***Banishing ceremony. More importantly, Kek gets a puppy.***
Lavender, sage, wormwood, and mint, they each placed an herb into a bottle of white-wine vinegar and minced garlic. Ryo screwed the cap onto the bottle and shook it up, setting it next to the seven jars of water. At night, they kept the jars under a lamp to absorb more light. "Friday. Midnight. That's when we'll banish him."
They spent the week studying, working, watching Narruto, and trying to stay out of each other's way, although Marik's apartment wasn't big enough for that. Ryo gave them some basic material to read, texts about Fung Shui, Hoodoo, banishing rituals, various Pagan texts, and basic white magic. Bakura ended up reading everything out loud since Marik refused to study for anything that wasn't his upcoming physics exam.
Friday found them in Ryo's kitchen. Rotten food smeared over the walls, counters, and floors. Flies buzzed around a chunk of green, rancid meat laying near the fridge.
Marik hid his nose behind his shirt. "I might be sick."
"We have to clean this first." Ryo grabbed his broom.
Bakura stole Marik's phone from his back pocket.
"Uh, Bakura, that's mine."
"Ours, remember?"
Music blared from the phone. Bakura wiped a clean spot on the counter and made a small salt-circle for the phone to sit in as they cleaned. With four of them it didn't take long, even with things flying at them and trying to slow them down. The table, chairs, appliances, everything was damaged and had to be removed. They lined the refrigerator and oven with salt, so Zorc couldn't try to move them during the banishing ritual.
When the kitchen was clean, they used sea salt to draw a circle in the kitchen with additional circles in the north, south, east, and west. Ryo pointed to each circle as he spoke. "Bakura north. Marik south. Kek east. I'll take the west."
"Why am I the turtle?" Bakura scowled.
"Because you have a hard outer shell, you're a protector, and you represent winter."
"I think we should swap. I'm much more chaotic than you, so I should be the tiger."
"I want you opposite of Marik."
Bakura glanced at Marik. "Yeah, guess I might as well have eye candy during this show."
Marik gave a little bow at Bakura's comment. Ryo ignored them as he finished preparing for the ritual. In the center of the room, in another circle of salt, Ryo sat the Four Thieves Vinegar. "Let's consecrate the room."
They lit candles and used fresh cedar branches to sprinkle the blessed water around the kitchen. They chanted mantras and after, they stood in their individual circles and looked at each other.
"Okay Bakura." Ryo nodded.
Bakura wrote Zorc Necrophades on a piece of paper. He dropped the paper into the vinegar and screwed on the lid. Bakura walked back to his circle and clenched his fists. "Necrophades. Leave."
The walls trembled. Goose pimples pulled the skin on Ryo's arms taut as the temperature dropped. He hugged himself and shivered as his breath rose from his lips like dragon-smoke. The over head light flickered and died.
Marik cursed out of reflex, but then he held his hand out. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Bakura stay in your damn circle. There are candles. I'll deal."
Bakura visibly relaxed. By his expression, Ryou could tell that he'd been ready to leap to Marik's side the moment the light blinked out. The candles warped their shadows against the walls.
Ryo furrowed his brow. "Zorc Necrophades, you're unwelcome here. Leave."
The candles flared, their flames stretching long and tall. A shadow appeared before Ryo, blackness and a suggestion of crimson eyes, but Marik didn't balk at the dark, so Ryo held his breath and focused on the others instead of the shape.
Marik's jaw grew taunt. "Zorc Necrophades, get out of our Ryo's kitchen."
The shadows along the wall shifted, blending and changing into the body of a beast.
Kek screamed at the image. "Zorc Necrophades, go back to the Shadow Realm and stay there!"
The candles dimmed. The sputtering flames fought to stay lit. A shrill, metallic noise threatened to burst the drums in their ears. All four of them pressed their hands to their skulls, desperate to mute the sound.
Then it was over. The room sat quiet. The candles flickered. The shadows quivering against the walls were only their own.
"Is it . . . over?" Kek asked.
