Eclipseshipping (Marik Ishtar x Yami no Marik)

. . .

I hate you.

"That's a bit harsh, don't you think?"

He's sitting so casually, one leg flung over the arm of the couch, the other resting on the side of his foot. His hands are behind his head, and he grins, as though he belongs there. As though he belongs there on hiscouch, in hisapartment.

It's nighttime. He only shows up at night. Only when it's dark outside and the static of the television can't chase him away anymore, when Ishizu and Rishid are out for one reason or another and the apartment is dark and cold and it feels more like home(the home that he doesn't want to remember or acknowledge, but it will never release him—the cold dark corridors of the tomb are very like the cold dark rooms of the apartment when the sun goes down and the heater turns off).

Marik sits quietly on the opposite side of the couch, his hands knotted into fists in his lap, and tries to keep his eyes on the television screen. He doesn't know what's playing. He stopped paying attention almost three hours ago. He's just pretending to be engrossed so that he doesn't have to look at the hallucination on the other end of the couch.

"I said, that's harsh, don't you think? I was protecting you, you know."

Don't acknowledge him. Never acknowledge him. The little spurt of hatred that came out of Marik before needs to be crushed—because he'll jump on it, and he'll feed from it.

Marik must never, ever acknowledge the hallucination, the dream. Because that's what it is. It's not real. He'snot real. He hasn't been real for years. Almost a decade, even. Marik wonders when he'll finally stop appearing, or if he'll have to spend every lonely night of his life like this.

"Saying you hate me is so counter intuitive," he says again, trying to get a response. "After all, I'm you. Saying you hate me is like saying you hate yourself."

He shudders and he tries not to listen. But he knows. He knows that he's gotten a chink in Marik's armor. That's the way to get around his stony silence.

But it's been almost ten years. And Marik knows everything that the other him can ever say.

Because it's true. He does hate the other him. And he doeshate himself. He's sure he'll live with that hate forever. For longer than forever.

But he won't acknowledge it. He'll never acknowledge it.

Hecan sit on the other end of Marik's couch, a ghost of a time long ago, a hallucination of Marik's self-hatred. But Marik won't give him what he wants. He never will.

He'll stay silent.

He won't be used anymore.

Not even by himself.

. . .

A/N: Well that was an interesting one. Next is Dustshipping (Yami Marik x Catherine). WE'RE DONE WITH THE E'S HOLY SHIT