Shadow: (crickets chirp) There are people out there; I know it. (mock-glare) I can hear you breathing. (laughs) I'm being weird again… Anyways, someone – well, me – has just put a spanner in the works for getting this all done for Halloween. I've just discovered a pile of Art and English stuff I've got to get done for Monday which, sadly, takes priority over writing. (I know, it sucks.) That, and I'm going to a party on Halloween itself so… (loud sighs) This probably won't be finished for Halloween, but it'll be done roundabout then – not more than a week into November, at the most.
Warnings: Shonen-ai pairings (boy x boy) - mostly Prideshipping (YY x SK) but with hints of Darkshipping (YY x YB).Angst, and character death.
Disclaimer: (searches pockets) Okay…we have a tissue, fifty pence, and a mint cream. That's it, I'm afraid.
Flashbacks and other thoughts are in italics.
Thoughts that take place in italic sections are in bold italics.
The other language I used in the last chapter? (Yami's inscriptions.) It was Gaelic.
Both sides of the border
Necromancy
Company was such an odd thing.
Many people longed for company, for the presence of friends and the daily chatter of cheerful nonsense to supplicate them through the day. People longed for family to talk to, to share worries with and to bicker over meaningless issues that had occurred in their lives or on television. People longed for lovers: for boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and fiancés. Human nature required people. How else would poor suffering mortals get on in their meaningless little lives? Companionship created the assumption that everyone had someone, and the world was at peace. It was truly amazing to look at. Over sixty billion people - an entire planet - lying to themselves. Because a lie was so much better than the truth, wasn't it? Nobody wanted to recognise the truth. Why should they? The truth was big and mean and nasty. It was so much easier to stay swaddled in mother's blankets, cocooned from the horrible reality of things out there. The truth?
When you were without company, you were alone.
Yami appreciated peace, and he appreciated quiet. He liked being left alone at times, to think and to brood. He disliked interruptions, and he hated them in the form they'd come to him for a good few months.
It was the indignity of the matter.
Or perhaps it was just Bakura…?
"You still miss him then?"
Every syllable of that question jarred his every nerves, each word a crimson slash into his core. He was angry, he was upset, and damn Bakura for disturbing him again. Why should he answer? The tomb-robber knew his answer well enough…
Brown eyes watched him silently.
"Hey, nii-san! Wait up!"
Seto Kaiba turned, a slight smile on his usually impassive face, watching his little brother race towards him over a bank of just-blooming daffodils. The younger boy reached him, leaning against his side and gasping for breath having run so fast.
"Mokuba…" lips quirked slightly higher in amusement, "you've wrecked the daffodils."
"I have?" Blue-grey eyes glanced up, youthful cheeks flushing faintly pink. "Ah…oops?"
His older brother rolled his own eyes at the comment, idly ruffling Mokuba's raven-black hair. "Don't worry about it. If someone asks, I'll pay for it. Though next time, otouto-kun, use the footpath?"
Mokuba's blush darkened a little, but he nodded earnestly. The two brothers started walking again – and it wasn't long before the questions started.
"Nii-san, have you really found one you're happy with?"
"Yes."
"But you've been looking for weeks!"
A faint smile. "All the better for having found one then, no?"
"Do you think Yami will like it?"
"I hope so."
"I'm sure he'll love it." This was said with a bright smile. "When are you going to…ah…'show' it to him?"
"When I think the time's right."
A disapproving frown. "But that could be anytime…!"
"Exactly."
Mokuba sighed and shook his head.
"You're an idiot."
Just like that. No warning, no sucking in of breath before speech, no meaningful glances before launching into a long dissertation. Just Bakura staring at the lake, utterly silent, then:
"You're an idiot."
But then, that was Bakura all over. The all-knowledgeable Bakura who knew everything about everyone else's damn business and how they should deal with it.
Yami had heard the tomb-robber's words before – the albino really did have to get a new speech set up. It was becoming dull, and in the situation Yami was stuck in, he honestly didn't want to hear it many more times. He didn't want to hear it at all, in fact, but when had that ever bothered Bakura?
Yami sighed, deliberately ignoring his companion.
The other yami refused to take the hint. "You wear no mask, nor do you wear a costume. You are simply dressed and unadorned, and your distress can be heard on all plains of being. You call to spirits on the night of Samhain, and you give yourself no guarding. Do you wish to be stolen away?"
He couldn't ignore that…
Narrowed eyes of ruby met brown. Soft, pointed words fell into the night air.
"I may be an idiot Bakura, but you are a fool."
"Is that it?" Mokuba's eyes were as wide as saucers.
