Ateloshipping (Pegasus J. Crawford/Bandit Keith Howard)

. . .

((references to Yu-Gi-Oh R canon))

. . .

"I regret a lot of things," he said to the unmoving body. "I'm not sure I regret this one, though."

He was only a ghost, but even if he hadn't been, the corpse wouldn't be able to respond to him. The twisted post-mortem face of Keith Howard simply stared at the ceiling, medical apparatus shoved and implanted in his skin, connecting him to this horrendous machine that his boy Yako had created. Pegasus had to shudder a bit. The lengths these children would go. If only he could reach out to them as he was—but they could not see him either, and he could not affect the world like a poltergeist. He could only watch, and put his hope in the living that those two would be stopped, and saved.

For now, though, Pegasus stared at the half-dead man, the machine that was pumping him back to a twisted life that was unnatural. Pegasus wondered if his ghost was around here somewhere. Would they be able to have a chat before the machine revived him to the world of the living? Or was his ghost already tangled up inside the body after it had been extracted from the afterlife by the machine?

Pegasus didn't know. But he did know that having a conversation with a dead man was rather boring. And he was a dead man.

"I should be more sorry that I'm the reason you're dead," he said. "But considering your prodigious history of cheating, hurting, and assaulting others…I'm not sure I am apologetic whatsoever."

He sighed, tilting his head so that his hair shifted around his face.

"I know, I know. Pot calling the kettle black," he said. "I did some horrible things as well. You never quite seemed sorry for them, though. Of course, what do I know. I'm not a mind reader. Well. Not anymore."

He normally would chuckle at his own joke, but his company was sobering. Perhaps he should find some other place to haunt. Watch over his boys.

Curiosity had always been his downfall, though. He wondered what would happen if and when the machine worked.

What would Keith see, and who would he be, when he woke up again after death?

. . .

A/N: I am running out of ideas, but goddamn this is the home stretch we're getting in on. Next is Aspireshipping (Yami Yugi x Siegfried).