged (if he remembered writing them at all), he didn't say anything about it.
Ryou was still surprised when Malik wrote to tell him that he wanted to move to Domino. What is there for you in Domino, he'd wanted to answer with. Don't. But instead he'd offered his help, his friendship, and his home. He'd never expected Malik to agree--why would he? How could he leave Rishid? And Rishid would see it as an imposition for both of them to move in to Ryou's apartment.
Besides, there was only one bed. There was only room for one.
Malik came, without Isis or Rishid and with only a single duffelbag filled with clothes. Their single bed didn't become a problem after all...Malik only twitched a little in his sleep, and Ryou had stopped sleepwalking almost a year ago. Even if he hadn't, Malik's arms would have held him down anyway.
Besides, Ryou reasoned, no one ever came to visit, so no one would ever know. Even if they did, all the people he knew were too polite to ask why Malik and Ryou never bothered to get a second bed.
It disturbed Malik the way Ryou's entire demeanor could shift. The boy was an actor; everyone knew that, except perhaps those closest to him. The sincerity in his pale blue eyes could wrench at all of Malik's fears, lay everything bare but his faith that Ryou was a good person.
But there were other times when Ryou's eyes were almost colorless, so devoid of hope or kindness that even the teen's best facade didn't add life to the bleak emptiness that was really there, constantly eating at him. The worst part was that Malik knew Ryou hadn't always been like this. When they'd first met, he would never have taken the boy as anything more than shy, maybe a little too kind to be sincere, but confused more than anything. He wouldn't have guessed that underneath it all, Ryou was...not desperate, exactly; there wasn't a word for how far past that the boy was now.
Malik, however, had only seen Ryou drop his game of pretend once, and the pale boy had apologized profusely for it.
Ryou was a polite boy, and he'd explained to Malik once that the reasoning behind politeness was that you didn't encroach on another person's peace of mind with insolence or complaints. So, instead of allowing people to see how hollow he really was, he acted.
That conversation had been a rare display of honesty and Malik clung to it. Even though he wasn't sure if it really had been truth, or just another scene. Living with Ryou had taught Malik that sometimes belief was all you had, and it didn't matter if it was misguided or completely false. It was a poisonous-feeling lesson, but it was better than the alternative.
Ryou idly touched the rim of his soda can, oblivious to the thoughts winding through Malik's mind. He was staring out at the courtyard and carefully chewing at the right-most corner of his lower lip. The courtyard had been the real selling point of this apartment, and it had been Malik's enthusiasm for it that had made Ryou agree to the extra fifty-dollar payment each month.
A child screamed outside, joyfully shrill, as she flew down the waterslide and into the small pool. It was too cold to go swimming except during the brightest part of the day, and even then Malik could only stand it for an hour or so. Ryou only swam when he was invited, unless it was late at night when he thought no one would find him.
Malik waited a little longer, his impatience stretching the seconds out as if they were taffy, and finally snapped, "Are we just going to sit here all day?"
Ryou's only reaction was to make his expression less absent. Malik half-snarled under his breath, and Ryou finally acknowledged his restlessness. "What would you like to do?"
They'd already spent all of yesterday playing games, tip-toeing through their duels as if they were new to it. Malik wasn't in the mood to put up with that again. "Let's go for a ride."
"We can't afford the gas right now." Ryou glanced back over his shoulder at the kitchen, its counters brimming with groceries they hadn't bothered to finish putting away yet. "We should have used more coupons, or bought less food, but..." He trailed off with a shrug and returned his gaze to the window.
Malik fought back a sigh. "Ice skating. We could go to that indoor rink that just opened."
"I don't have any skates for you to use." His eyes were deep blue with apology and promise. "We'll do it as soon as I get paid again, ok?"
The contrite sympathy grated on his nerves more than anything. "Fine, you choose something." But Ryou only continued to chew at the inside of his lip, thoughtfully or absently or simply out of habit.
Malik glared at him and went unnoticed for several minutes. Finally he leaned over and, grabbing Ryou's chin between his fingers, turned the other teen's face towards him.
"What the hell are you thinking about?"
Some people got drunk when they couldn't take the weight of their lives anymore. Others locked themselves away, as if even the glance of another person could shatter them further. Ryou Bakura walked.
That was how he'd found a small Christian church not too far from his apartment. For a few months it had served as the closest thing to a sanctuary he could find, but that place held nothing but grim memoried of his "duty" now. The ghosts of the Ring would not respect even so peaceful a place as that.
He'd given up on the idea of safety, but he still walked. Since he didn't feel comfortable around the church anymore (one night being surrounded by disembodied voices was enough to ruin a whole planet of churches for him, thank you very much) he had started looking for more natural hiding places.
There was a thicket he went to now, and during a brutal storm (that was what the sane, normal-world people had decided Timaiyos was; just heavy winds and lightning) a large tree had been tossed down, marring the otherwise peaceful forest. A few animals had been killed during that 'storm', but the surviving creatures were more efficient in the confusion than humans could ever have hoped to be.
When Ryou's mother and sister died, people had stood around the crash site in morbid fascination for hours, watching the gory puddle of gasoline and blood and milk pour its way over all the broken glass. Some of them had cried when Amane was pulled out, bleeding and limp, but none of them had offered any help. Well, unless you counted the paramedics, who really did nothing but tug sheets over the bodies before carting them away.
