Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine. Not mine.
Warnings: Shounen-ai. (Yaoi in nature) Hints of child abuse (to what point is only in your imagination, therefore only implied) Blanching balance between angst and humor.?
Summary: AU Everyone watches as heat rises and melts the mirage of a house that secured an unsociable Ryou for all his life. Marik/Ryou. Yami/Bakura, Seto/Otogi, implied Malik/Joey.

B u t t e r . C a s t l e
by Crimson Nightmare

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Chapter Two: Through Our Picture Frames

"A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen." - Edward de Bono

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There were pictures lining the dimly-lit hallways in Bakura's castle. Otogi let his fingertips brush over the thin sheet of dust on the dark gold picture frames, and promptly sneezed. Hmm. Bakura isn't in any of these pictures.

Otogi had mercifully decided against taunting anyone at the moment, and was currently exploring the East Wing of the castle, where no suits were located, but where a gigantic hallway with black and white family photographs lining its walls was situated. The pictures were certainly interesting. Despite Bakura's silvery mane, his ancestors seldom had hair color anywhere close to pale. It seemed like Bakura's family line was cut off from memory from his great grandfather's generation, because the latest photo, that Otogi had found, was of that particular family. There was nothing about Bakura's own grandfather, parents, or even Bakura himself, which disappointed Otogi severely (as well as the others, if they were here to see this), since the group did secretly agree to come to Bakura's home in order to investigate his life.

Bakura, at least, seemed to have shared a bit of features from the generation in the photographs. Long eyelashes, deep facial structure, beautiful, lethal stares. Bakura's eyes certainly looked similar to his great grandmother's. She was a beautiful, elegant brunette in a thick, black Victorian dress, eyes cold and glaring as she sat between Bakura's great grandfather and several other men and women of her age. Otogi wondered why the family looked so beautiful yet so unpleasant---

A small mirror to his left fell off its table with a loud crash. Otogi jumped. Oh shoot. He broke something in Bakura's house...and it was probably quite expensive by the looks of its age. He sighed. Kneeling down on the floor, he started picking up the mirror pieces one by one. They glistened under the dim lighting of the hallway.

Up in a vent behind the patterened wires, a pair of brown eyes looked down at Otogi in interest. What was this boy doing in big brother's home? Why are these people here? Oh no, this boy broke Father's mirror, will Father whip him? He'd never seen his Father whip other people before though...Perhaps, if Father doesn't come back, this boy could get away with it! This boy should run! Fast! Run away before Father comes back!

So he began to make other things break in hopes that Otogi would be scared away. He crawled over to another vent opening, and shook a table that held many glass trophies won by his father. His father's famous novel awards started trembling, and then they crashed down one by one, spreading their crystalic glass shards across the floor.

Otogi was looking around him in horrified awe. What was happening? "What the---?" Another glassware broke, and this one almost hit his leg. "What the hell!" He jumped away from another small glass horse that rolled down from a shelf beside his head. "What's happening!"

A particularly long piece of glass shard sliced open his palm, and Otogi screamed, backing away from the sudden storm of glass shards all around him. It was like someone was here, pushing around all the glass cases and the trophies or something.

Quick! Run away! Run away before Father comes back!

"What's going on?" another tall, young man with blue eyes appeared at the end of the hall way.

"Seto! Oh god I'm so glad someone else is here! Look at what's happening! I'm not even touching anything!" Otogi gasped, sounding confused and frustrated. "How am I supposed to explain this to Bakura?"

And as if the force recognized the name, the shaking of furnitures stopped. Then it was quiet. Only the crunchy, cracking sound of Seto walking over the glass shards could be heard.

"I saw it. Don't worry." Seto replied, rather unperturbed by any of this. "It was probably a small earthquake. Don't get all squeaky about it."

"Squeaky!"

"Just get that cut covered, it's dripping on the floor."

"Well, thanks, for caring about the floor."

