7.28.12

One-shot/Drabble #1: Evicted

Over the years, the Millennium Ring suffered many different forms of ill-treatment and abandonment. The most recent of which included being thrown in front of a car, put into an oven, and tossed down a well.

Bakura was becoming rather sick of it. Before, he could understand if people wanted to get rid of the object that housed his soul; usually their hands, if not their entire bodies, were burnt up when they so much as held the Ring for more than three seconds. But the most recent attempts to eradicate his existence… those he was beginning to take rather personally. It might have had something to do with the fact that they were all put into effect by his own Landlord.

The ivory door to Ryou Bakura's soul room rattled on its hinges when it was forced open with an audible slam. It wasn't just the door that was white, either: everything was an impeccable realm of colorlessness, marred only by the slightly off-white color of the inhabitant's skin and the picture frames that held black-and-white photos of his family. Personally Bakura found his host's room to fit him: It was dull and monochromatic, horribly uninteresting. At the moment everything was tinted gray instead; the lights were out, throwing shadows everywhere. The darkest of them was cast by Bakura standing in the doorway.

The spirit stalked forward, body tense and his jugular bulging and throbbing like a writhing creature under the skin of his pale neck. His host was sleeping peacefully on his bed. He would have to fix that, wouldn't he?

A fanged sneer quickly split Bakura's lips. Within moments he straddled his host's stomach and leaning down to ghost his breath over his face. Bony hands wrapped around the delicate, creamy white neck so that he could feel the steady beat of the teen's heartbeat against his hands. Despite the grip Bakura now had on him, his host still didn't stir except for a slight twitch when one of the bony thumbs caressed his jugular.

"Landlord…"

Bakura's deep voice feathered warmly against said Landlord's skin with something almost akin to softness, but his hands tightened like a vice on around his throat. Bakura dug his nails into the base of his host's spine and the latter jolted in his sleep, a distressed look contorting his features.

"Wakey, wakey, Landlord." Identical noses brushed against each other, "Your tenant didn't appreciate you trying to get rid of him…"

For a second, his host stopped breathing. Then large, milk chocolate eyes snapped open to meet the wine-red ones glaring down at him. The frail boy's breath came back, albeit at a much quicker pace than before. His hands reached up instinctively to claw at Bakura's, but the much larger spirit straddling him paid no mind to the feeble scratches. All he noticed was that his host's pulse was beginning to escalate. Bakura could feel his stomach rise and fall rapidly beneath him, swelling up like a balloon as his diaphragm filled with air. The rapid breaths became even more frenzied as Bakura tightened his grip on the lithe neck and settled his weight fully on top of the boy's abdomen.

"Hello, my dear host. Did you miss your yami? He missed you very, very much." Bakura whispered, nuzzling one of the boy's cheeks.

His host was completely rigid except for his breathing that was now escalating to small choking, whimpering noises and his hands that continued to scratch feebly at Bakura's.

"Nothing you want to say?"

Whimper, whimper. Like a sniveling little dog that had been kicked one too many times. Only it was somehow even more pathetic. Bakura's lip curled.

"Don't you have anything to say to me, you little shit?" Bakura hissed, crushing the windpipe in his hands.

"A-ah!" came the halting yell and the body thrashed erratically underneath him.

Bakura loosened his strangling hold but didn't move his hands away. Bright pink marks that were quickly making the transition to the finger-shaped purpley black bruises that shone clearly on his host's neck, even in the darkness.

"Aren't you going to apologize to me, Landlord? Aren't you going to beg me not to beat you within an inch of your worthless life? Huh?"

Defiance welled up in the brown eyes, but it was defiance that Bakura was firmly determined to squash.

"How about next time I take possession of you I throw the body in front of a car? It'll be much prettier to see something gory splattered all over the pavement as opposed to the Ring just bouncing away unharmed. But I bet it would be even better if I threw the body down that well. Have you ever been down one before, Landlord? It's incredibly cold and miserable. Not that you'll realize that; your bones will shatter the second you hit the bottom. Oh, but what about that wonderful oven? Think about the fun we could have with that."