That accident had also been brushed off as the fault of the weather. The truck driver couldn't have seen them, the police had assured Ryou and his father. No, the rain was too thick, the roads too slick...nobody should bear any hatred for it. Dairy truck drivers weren't sinister, after all, and he'd surely done the best he could to prevent the collision. No one would have wanted to kill a helpless seven year old and her mother.
Thoughts of another seven year old now flickered like firelight in his mind. Agony and blood, gold and screams; a whole village of parents, siblings, thieves...whatever they had been, they had all suffered. Yet none of them had been through worse than the pale-haired survivor now possessing a sixteen-year-old boy.
Ryou swallowed hard and leaned against the tree, its roots heavy with clods of mud, its broken base thrust up in jagged spires. He tried to focus on the tree, if only to make his mind stop showing him all the anarchy that had infiltrated his life.
This tree had been so big once; it had overshadowed everything, had been so...so everywhere that probably no one thought about it until it fell. Maybe Timaiyos had only been part of the reason it had toppled. Maybe loneliness had killed it. A faint smile tugged at Ryou's lips as he mused that maybe, in fact, it had fallen out of spite.
/Keh./ That was a distinctly annoyed sound even for the Thief, but Ryou felt the irritation more than anything. /What would you know about 'spite'/
Ryou shuddered in response to the voice and forced his expression to become again absent, slightly disinterested. He was just so sick of staring at the same walls of his apartment, sick of making the same trip between school and home and the museum, sick of...
He rubbed at the red paint splattered haphazardly on his hands. "I had to get away from the fumes." Ryou didn't know why he said it out loud, except that maybe it was for the same reason he left his television on all day, even when he wasn't watching it. He also didn't know why he'd said that; the Thief certainly hadn't asked for any excuses for this latest walkabout.
He could feel his other standing just behind him now, but he didn't turn to look. He wasn't ever allowed to look at the spirit, for some reason or another. He didn't question the rules anymore.
Besides, Ryou was far too used to his parasite to be unnerved by it doing nothing more upsetting than standing behind him. He just kept watching a magpie peck frantically at what might have been a chipmunk, and waited.
"You're not getting nervous, are you?" The voice was low, and could almost have been dismissed as a murmur of the wind, except that the air was still.
Ryou swallowed carefully, trying not to believe that he could smell sand and blood and fear; trying to hear only the spirit and not the lost screams. "...You didn't tell me."
"It's taken you this long to realize... You're far more blind than I thought."
"How could I have known!" Ryou almost turned, just to be shouting at someone instead of a tree stump. He stopped himself in time.
There was a slow trickle of comprehension underneath the disgust. Ryou shivered, blinking hard and wishing there was a breeze...no, a gale, something harsh enough to strangle him with its force, to take away his phantom.
The day remained peaceful and cold.
"They died," Ryou whispered, and knew that if they hadn't been sharing a mind he wouldn't have been heard at all. He laid his hand over the Ring, imagining he could feel its warmth even though it was under his coat. He couldn't stand to have it against his skin anymore if he could help it, but neither could he bring himself to take it off for even a minute.
Now he felt the Thief's anger, red-tinged with sorrow, drenched with vengeance. "Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He imagined the Thief's shrug. "How? Even if you had believed me, you wouldn't have accepted what I do. It wouldn't have mattered."
Ryou stiffened, though he tried not to. He was sickened by the shifting surprise when the spirit noticed.
"Could it be...am I wrong?"
He shuddered again, blaming it on the chill. "No. No, you're not wrong, you're not, you're not..."
The spirit couldn't touch him, but if it had been able to its fingertips would have been brushing his throat, calming the near-hysteric denials. Ryou didn't want to think about how he knew that.
He didn't want to think about why it was working.
He took a step closer to the tree, shaking his head faintly.
The Thief stayed where he was. "Very well. Deny it, then. Turn your back on those who died for that...Ring about your neck!" There was so much acrimony and loathing in his other's voice it hurt, and yet...
"That would be more wrong." He touched the rough paint-spots on his palms, chewed at his lip and tried to stop shaking.
Someone has to know what happened. Someone has to pay.
It wasn't fair that Yugi would be that 'someone', it really wasn't. But then, life wasn't fair. Ryou knew that acutely. Maybe someday, someone would try to help things the way he was trying to help Kuru Eruna; maybe someone would try to make things more 'fair' for Yugi. Maybe even for him.
Ryou sighed, blinking again a few times to clear his vision. "We should go home. We have work to do."
In the end, the RPG failed. Only Atemu learned what origin the Items really had, and he justified it 'for the good of Egypt'. The Thief was defeated by the Game King, and later Atemu lost that title, to Yugi. The two spirits were gone and Yugi was surrounded by his friends while they grieved and moved on.
Ryou was left alone with the grisly truth, unable to share it because there was no one left who would care.
Malik tugged at Ryou's chin again. His expression, underneath the layers of impatience, was concerned and perhaps a little lost.
"What the hell are you thinking about?"
With that question, all of Ryou's memories had been made more vivid, but he didn't tell Malik any of what lived on in his mind's eye. Instead he just smiled at the other teen, a pained expression on him, and said, "Nothing important. I need to put the milk away. What should we have for dinner?"
They ended up having a simple meal, just soup from a can and a few sandwiches. Malik talked him into going for a walk after, and when they went home he tried everything he could to distract Ryou from whatever gruesome images were taking up his attention.
Lying awake after Malik had fallen asleep, Ryou simply breathed in the familiar scent of their sweat, the sharp ginger-smell of Malik's shampoo, the silence of their room.
For now the ghosts played outside, where Ryou couldn't hear them.