Their voices became harder to hear as he watched them walk away looking for something to clean the mess up. He was incredulous. Why weren't they afraid? Don't they know that Father is coming soon? Why were they still in this place? They should be moving out! All of them!

All of them, before Father comes back!

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The wind blew. A clear, wash-glass scent entered and filled a dimly lit room through an opened window.

Yami rested his head on a bent knee as he watched the mass of white clematis outside of his window gradually became tinted with dust yellow as the glorious, fervent sun descended down on the land.

Sunset was one of the most spectacular sceneries that Yami could never stop watching. He watched the sun bury itself in the distant sand hills when he was back in Egypt. He now watched the same, fulvous fist of fire making its way down from its place in the painted sky as well.

He never grew tired of it.

It had been a peaceful morning. Ever since the group had entered Bakura's castle yesterday, people have been trying to find their way around the castle and familiarizing the long, twisted hallways that somehow managed to always lead them to places other then their wanted destinations. Yami could tell that they were all enjoying themselves, though - for one, Joey slept and snored like a child as how he always did at home.

Malik did not complain about the food or the room, which certainly meant something. (Remembering the last time when Malik was at a sleepover at Mai's, Ra, that boy could complain! Well, everyone knew it was teasing, but the points that the boy made were all very true. Mai had a hard time keeping her fist from lashing out at Malik after that. The feeling was mutual with Malik. No problems there.)

Marik had yet to start killing anybody. That's a good thing. Period.

Yami himself?

Oh, Yami was in a pleasant mood all morning. The duel conference starting tonight was planned to be held at Bakura's home since two months ago. They were here for fun, really (Not that Bakura knows this or he would've kicked them out this instant. Did he know it? One never knows, because that man senses the slightest hints around him most of the time.,.). The duel conference was simply a Comparison Party in other words. There should be nothing serious about it. Plus, they decided to hold this conference at Bakura's home because they were curious. Bakura never talked about himself to the group and their curiosity was building to an unbearable level.

It certainly wasn't what anybody had expected, though. Each individual that had entered this place probably felt the same - the comforting atmosphere of the rooms and meals that soothed their anxiety from staying at Bakura's home.

Maybe they shouldn't be too relaxed. Yami thought. After all, who would believe that Bakura, the cold, self-preserved fiend, would bother to bring them comfort without reasons? Moreover, Yami had a feeling that there must be something more to Bakura's family than this house was letting on. There were absolutely no signs of a happy family. No old toys. No old sauce stains in the carpet. No pictures of Bakura's parents. Not much light. Not much of anything outside each of their own suites. It was like Bakura lived in here all by himself with bare stones around him. Just bare stones and cold wind.

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One day when Bakura was small, he found a baby bird underneath a tree.

"Dad, dad, look at what I found! Isn't it cute?"

The baby bird was adorable. Docile, harmless. Its tiny wings flapped a few times and then it twisted its body so that it could nestle against Bakura's small, warm palm in a more comfortable position. It had very tiny claws. They trembled when it tried to stand up once or twice.

Father looked down on the birdling, and said mildly, "It's dirty, Bakura. Throw it away."

Now that Bakura looked at the baby bird again, it was ugly. Pink, nearly bold, wrinkly, and useless. Its neck was so thin and soft that it could be snapped in two with just a poke of his fingers.

Its eyes. Large, closed, and almost dead-looking. Just like Bakura's new baby brother, Ryou. Infant Ryou was pale, small, and fragile. Infant Ryou had eyes closed, eyelids puffy and pink, just like the bird.

Bakura frowned and was about to turn to put the bird back where he found it, when a large hand grabbed the birdling from his hand and crushed it.

Dark brownish red, muddy substance dripped out of his father's palm. Father crouched down before Bakura, cigerate between his lips, and told him, "Don't mess with defenseless things, Bakura. Fragility is disgusting."