"Did it work?" Marik asked right after Kek.
Ryo looked at Bakura. He walked to the center of the room and lifted up the bottle of vinegar. "The paper's gone." He looked at each of them. "I think it worked."
"Thank the gods." Ryo dropped to his knees, trembling now that it was over.
Kek ran to Ryo and knelt beside him. He ran his fingers through Ryo's ivory hair and kissed Ryo's ivory forehead. Ryo looked up at him. They brushed the tips of their noses together. They pulled back a moment, but it wasn't enough. They needed more touching. Ryo nuzzled against Kek's throat and teased the tip of his nose along Kek's cheek bone. They knelt in the kitchen together, oblivious of their surroundings and lost in the softest touches of their fingers and faces. Ryo couldn't stop and didn't want to. He sighed with great relief, no longer fearing the shadows blanketing them.
Two sardonic chuckles echoed down to them. "Well, you two look busy, so we'll let ourselves out."
"Bye, Marik," Ryo murmured into Kek's neck. "We'll get our stuff tomorrow."
"For the record," Bakura said. "The power of friendship is still bullshit, and Zorc's a bitch."
"Sure, Bakura." Ryo laughed, flicking his eyes at their smirking faces for an instant, but preferring Kek's caramel skin and golden chaos of hair. "Good night you two."
After they left Kek lifted Ryo up and carried him to the living room.
Kek lay Ryo down beside the torn and ripped sofa. Ryo couldn't see the cushions, and thanked which ever god listened that Zorc didn't have enough sense to flood the apartment in his fit for attention. Thoughts of his apartment disintegrated as soon as Kek poised himself above the paler male.
"I don't think I've properly kissed you in a few days," Kek said.
"Slacker, you better make up for lost time."
Kek teased Ryo back by kissing the tip of his nose. "There. Fixed it."
"You're so mean." Ryo pouted.
"That's one of the nicer things I've been called in my life."
Ryo swept his fingers across Kek's cheek. "Let me fix that. You're funny. You're gorgeous. You have good taste in movies, and you put up with my anime obsessions. It's only been a week since I've meet you, but we've already been through so much that you've become my favorite person to be around."
Kek's cheeks glowed coral as he looked away. "Stop it. You're making my stomach queasy."
"Then shut me up." Ryo gave Kek a playful, daring laugh.
He lowered himself down to Ryo's mouth, kissing him with soft, fleeting sweeps of his lips. Ryo licked his lips and reached his head up, encouraging Kek to press his mouth harder against Ryo's. Kek complied, and Ryo moaned in delight. Content, eager noises poured from Ryo's mouth. Each time they broke apart to look at each other, Ryo smiled.
Kek pulled his tank top over his shoulders and dropped his shirt onto the floor. Ryo thought of their already broken no-clothing rule, but Kek's eyes bore into him, and Ryo said nothing in protest. His hand reached up and caressed Kek's bare skin. The body beneath felt more like muscle and less like rice than their first night in the hallway. Everything about Kek felt and tasted more human . . . except he still didn't have a heartbeat. It made Ryo sad, and perhaps it was that reason above all others that made Ryo keep his own shirt on – even as he kissed and sucked at Kek's chest. Ryo touched the bandage covering his healing gash, and then touched the last remaining section of thread.
He wasn't sure how much time passed, but Kek eventually pulled back and ran a finger along his own bottom lip, grinning. "Starting to feel like our first kiss."
Ryo blushed and stared at the torn sofa beside them. "Yeah, guess we've been going at it for a while. I'd suggest we play games instead, but everything's trashed. Maybe we should just go to sleep for the night?"
"Sleeping in a bed again sounds nice." Kek sighed, an odd, wistful look lingered on his face. "Especially without banging cupboards or asshole evil entities, and no, the irony of that isn't lost on me."
"I don't think that term applies to you anymore, Kek." Ryo sat up, his expression serious. "You told me not to underestimate myself, neither should you. You're not evil – not at all."
