Review repiles, skip them if you don't care, the chapter is underneath!
Lady11Occult - I know what you mean, I wrote this one craving dark chocolate. Bakura grins a lot, I like him to be happy! That's a total lie, hehe.
Freak in the Shadows - Don't worry, Bakura's going to full-on disturb Seto right back.
Shiro Ryuu - Yay! I write him cool! Haha, I walk around grinning like an idiot all day after I read these reviews. As for the bit of sanity he loses next... All of it, I think. You can get fake pizza? Wow, I'm English, all we eat is fish and chips. Carbs? What're they? Heheh.
Romy - Seto is hot as a total bastard, isn't he? I can't decide if I like him more here or in BNW, where he's all kind and caring and stuff. Or in Dread, where he's basically a bloody woman...
DreamingChild - Yeah, he is a bit of a masochist... (See this chapter...) The whole thing about being weak and taking this crap is about to stop, though. Wether he's going to stop accepting it or Seto's going to stop dishing it out, though... Or maybe both. Bakura's going to get to have some fun soon, though.
Bellebelle3 - Here's a little of that fun he was talking about.
Notes: For you, my pretties, an extra long chapter. This one was fun to write! Six chapters in six days! I'm away for the weekend though, so you'll have to wait a couple of days for the next bit. I also have to write it... I'll post some more on BNW2 though, for anyone who likes insane amounts of fluff.
Poor Twisted Me 6
I wake up feeling weird, like there's this haze over me. I don't know what it means, maybe I'm sick. I've never gotten sick before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I don't want to get up because this bed is so soft, but thinking that makes me open my eyes. There should be sand beneath me, there was last night. There should be sand, and rocks, and my horse should be right here, and – Sweet Ra, where am I?
I sit bolt upright and look around with wide eyes, feeling my heart pound in my chest. I'm in a room that's like nothing I've ever seen before, there are finer things here than in the pharaoh's palace and I scramble out of the huge bed, panicking. I try to find my cloak but it's not here, nor are any of my weapons. I look down at myself and I'm wearing black clothes made of something soft and smooth. What the fuck is going on?
I move to touch the black material at my chest and freeze, looking down at my hands. They're pale white, like a foreigner, and I stare at them in shock. I don't understand this! Is this some magic? Who has done this to me? Just what exactly have they done?
There's a full-length mirror on one wall so I rush over to it, then give a startled cry of fear when I see myself. My skin is ghostly white all over and my eyes are red – my hair has always been pale but this is fucking ridiculous! It used to be shorter than this and have a purple tint to it, but now it's halfway down my back and whiter than clouds! Even my scar is gone!
I slide to my knees, reaching out to touch the mirror just to make sure my reflection does the same, and this is no trick. I can't believe this! I was just fine last night, now I'm small and weak and I look like a foreigner! As if I wasn't conspicuous enough already! What the hell am I going to do now?
I kneel there with my mind racing for another minute or so, but then the door bursts open and people run in. One of them comes forward and kneels before me, looking concerned and a lot like I do, for some reason. Perhaps the same thing has happened to him?
He says something to me and I stare at him, not understanding the language he's using. I want to run, but the more I stare at him the more I feel as though I know him. I look up at the other two – both tall, one with spiky black hair and the other bearing a striking resemblance to one of the pharaoh's priests – and I feel the haze surrounding me begin to lift. I do know them. I… Fuck, what the hell is going on with me? Everything slowly begins to make sense and I stand up shakily, giving Ryou a reassuring but fake smile.
"What was that all about?" Seto asks, striding over and staring down at me. Ryou backs off a little, seemingly satisfied that I'm ok but still looking a little concerned. I look up into Seto's eyes and try to get myself to stop freaking out. I know who I am. I know where I am. Everything is alright. It's fine. I'll be fine.
"Nothing. I had a nightmare." I say evenly, feeling blank because that scared the shit out of me.
"Are you sure you're feeling ok? You look really freaked out." Mokuba says, and I want them to leave me alone. I need alone time, my mind is… There's something wrong with me. It's his fucking fault. I could have hurt my light, I didn't know who the fuck he was!
"I'm great. Get lost so I can get dressed." I smirk, trying to look like it's true. Mokuba nods and takes Ryou out with him, leaving me alone.
Well, I would be alone if a certain millionaire would fuck off.
"What really just happened?" He demands, frowning down at me with his arms folded.
"I dreamed of rainbows and unicorns. It was truly terrifying, but I think I'll live." I lie through my teeth, grinning at him. Come on, beat the truth out of me. I could do with a nice dose of something painful right now. I need to be in control of it, though.