Kaiba nodded nervously – or as close to it as he could manage. "Yeah, that's it."
"Wow…."
The brunette bit his lip. "So you like it?"
A stunned gaze looked up at him. "Like it?" Mokuba sounded incredulous. "Seto, it's gorgeous! I love it, and Yami will too!" The youth seemed positively hyped. "Nii-san, I'd marry you if you gave me this ring!"
Kaiba pulled a face, hastily closing the ring-box and hiding the item of discussion from display. "Don't tell Yami."
Mokuba looked indignant. "What do you take me for?"
"My little brother that is all too keen to get a brother-in-law."
The raven-haired teenager had the grace to look abashed.
Bakura had never yelled at him for a long while. It had been a little unnerving at first, to have your eternal rival who always yelled not yell, but everything had been a little…off-skew around that point too. He'd been dealing with fresh loss then, and Bakura had just been there. Like he'd always just been there. In all his un-yelling Bakura-ness.
Bakura had started by treating him like porcelain, a delicate object that could be easily smashed on the stone floor of reality.
Yami guessed he could be made of porcelain - in a way.
Bakura kept trying to help him, and Yami didn't want Bakura's help. And so the former thief talked to him, always calmly, always quietly, and Yami snapped back. He couldn't help himself – not where the albino was concerned.
Because the tomb robber was different.
Bakura always had had more of an affinity with death and what lay beyond than anyone else, his hikari too. Ryou drew power from the occult, what many termed as the darker side to magic, from the spirit world that resided on the other side of the border between life and death. Bakura, coming before him and later becoming part of him, took that one step further.
Death and its laws seemed to hold no sway over the ancient spirit; a lifetime plundering from those passed on making him impervious to the shadowy scythe and hourglass that marked a mortal's time. If the just truly went on to an eternal Heaven when they died Bakura was surely one of the damned doomed to Hell, but the sharp-eyed albino only mocked his title and damned damnation in such a manner as to hold others in awe. Countless times had he been banished, killed, murdered and destroyed, and still he always came back. The great border that so many feared was but a simple step to him, the one-sided impenetrable wall in his presence possessing a gilded gate.
It made Yami angry, that a one so dark with sin should be given such a boon.
And it made him even angrier when brown eyes saw his rage and sorrow, and pitied him for it.
A quiet question. "When are you just going to move on?"
Yami's jaw clenched. "When will you stop telling me what to do?"
"It was a question, Yami, nothing more." Bakura's utter calm made him long to punch the pale spirit.
"Well stop asking it!"
"Remind me again…why are we doing this?"
A humph, Yugi regarding him with exasperation. "Because it's customary, oh Pharaoh mine."
Yami rolled his eyes. "If you say so…" He dumped his load of pumpkins on the bench with a sigh. A few moments silence… "So, what do we put on them?"
His hikari smiled. "Whatever we like, really. People usually do faces though…"
"Right." A hand was outstretched-
"Not yet, Yami!" Yugi hastily pulled the pumpkins out of his darker half's reach. "We've got to clean and empty them first!"
"'Empty'…?"
"Cut their tops off and scoop out their insides."
The former pharaoh pulled a face. "But their insides are sticky."
"Uh-huh." A bright smile. "It makes great ammunition though." Yami looked at his aibou, and the teen wrinkled his nose. "What?"
Yami's lips quirked upwards into a slight smile. "You're a strange one, you know that, chibi ichi?"
"Hey, I'm your reincarnation."
A long period of silence took them, nothing moving in the still evening. A quiet Halloween, one could be led to believe – at least, if they didn't listen to the stories…
"The Yami I knew was never selfish." Bakura was still picking away at things.
Irritable, Yami turned on him, acid words slipping from his tongue. "Did you ever know me at all?"
Oh, hurt. He'd struck a nerve there – and meant to. Yami knew why Bakura insisted on talking to him like this – he just didn't return the sentiment. And the albino seemed to be constantly hurt by his replies. Yami had just assumed he'd gotten used to them over time. Why the white-haired teen kept coming back time and time again was beyond him. But he did always come back…surely that was at least worth kinder words?
A small trace of guilt began to nag at Yami.
"Bakura…"
The thief looked at him.
"Bakura, please. Let me be."
"Yami?" A frown crossed Kaiba's face as he opened the door to the bedroom he shared with his lover. "Yami, where the hell are you?"
The brunette was beginning to get worried. He'd checked almost everywhere in the mansion for Yami – where had the crimson-eyed spirit disappeared to? The slender youth always left a note or a message on his mobile if he was heading out somewhere and-
'Ah…' Crossing the downstairs hallway had answered his question.
