#Ryou is just Being Ryou and TK doesn't know what to do with it lol

[mainstream-deviant]

Tendershipping Week - Day 7!

@tendershippingweek

Day 7: Reunion (We made it! Day 7! Woot!)

Length: The "long one" - 1375ish, below the cut or here on A03 Ship: pre-gemshipping Other Tags: afterlife, introspection (of a sort), TK pov, TK having Feels, Atem makes an appearance, Ryou being Ryou

*******

The reeds were just two steps too far away for him to reach, like the afterimage of a vivid dream. He’d been trying to figure out how to clear up the image, to see who was there, for as long as he’d been here – a few seconds? A decade or two? It was a strange thing, to be both without body and without anchor. The first was his pathetic norm, but the latter left him feeling… floaty? Vague? Kind of… of whatever the fuck. It was weird.

He’d planned on Ammit’s jaws or Zorc’s wrath, but not wherever this ‘halfway to the reeds’ was. How the hell he’d gotten here was anyone’s guess, but he was damn sure going to find a way out. In a minute – or maybe a millennia or two? He’d never been great with time, but he was even worse at bailing on a goal, so his escape was a given eventuality.

He was considering whether he could use his robe for anything useful – or if it even had a use of any kind, or if it was really there or just something his confused mind had imposed on his surroundings in an effort to force it into some vague sort of normalcy – when suddenly there was a sound to the side of him. He hadn’t really noticed the lack of it until it appeared – strange, that. He turned – shifted awareness – cast out his Ka? – to investigate.

Stupid fucking son-of-camel’s-ass Pharaoh. Of course the first clear thing he saw would be his stupid face.

He glared, and tried to will some sort of blade into existence. He’d like to think the mists around him wobbled consideringly, but who the hell knows. Either way, the Pharaoh lifted his hands placatingly.

“I don’t want to fight.” The Thief didn’t dignify that with an answer, and so he continued. “Or rather, the fight is long over. The Items have released their souls – yours and mine as well.”

He quirked an eyebrow at that. “Explain.”

The Pharaoh looked confused. It was a pleasing look. “I am not sure how else to do so – the spirits trapped within them are freed. Their purpose was served. I imagine they went to the reeds, but only the gods will know for sure.” The Thief King stared at him intensely, weighing the truth of the words as carefully as Anubis would weigh a feather to a heart. The Pharaoh, insufferable bastard that he was, offered him a comforting smile and nodded his head.

Well fuck. He really didn’t have a reason to lie, did he?

He imagined pain in his knees as he crumpled to the not-ground, and wondered why he would imagine that. Too damn used to pain, perhaps. He flinched horribly when the pharaoh laid a hand on his shoulder seconds-hours-days later, but he couldn’t shake him any more than he could avoid the rest of his words. “It’s alright. It’s through.”

Oh son-of-a-bitch, he’d been sobbing. The tears snapped into focus as soon as he realized he should notice them. Shit. He pulled away again – successfully this time. He dragged slow air into his lungs, willing the rest of the tears away before he forced himself to an upright-ish sort of position and faced the Pharaoh – oh yeah, Atem, right – once more.

“So fine. It’s done. Throw me to Ammit and be done with it.”

The Ph- Atem – had the audacity to smile. “No.”

“What the fuck do you mean n-”

“I’ve negotiated us passage.”

Bakura hoped his withering look was as clear to the pharaoh as Atem’s face was to him. “Passage.”

“Yes. Back to the world of the living, to live and die properly.”

“I don’t even want- ” Atem cut him off with a sharp wave of his hand.

“Would you prefer to take your chances with Ammit as you are?”

“That’s not your fucking choice!”

Atem stared him down. “Perhaps not. But a pharaoh cares for his people, and sometimes that means making choices. And this one is already made. Come. Our partners await.”

“Don’t you dare- ” But Atem had already snapped a hand around his wrist – and how did he move that fast, did he even move at all, what did that even matter anymore – and their surroundings shifted.

The second it took for them to blink back out of wherever-the-fuck lasted longer than any he’d lived through before, and he filled it with a thousand thoughts. Where were they even going, why were they bothering to go there, what the hell kind of difference would this even make and can he just let the story end already this is getting ridiculous –

Wait, did he say partners?

No.

No, that was just unnecessarily cruel. What kind of noble-ass king sends a demon back to his victim? His thoughts wrenched violently back to streaming white hair and tenacious, horribly ill-advised curiosity and he imagined the area where his stomach would be sinking.

Whether his own wretched soul deserved another shot at a so-called life was highly debateable, but Ryou damn sure didn’t deserve to be stuck with him for even another second.

His host, who had shown him fear – but also kindness, and curiosity, and a strange and misplaced loyalty, or maybe it was just possessiveness, but either way it was dumb – who had helped him and hindered him and tried so desperately to understand – his little landlord, who was too damn nice for his own good and too damn stubborn to know when to shove a bad thing aside, and who he absolutely should have partnered with more than he ever had, what a wasted opportunity that was, who loved his friends so fiercely that if Bakura had made even a flicker of effort to be counted among them, he’d probably have won this disaster of a shadow game… and who, if he had any sense left after the ring had done with him, would kill him on sight.

Well, it looked like his next life would be short one.

And just like that, it arrived.

He blinked in the new reality – everything was too sharp, too clear after the haze of wherever-it-was – and vaguely registered that his knees did, indeed, hurt like hell where they’d landed on the hard stone. He rubbed a hand along them, and saw a familiar-foreign hand perform the action. Huh.

There was a ruckus nearby, and he turned to see a whole group of them crowding excitedly around Atem, exclaiming over his sudden appearance. Bakura, it seemed, had been missed in the shadows to the side. All the better. Maybe if he moved quickly enough, he wouldn’t have to –

“Um, hello.”

Bakura froze, eyes still on the pharaoh’s group and noticing too late that a flicker of white hair didn’t feature in the tableau. He turned his head and met the wide-eyed stare of his former host. He couldn’t read the expression, though he wasn’t sure if that was because it was Ryou, or because it had been too long since he bothered to try to read one. He sighed and hunched in on himself. Here it was. If there was any logic in this world, he’d be screamed at, and maybe beaten at least half to death in revenge for all the crap he’d put –

“Are you OK?”

Bakura’s gaze snapped up. Say what now? Ryou was clearly better at reading facial expressions, because he smiled gently and repeated himself.

“Are you OK, now?”

Bakura sat, still and shocked, for what was very definitely too many seconds under anything resembling normal circumstances. At least he could tell this time. Eventually, he gave a sharp nod of his head.

Ryou smiled brightly. “Oh good, I worried.”

Bakura stared at the outstretched hand that was presented. There was simply no good way to respond to this. What kind of madman would just push aside all the nonsense that –

“Let’s go join the others and figure this out. I’m sure there’s a story to tell.”

Well.

Well then.

Bakura sure the fuck didn’t know what this was, but as he took Ryou’s hand – soft, warm, scratchy little nails and life – and let it help haul him to his feet, he did know he sure as hell wanted to find out.