"Bullshit. You weren't asleep, you were over by the mirror." He glares, not liking being so obviously lied to.
"Fuck… you have me." I turn away from him and head over to the wardrobe, rifling through my clothes so I don't have to look at him. "The truth is, I saw a spider. I fear them, tell no one."
I grin even though my back is to him and pull out the shirt and jeans I'm going to wear, tossing them on the bed and turning to see his reaction. From the look I'm getting I'd say his rage meter is at about seven.
"Your games aren't getting us anywhere, Bakura. Tell me what happened." He growls, and much as I enjoy provoking him I want him to go away so I can get dressed and steal his car keys. No, I'm not going to drive. I just want to be able to open the car.
"Alright, since you care so much about me." I sneer, narrowing my eyes at him. "I woke up and couldn't remember anything. I thought I should be in the desert – I didn't know why I looked like this or where I was, or who any of you were. I couldn't understand what you were saying, but I'm just fine now!" I say with mock cheerfulness, then smile maliciously. "But I still hate spiders."
He gives me an odd look, like he's not sure if he believes me, but I stare right into his eyes and he can see I wasn't lying. He frowns at me again and turns to leave, pausing in the doorway.
"Come to my office when you're dressed. We need to talk."
Fuck that. I have something to do first, and thank Ra he leaves his car keys on a stupid little rack of hooks in the hallway.
He's going to love this one.
XxXxX
I walk into his office almost an hour later and he glances up at me, his eyes widening in shock.
"What the hell happened to you?" He demands, because I have the world's greatest bruise all down one side of my pretty face, black and blue and possibly green down by my jaw.
"Slammed my head in a car door." I tell him, giving up on standing and just sitting down, right in the middle of the floor. I shall be the centre of attention. Screw him.
"How on earth can you slam your head in a car door?" He looks amused at my misfortune, because yes, he assumes it was due to misfortune that my head came to be slammed in the car door.
"Well, first you open the door, then you stick your head in it and slam it closed. It's hardly something that needs an instruction manual." I mock him, and now he doesn't look as amused any more. He looks worried, the kind of worried where you know they're questioning your sanity. I know that look like the back of my hand.
"You did it on purpose?" He's trying to get this straight in his mind, I don't think he's ever met anyone who'd actually go ahead and do that before.
"I'm hardly stupid enough to do it by accident. If it's any consolation, I feel a lot better now." I wonder what the bruise looks like now? I had a look at it a few minutes ago but I'm pretty sure it's grown since then.
"…Why?" He's still giving me this look, like 'oh my God he really is insane, and here I thought he was putting it on.' I shrug and crawl over to the half finished jigsaw either Ryou or Mokuba has left on the floor, and start just quietly staring at it. I'm very bad at jigsaws because I think they look better when the picture is all mixed up and broken and scattered around. I expect the room of my soul probably looks something like that at the moment - the pieces will order themselves again if nothing tips me for a while, but lately everyone I meet seems to want to shake the box.
Seto is still staring at me, not sure what he should do. The knowledge that I am actually a mad person seems to have unsettled him, I can't understand what gave him the impression I was ever sane in the first place.
After about three minutes I give up on the jigsaw because it's not holding my wandering attention. Instead I stand up and focus on my glorious headache, wondering what drumbeat to what song the throbbing would fit. I think of a few that are about the same speed before I remember where I am and that Seto is still staring at me.
"I'm bored." I announce by way of explanation. "I'm going to either cook dinner or kill myself. I'll decide when I get to the kitchen." I tell him casually, heading towards the door. "Do you want food if I'm not dead?"
"What…is wrong with you?" He manages, fully disturbed by me. I grin at him and cock my head to the side, and I'd probably look quite cute without the bruise and the fangs.
"I don't know, but it's your fault." I decide, then a sudden thought occurs to me. "Hey… If my light and your brother fuck, are you going to kill me?" I smile brightly. His eyes darken with anger at what I just said, as though the thought of them doing that really, really pisses him off. Before he can come beat me senseless I turn and walk out of the room, singing to myself. If he wants to attack me he can come find me first, he'll get lazy if I just keep coming to him all the time.
I don't feel like cooking that much right now, but I do feel like playing with kitchen knives. Perhaps I'll stick one through my hand and then show it to him, I'd like to know what he'd say if I mutilated myself just to disturb him.
