Title: Close

Author: Lily

Series: Yuugioh

Characters/Pairings: Malik, Anzu, slight Malik/Anzu

"My name is Namu, nice to meet you."

"Don't mention it," He reassures the brunette girl with a smile as the taxi cab tears its way towards the hospital with a bloody Bakura slumped like a doll in the backseat. "I did only what needed to be done."

The shock of the gruesome scene sends Malik into a screaming fit; shrieking at the top of his lungs, wailing, wide-eyed and teary. "Father!" Emotions clouding his brain, the boy threw himself to the floor, and wrapped his arms around the body— hanging on desperately because he was drowning in his weaknesses; in his sin. "Father…" Malik's chest heaved and his heart ached so profoundly; the shoulder of his father's corpse doing little to stifle the devastating wails that were wrenched from his throat. Rishid pulls him into an embrace but all he can feel is hate and rage. Hatred for the Pharaoh, hatred for himself. Hatred so palpable and thick, he can feel it clogging his veins.

His forehead pounds and he grips his scalp so hard his temples throb; shaking fingers leaving streaks of blood upon on his face and oh he was dizzy and oh he was going to vomit—

He heaved until he was empty; kneeling on the ground as if praying, forgive me father, for I have sinned. Malik wipes the acid from around his mouth with the back of his hand and vomited again— the shadows, mere witnesses to his suffering.

There comes a moment in which the human soul can stand no more grief or pain—in these moments, the mind shuts itself down into a kind of numb slumber, a melancholy stasis that feels neither pain nor joy. The heart beats, but it's an empty echo. It's music without meaning.For Malik, tomorrows are like promises. You really don't expect them to work out. They're like empty, deflated plastic bags that are hazardous and useless and not much to look at until you fill them with something you need. Tomorrow morning, there will be agony. Tomorrow evening, there will be a pleasant surprise that will slip through his slim fingers and become tomorrow morning's agony again. He's learned to live with it, with the plastic bag that's full of slimy holes, and to make sure tomorrow and hope have nothing to do with each other.

He wants to touch no one. Everyone is filthy to him, dirty and stained with a million things water can never wash away. They're all poisoned, filled to bursting with greed and other despicable things. They're only puppets trying to be human. Being in a crowded room is suffocating to him as he tries to get away, his expression distantly polite but his skin prickling every time he brushes against another breathing carcass.

Malik has known shadows all his life. He dreams of golden crowns and ancient duties. Of glinting hot knives craving up his back and his father's razor wire-like voice, invisible and deadly; grating into him like broken pottery. His nightmares usually come in a twisted, hungry form of a Labyrinth, stone and earth whispering at his back as the world steadily and ominously rearranged itself as if to swallow him into the unknown depths of some maw. Or they became an oubliette-- infinite and yet so compact his breath caught at his chest in the blackness. Or, sometimes, they came in the shape of a disoriented plunge into a pool where the deep end was suddenly far too deep, and he was confused in the water, drugged by the shock and light glittering everywhere as if he fell upwards into the sky.And so, during his refuge inside Mazaki Anzu, something wild catches up in Malik's throat, and he recognizes it as, finally, peace.

Curled deep within the girl's mind, Malik delves. He feels her essence, the thrumming in her heart both light and strong. Her soul room is a mystery to him, and yet it makes no attempt to hide anything— the ceiling is replaced by sunny, clear blue sky. There are apricot trees and sunflowers sprouting from the glossy wooden floor. The entire room is walled by mirrors like a dance studio. There's a portrait of the Statue of Liberty grasping a ballet shoe in one hand and an empty fast food drink cup in the other. There's a photo of a faceless man perched delicately on top a loveseat. A light breeze ruffles his hair and Malik is at a loss.

But the soul room quickly grows into a sanctuary. Here he can rest. Here he can forget his burdens for a little while as he fumbles searchingly along the edges of her amiable innocence. For once, he had found something serene, untouched by evil, so noble it made his bones ache. And when it is time to say goodbye, he meets her eyes and it feels like he's collapsing slowly; mentally crumpling to his hands and knees like a puppet without strings. It had been the closest he ever felt to another human being in a long, long time.