"Go to h-hell." The teen choked out, floundering his legs and managing to kick Bakura's back. Bakura responded by calmly putting even more pressure into his death grip than before. His host writhed and his mouth opened, fishlike, in an attempt to get air.

Bakura's eyes narrowed as he leaned down to crush his forehead against the one beneath him. "You tried to get rid of me. Like I was trash. Well, I've got news for you, Landlord: You're the one who's worthless. You're the one that deserves to be thrown away with your soul stuck inside a damn necklace!"

More wheezing was the only reply. The pulse floundered.

The spirit forced his voice to calm to a whisper. "I will choose whether or not I wish to leave you, pathetic as you are. You can't make me leave, Ryou Bakura, your so-called 'friends' can't make leave; nobody can."

His host was stone-still for a moment, then he slowly removed his hands from on top of the ones strangling him. With a choked cry the teen bucked upwards with his hips while simultaneously giving Bakura a venomous kick, much harder than the one from before. The spirit's eyes widened right before he was bowled over and fell to the floor, in his surprise loosening his grip and allowing his captive to slip free.

Bakura tasted blood as he propped himself up from where he was facedown the wooden floor, his tongue slithering out to touch the cut where red was welling from his lower lip. With a low growl he rolled over on his back and turned his head towards to his host. The teen had scrambled off of the bed and was standing trembling in the corner, breathing rapidly with one pale hand caressing the tender flesh on his throat.

"I'm going to kill you for that, Landlord," Bakura hissed.

His host stared at him for a moment, then closed his mouth in a tight line and narrowed his eyes until they were nearly the same size as Bakura's.

"N-no… no, you won't, yami."

Before the spirit could sit up properly, the smaller of the two sprinted across the room and threw himself on top of him.

Bakura cursed loudly as fingernails scratched at his face, his eyes, anything his host could get a grip on. He shut his eyes and blindly thrashed underneath the skinny body, throwing random punches. Only a few managed to land on their target, and even when they did they were stubbornly ignored. The teen threw a few punches of his own after a while, surprising Bakura with their viciousness. It wasn't long until his jaw and nose were throbbing with pain.

The spirit eventually grabbed his attacker bodily and threw himself to the side, causing them to roll over and switch positions. His host wouldn't have any of that, though, as he forced them to continue rolling like writhing cats as they continued to fight. The two tumbled right out of the door into the hallway between their soul rooms.

Bakura would have had the upper hand had he not been so shocked that his Landlord was fighting back in the first place. Not that he was taking it easy on him. But if he hadn't been so absorbed in both his surprise and fighting back, he might have noticed how dangerously close they were getting to the other side of the hall—

Crack.

Bakura's skull slammed against the stone doorframe of his own soul room. He instantly went limp, limbs and head drooping as he lost consciousness. His red eyes fluttered as the image of the face in front of him blurred.

"...D-d… damn… it…" Bakura hissed before his eyes shut and his head rolled to the side.

His host stared down at him, wide-eyed, then with some difficulty untangled himself from the spirit. He reached down and put his hand in front of the other's face, feeling a strange sort of relief when he felt warm breath brush his fingertips.

Ryou Bakura stared at his yami for a long moment, feeling something akin to guilt well up in his stomach. He knew he shouldn't feel bad; after all, it was self-defense. But, no, that wasn't what was making him feel so at fault… it was that he had been trying so hard to get rid of his yami. To kill him, basically. Get him out of his life. But the spirit couldn't be killed, he knew that, so he was just… kicking him out. Trying to 'evict' him, the spirit probably would have said.

So maybe Bakura had a right to be angry. After all, nobody likes to be forced out of their home…

Review, my beautiful beauties, review!

~Albino Shadowz