I get to the kitchen and switch the radio on. There's nothing much playing for the moment, so I stand and stare at the knife block for a while before setting everything out for the whole cooking thing. I'm just about to start chopping vegetables up like some boring housewife when this song starts playing on the radio and I freeze. It's called 'Would' by Alice in Chains, and the bass line goes right through me. I turn around and slide down to sit on the floor, my back against the cupboards underneath the counter, and just listen to it. I still have a knife in my hand and I slide the tip up my chest, arching my head back and closing my eyes, just letting that music inside me. I can feel it catch my heartbeat and speed it up, and I'm just glad Mokuba and my light aren't here to see me sitting on the kitchen floor letting some song reduce me to a puddle of lust. Seto is here though, and he's standing in the doorway watching me arch my back at the chorus, moaning. I hardly know what I'm doing any more, I'm just doing whatever it makes me feel and enjoying it.
"What are you doing?" He asks me, frowning down at me and trying not to look like I turn him on, sitting here on the floor panting. The song finishes and I look up at him as if I have no idea where I am or what I'm doing, because it takes me a moment to remember. I was cooking, that's why I have this knife in my hand.
"Making dinner, I think." I say in a mildly confused voice, because I could be wrong. I think I need to lie down, but I may as well finish making dinner first now that I've started.
"On the floor?" He raises an eyebrow.
"Apparently." I look around at where I am then shrug and get up, turning around and very calmly starting to chop up the leeks on the chopping board in front of me. I can still feel his eyes on my back, and for a while he just stands there.
"You're upset about something." He states finally, watching me cut up vegetables like he's not entirely sure I should be trusted with a knife at this point. I think about this and try to pinpoint exactly what it is that's making me unhappy, but it's difficult to remember these things.
"Life in general, I think." I decide in the end, feeling quite cheerful about the whole thing regardless.
"What are you going to do?" He asks, frowning yet again as I turn to face him.
"If I knew it wouldn't be fun. I'll figure that out when I do it. You can grade my creativity afterwards, if both of us are still alive." I tell him, but something important suddenly strikes me and I pause, clinging to this little moment of clarity before it fades away. "Don't let me hurt Ryou." I hiss at him, struggling to remember that this is important, this is the one thing that matters after everything else becomes a game. "If you let me hurt him I'll do things to you that the devil himself couldn't think up." I threaten. He doesn't usually respond well to threats but this time I'm deadly serious and he can see it in my eyes.
"You're not going to hurt anyone, including yourself." He growls, and I laugh.
"We'll see," I smirk, knowing that whatever my point was I must have gotten it across, and hurting me is his job, right?
"I mean it," he claims, and I decide that I don't like being spoken to as though I'm some misbehaving child. I haven't done anything wrong yet, have I? If I had I'd remember.
I narrow my eyes in annoyance, half at him and half at not being able to recall what I said two minutes ago. It's all getting too much for me, I really think I need to lie down. The side of my face hurts and I can't think why, I'm gripping this knife like it's a lifeline and I think I'm having one of my special brand of panic attacks.
"What's wrong?" Seto asks me, and I can't take any more. That's it for today, screw dinner.
"Stop asking me what's wrong, you don't want to know what's wrong with me. Get me some bandages and stop staring at me." I snarl quietly, shaking.
"Bandages? Why-" He looks shocked when I turn and slam the knife I'm holding through my other hand, staking it to the chopping board. The pain is incredible but I don't make a sound, and blood starts spreading in a pool around it really fast but at least I can remember my fucking name now. I try to pull the knife out but it's really jammed deep into the wood – it went all the way through my hand, he should be impressed.
"A little help here?" I glare at him, trying to un-stake my hand. He's staring at me in shock, you'd think he'd never seen blood before.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He finally yells, and I'm quite surprised I actually managed to make him curse. He strides over and I glare up at him, getting just a little pissed off now.
"I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe I'm perfectly fine!" I growl, sick of him asking me that and still yanking on the Ra-damned knife. I swear, it's like the sword in the fucking stone, I could have knights lining up to try and pull the thing out. Next time I stab myself I'll have to remember to do it gently, so as not to oh-so-intelligently stake myself to anything.
"You are definitely not fine." Seto hisses, grabbing me by the front of my shirt yet again and looking down at me angrily. I grin up at him, knowing full well that'll just piss him off even more. My blood is running down the side of the counter and dripping onto the floor, andI Hate Everything About Youby Three Days Graceis playing on the radio. It's weird the things you notice when there's a knife sticking out of your hand.
"Are you through hurting yourself?" He demands, and I wish he'd just un-stick me already so I can stop bleeding everywhere. My light would throw a fit if he saw the mess I'm making, but at least it's a nice colour.
"Can we have this conversation when I'm not bleeding to death? I need an aspirin." I say casually, regardless of the fact that my hand is really starting to hurt now. Not as much as the huge bruise along my jaw though, which actually hurts more. I think it's because I'm still grinning at Seto.
