Chapter 12- Dream Talk and Tearful Spirits
Ryou was the first to rouse himself from the shocked stupor of Malik's abrupt departure. With a slight shake of the head he stumbled forward, glancing at his yami before making his way over to Mariku. "Marik?" He bent down and set a hand on the Darkness' shoulder. "You don't look well. I think you should get back in bed." The blonde didn't reply. He didn't even make eye contact. However he did attempt to rise, pushing off the floor with his arms only to have them buckle before he could get to his feet. Ryou sighed and slipped an arm carefully around Marik's shoulders. He continued to stare off into space as the Brit helped him, moving in an awkward daze.
Finally managing to get the yami back in bed, the Brit glanced out the window to see if there was any sign of Malik. He couldn't find him but did spy Ishizu making her way up the street. "Come on, Kura. Let's go downstairs. We need to tell Ishizu what's going on."
Scrambling to stand, the Thief was hit by a sudden dizzy spell. He grunted in discomfort as his head began to spin, pain lancing across the right side of his face. Shrugging away this sensation, Bakura walked over to his hikari.
The Brit frowned. His ashen-haired yami must be pretty stupified if he was willing to actually follow orders. The Thief was just standing there staring at Mariku. Even when they made there way down to the living room, he kept looking back over his shoulder towards the blonde's room.
Ishizu entered just as they had sat down on the couch. She looked a bit windswept and no less stressed than before. "Oh, you're still here! Strange. I thought my brother would have returned by now."
Ryou winced. "He...uh...did."
The woman's forehead creased slightly. "Then where is he?"
"He left." Bakura's voice was unusually small. "There was a misunderstanding."
"Misunderstanding?" Both Ishizu and Ryou were now staring at him. One was baffled, the other somewhere between suspicious and pissed off.
The Brit bit his lip lightly. "What was going on between you and Marik?"
"I wasn't aware it mattered."
"Of course it matters! It would be nice to know why he looked like he was about to bloody jump you!"
"IT WAS A FUCKING MISUNDERSTANDING! GOT THAT?"
It wasn't often that Ryou got mad, but the teen had been through a lot in the past few months. He was sick of Bakura pushing his buttons. "I know! Thats...why...I'm...ASKING!"
Ishizu stared at them as they fought, completely at a loss as to what was going on. Seeing that the pair probably wouldn't stop arguing for a while, she slipped upstairs to check on Mariku. When she got there the woman was alarmed to find the Darkness sitting bolt upright in bed.
"Marik?"
He didn't even acknowledge her presense, just sat with his back painfully straight, staring into nothing.
Ishizu was growing increasingly uneasy. The blonde spirit was definately acting strange. He wasn't being psychotic, but then he didn't exactly look calm either. Could he even hear her? "Marik? Where is my little brother?"
Finally the Darkness' eyes focused on the female in front of him. He took a moment, processing what she had said. "I don't know. When I leave perhaps he will return."
"What do you mean when you leave?" Ishizu was becoming more puzzled by the second. "You have your own body. Why would you have to go away in order for him to come back?"
"I..." Mariku's words whispered away to nothing. He shook his head, too tired to explain. Forgetting about the waiting Ishizu, the spirit finally allowed his body to fall back. The woman put a hand to her lips and rushed over. 'He's fainted.'
Neither Ryou nor Bakura had spoken to eachother since leaving the Ishtar apartment. The long ride home had been filled with silence and the occasional disgruntled sigh. They had left shortly after Ishizu returned from Mariku's bedroom. She had told them that he had passed out, and that if they were going to insist on fighting they might as well do it at home where they wouldn't disturb him. It was rather surprising how harsh her words were. The woman obviously blamed them for whatever had befallen her brother and his yami.
The moment they had gotten home Ryou had headed upstairs. There was the slam of a door, and within moments loud, classical opera could be heard vibrating off the walls. 'Aida'...interesting choice.
Considering his light was currently sulking in the house's only bedroom, Bakura was now sitting at the kitchen table. He had a plate of store-bought sushi and was stabbing each piece viciously with his knife before popping it into his mouth. The Thief went through the day's events over and over in his mind, growing more and more despondent as he did so. Not only had Marik refused him, but he probably would never want to talk to the white-haired spirit again. Bakura growled to himself. Hedeserved Mariku! It wasn't fair! After all they'd suffered through together, how could the Darkness cast him aside?
/ Bakura... /
The Thief King tensed, grinding his palms against the edge of the table. / Silence yadunoshi! I'm not in the... /
/ ...please...please stop... / The boy's words were faint, almost as if he were in a dream.
/ Ryou, what the hell are you mumbling about/
/ Why...why are you doing this...it hurts...oh God...IT HURTS/
A horrible icy feeling shot up Bakura's back. He'd heard those words before. He knew that panicked twang in the Brit's voice. The tombrobber covered his ears, but the images of of Ryou's nightmare still leaked into his mind.