Malik is too uncomfortable, too aware of her now to be anything close to subtle. Reluctant attraction is made evident in the way he looks at her: briefly, from under a curtain of light blonde hair as they fly away from the crumbled remains of Kaiba's Duel Tower. Fortunately, no one notices but his sister. "Perhaps you should apologize to her," Isis suggests lightly, mistaking his attention on the female brunette as guilt. But if there was one thing Malik did not regret, it had been residing inside her mind and so he holds his tongue stubbornly.

A shadow will always need some form of light.

Isis worries over him constantly. He can see it tugging at her eyes and knows she would like it if he smiled more. But even though they are no longer living a tomb keeper's life; even though there is no longer that darker self of his tap tap tapping across the insides of his mind— the shadows remain like a sliding point of hot friction against his throat.

Sometimes Malik comes at her shaking, eyes wild, and other times he is quiet and reflective. Isis wants her brother to be in full health and happiness, but not the way most people do. She wants to take Malik apart and put him back together in a way that makes sense. She wants him to work like building blocks to look the same as what textbooks say is a person. Her little brother whose body is in order, but his mind doesn't quite fit together like everyone else's. Before, up here—Malik solemnly tap tap taps his finger against his temple—it had been too noisy for him. But now that it's too quiet, he's trying to occupy the silence with something, and finds Anzu is constantly in his thoughts. There is something about her that intrigues Malik. Something that keeps her waiting along the edges of conscious thought, drawing his attention away again and again.

He finds himself wondering how his hand would fit against the curve of her hip, and how the swell of her breast would feel beneath his palm. At first it is a detached curiosity, devoid of any real heat or urgency. Anzu is a strangely greyscale fantasy, if she could be induced to appear in one at all. He has made more than his fair share of mistakes, but Malik didn't normally lust after people. Not that he was lusting after one now, either. Not quite.

Years later, he will find her in New York and corner her. Her body stiffens when he stands too close: aware, and uncertain, full of contained jitteriness.His fingertips pass lightly across her throat and finds the hollow of her clavicle. Point by point, line by line, there is no similarity within their skin. Where she is all clean curves and airy angles, he is hard lines and knotted flesh. She is what remains alight and ascendant while he can only hover somewhere beneath. "I know who you are," he says, and his voice is wretched, and ugly. "I want you, because you are who you are."

"What…" Anzu's voice fades, on the subtly violent edge of breaking as her mouth – painted a soft pink with lipstick – tries to form coherent word a second more before she gave up, gave in. The buzz of electricity coursing through the alley seems loud, and he hates it, along with that pain that had started up in his lungs. She shrinks from his touch. "You… you know, I-"

He traces down her chest and her voice hitches. "What are you doing?" she says, and his lips press against the skin of her bare shoulder, his hand slides across her belly, following the line of hipbone and rib. "Don't…"

"But I know you," and his voice is cut with longing, with desire. He trembles, his voice trembles, and he will not look at her. "I know who you are." He remembers mirrors (her confidence), the portrait (her dream), the photo (her love). His touch becomes bolder, his fingers have crept inside her shirt and his other hand finds the skin of her inner thigh, but is not quite brave enough to slide further.

"Malik." Anzu's voice is steadier and she pushes against his chest firmly. "Malik."

He moves, swift; his lips press against hers, his tongue startles her. She is pinned against him, and the rigidity of his desire grinds into her. His hands grip her tightly enough to scare, and she is reminded that she is not playing games with a boy: she is dancing with a storm.

A sharp pain and blood fills his mouth. Anzu bit his tongue and uses the time to wretch free. He freezes, fingers still, while she twists and subsides. "I know you." He keeps repeating, desperate for her understanding. "That may be so," She replies fiercely and her gaze is solemn as she turns to leave. "But it's not enough."

Malik has retained so much knowledge now and seen so many people that memories have blended together until he isn't sure what's real and what's not anymore. Now it's like his previous life is nothing but a dream, or scenes from a film you vaguely remember watching in a daze, before you finally fell asleep, halfway through. People are only made out of their memories after all – what they know, and remember, and believe. He's barely confident of where he comes from, or what he knows. Nothing is certain, not for him, and nothing ever has been, really.