Just visible through the window of the hall was a sakura tree, pink blossoms in full bloom. It was a gorgeous view in late spring, and the sight of the blossoms did much to alleviate Kaiba's fears.
Yami lay under the tree, lithe body languidly sprawled out on a carpet of rose-coloured petals. The former pharaoh seemed to be sleeping, the shade offered to him by cherry blossoms protecting him from the sun's harsh glare. A fallen book lying beside the dormant spirit suggested Yami's reason for being outside in the first place.
"Yami…" Kaiba was outside as quickly as possible, his soft words enough to waken his quiescent lover.
"Seto?" Yami sat up rather drowsily, sleepy expression turning to a smile as his companion took a seat on the grass beside him, leaning forwards to give him a chaste kiss. "I'm sorry, I think I must have just…"
"-Dropped off?" Pale hands idly brushed a pink petal out of spiky hair. "I guessed as much. I've been looking all over the mansion for you."
"Oh…" Tanned cheeks flushed rose. "I hope you didn't fire someone on my behalf?"
A laugh, arms reaching out to drag Yami closer so their owner could nuzzle the smooth skin of the royal spirit's neck. "Don't worry; I didn't. I was pretty close to it – but I spotted you out here first." A comfortable silence, Kaiba inhaling the exotic scent of his lover and feeling properly relaxed for the first time that day. "What were you doing out here anyway?"
"Reading." The discarded book was waved at him. "It was a really pretty day so I thought I'd read outside for a change –'sides, haven't you noticed how nice it is out here?"
Obediently, blue eyes looked up to take in their surroundings.
The sky was a perfect blue, fluffy cotton-wool clouds floating about as the breeze took them. The grass was a lush, emerald green, and everywhere was golden with the light of the afternoon sun. Birds sang, flowers grew, and Kaiba was sure he had seen some rabbits frolicking about earlier.
'Walt Disney, eat your heart out.'
The brunette nodded. "It's very nice."
Yami looked mock-reproving. "I've never seen anything so lovely."
"Well you see…" Kaiba ducked his head, a quiet whisper against the monarch's ear, "I have." His smile was enough to confirm exactly what he meant.
Yami blushed again, and batted his boyfriend with the book.
Another silence. Yami grew sick of silence. He tired of cold, of loneliness and despair. Yet he tired of company too, because company only reaffirmed the bleakness before and after words were spoken, the quiet before birth and after death.
What was there left to exist for? The gods took pleasure in his anguish – hadn't that always been so? One by one his dreams were realised, and like the ever-shifting sands of Egypt, the same dreams trickled away.
Time was all-encompassing, and darkness consumed time. Only the celestial bodies, the moon, the sun and the smaller stars, stood constant. Yet…wouldn't the sun fade one day, the stars too? For the sun was simply the closest star – a burning ball of gas, he had been informed. In the far, far future the sun would explode, and all life in the galaxy would die along with it.
Yami wondered whether he would still be around when that happened.
If he was…what would be left to give light? To give hope? It was a dreary outlook, but a long-explored one. Nothing in existence was constant, and only a fool would believe something was.
"What can you see?" A whisper interrupted Yami's thoughts, a shifting in the person beside him.
The pharaoh frowned. "What?"
Bakura nodded a head at the lake. "When you look into the waters…what can you see?"
"I-"
'I don't know.'
Hesitantly Yami knelt down again, feeling the slight dampness of the ground through his trousers. A golden bang was tucked behind his ear, ruby eyes slightly unfocused as they gazed upon the still shallows.
The moon…
The moon had nearly risen completely – it was a full moon that night. The irony of it struck Yami as he gazed upon the silver orb – a full moon on Halloween; how stereotypical could you get?
Yet, gazing past the moon…
A handsome face with fair skin, cinnamon hair falling into eyes of a bright, piercing blue…
The former pharaoh let out a soft cry, hand raised to cover his mouth. Oh, he ached-
The picture began to change.
A sudden anger seized Yami; how dare they steal the image so soon? Blue eyes were fading, morphing into some other vision he did not want to see.
Slim fingers found a rock, deposited on the lakeside some while ago, tanned digits curling around it and flinging it with all their strength into the liquid mirror, shattering whatever sights that were shown there into a thousand glittering droplets.
Rage at the world, the gods, existence.
"Will you never stop tormenting me?"
The night refused to give sound to its reply. Yet it did reply, and in a manner which it deemed appropriate that eve.
Three hundred and one ripples, should anyone have bothered to count.