Title: A Persistent Shadow (Chapter 14) – Resistance Is Futile
Pairing: Ryou Bakura x Yami Bakura, possible others
Rating: M
Summary: The Pharaoh uses a spell to force Yami Bakura out of Ryou's body, but unfortunately for Ryou it doesn't work quite as well as intended.
A/N: Yup, two chapters in one weekend. This one was already mostly written and I wanted to get it done quickly because I start gainful employment tomorrow. Updates will probably be slowing down a bit, but I promise to update at least once a week until this is finished.
The next week felt more like several months. The spirit's torture got worse and worse as he continually discovered more ways to make Ryou's body dance at his command.
Ryou had a few lucky periods everyday that could be considered a cease-fire of sorts: when he was eating, because it might make him choke; when he was walking around, because it made him too difficult to touch; and when he was sleeping, because Ryou had convinced the spirit that if he did anything differently during that time, the nightmares would come back. Ryou was also left mostly alone during his many daily cold showers, but that was in its own way a part of the torment.
His dreams that week had been very... highly charged, but any time he came close to a resolution, the spirit would drop out from under him, shocking him awake. He was lucky the burglar hadn't come back in that time, because he would never have been able to think clearly enough to get away.
The weekend had been the least difficult part of the week; he'd been able to talk Marik into doing things that involved a lot of walking, so he'd been able to both see one of his friends and avoid the spirit's torture for most of the day at the same time.
But then Monday had come and he'd been trapped in his chair at school again, with nothing to stop the spirit from playing his body like an instrument. He'd barely made it through the day, fleeing for his apartment the moment school ended.
Tuesday hadn't been much better, and by the time the school day had ended he'd nearly given in on the issue of the magic book several times. A few of those times he'd even gotten as far as starting to ask Marik about it, regaining control and stopping himself before he actually mentioned the book. Each time he'd had to figure out some other reason why he would have come up to Marik, which had led to a series of implausible explanations and a bizarrely phrased invitation to the movies, which Marik, while clearly bewildered by the whole exchange, had accepted.
Marik had been watching him since the weekend and seemed to be trying to figure out what was going on, but he still hadn't said anything. By the third time Ryou had started a conversation intending to ask Marik about the book, he was certain that Marik knew something was up (how could he not?) but he appeared to think that Ryou would simply break down and tell him in his own time.
It wasn't very encouraging, really.
By Wednesday both Ryou's body and his sanity were under considerable strain, and the spirit had discovered a new weapon to use against him: words. The first few days the spirit had only used words to goad him into doing what he wanted, trying to convince Ryou that it would be much easier to just give in.
But on Wednesday the spirit had tried another tactic, saying some of the filthiest things Ryou had ever heard in his entire life while he slowly caressed his body. Most of them weren't possible while the spirit didn't have a real body, and some of them Ryou didn't think were possible at all, but that didn't make them any less effective. Ryou felt more embarrassed by some of the things he'd responded to than by the fact that the spirit was feeling him up during class – though there had been a disturbing intersection of those two things whenever the spirit talked about what he might do to Ryou while everyone watched. He'd had a perpetual blush the whole day long, even during lunch when the spirit wasn't actually doing anything to him.
And it didn't help that the things the spirit said were starting to slip into his own speech at the worst possible times, leaving him stumbling over words he'd never intended to say. The first time he'd messed up, he'd been talking to Yugi, who fortunately had been too tired to notice. Joey and Tristan had thought some of the inappropriate things he said were hilarious. Marik just seemed to be growing more concerned about him as the day went on. It almost backfired on the spirit, since this gave Ryou more incentive to avoid talking to Marik at all, reducing the number of times he'd nearly given in that day.
Today was Thursday, and Ryou was determined not to let the spirit break his will. His strategy would be to simply ignore him completely. He'd tried that before and failed, but today he would persevere, no matter what happened.
Marik caught him on the way into the classroom. "Are you doing anything after school? 'Cause I think we should go somewhere."
"Okay," Ryou said, looking forward to actually doing something enjoyable with a friend. The spirit had prevented that the past few days, but he wasn't letting the spirit affect him anymore. "Like where?"
"Somewhere we can talk," Marik said.
That statement left Ryou slightly uneasy, but the start of class kept him from replying.
The spirit began his usual torment, but Ryou was ready for it, attention focused firmly on the teacher as he took notes on everything said, including things that probably didn't need to be written down at all. He feel the spirit touching him, but he just pretended to himself that his body was having some kind of spontaneous reaction to nothing. He tuned out everything the spirit was saying to him.
