Chapter five: "Let it all out" - Same as da song, dude.
Disclaimer: ...I started writing this at 2am. You think I CARE? So sue me, you won't get anything! I'm broke!
Dedications: I dedicate this chapter to...Reliant K. I own three of their CDs.
I love my reviewers. I love you all. You rock, you rock out loud.
BTW: No body is really singing unless they're at a mic! It's just a poetic display of their thoughts! -Sigh-
"Try me."
Ryou: Let it all out...
There was a pause as if time itself was holding its breath, waiting for Bakura's answer. Bakura was silent for this moment, thinking over the statement.
"Tomorrow night." He murmured in a deep but soft voice, just loud enough for Ryou to hear.
"...Wha...?" Ryou blinked in surprise, not fully comprehending his yami's words.
Bakura turned, narrowed eyes and all, and let Ryou's hand fall from his shoulder. He stared at his hikari evenly, and repeated his words. "Tomorrow night...come back to the house tomorrow night. That is...if you really want to know."
Ryou stated the obvious question, seeing as there was no one else there to ask it.
"Why not now?"
Bakura snorted, finding the question either amusing, stupid, or offensive. "You expect me to blab my entire life's story right here? ...Sure, sure, why not? While I'm at it, I'll get a megaphone. And, when we finally have a decent crowd, let's hand out your naked baby pictures."
Ryou pursed his lips together in annoyance. "Fine, I get the point." He nodded and Bakura left, casually because he no longer needed to hide but as silently as the tombs of Egypt themselves.
Ryou: ...Get it all out, rip it out, remove it...
Don't be alarmed when the wound begins to bleed.
-Wednesday-
The white-haired teen couldn't help but feel a little...nervous. It was entirely ridiculous, of course, if you took the time to think about it. He was about to walk into his own house. Just how bad could it be?
...Don't answer that. Better yet, don't ask that.
Ryou: 'Cause we're so scared to find out,
what this life's all about...so scared we're going to lose it.
He held up his silvery house key and jammed it into the copper doorknob; turning it and letting the ivory colored door swing open. He looked inside.
And sighed with relief. It was a little messy, but not really bad. Nothing seemed broken...or at least, nothing important. ...He hoped. Bakura hadn't smeared the walls with a striking red, or anything of the like.
Now to find the spirit of the ring himself.
Ryou was, admittedly, glad to be here. ...Bakura wasn't...the most...open person. So, after all this time, he believed he deserved to know.
"Bakura...? I'm here." He announced, feeling rather uneasy now that he had actually broken the silence. He also felt a bit out of place too, since, though he had wanted to say, "I'm home" instead he said, "I'm here".
((...I'm in my room.)) Bakura replied over their link, not even bothering to speak.
...Eh...this did not feel good. Alone, in a house, in a bedroom, with an angry yami who has a knife collection. No sir-y...this was not pleasant in the slightest.
Ryou: Not knowing all along,
that's exactly what we need.
Slowly, he edged his way down the wooden floor hall to Bakura's room, dark essence slowly seeping from it and disappearing like smoke...it was almost like one of those fog effects in movies.
((I'm not going to bite, you know.))
((...Too hard.))
Bakura was joking. So...why didn't that make him feel any better?
Ryou inched his hand to the doorknob, and turned it in horror movie fashion...bracing himself for any projectiles or monsters. With no U.F.Os striking him in the head, he ventured to look inside.
Upon which, he saw a very impatient looking Bakura sitting in a black chair with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.
"Get in here before another three millennia passes." The dark spirit muttered, some of his 'mist' wavering as he rolled his eyes.
Ryou stepped inside and Bakura pointed to a dark wooden chair a decent amount of distance away from his own. "Sit." A command, not an offer.
However annoying or creepy it was, Ryou did take a seat and stared at Bakura. Bakura stared back indifferently. They both waited for the other one to start...
"...Well?" Ryou asked finally, crossing his own arms.
"Took you long enough." Bakura retorted, scowling at his twin of light.
"If I recall, you're supposed to be doing the talk here, not me. So...talk." Ryou's head went to the side ever so slightly as he waited for an explanation he'd waited years to hear.
Bakura: And today I will trust you with confidence
of a man who's never known defeat...
Bakura shrugged, was quiet for a few more moments, and then spoke. "Do you know what it's like to have every thing you've ever known taken from you, Ryou?"
Ryou was taken aback for a moment, surprised by thesudden question. "Well...not exactly..."
"...I do." Bakura replied, his expression utterly and completely solemn. Ryou listened intently as he explained...
Bakura: But tomorrow, upon hearing what I did...
I will stare at you in disbelief.