Kek snorted, poking at a bit of stuffing seeping out of a tear in the couch.
"You're not." Ryo touched the golden bracelet's back on Kek's wrists. "Does it hurt?"
"What?" Kek blinked at Ryo.
"The jewelry. Does it hurt to wear it?"
He shook his head.
"See? This gold has been soaking in holy water and absorbing Ra's light. Kek, you're covered in white magic."
Kek frowned, staring at his tomb-keeper accessories. "People can still be evil. Sunlight and water wouldn't hurt a human, and my body is more flesh than doll at this point."
Ryo shook his head. "I still don't think you'd feel comfortable in that jewelry if you were a bad person. You'd come up with an excuse to take it off by now, but you seemed eager to put everything back on as soon as I unsealed the jars."
Kek twisted the bracelet around his wrist. His frown sank into something brooding and pained. "I still don't know why I wear these damn things."
Ryo touched the bracelet that Kek worried with his fingers. "Because you want to be human, and humans have roots."
Kek's heather-colored eyes considered Ryo until a grateful expression replaced his previous frown.
Kek liked his job. Each morning he stared at a wall of prop-weapons and chose an axe, a chainsaw, or a good ol' fashioned knife, and a blood-stained costume. His co-workers were all crazy. Crazy. And this came from an actual crazy person. Sometimes they'd slip bags of faux blood under their costumes and have mock battles for the customers to watch during their roller coaster ride. Other times they found niches in which to hide in order to jump out, weapon waving, and send children and adults screaming and running to the next level of Death-T.
He shouted at a group at the moment, trying to terrify them. A small, eight-year-old boy walked up to him and kicked his shin. Kek lowered his cleavers – he had one in each hand – and stared at the boy. He didn't know if he should growl at the kid or laugh, but then he realized another voice kept crying for her brother to run away. Kek looked up and saw a girl a few years younger moping tears off her face with a stuffed, velveteen rabbit.
Kek did the only practical thing. He looked at the eight-year-old dead in the face and dropped his cleavers. "You're too strong. Ack!"
Kek fell over, playing dead until the older brother was able to get his sister safely to the next level. When he stood back up and retrieved his weapons, a horrible scream echoed throughout the graveyard. Kek sheathed his cleavers in his boots and looked around, trying to deduce which one of his insane co-workers was the source of the prank. Everyone looked busy operating rides or dealing with customers, so Kek investigated the sound.
A knot twisted at his stomach as a ridiculous thought nagged at the back of his head – that Zorc managed to return somehow and the screams would change to Shadows, and then everyone running around, screaming, and having fun, would be lost and drowned.
He didn't like the thought. At one time he would have cackled in glee at sacrificing everyone to darkness, but that was before he understood amusement parks, and co-workers you only wanted to kill with a fake knife, and blueberries, and a boyfriend, and now Kek wanted the world to spin, and go on, and live. There was too much he didn't know about yet. Ryo promised to take Kek to the beach in the summer, and make cocoa and cream puffs dripping with chocolate ganache during winter holidays, and there was still sex and being able to taste food without sucking it from Ryo's lips, though he didn't mind doing that at all. There was even the hope, hidden deep, deep, behind his stomach, that maybe, just maybe, when Ishizu visited that perhaps she wouldn't scream when she saw him, because maybe Ryo was right and deep down Kek wanted all of humanity and not simply to live. He didn't want to feel guilty every time he wore his bangles and earrings. He didn't wear them at the moment. Gold, dangling earrings did not match a blood-soaked apron and chef's hat.
Kek continued to follow the shrill screaming until he stood near the beginning of the graveyard. Inside an open grave whined a Shiba puppy, white and cream colored and miserable.
"Well, stupid, why'd you jump down there?" Kek asked the puppy as if it'd answer.
It whined more, scratching at the side of the grave. Kek jumped down and scooped the puppy up to look at him. "If you pee on me, I swear to Ra I'll turn you into a pie."
The puppy licked his nose.