The spirit got more annoyed with Ryou as his first and then second class went by without him ever losing focus for more than a few seconds. Finally, the spirit let go of him and moved to stand directly in front of him, semi-blocking his view of the teacher. You can't ignore me forever, Landlord.
Ryou squinted at the teacher, who now looked slightly fuzzy for some reason. Maybe he needed glasses. He should get his eyes tested; school was important, and he needed to be able to pay attention to the teacher without anything distracting him.
Oh, is that how it's going to be? We'll see about that, the spirit said with a fiendish grin, ducking beneath (and partly through) Ryou's desk.
Ryou had a moment of pause as he felt the spirit's hands on his thighs, but really, it wasn't that different from the other things he'd done. He was a little more confused when he felt the spirit's head brush against his stomach.
What are you-- o-oh god--! Ryou doubled over in his chair, left hand covering his open mouth, right hand holding on to the desk for dear life. Blood raced through his cheeks, his ears, his neck, and soon it felt like his entire body was blushing. The hand over his mouth did little to stop the small, plaintive sounds he made from escaping.
His eyes had flown wide open when he felt the spirit's mouth on him, but now he squeezed them shut, trying to block out the rest of the world. He squirmed in his chair, too overwhelmed to sit still. Why did the spirit have to do this to him in class, anyone could see him, anyone could be watching him come undone right now, oh god, why--
His toes curled inside his shoes, his whole body tensed, and oh god, he was about to--
About to--
He froze in his chair as all sensation suddenly ceased, the spirit disappearing from under his desk and reappearing in front of him without a word, leaving him painfully close to the edge without ever pushing him over.
W-why? Ryou asked, feeling like he was about to cry. Why did you stop? Y-you can't just stop like that, you can't...
The spirit looked innocent. I just realized how very unfair it is to distract you during class.
Ryou nearly threw his desk at him. He had to remind himself that it could never actually hit the spirit and would probably end up hitting someone else instead. Not to mention that everyone would think he'd lost his mind, if they didn't already. He put his forehead down on his desk, his whole body still tensed expectantly.
He was so close to what he needed that he knew even the smallest touch could set him off. The shift of his clothes against him, a short rub against the bottom of the desk, he could even just reach down and quickly... Ryou felt a new embarrassment wash over him at what he was thinking. N-no. I can't do that. I'm in class, surrounded by other people. It would be wrong. He swallowed nervously. Very, very wrong.
The spirit laughed at him. You need to learn to just take what you want, Landlord.
As soon as they were away from other people, Ryou was going to kill him. It didn't matter that he was already dead, Ryou would find a way. And if Ryou couldn't do that, he would hold him down and hit him over and over, just pounding on him again and again until...
Ryou looked down and realized his hand had formed into a fist, crumbling several pieces of paper out of his notebook in the process. He sighed, smoothing the papers out before resting his head sideways on his desk.
It was then that he noticed Marik blatantly staring at him, biting one knuckle and looking visibly dazed. Their eyes locked for a moment, before both abruptly looked away. Ryou hid his face in his hands. How much of that did he see?
Ryou remained like that until he had to get up for gym. They were playing dodgeball that day, and he left everyone stunned by the ferocious way he threw the balls – as well as a little confused by the way he would occasionally viciously launch the ball at a totally unoccupied spot on the playing field.
"I think you've found your sport," Tristan told him when he won the last game.
"Um. I guess so," Ryou said, feeling a little bad about how he'd been hurling balls at totally innocent people, even if that was the point of the game.
Ryou gulped down his lunch without even tasting it. He regretted it a little when it left him with nothing to do but talk to the others for most of the lunch period, too wound up to make good conversation. Add to that the way Marik kept studying him, and the whole thing became even more stressful. He was glad when it was over, even if it probably meant yet more torture from the spirit.
There was really only so much more the spirit could do at this point without accidentally ending the torment, anyway.
The spirit seemed to agree with him about that, only taking a moment to caress Ryou's neck before simply leaving him to his own thoughts. Thoughts that Ryou was quickly discovering were as bad as anything the spirit had said to him, only worse in their own way, because he was the one coming up with them. At least he had an excuse when he was asleep.
The spirit mostly stood around smirking at Ryou as his fantasies became dirtier and dirtier, sometimes laughing or making a comment like "Really, Landlord, I would be out of those ropes within seconds."
Ryou had never been happier to see school end than he was that day. He got up and began forcefully shoving his things in his bag one by one. Marik came over to him, and he remembered what he'd agreed to that morning, but he also knew there was no way he'd be able to talk seriously about anything just then, if he could even pay attention at all.