"I'll start from the beginning. This story...my life...begins in a small desert village. It was quiet, peaceful, happy...basically, everything I'm not. And it was the last place you'd expect to find me...but, then, I wasn't "Bakura the tomb robber"...I was "Bakura the village kid"."
The spirit appeared as if he were actually reliving that period of his life in his mind, as some people tend to do when telling a story from their past. Ryou could actually see little bits and pieces of Bakura's memory as he told it. Not very much, just enough to see one picture of Bakura as a kid.
Amazingly...he looked exactly like Ryou. His hair was a little shorter...but otherwise, he looked almost exactly the same. Them looking alike was nothing new...but there was one thing Ryou noticed especially. Bakura's eyes were different back then...child-like.
"Back then...I believed that our village must have been pretty much all there was to see in the world. I believed that everyone was happy...at least, most of the time. I couldn't even understand why anyone would kill another person." Bakura started smirk at his own foolishness.
Ryou's eyebrows certainly raised...so far, so good...what? This wasn't what he'd expected at all. Not that he knew what to expect, but...not this.
"Actually...the sight of blood used to make me queasy." Bakura glanced over at Ryou, smirking a bit wider now.
The hikari's eyes grew twice their original size as his brain input this little bit of information with a good deal of difficulty.
Bakura saw this, noting that Ryou didn't believe him. "I mean it. I swear, I almost threw up when I got a cut once."
Ryou blinked repeatedly. "You're really serious...?"
"Dead serious, Ryou." Bakura started to rummage through his memories again... "I wasn't the same person. But what you wanted to know is why I'm this way now...we'll get there."
Bakura: Oh, inconsistent me...
crying out for consistency.
Bakura put on an absolutely sarcastic grin, cranked up a little too bright than must have been healthy. "Now, at that time, the pharaoh in charge waved his royal hand and decided to change my entire life."
Ryou frowned in realization...his hate for Yami...
"You see, my hikari, there were some shadows attacking Egypt at that time. These shadows threatened to destroy Egypt, and possibly the whole world. This was, of course, a bad thing."
Bakura's fake grin slowly started to make Ryou feel like he was in wonderland...
As Alice. And suddenly, he liked cats a lot less.
"So, the pharaoh decides to just go with whatever idiot plan he gets first without even bothering to stop and realize the consequences." More fake grinning...more evil cats.
"...And that, hikari, was a mistake." Bakura's grin stopped short as his teeth gritted in anger. "I was around nine years old at the time. Still just a child. Still oblivious to the rest of the entire world...and then royal soldiers appeared before our village..."
A soft moment of silence before a low murmur that crashed down like a hammer strike.
"...and burned the entire thing to the ground."
Bakura: And you said I know that this will hurt,
but if I don't break your heart, then things will just get worse!
Ryou's eyes widened...but... "Why?"
"Why? Oh, I didn't learn why until later, hikari..." The fake smile returned for a moment...vanishing again. "First, I had to watch everyone I ever knew be murdered..."
The hikari stared at his darkness as his life unfolded before his eyes...
Bakura paused, licking his lips and continuing. "Well, not all of them. Just the ones that resisted...after all, no one wants to see their lives and homes burnt to a crisp within minutes. But those who fought back died instantly...my mother tried to protect me, though.
"She succeeded in saving me...but not herself. I actually watched as my own mother was stabbed to death, Ryou...she died protecting me."
Ryou winced as if he had been physically struck. How...horrible...
He could hear, in his mind...screams, sobs...almost felt the flames licking at his arms. The coppery scent of death...
Both: If the burden seems too much to bear...
Remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there.
"I saw more innocent blood shed that day then I ever have in three thousand years...but even though the others didn't resist to save their families, I am the sole survivor of that village. The others went along quietly, obeying the soldiers to save the lives of their loved ones. But...they met with a worse fate then those who died fighting..."
Bakura fingered his "copy" of the millenium ring with a bitter smile...one that could hardly be called a smile at all. "Did you ever wonder what these items were made from, Ryou?" The shadow asked softly, tone sweet as his smile was bitter.
It clicked in Ryou's mind at that moment...what Bakura was hinting to. His eyes widened in absolute horror. "No...you can't be serious..."
"I told you before. I'm dead serious...the truth is, power requires sacrifice. Especially in magic. That is the basic rule of magic...you can never have something for nothing. The ritual to make these items...included quite a large sacrifice." Bakura's mouth felt dry as he continued, not even close to being finished.
"I saw that too...with my own eyes, I watched them all die...after that, I found myself lost in the desert. Alone, forgotten, and pretty much dead. I was a kid...if the sun didn't kill me, lack of food would, if desert animals didn't before that." Bakura's smirk returned, still laced with bitterness.
"As luck would have it, Ryou...I was found. By a thief. I had nothing to steal, was already half-dead, worthless...but, rather then leave me to die, he decided to take me in and revive me."