"I don't want you doing this." He says sternly. I don't see why it bothers him, he started it. I'm about to tell him this, but he leans down and kisses me. I wasn't expecting that. I'm apparently pretty easy to distract, because the next thing I know he's yanked the knife out cleanly and I snarl in pain into the kiss. Once the knife is out I swing my hand up and slap him across the cheek, just because it makes me feel better and I'm too out of it to really care right now anyway. Doing that probably hurt me more than it hurt him, since I'm the one with the hole in my hand.
He grabs my wrist and I smile sweetly at him, liking the bloody smear he has across one cheek now. I wish it'd come out as a perfect handprint, that would've been worth getting a picture of. Avenged Sevenfold's Bat Country comes on the radio and I really like this song, so I start humming along as he holds my wrists up and tries to figure me out for the millionth time. Good luck with that. At least the knife is out now and the bleeding is stopping because he's holding my hand up. I'm glad I heal a lot faster than regular people; I expect it'll just be a scar in a few days. I wiggle my fingers at Seto just to see if they still work and I'm rewarded with a lot of pain, but at least they move. I don't know why he thinks this is any different from when he broke a couple of my fingers, maybe it's because he's a control freak and he doesn't like not being in charge of my pain. And he thinks I have problems.
He's still staring at me and I really want to make stupid faces at him, but I don't want him to put me in a straitjacket and I think he'd do that. Or put me on medication, and if he tries that one I'm going to drown him in his own blood. Speaking of which, my blood is starting to dry on my arm and it really fucking tickles.
Staring at him in total silence would be really surreal if I wasn't fidgeting like a seven year old and listening to the radio. I'm glad there's music playing or this'd be really boring. I wonder what he's looking for in my eyes? I'm trying not to start giggling; he looks so serious. I think he needs to relax.
"Can we get takeout when you're done? I'm hungry, I think it's the blood loss. Can we get Chinese food?" I ask, craving sweet and sour sauce for some reason. Or maybe pizza, grease and melted cheese sounds pretty good. I'll have to ask Mokuba and my light what they want when they get back.
"Why are you like this?" Seto asks, still not letting me go. I'm some huge, unfathomable mystery to him and he's trying really hard to find the logic behind half the things I do. If he'd just let me go he wouldn't have to worry about it any more, I'd find someplace far away from him and the pharaoh and my light, and wait for my poor little mind to put itself back together. Since he's so intent on keeping me here he'll just have to deal with the consequences.
"Live my life and see how well balanced you end up." I reply to him, not bothering to list half the shit I've been through.
"You weren't this bad before you came here," he points out, and you'd think that was reason enough to let me leave.
"I don't deal well with pressure." I explain, and he probably doesn't understand anyway. I'm fine taking on the world by myself, but add pressure from more than one person and it's too much. It was the same on his stupid blimp thing – I had to worry about myself, my light, Malik, defeating the pharaoh and Marik, and where did that get me? I ended up back in the shadow realm where I belong, because I couldn't cope. That was me at my most unstable, I'm getting to that point again.
"So can we get takeout?" I ask, relieved when he finally lets me go because my wrists were starting to go numb and I need to wash some of this blood off.
"How can you be so flippant about this?" He hates not being able to figure me out, and I like that I annoy him so much.
"Would you rather I was depressed?" I wander over to the big, silver kitchen sink and run my hand under the water, getting all the half-dried blood off.
"No," he grabs a cloth and mops up the blood from the counter and the floor so Mokuba and my light don't walk in on a scene from a horror movie when they get home. I think he'd rather I was depressed because that wouldn't confuse him as much.
"Do we have bandages?" I ask, and he hands me a green first aid kit from out of a cupboard. I take out some antiseptic and a roll of gauze, sorting my hand out while he wipes the smear of blood off his face. It looked good, he should get blood on him more often.
"If we get pizza, can I have pineapple on mine?" I look hopeful and he sighs, flipping open his cell phone to call for the takeout. I grin and pop a couple of painkillers because my bruise still really stings, then look down at my bandaged up hand and wiggle my fingers again. It still hurts like a bitch, but I guess that's to be expected. Fear my powers of pain tolerance.
"It'll be here in twenty minutes." Seto tells me, closing his phone and putting it back in his pocket. I grin at him and show him my cleaned up hand proudly, then before he can say anything I turn around and pad off out of the kitchen, up the stairs to change my shirt. This one has blood on the sleeve, which is going to be fun to get out. Oh well, I have pizza so all is right with the world.
I get the feeling I should care more about today but I shrug it off easily. Who cares?
I'm fine.
TBC
He's not fine! This one was long, because I liked it and it had pizza in. I am easily pleased. And don't worry, things will get worse. Yay!