"Um. I know we were supposed to, ah, do something today, but..."
"It's okay." Marik grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. "I think you really need to go home and... uh... relax." He put a strange emphasis on that last word.
"Relax?" Ryou knew there was something here he wasn't getting, something that would probably be obvious if his head weren't so full of fog.
Marik shook Ryou's shoulders once. "Yeah. Just go home and... relax... as much as you need to."
Ryou bit back a groan as the spirit hugged him from behind, then gave him one long, slow caress from chest to stomach. He struggled to make a logical response. "R-relax how?"
Marik just stared at him for a moment, first in apparent disbelief, then in mild frustration. He shook Ryou once more and stopped, visibly refraining from shaking him several more times. "Go home and... maybe lie down..." Marik was looking at his face as though expecting some kind of recognition that he just wasn't getting. He took one hand off of Ryou's shoulder and held it over his own face for a moment, clearly having no idea how he was supposed to continue. "Just... do whatever comes naturally. Until you... um... feel better."
"Okay..." Ryou could feel the spirit snickering at his back, but he was already having enough problems with his attention being diverted in two different directions and knew he couldn't afford a third.
Marik dropped both hands at his sides. "I'll just go home, then."
"To relax?" Ryou asked, still somewhat confused by their conversation. The spirit shook with increasing laughter.
Marik gave him a sharp look, searching his face for something. His expression cleared after a few seconds, leaving him looking as though he didn't know whether to laugh or to grab Ryou and shake him some more. Marik shook his head. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said, heading out of the classroom without him.
Ryou marched home with a single-minded determination. He barely waited for the spirit to tell him it was safe to come up before going inside – putting a pole through a steel door didn't seem like that difficult or impressive a feat at the moment. He walked to his bedroom and dropped his bag next to the door, then just stared at the spirit, who was sitting on the bed.
"I think today went rather well, don't you?" the spirit asked, looking as smug as ever.
Ryou would never quite know why the spirit hadn't anticipated it. Perhaps the thought was too similar to any number of the other perverse thoughts streaming through his head that day, and so didn't stick out enough. Perhaps the spirit was too busy gloating about his success that day to notice what was coming. Or perhaps he just didn't think Ryou had it in him.
But whatever the reason may have been, the fact was that Ryou's sudden flight across the room to pin him down on the bed took the spirit completely and utterly by surprise. "Landlord, what the hell are you-- mmph!" Ryou kissed him before he could escape, using the advantage of surprise to slip his tongue inside the spirit's mouth. It was incredibly clumsy, since he'd never kissed anyone before, but it still felt wonderful, and so did sticking his hand under the spirit's shirt.
He was contemplating the feel of the spirit's tongue against his – quite strange, since the spirit's mouth wasn't wet, and had texture but not really any taste – when the spirit finally recovered from his shock and disappeared, dropping Ryou onto the bed on his stomach. He reappeared on top of Ryou, mouth right next to his ear. "And just what did you think you were doing?"
That tone might have terrified Ryou in the past, but it wasn't working on him now. "I'm taking what I want," he said, rolling over and attempting to grab the spirit, who simply disappeared again, this time reappearing to the side of the bed.
"You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?" the spirit mocked.
"I don't care how difficult it is," Ryou said, reaching out for him again.
The spirit reappeared on top of him again, surprising Ryou with a kiss much the way Ryou had done to him a few moments ago. Except the spirit actually knew what he was doing, Ryou thought as he felt the tongue moving inside his mouth, making him groan and cling to the spirit's shoulders. He jerked his hips upward, needing to feel the spirit against him. He distantly wondered how the spirit had managed to turn this back on him so quickly.
The spirit chuckled mentally, grinding down against Ryou without breaking the kiss.
Oh god. Ryou moaned helplessly into the spirit's mouth, bringing up his hands to tangle in the spirit's hair.
Do you want this to continue?
Yes. Please don't stop this time, Ryou said, remembering every single other time the spirit had stopped.
The spirit paused what he was doing, but didn't actually disappear. He held their bodies together without moving, breaking the kiss to bite Ryou's neck softly. Are you agreeing to what I've asked you to do?
Please... Ryou begged, not wanting to agree to anything.
You have to agree, Landlord. The spirit kissed his jawbone. Otherwise... I stop.
N-no! Don't stop, Ryou said desperately, holding onto the spirit as tightly as he could, though he knew it would be ineffective if the spirit really wanted to disappear.
Well? The spirit had stopped everything now and held his face right above Ryou's, looking him in the eyes.