'Well, that explains why he became a thief...' Ryou mused, already catching on to that part of the story.
"That came later, hikari." Bakura interrupted, hearing Ryou's thoughts quite clearly. "The thief had his own reasons for taking me in. Thieves never do anything for anyone else without a personal reason."
Bakura's smirk looked like it would never come off. Like it really would "stay there if you do it too long" as Ryou was told.
"He wanted a servant. Slave, really. I didn't have much of a choice though...it was either become his slave, get killed, or go die out in the desert. I went with the former."
"...After about a year, I was finally recognized by the group which my 'master' was in as being determined and spirited. So...I was taught how to steal, how to kill, stealth and many other useful things...most importantly, I learned that I couldn't trust anyone. I had to take care of myself, because no one was going to care about me."
Pausing, Bakura almost grinned again, looking just a little proud..."By the time I was fourteen, I was the self-proclaimed greatest thief that ever lived...and I wasn't too far off, either.
...All this time that I had trained, gotten better, and I was finally ready to take revenge on the two people that had destroyed my life...but fate played its hand yet again. The pharaoh who had issued the command was already dead. And his adviser who had given him the accursed idea had mysteriously disappeared."
"Yami died that early?" Ryou asked, blinking in surprise. He'd always thought that Yami and Bakura were around the same age anyway...but...
Bakura raised an eyebrow and scowled. "Who said anything about Yami?"
"But you said the pharaoh died..." Ryou's confusion was evident on his face.
"...Yes, Ryou, I did." He sighed in irritation at the misunderstanding and interruption. "Different pharaoh, hikari. Not Yami...Yami's father. The pharaoh responsible for the destruction of my village never learned of my existence."
"Then why do you hate Yami?"
Bakura's eyes narrowed as they turned a slight reddish-brown. "There are too many reasons for me to list, but the first would be that he's the off-spring of that Ra-damned moron."
"But...that's not his fault."
"I already said there was more then one reason...now shut up and let me finish. Because he was dead, I crept into his tomb and stole his body."
Ryou twitched, feeling kind of sick at the thought of someone carrying a rotting corpse. Stealing one, no less.
"The pharaoh's son, of course, was pissed off at me for doing something so disgraceful...so he swore revenge on me, and we became rivals. Almost amusing how that worked out. ...Finally, I was sealed away in the ring shortly after Yami was sealed in the puzzle...and then I met you." Satisfied, Bakura stood and waited for Ryou to do the same.
He did..."I'm...I'm sorry that happened to you..."
Bakura snorted, shrugging casually. "For once, there's nothing to be sorry for. That's how life is, Ryou. That's the way the world works..."
"But that's not how it works now." Ryou insisted...Bakura's past was horrible, but...it was over now. Maybe...
"...Oh, really? And what's different?"
"You said no one cares about you..." Ryou swallowed before continuing, throat suddenly more dry then usual. "But...that's not true. I care."
"You care about the pharaoh and his twerp. You appear to care about everybody, for that matter. What's your point?"
"My point is that...even if you didn't have someone then, you do now. You said you couldn't trust anyone...but you can trust me. You're...you're afraid, aren't you?" Ryou asked softly, his frown was sympathetic.
Bakura shot him a fiery glare, scowling in disgust at the very idea. "What are you talking about?"
"You're afraid of getting hurt. But I won't hurt you, Bakura. You don't have to be afraid of me..."
Bakura started laughing; slowly at first, quietly...but then he threw his head back with the force of his laughs, acting as if this were the funniest thing in the world.
"You idiot. Of course I don't have to be afraid of you. I'm not afraid of anything, Ryou. And certainly not of you." His chuckles slowly died off into a smirk, which turned mirthless in a matter of minutes. Bakura turned his back to Ryou, intent on ignoring him all together.
"I think you are. I think you're afraid that if you trust someone, they'll hurt you." Ryou's voice was soft, but calm and steady, ever insistent upon his point. "But not everyone is like that!" His voice now rose, emphasizing his feelings.
Ryou: And I'll let it be known,
at times I have shown...
signs of all my weakness.
But somewhere in me,
there is strength
He moved a little closer... "Why can't you let someone care about you?"
"...What do you want from me, hikari? What do you want me to say? 'Sounds great! Let's be friends! Then we can go over to the pharaoh's house and group hug!'?"
Ryou sighed deeply at the sarcastic nature of that sentence, feeling frustrated. "No...I just...want you to stop pushing me away. Can't you do even that?"
"...I don't know." Bakura murmured with a shrug.
"Bakura..."
"I don't know, okay?" Bakura turned back to face him, eyes level. "I don't...know."
"Will you at least try?" Ryou's voice held just a sparkle of hope, followed by pleading.
