Glasshipping (Shadi/Thief King Bakura)
. . .
"The question is," he purrs, "how long will it take for you to shatter?"
Shadi does not open his eyes. Does not lift his hands from his knees, nor shift from his cross legged position. Feel only what is real. Feel only what is around. He must focus, focus on the scratch of his tunic where it pools around him, on the weight of the turban that rests balanced on his head. On the cold of the metal key that seeps even through his robes and to his chest, so deep and cold that there might as well be nothing between it and his skin at all.
"You're still human," the voice says again. "They always break in the end. Look at me. Even I shattered to pieces."
A laugh. It grates against Shadi's ears, makes his concentration falter.
Not real. He is not real. The voice is not real.
"I'm just as real as you are, Tombkeeper. And you know it. It just benefits you to pretend that I'm not."
Shadi's breath catches in his throat. No. No, he will focus. He will not falter today.
"There's a piece of me in all of them, you know. All of those pretty golden jewelry pieces. Isn't that ironic? I was the only one to escape getting melted down to make them, and I ended up becoming a part of them anyway."
Another laugh.
"I'm the only one that kept even a little bit of sanity though. Sanity being a relative term."
Focus on the breath. In. Out. In. Out. Count the breaths. In on a four count, out on an eight.
"You can't banish me with a little breathing exercise. I'll always be here...at least until the Ring finds the rest of me...and kills you. Then you'll finally be free of me—wouldn't that be nice?"
He won't falter. He will stay strong. He won't open his eyes, won't give in to the illusion.
"But you'll never stop hearing me. Not as long as you're living...why don't you just become a ghost? Why don't you just shatter, like the glass doll of the pharaoh that you are..."
Shadi's eyes fly open, rage grips his chest as he grips his Key, flies to his feet with a ripping ripple of his robes.
"You would know nothing of what I am, you puppet of darkness," he hisses. "You would know nothing."
But there is no one there. The stone chamber is empty. As it should be...as it has always been. The thief is not there—and he never has been.
Shadi is alone.
His hand curls around the Key. It is cold. Too cold for metal. It should have taken in some of his heat by now, but it is still as icy as the faraway tundra lands.
He curses the tremble in his shoulders, and the echo of a laugh at the back of his brain.
"We all shatter in the end, priest. It's just a matter of when."
. . .
A/N: Idk? I guess it's kinda cool. Next is Gingershipping (Keith x Shizuka).
