Aftermath

Ryou started waking up slowly when a stray sunbeam hit his eyes. He was warm and content, lying on something soft he deemed as a mattress. They must have made it to the bed at some point.

A warm body was lying partly on top of his, hot breathing hitting the crook of his neck in a steady pace. Ryou smiled, not bothering to open his eyes, moving his head so that the light didn’t shine straight into them, and started playing absently with the other’s hair.

Bakura…

“Oh! R-Ryou, I love you!”

Ryou blushed. Bakura loved him… He felt giddy… happy, and a string of giggles escaped him before he knew it. He sounded so horribly like a girl. Bakura stirred and Ryou could feel him smirk against his neck.

“Gods, Ryou, I was so sure you were a guy last night. What the hell happened?”

Ryou yanked his hair playfully. “You’re such a jerk.”

“Hm, but you still love me.”

“I do…”

Bakura lifted his head to kiss the boy and Ryou’s lips were open even before their mouths met. He was in no hurry to get away from Bakura’s possessive embrace; there was no school today, the door was locked and the curtains pulled, apart from the small crack that was letting the sun in.

The kiss was slow, tongues dancing and hands petting. Ryou’s hands found Bakura’s hair and scalp, fingers rubbing, coaxing a purr-like sound deep from Bakura’s throat. The annoying beam of light hit Ryou’s eye again and he flinched. Bakura’s hand stroking his thigh stopped and he pulled away. Ryou whined in protest but took the opportunity to cover his eyes with his hand. Bakura shifted above him and swore heavily before getting up much to Ryou’s disappointment. He opened his eyes and lifted his upper body off the bed, leaning on his arm, and watched Bakura dance around the broken glass in search for his missing clothing.

“Where the fuck are my pants?”

“Why are you in such a hurry to get dressed? Come back to bed,” Ryou told voice still sleepy.

“I can’t. I have to do some cleaning.” Bakura had found his pants and now pulled down a curtain to cover something on the floor. A foot peeked from under it and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it was. Ryou tilted his head, his mind still waking up from its blissful sleepy state not quite comprehending yet.

“It… He looks kind of short…” Ryou commented.

“That’s because his head is all over the place,” Bakura stated absently, now looking for his chalk. Ryou’s eyes went wide and his hand flew to his mouth. “If you’re going to vomit, do it now before I start cleaning.” Bakura began to draw on the wall after finding a relatively clean spot.

“Oh gods…” Ryou fell back on the bed, closing his eyes. He felt sick now. Maybe if he had know, he wouldn’t have… Oh who was he kidding? It wouldn’t have changed anything if he had known that there was a dead guy in the room as he hadn’t been thinking with the head he normally used for thinking last night.

“What-what are you going to do with him?” Ryou asked, glancing at Bakura who was reaching for a book.

“Get rid of him.” Bakura flipped through the book, finding the thing he was looking for and let the book hover open in the air. “Want to give me a hand?”

Ryou stared at the man on the floor, not sure if he should be feeling disgusted or sad or angry, maybe at Bakura for acting like this was no big deal, for being so calm. But he wasn’t feeling anything now after the first wave of nausea had passed, and that scared him. Shouldn’t he care more? The man was dead!

He tore his eyes off the corpse to meet Bakura’s who looked at him with concern, biting his lip. Ryou realized that it was something he some times did when he was nervous but had never seen Bakura do, and for some reason, that amused him to no end. He laughed a bit but then realized how inappropriate it was in situation like this and stopped, wondering if he was still quite sane. Was insanity contagious?

“Ryou?” Bakura spoke, is he alright? “Are you..?”

“I’m not sure,” Ryou told softly, not the least bit surprised when he could hear the question before it was spoken. Something happened last night that made it ok, even comforting. “I… I think I should be more upset about this but…”

Bakura nodded. “Maybe you should take a shower, clear your head. I found your clothes.” He pointed at a pile on the floor. “You can borrow my towel and I’ll make sure nobody walks in on you.”

“You want me out of here.” Ryou meant it as a question but somehow in the way from his brain to his mouth it changed into a statement. A shower did sound nice though.

“Yeah… It’s better if you’re not here.”

“Alright, I’ll get out of your way.” He sat up and flinched, face twisting in discomfort. “Just… give me a minute.”

Bakura smirked and there was something smug in that smirk that Ryou disliked but didn’t find in himself to comment. “Take your time.”

xxxxxxx

Bakura watched Ryou limp away, sure that he could cure himself once he wasn’t so out of it.

Bakura’s clothes were all dirty and his room was a terrible mess, which he would have to clean, but despite all that, he felt pretty damn good right about now. The only person that could dampen his mood was Ryou if the boy decided to disapprove of his deed. He didn’t regret killing his former teacher; in fact it was like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He drew on the wall, his hand remembering the pattern much better than his head did, letting him use it for something else.

He hadn’t even realized how sexually frustrated he had been until now and how dull his life was now with his legal job, steady income and more or less permanent address. Last night had brought back some of the old thrill and it didn’t seem like such a huge loss if he got fired for… engaging in a relationship with a student. He had quite the reputation in certain circles and getting a new job wouldn’t form a problem. It was Ryou he was worried about though. As far as he knew, the student didn’t usually get into much trouble in these cases, but Bakura would still have to move away, perhaps far away. Holding up a relationship from the other side of the globe would be difficult, link or no link. No matter how great it had been, he had still been thinking with the wrong head.