Bakura: And you promise me,
that you believe in time I will defeat this.
'Cause somewhere in me,
there is strength.
"...Why should I?"
Ryou thought for a moment, unsure of what to say. "...Because you should at least give yourself a chance to trust again."
The tomb-robber's eyes glinted for a moment, he snorted in disgust at the sentence's sincerity...or perhaps "stupidity" was more appropriate in his mind.
"Fine, I'll try."
Ryou's eyes widened and sparkled with surprise...it took him a moment to get over hearing that and make his lips move. "You...you will?"
Bakura: And today I will trust you with the confidence of a man who's never known defeat...and I'll try my best to just forget...
that that man isn't me.
Bakura turned to him with a lip-splitting smirk. "No, I just wanted to see how you'd react."
Ryou's eyes narrowed, finding himself more and more angered by this little game...he wanted it to stop. After all this time, he wanted it to end. That was why he started to this...
"I don't know why I even bother with you. I don't know how I managed to stand being with you all this time..." Ryou spat, even though that wasn't true...he knew deep down, why he did it. "I'm so tired of it, Bakura! I'm tired of you doing this to me. I can't...I won't take it anymore..." His voice trailed off with a sigh.
"Then don't. Don't bother me anymore. Save us both the trouble and the breath." His smirk turned into a sneer, as he felt something inside him twist into a tight knot. Ignoring it thoroughly, he glanced over his lighter side.
Ryou's shoulders sagged in defeat to match the weight of his heart; his mind ran through what Bakura had said repeatedly, considering whether or not he was right. "Maybe you're right."
That knot inside Bakura twisted even harder at these words, and he felt absolutely horrible...but didn't let it show. "As usual." He replied with a shrug, and licked his lips unconsciously. 'No...no...you're wrong! You're wrong...'
Ryou locked eyes with his darkness, his emotions as visible as physically possible. They showed pain...sorrow...defeat...and a plea that this wasn't all there was. A plea for something more. That it didn't have to end this way.
Bakura: Reach out to me...
make my heart brand new.
Every beat will be for you...
for you.
Bakura's eyes did soften...even if for only a moment, the beautiful doe color of their eyes were one and the same. But, though it felt like he wasn't even controlling his actions...Bakura shrugged, lips pursed together, eyes half lidded...as if to say an unspoken 'So?'
Ryou nodded, accepting the answer...and numbly walked out the door.
As Ryou's back was turned, Bakura felt something inside him screaming for the younger not to leave...something pleading with him, in a broken sorrow, to stay. Telling Bakura he needed to tell Ryou that...he couldn't live without him.
That he needed him...not just because of their connection or the fact that Ryou was the only one who could save him from oblivion in the shadows...but there was something about him. Something Bakura couldn't live without.
Bakura: and I know you know, you touched my life...
when you touched my heavy heart and made it light.
...Whether it was pride, or fear...anger or regrets...the past or the present...
Something kept Bakura's mouth shut, because if it hadn't, he would have blurted out all those thoughts right then and there, spilling out more feelings then Niagara Falls has water.
He distinctly heard the shutting of a door, the front door to be exact. He found himself sitting down, unsure of how he got there.
"What am I doing...?" He murmured, feeling helpless in a sea of thoughts screaming at him continuously, tell him to do...something...
...He...came to a decision, after sitting there for...he didn't know how long. He just...had been. Had existed there for some time. Minutes, hours...whatever. It didn't matter anymore.
Just like Ryou...he couldn't stay here...
Not now.
Not anymore.
Never again.
I was trying so hard not to cry when I wrote this, darnit. I WAS. I nearly cried. ...I stand corrected. I cried. ...Oh, well. The DRAMA of it all.
And to all of you, I leave you with this profound word.
"NYAH!"
...Review.
Replies:
HappyDevil: Yeah, props for Ry-chan! Well, now you know. Bakura is a jerk for a reason. Thanks.
Kaaera: Well, now you don't have to wait. And I think Bakura deserves to have an attitude complex. I'm glad you're watchin'. And thanks.
AngelKelley17: Thanks.
StormySkys: Aww, no worries. You're one of the few reviewers I've met who -cared- if they missed a chapter. I'm glad. This is the first time I've worked with those two, so I really wanted to do them well. Hahaha...I liked Isis. And thanks.
Eyes-of-crimson: Yeah! Mmm...peanut butter. -munches happily- Whee! No way, seriously? That's awesome. Thanks. -Blush-
Icy Sapphire15:Ahh! Thanks for showing me the parts you liked. I find that touching somehow. I love making reviewers laugh! Thanks!
Shinigami: Uhh...you might know later. I'd tell you, but, I can't. It'd spoil it. Silly, Bakura DIDN'T sing. It's a song fic! And you haven't seen anything yet.