Fragility was disgusting. His father had said the same thing after they watched Bakura's mother die after giving birth to the small, wrinkly baby that his mother wanted to name Ryou. Father had threw his burning cigerate onto his dead mother's chest, and walked away. The nurses rushed in, but it was no use. Fragility was disgusting. Like the baby bird, whose organs were dripping out of its rear with the blood that was leaking down his father's fist. Fragility was disgusting. Like Mother. Like Ryou.

"Hey, I came to see you again, baby brother."

Bakura looked down, and there he was, his little brother Ryou, beneath six feet of thick, black dirt and a tombstone. Bakura bent down and placed the wild flowers he had gathered from the shore of the island.

"These were your favourite. Do you still like them? Uh...maybe you don't have these where you are right now...oh well. They always make you laugh anyways." Bakura muttered to himself a little uncomfortably.

Behind some shrubs a little away from the tombstones that litter the hill Bakura was standing on, a boy in soiled clothes watched from beneath the branches and leaves. His big brother had came to give him flowers again today! It made him so happy! Bakura always came to this place to talk to him, but Ryou had no idea why. Why was Bakura talking to the stone when he knew Ryou was always in hiding in the castle? Had his big brother forgot that Ryou was still alive?

"---eir names are Yami, Seto, Joey, Marik, Otogi, and Malik." Bakura continued, counting the names off from his fingers, to the cold, ashy tombstone that responded with its eerie silence, "They're my...uh...people whom I met when I play Duel Monsters in the tournament I told you a while back. They're...dumb. But they don't intend to harm me (not that I can be harmed by those fools), that I can see. ...heh. You would probably have loved to meet them, Ryou. They're your type of people. Happy, bouncy, weird. I don't really know how to talk to them, but it's...entertaining when they're around..."

Bakura's voice was gruffy, surpressed, but he always tried to talk with a lower voice than his natural one. Ryou could remember Bakura's voice when he was younger, when they still saw each other. Bakura had a quiet voice, lower than Ryou's, but just as quiet. Yet, Ryou found, that as they grew up, something changed. Bakura began to try to act tough. He surpressed his voice whenever he talked, in attempts to sound more threatening than he could be. He turned away from Ryou whenever Ryou tried to talk to him. He left Ryou alone.

"...is just...stupid. He's got that holier-than-thou attitude, always acting as if he's just and righteous. He's not, I assure you. Yami's just a stuck up." Bakura complained to the tombstone heatedly, "...Well, at least he can play some real cards." He was quiet for a moment, as if listening to the wind. Then, he leaned forward, and kissed the cold, cracked tombstone. "Alright, I have to go cook dinner for those fools now, just so that they don't burn down your room if they tried to cook. Take care of yourself down there, okay? I'll come and tell you all about the games after I play those fools tonight. Ryou."

Bakura left, leaving Ryou wondering after him beneath the shrubs. His big brother always told him the most entertaining things. And before Father came back, Ryou would go back into hiding.

Hiding, in the darkest corners of this castle. Because who knew when Father would come back and call out for him. He never wants to be caught, ever again.

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To be continued...

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A/N: Chapter 2 revised...well, basically rewrittened anyway. It was annoying that I had to write a new chapter, but I like writing these stuff. So there.

(Past review replies) A Big Thanks to: BishounenzAngel (Thanks! I actually have one of those Bah Bah sheeps. A small one. .b), ori-chen (Yah! Seto/Otogi! I found this pairing cute recently when I started reading some of the very few ones out there. Cookies? Yes, please holds out hands), Kilam (Thank you! blush I feel like I really need to work hard on this fic now. And here I thought maybe I could be lazy since not many people are reading this. The length? That's mainly because of: (a.) I don't have time (b.) I thought of only one or two special scenes for each chapter only. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make the chapters longer, but I'll certainly try!), and Bakuraluva (Yeah, I know, but because that was default chapter, I didn't want to give too much away just yet. You'll know what they are doing and all as you go through the story. The first few chapters are not going to be too lively. But the last few there will be plenty of horror so that we can all scream together Yay?)