Everything was ready for some cleaning and Bakura closed the book and sent it back to its place, going to move the curtain. He crouched near the corpse, eyeing it, just to make sure. He had thought for the longest time that he had already gotten rid of this man, but had been proven wrong. Few creatures could survive beheading though…

Bakura stood as the body was caught on fire. The flames wouldn’t touch the floor and were harmless to everything except for the remains. He watched the blue tinted flame for a while before closing his eyes, the events after Ryou had fallen playing behind his eyelids.

x

He saw Ryou fall as if in slow motion and yelled something incoherent. The link was cut off and he couldn’t see Ryou’s chest rising and falling like it should and felt so empty! There was no longer the presence of Ryou throbbing somewhere in his mind; all that was left was rage and a surge of power that would have killed him in his inexperienced days.

With the power and anger came the calm, a state where he could think clearly, coldly. When he turned to face his ex-mentor, he didn’t see red. Bakura never saw red when it came down to it. Red blinded people, made them stupid and rash. Now in his calm, he knew his teacher would not leave this room alive, and as their eyes met, so did the teacher.

“You hurt Ryou.” He didn’t want to say “killed” because Ryou couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t! Bakura’s face spread into an insane grin as the man formed a shield in an attempt to save his life. “And now, you will die,” Bakura snarled out the last word before the first blow came in a form of a defensive pulse and sent him flying on his back.

“You always talked too much!” taunted the man, voice near hysteric. Bakura had been able to block only some of it but wasn’t too worried; it had been unprepared and cheap. He sent one of his own along the floor, a sneaky little magic parasite, while preparing something in the back of his mind. Bakura was sure that if the man hadn’t been so distracted, he would have noticed the parasite travelling along the floor.

His teacher assaulted him again while the spell fed off his shield. The pain was more severe now, an internal injury, he guessed. Bakura was all about external injury; the more bloodshed the better, a fact the old man had never approved of. Screw him though; he was going to hell in a few moments anyway.

“Is this the power you were boasting to have?! What a joke!”

Bakura screamed as pain shot through his side but he could feel it; the shield was almost broken and his spell was ready. He could take a few blows if it meant he would win in the end, the mere knowledge that victory almost taking away most of the pain. His days of half blindly attacking his enemies were over; too bad his teacher’s information was so outdated.

His grin was back. A hole. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers swiftly and the shield melted under the force of the grown parasite, leaving his opponent wide open. While the man was busy being surprised, Bakura jumped up, ignoring whatever pain he was in and with a sweep of his hand sent the man into a wall. Before he could recover, Bakura connected their palms, the other’s back against the wall near the cracked window. He could see his own molten red eyes reflecting on the horrified ones of the man and his grin widened a notch as the other tried to fight his way out, switching from offense to pitiful defense. Their connected hands were aflame with their sparring magic but the spell, or curse more like, was already too far to be prevented, the pressure inside his opponent’s skull already increasing.

“It’s been real but I guess we must now part,” Bakura hissed through his wide grin, a wave of near sadistic joy washing over him. He had missed this. “I’m grateful of everything you’ve taught me, old man, but now…”

“No, don’t-” The plea was cut short by a pained yell and the man’s eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets.

Bakura dug his fingers into the back of the other’s hands and released all control he had been holding over the spell, relieved as he hadn’t been able to hold on much longer. “Die!”

Blood spurted in all directions and Bakura stepped back, shielding his eyes with an arm, muscles relaxing now when they weren’t under so much strain. He heard Ryou gasp for breath behind him, the link coming back online, and whirled around to stagger to the boy, only to collapse on top of him, still pained but relieved that the other was alive and he no longer felt empty.

x

“Bakura?”

He turned to see Ryou standing near the doorway, hair still dripping wet but dressed much to his disappointment. A feeling of threat settled in his stomach. It had been a long time since he had last been scared of anyone but here he feared what this gentle boy would think of him now.

Ryou must have sensed this fear because he smiled sadly, came over and wrapped his arms around Bakura, wet hair brushing his face.

“I’m not entirely ok with the… beheading part, but I can’t be angry or disgusted, not with you.”

Bakura had been passively receiving the hug, but now he brought his arms around Ryou’s waist and buried his face in the wet hair. “He hurt you…”

“I know.”

A hacking cough interrupted their moment and Ryou stepped away as Bakura bent over under the force of it.

“Bakura, what’s wrong?”

“It seems like… the bastard got one on me after all,” he told between coughs, sitting down on the floor, spotting a new bloodstain on his carpet. Oh great…

“Lie down and let me take a look at you,” Ryou instructed and Bakura did as told. Ryou’s eyebrows knitted together as he laid his hands on Bakura’s chest.

“You think it’s bad?”

“Well… pretty bad…” Ryou bit his lip. “You should know that besides broken bones, I’ve never cured any serious injury on humans.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Ryou nodded, face determinate. “Do you have a marker? A waterproof one?”

“There should be one on the desk.”

While Ryou went to get it, Bakura curled on his side in pain, breathing shallow and forced. He could feel Ryou kneel back next to him, marker in hand and drawing on his palm before speaking softly.

“I need you to lie on your back, ok?” He pushed carefully on Bakura’s shoulder and got him to roll over. Ryou smiled at him and took his hand, placing his other, marked palm somewhere on his side. “Hold your breath until I say otherwise.”

“Humph, bossy.” Bakura attempted a smirk but it was left dry and pained.

Ryou gave him a sharp look. “Shut up and do as I say.”

“Fine.”

Warmth spread through his side and the pain lessened. Ryou’s hand glowed softly for a while longer before he let go completely, backing off and brushing the hair out of his face. “You can breathe now, but I think you should go see someone else, just incase I didn’t do as good job as I think I did.”

“I’m sure you did well, at least it doesn’t hurt anymore.” Bakura sat up.

“But internal damages-” Ryou shut up because it was difficult to speak with someone’s lips on his. Bakura kept it chaste and quick, which was unlike him but fit the occasion.

“Thank you.”

Ryou blushed and Bakura found it endearing that he would still blush because of a simple kiss and thanks after all they had done.

“You’re welcome.”