A/N: Prompt from Droite.

If this seems OOC to you, then please remember that these two went through some terrible stuff in life and that's bound to leave an emotional impression. I always saw Rio as the type of person who acts strong to hide the scared little girl she is deep down. As for IV...he's just had it hard from the beginning and acts like a sass master for similar reasons.

Please drop more prompts guys, I need them~

19

Rain

"I want to one day," she insists softly, "so we can bury the past."

What she wants is fair, so he only asks for one condition.

.

.

"Are you ready, IV?" she calls, Duel Disk activating along her extended arm.

He frowns, inhaling deeply, and for the first time in a long time, realizes just how insecure of a human being he truly is. His body feels hot and shaky and his fingertips and toes are freezing and numb. He can feel the muscles in his face having gone slack and the knitted feeling of his brow and how his eyes are empty with suppressed fear. The fabric of his cream and gold attire sticks to his invisibly shivering frame and for a minute, he is so small, so vulnerable, so exposed. He drawls in a long breath again and steadies his heartbeat.

IV gives her a curt nod and Rio smiles nervously, drawing her first card. After setting two in her Spell and Trap Zone and a monster in face-down defense position, she motions for him to take his turn.

He gazes down at the heavy metal resting on his own arm, clamped from his elbow to his wrist and palm. Water drips down into his lids and off glistening lashes and he blinks it away, thankful he isn't crying, and adds a new addition to his Hand.

They Duel for hours, the game being dragged out. Sometimes they pause and ask each other if they are alright, if they should persist, endure. Rio's knees are quivering and a bead of sweat is trickling down her temple. IV is still breathing raggedly and his scar is inexplicably stinging and he wants to just collapse and die right there.

But they press on, facing old, painful memories and their clothes become more and more soaked. Her hair presses against her shoulders and back, her neck and forehead with the extra weight of liquid. Tears are eventually escaping from her, cascading off her nose and chin, but she smirks through them and attacks with spot-on accuracy.

IV fights back, as he was told to do, ignores the burning in his lungs and the hallucinations of flames licking up her legs and a blaze engulfing him and coals littering the tarred floor and sparks spraying into his vision.

It can't get us here, he repeats calmly in his mind, over and over and over.

His condition was to Duel to face their traumas while rain poured from thundering skies and grey clouds.

Fire can't ignite if the world is wet and cold.

And so they keep going, defending, assaulting, summoning, activating, Rio weeping and grinning, Thomas quaking and swallowing the knot in his throat. They shove through their history and block the scary illusions of ashes and falling debris and smoke. Disturbances shrivel and skitter in their very cores; he swears he can smell fumes of melting iron and singed skin. And at last, bit by bit, they learn to accept what happened and they move on.

Before the precipitation lets up and vanishes and the sunlight filters through the dark horizon, both IV and Rio are laughing shamelessly and awkwardly, full of relief and grief and peacefulness, and they lower their Disks as drops continue to slide down their faces.

Their anxiety washes away with the rain.

~Finish~