"Stop that," Kek growled. "Gods, you're as bad as Ryo." He hid the puppy in the wide pocket in his apron and climbed back out of the grave.
"You found a puppy!" Haruko, one of his co-workers, ran up to him.
Two long, bright magenta pig-tails stuck out from each side of her head. She wore knee-high, white socks and black shoes and a dress that was supposed to make her look like a creepy doll, but all Kek could think was bitch please whenever she wore that outfit.
She reached out her hand to pet the dog, but the little ball of white and tan growled when she neared him.
"You're so mean!"
She pouted in the high pitched voice girls used that grated on Kek's nerves. Kek snickered at the frown on Haruko's face.
"Guess he thinks you smell bad."
"Keku, you're a jerk!" She snorted and stomped away.
Kek only laughed and waved. She got mad at him at least three times a day, but always ran to him every morning, ruffling his hair, and calling him "big brother". She had no idea that, once upon a time, that behavior was a quick way to get her neck snapped.
As soon as he neared the patrons, the puppy growled again, baring his teeth and slicking back his ears. Kek made sure he kept as much distance as he could from the growling dog and other people.
"Where'd you get a dog?" A zombie, who's name happened to be Tomi, asked.
"Dug him out of a grave." Kek smirked, trying to act like the puppy was part of his costume.
"Better put him outside. If he bites someone, we'll all get in trouble."
Kek nodded. He was already on his way to the back where they took lunch breaks and changed into their costumes. When you wielded a Millennium Item and hurt someone – you laughed. When you didn't have an evil, magical artifact of incredible power and hurt someone at work – you filed paper work. Kek wasn't stupid, and he didn't want the dog to bite anyone while sitting in his apron pocket.
He went outside via a side entrance near their time cards. He lifted up the puppy and stared in his fluffy, little face. "Well, have fun, pup."
The dog cried, the same high-pitched yips that made Kek find him in the first place. Kek frowned and stared at the dog. "Well, it's your own damn fault. Haruko probably would've taken you home and spoiled you rotten had you not growled at her." Kek growled himself. "Don't look at me like that! I don't know how to take care of anything! You'll be dead in a week!"
The Shiba cried louder. Kek . . . couldn't abandon the puppy in an alley. He couldn't. He pressed the puppy against his chest and patted the cream-colored spot on its head. The dog quieted and licked Kek's hand. Kek exhaled in frustration. "Dammit dog, you're fucking retarded if you think this is going to end well."
Kek looked left then right, as if the puppy police may have been watching him, and then snuck the dog back into the building. He stole into a maintenance closet and found an old jumper to use as a mattress pad. He also found a container that would serve as a water bowl until Kek's shift ended in two hours. "Mutt, if you get caught because you cry when I leave then it's out of my hands. This only works if you shut the fuck up for a few hours until I can come back and get you."
The puppy licked Kek's hand one last time, giving Kek a small yip. Kek went back to work, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. It was a ball of fluff, who cared it if cried? Apparently Kek did.
He made a mental note of things he'd have to purchase; food, dishes for both food and water, a leash and collar, at least a few toys. What if Ryo didn't like him? Kek realized he wouldn't abandon the mongrel, even if that meant finding his own apartment. It was that important. It was that important and Kek wasn't even sure why it was important. Maybe because something finally liked Kek. Ryo didn't count. Ryo and he were bound by magic, and Kek still wondered about how that affected his feelings towards Ryo, but the mutt like him without complication.
No, not "the mutt". Kek's puppy would also need a name. Kek frowned . . . names were identity, they were part of the Egyptian soul. It was in that odd moment that Kek realized part of why he was different compared to Battle City had nothing to do with Ryo at all – it happened when he finally received a name, a ren, a piece of soul other than Shadow.
After work, Kek changed and went back to the closet. When he opened the door the puppy ran to his feet and yipped. Kek picked him up, secured him in his hoodie, and slipped out the back door. "Come on Kurimu. We're going home."
***Kurimu is supposed to mean "cream", but considering the luck I have with online dictionaries it probably means bicycle.***