The house was quiet, quiet and very dark. Gingerly, Ryou made his way across the carpet. School had just got out, and he desperately hoped his yami was sleeping. The Brit had done nothing to anger him, but Bakura had been in a dangerous mood that morning, and his moods usually lasted well into the evening. Opening the door to the bedroom he shared with the Thief, Ryou let out a relieved sigh. No one there. Bakura must have gone out.
Smiling softly at his own paranoia, the teen switched on his light and plopped down on his bed to do his homework. He hadn't gone through three math problems when he felt a faint tingling at the back of his neck.
"Ryou..."
Whirling around, the Brit let out an involuntary cry of alarm. Bakura was standing barely a foot behind him. The smile painted on the spirit's lips was one of pure malice.
"Hello little light."
"Ba-Bakura! How...how are you?"
The Thief King smirked at the terror he saw flaming from the Brit's eyes. How could he resist messing with the mind of someone so timid and weak. "Oh, I can't complain. How was school?"
"It was..."
Ryou's voice melted away as Bakura pulled a switchblade from his jeans pocket. Casually he flicked it open, holding the steel just a hairsbreath from the other boy's nose. "It was what, yadunoshi? Good? Bad? Of unclear distinction?"
"It was...it was..." Petrified with fear, Ryou let out a sob. "Why do you always do this?"
"Hmmm? Do what?" Slowly Bakura began to drag the flat of the blade across the teen's thoat.
"Scare me. Hurt me. Why do you do it? Why do you find my pain so appealing?"
"Pain?" Bakura grasped Ryou by the wrists and forced him to lie back on the bed. Ever so softly he used the tip of his blade to trace the line of the lighter boy's lips, pressing just hard enough so he could feel the metal's cold tang against his tongue. "What could you possibly know about pain?"
Ryou whimpered as the knife's point made its way up his face, tickling the bridge of his nose and along the crease of his shivering eyelids. "Please stop! Bakura!"
"Aww, am Iscaring you yadunoshi? Would you rather mehurt you instead?"
The Brit's eyes snapped open as the tombrobber's hand closed deftly over his trachea. With a silent, air-deprived scream he began to struggle but was quickly subdued by the lack of oxygen. The wrenching of his shoulders became less violent. His kicking legs lost all feeling and lay still. On the brink of darkness Ryou stared up at his shadow and suddenly felt very sad. / Why are you doing this, Bakura? Why...what made you like this/
It was as if a chord had snapped in the Thief King's brain. He let go of the teen's neck, allowing him to gasp feverishly for air. However Ryou's pants faded from Bakura's mind as he gazed back into his past, over an eternity of years and people and swirling sandstroms, over days so hot you felt your eyes were baking and nights so bitterly cold no fire could keep you warm. He thought of times where he'd been loved and times when revulsion and cruelty were all he'd known, of screams and laughter and terrifying, lust-filled cries. His whole life seemed to unfold at that moment, and as he examined it the spirit became more and more enraged. "What made me this way?" He stroked Ryou's cheek in mock comfort. "Let me show you."
Grabbing the Brit by the hair, Bakura tossed him further onto the bed. He took his switchblade, and within seconds Ryou's shirt lay in tattered strips on the floor. The white-haired boy, frozen with fear, stared up at him and shivered. "Bakura..."
"Shut up." Leaning over his prey, the Thief shoved his tongue forcefully into Ryou's mouth. The teen choked and presseduselessly against his shoulders. The bigger man merely smirked and tore at the Brit's lips with his teeth. Using his tongue to muffle the other's cry, Bakura began to fumble with his zipper. He pulled away from his hikari's lips, fully enjoying the look of horror in Ryou's eyes as he exposed his half-hardened arousal.
"...please...please stop..."
There was a cracking of joints as the Brit was belted across the face. Bakura leered. "I thought I told you to be quiet." Grabbing the remaining shreds of Ryou's t-shirt, the Thief used them to bind his wrists. Realization hit, and the teen's eyes grew even wider. It wasn't a game this time. His yami wasn't just trying to scare him, and he wasn't going to leave punishment at just a few bruises. Bakura had said so himself. He was about to give a lesson in real pain.
Bakura went for his hikari, and the boy finally began to fight. With incomprehensible shrieks of terror, he began lashing out with his legs. Several of these kicks did strike their target in the face and abdomen, but the hindrence was only temporary. Catching both of the flailing apendages, the Thief King managed to pin them beneath his body. "You should be grateful, little light. This will only make you stronger."
