Dark Roses

Disclaimer - If I owned them, do you honestly think I would be sitting here, writing this? Hell No! I'd be back in my bedroom, arguing with Bakura over who got to draw who's blood, and who got to be chained up this time around!

Author's Notes - Okay, due to an agreement between lady_wolfTerri and myself, here is another chapter of Roses for her posting another chapter of Alone.


3 – Closer

Day blurred into day, and before he knew it, two weeks had passed since he’d come to the school. No one had bothered him after that first day . . . Ushio avoided him like the plague, as did the other school bullies. That was fine with him . . . he could use the peace and quiet.

Classes continue to be just as boring as they had been on the first day as well. Homework was a breeze, and he found he had far too much time on his hands in the evenings, alone in the apartment while Odion worked and his sister was at the museum until nine in the evening. He sat idly in front of the television most of the time, staring absently at the channels as they flickered past his eyes. They’d finished unpacking three days after they had arrived, but the boxes remained stacked in the spare bedroom, ready to be put to use again at a moment’s notice.

Staring idly out the window in homeroom, he tried to think of what he could do to pass the time when he got home that night. It was Thurseday, and he had a long weekend of boredom ahead of him after tomorrow . . . he wished they hadn’t had to leave his game console behind. He could have passed the time working on Final Fantasy X.

“Hey . . . new kid. Malik, right?” He turned around, one platinum eyebrow arching in surprise as he came face to face with none other than Bakura, the pale haired teen who’d been so unapproachable his first day.

“Yeah,” he murmured, lavender eyes confused. Why the hell was Bakura talking to him?
He hadn’t been completely idle for the last couple of weeks at school. He’d learned who the popular kids were, who the geeks were . . . and who to avoid. From what he’d been told, Bakura and his group . . . of which it seemed that his look-alike was a part . . . were on that last list. Ushio may have thought he ran the school, but in reality it was this group of misfits that did so. So why was one of the most feared guys in school talking to him?

“Saw what you did to Ushio,” Bakura said, a sadistic smirk crossing his features. “That was pretty good. Not many people have learned about pressure points.” Malik shrugged, his face settling into a mask. So that’s what this was about . . . there was a new predator in town, and they wanted to scout out the competition.

“Not many people bother to use their brains when confronted with a fight,” he muttered in reply, shrugging his shoulders. “So what?” He met the magenta gaze fiercely, daring the other teenager to say something.

Internally, Bakura smirked. Yeah, the kid had spunk . . . a bit too much, but at least he could back it up. But he was confused by the neutral expression that had slipped over that face with his words.
They’d cracked the school records easily enough, but they hadn’t been able to get much on this Malik Ishtar. He’d changed schools several times since the beginning of the school year, which usually meant a troublemaker who’d had to move before any marks landed on his permanent record. But those kinds of kids were proud of their antics . . . this kid was acting like he disliked having had to do it at all. There was a mystery here, and if there was one thing Bakura enjoyed, it was a good mystery to solve. He’d already been intrigued by his use of pressure points . . . now he was even more curious. And that was usually Marik’s forte.

“Nothing much,” he said, settling back into his seat with a careless air. He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the angles before lacing his fingers behind his head and staring up at the ceiling as he talked. “Just interesting, is all. We don’t usually get someone with those kinds of skills around here. You doing anything this weekend?” He caught the look of surprise and confusion in the lavender eyes before they went carefully blank again and Malik shrugged.

“Don’t know yet,” Malik answered. Now he was really confused . . . why did they want to know if he was doing anything for the coming weekend? If they were simply scoping out the competition, it shouldn’t really matter what he did when he was away from the school. So what was the real purpose of this whole conversation? “Why do you ask?”

“Yami’s throwing a party at his house Saturday night,” Bakura said casually. “You do know who Yami is?” A cautious nod from that carefully neutral body. “Well, we figured that, after that little show, you might want to come. Give you a chance to hang out with real people, rather than the geek squad.” He glanced over at the youth carefully. The face was unreadable, so he used what knowledge he had of other things to read the boy’s body language. He was strangely tense . . . not the usual reaction to being invited to a party. It was almost as if he was afraid of something. But he’d certainly proved he could handle himself, so what could he possibly have to be afraid of?

“I’ll think about it,” Malik said neutrally. He left the conversation at that, and it seemed Bakura was willing to do the same. The rest of homeroom was spent staring at the window, wondering what was going on. Why would the school’s top trouble-maker invite him to a party . . . a party with the other top purveyors of mayhem at that?! They hadn’t seemed to even notice him after that first day.

If anything, he was intrigued . . . and it would give him something to do Saturday night, at least. Only if Ishizu approved, of course . . . but then, that was pretty much guaranteed. She would be thrilled that he was ‘socializing’ as she called it. She wanted him to make friends, wanted him to have something like a normal life. As if his life could ever be normal, having to move at any given moment, on the run from his own father. Did he dare to chance it?

The rest of the day was spent in a kind of thoughtful daze, trying to decide whether or not he wanted to go to that party and risk the consequences, or stay to himself and keep what was left of his life in tact.