Ryou shifted beneath him, trying to regain the wonderful feeling he'd experienced when the spirit had been moving against him and letting out a soft cry in frustration when it didn't work. He looked back up at the spirit's impassive face, thinking that he'd barely lasted a week, how would he ever last a month or two months or even a year of this torture? He bit his lip. I-if...
The spirit smirked a little. Yes, if...?
Ryou closed his eyes. If you'll tell me why you want to see the book, and it isn't something that will hurt anyone... I... I agree. But you have to finish what you started.
Of course, the spirit said. He leaned down to kiss Ryou again, rubbing their bodies together in a steady rhythm.
It was over embarrassingly quickly. Ryou broke the kiss and sobbed into the spirit's shoulder in relief as pleasure finally exploded through him, reaching every muscle in his body and releasing all the tension that had built up inside him. It had been so long and it had never felt like this on his own and...
Ryou couldn't help it. He giggled. The giggle turned into a chuckle, and soon he was shaking with laughter. He'd never laughed this freely in his entire life.
The spirit let go of Ryou and sat up, glaring at him. What's so funny?
I don't know, Ryou answered honestly, feeling unable to stop. He tried to stifle his laughter, but only succeeded in shaking silently for a few seconds before it came back. He rolled over onto his side and continued his laughing fit.
You've lost your mind, the spirit said, crossing his arms and looking away from Ryou.
I think you're right... Ryou carried on for another minute or so before calming down.
Are you finished?
A final small snicker escaped from Ryou, and he turned to lie on his back, exhausted. I think so. Does that, um, normally happen?
The spirit scowled at him. No.
Oh. From the spirit's tone, Ryou thought he probably wasn't going to have anything like that again any time soon.
The scowl left the spirit's face. You can have it as often as you like, Landlord, as long as you continue to cooperate.
Ryou closed his eyes, remembering what he'd agreed to do to get that wonderful feeling. You said you'd tell me why you want me to look at the book.
So I did, the spirit said. He paused, and for a moment Ryou thought he'd have to drag the information out of him, but then he continued shortly afterward. I want a body of my own.
What? Ryou asked, shaking off the sleepiness trying to overtake him and sitting up on the bed. I only agreed to do this if it wouldn't hurt anyone. I'm not going to help you steal someone else's--
The spirit cut him off. I don't intend to take someone else's body this time. I want to create my own.
Oh. Ryou considered that for a moment. Is that even possible?
I don't know. That's why I want you to look at the book. There is clearly magic in there that I've never encountered.
Ryou didn't know what to think. He supposed it was possible the spirit was lying, either about how he intended to get a new body or even whether that was really what he wanted at all, but it did seem plausible. Though even if it were true, could he really help the spirit get a new body at all, given what things he would likely do once he had it? And what would he tell his friends about how the spirit had gotten his new body?
I would like to point out that you agreed to this, Landlord. Looking through the book to find a means to give me a body doesn't in and of itself hurt anyone.
That was true, Ryou had to admit. However selfish he'd been to give in when he did, he had agreed to what the spirit was asking. He sighed. I'll ask Marik about the book tomorrow.
See how easy that was? I get what I want, you get what want, and the tomb keeper gets what he wants.
That... wait, what does Marik get? Ryou asked, feeling confused.
He'll get to see that you've relaxed and are now feeling better, the spirit said, looking unbearably smug.
Ryou's mind replayed his earlier conversation with Marik for him, the whole thing taking on an entirely different meaning now that he was completely lucid. W-wait, he was talking about... He buried his face in his hands, feeling incredibly thick. Ryou couldn't ask Marik about the book now; he'd be too busy avoiding Marik for the rest of his life.
You will get him to show you that book, Landlord.
But Ryou was still thinking about the conversation with Marik. And I asked him if he was... Oh god... Ryou pulled his knees up in front of him, hugging them to his chest.
He's the one who brought it up in the first place, the spirit said impatiently. He seemed far less upset by the whole thing than you are right now.
He had been all but ordering Ryou to go home and... relax, as he'd put it. I guess I'll have to talk to him eventually. He probably thinks I'm nuts. How am I supposed to explain how I've been acting lately?
The spirit chuckled. You don't have to explain anything. Just let him use his own explanation and don't contradict him.
What if he doesn't have an explanation for me to go along with?
Oh, I'm fairly certain that he does, the spirit replied, smirking as though he had a particularly entertaining secret.
Ryou put his head down on his knees. I don't even want to know, do I?
Probably not. But you'll have to find out tomorrow either way.
Ryou stretched himself out and dragged his tired body off the bed. Then I'll find out tomorrow, he thought, walking out of the room to take a much-needed hot shower.
His other problems could wait.