The tombrobber loosened his pants, and Ryou's breath hitched as his privates were exposed to the chill air. He didn't want this! He would rather have taken his chances with the spirit's switchblade. The sudden intrusion of two fingers in his backside caused the boy to cry out and blush with shame. Why was his yami doing this? He was supposed to understand him, supposed to protect him! But of course the Brit had forgotten one important fact. This was Bakura.
"Why...why are you doing this...it hurts...oh God...IT HURTS!"
Something larger than the Thief King's fingers entered, and Ryou screamed, screamed for all he was worth. In a burst of adrenaline he tore himself from Bakura and tumbled off the bed. Even without the use of his arms he managed to get to the feet, hoping against hope that he could make it to the bathroom in time to lock the door.
He got about halfway. Bakura caught him and finished their lesson in the middle of the hall. When he was done not only had Ryou been raped, but his knees and chest, even the side of his face, were covered with floor burns from where he'd been pounded into the carpet. The next day at school when Yugi asked what had happened he didn't lie or try to protect his darker half. The Brit simply looked his fellow hikari in the eye and let everything out. "I'm tired of hurting," he'd all but wailed. "I-I don't care what you do. Just make him leave!"
"Ryou! RYOU!"
The white-haired teen sat up suddenly, nearly knocking his distraught yami to the floor. "Kura? Kura, what's going on?"
Bakura was looming over him. His eyes were abnormally wide. He was shaking too, shaking and grasping at the boy's hand as if it were a lifeline. There was even a quiver to his deep, raspy voice. "R-Ryou. You're awake."
"Yeah, I...Bakura what's wrong?"
The Thief lowered his gaze. "Hikari, do you hate me?"
Ryou shook his head. "Listen, I know we had a fight and all, but that doesn't mean..."
"Not for that." The spirit still refused to meet his eye. "For what happened before, what I did to you."
The Brit gasped as images from his dream suddenly resurfaced in his mind. That's what Bakura was so upset about! He must have seen the nightmare through their mindlink. "Of course I don't hate you! Those images will stay with me forever, Bakura. I'm not going to lie and say they won't, but I could never hate you after all the good you've done. Never."
"The good I've done?" The spirit gave a bitter laugh. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Ryou patted his darker half's hand comfortingly. "What do you mean? Of course you've done good. If it weren't for you Mariku would still be in the Shadow Realm."
"Malik was the one who saved him."
"But he wouldn't have gone if you hadn't convinced him."
Bakura sighed and ran a hand through his frosty hair. "Then why doesn't he love me?"
Letting out a loud exhalation of his own, Ryou stared sadly at the Thief. Poor Bakura. He was so unused to these emotions. They were shattering his cold exterior,and the shards from this seemed to be going straight into his heart. "He does love you, Kura. He really does. Its just not that kind of love."
The spirit felt as if his chest were about to collapse. He'd never really thought about there being more than one type of love. Still, it didn't matter. "After what happened today I can't see how he could possibly love me at all."
"Kura, what happened? I know Marik wasn't trying to rape you. That just doesn't make any sense. Please, you have to tell me!"
Staring into his hikari's eyes, Bakura felt a sudden fondness for the other boy. Ryou was so warm, so pure, the complete opposite of himself. He wondered just how the Brit could stand being around someone like him. He hoped that when he finished his story the teen wouldn't hate him, but somehow the Thief King couldn't see that happening. "No, it wasn't like that. He was defending himself."
"From what?"
"Me. I told him how I felt, and when he rejected me I...I would have done anything to change his mind."
A chill terror clenched in Ryou's stomach. "Bakura, you didn't!"
"No." The Thief kept his eyes trained on his knees. "But I think I would have."
Silence followed. It was horrible, bone-crushing, leaving noise to be nonexistant yet somehow filling their very minds. Finally the lighter boy broke the spell. "Please look at me." The yami met his gaze but said nothing, forcing Ryou to continue. "Do you mean to tell me that, knowing what he's already been through, you would have willingly raped Mariku?"
"Yes." A sob was wrenched from Bakura's throat, and for the first time in possibly five millinia he cried. He clung desperately to his hikari, knowing full well that when he broke away Ryou would leave him, and he would really be alone. "Yes! I would have done anything...anything...to make Mariku mine! I...I love him!"
More tears soiled the stony hardness of Bakura's face, and despite his disgust, Ryou couldn't bring himself to pull away. Instead he wrapped him in a warm embrace and set a trembling hand on the Thief King's forehead. "I know Bakura, but tell me. Do you love him enough to let him go?"
'Aida'-an opera by Giuseppe Verdi (based in Ancient Egypt -no foolin'!)
-TOT (Okay, I know I've made Bakura WAY OOC in this fic, but I did try to turn up the creepy factor in the rape scene, seeing as in all actuality Bakura is, well, creepy. I kept the rape itself kind of vague though since FFN has been known to delete things that are too explicit. I hope you don't mind. Please R&R!)