*-------*-------*-------*-------*


“I’ve think I’ve found the secret behind your mysterious look-alike,” Seto said, sliding into his seat next to Marik at the lunch table. That caught even Bakura’s attention, which was difficult considering Ryou was currently wriggling around on his lap in the middle of being tickled ruthlessly by his slightly older lover.

“Secret?” he asked, raising one eyebrow curiously. Marik remained silent, but his violet eyes were pinned on Seto’s sapphire gaze before the tall brunette turned his lap top around to show the screen to his friends.

“Holy shit,” Yami said, a low whistle escaping his lips. Even Bakura couldn’t think of a thing to say in the light of this new development. No matter what kind of shit they’d pulled, the most they’d ever had was warrant for their arrest (which they’d somehow managed to worm their way out of). This was an entirely different ball game.

“What the hell could he have done for someone to put a bounty on his head?” Marik murmured. “And it says alive only . . .” He tapped the screen with one fingertip. “I wonder who it is that put this out,” he said.

“It doesn’t say who put it out, or why,” Seto replied, turning the computer back around and tapping some commands into it. He shook his head after a moment. “Still nothing. I can’t find anything else on him . . . no background history, no trace contacts . . . nothing. It’s like he didn’t exist before he came to Japan.” He glanced back up at his friends, sapphire eyes dark. “I don’t need to tell you how hard that is to accomplish. There isn’t even a record of birth in here anywhere. It’s as if he suddenly popped out of the ground.”

Violet eyes turned to the individual in question, musing silently as he watched the smaller youth eat methodically, isolated at the far end of the geek table, in his own little world. That was one thing Marik had noticed that seemed terribly off about the other teenager . . . after two weeks in school, he should have made at least one or two friends. But Malik had made none. He hadn’t even appeared to try . . . more than that, it actually looked like he was attempting to avoid making any at all. And that simply didn’t make any sense.

It was almost as if he was afraid of making friends . . . but why would that be? Could it have something to do with his seemingly sporadic and frequent moves? It was a puzzle . . . a puzzle that Marik found was growing on his mind more and more with each passing day. He’d never been this intrigued by a person before in his life . . . and with Bakura’s ‘philosophy’ floating around in the back of his mind, he was beginning to wonder if his curiosity wasn’t turning into something more.

“Did you invite him to the party?” he asked suddenly, breaking his silence and drawing all eyes at the table back to him. Bakura nodded, nuzzling Ryou’s neck as his love finished eating.

“Yeah, I did. But I don’t think he’ll come . . . when I tried to talk to him this morning, he closed up his shields like I was the enemy.”

“Well, you are a bit . . . scary,” Ryou murmured, earning him a nip from his lover. “It’s the truth, ‘Kura. Maybe Yugi and I should try to talk to him. We’re not quite as . . . ummm . . . overbearing?” Yugi looked up at the mention of his name, amethyst eyes drifting to the blonde mystery before he nodded.

“We could give it a try,” he said, laying his head against Yami’s shoulder. “Couldn’t hurt. Maybe some less threatening individuals could get him to open up a bit.” He looked over at Malik again, a slight frown marring his pixie like features. “Besides . . . there’s something about him . . . I really get the feeling that he NEEDS friends, you know?”

Yami smiled slightly, ruffling his little lover’s hair affectionately.

“You’ve just got too good of a soul, Yugi,” he said. “To you, everyone needs a friend, and you just want to rush in and fill that spot.”

“Yeah . . . and that’s how you ended up with me, if you’ll kindly remember,” Yugi replied, smiling innocently. That innocent smile didn’t fool any of them, however. “Just look how that turned out. I don’t hear you complaining.” Yami smirked before leaning over to plant a teasing kiss on the upturned, smiling lips.

“That’s because you’re so cute when you’re writhing beneath me,” he said. Yugi flushed at the statement as the others laughed lightly. All of them could attest to Yugi being a screamer . . . and Yami was a skilled lover, something else they could attest to, considering the number of times they had all ended up in the same room. Things were relatively loose and free within the group . . . occasionally some swapping occurred, but it never bothered any of them. They all knew where everyone’s individual hearts lay . . . what was a little sex compared with true love?

The rest of the lunch passed relatively quickly after that . . . but Marik remained lost in thought, his gaze fixed on Malik across the room.


*-------*-------*-------*-------*


“Of course you can go, Malik!” Ishizu said, her hands clasping together in front of her, showing her happiness at the idea. “It’s about time you made some friends.”

Malik sighed and shook his head as she rattled on about how good it was to see him moving on with a normal life. If only she knew . . . a normal life was completely denied him, and not just by the marks on his back. There were things his sister didn’t know . . . things he didn’t intend for her to ever find out. If she knew the extent of what he’d been through . . .

He wasn’t going to this party to make friends, or to ‘hang out’. He was going to relieve the boredom of the weekend, and that was it. His one concern about it was that the other blonde was likely to be there.

He’d managed to avoid his disturbing look-alike over the past two weeks, still unsure as to how he felt about suddenly discovering someone who looked like a slightly taller, slightly different mirror image of him. He couldn’t get over his paranoia that his father had something to do with it, either, even though he knew it was irrational.

Then there was the fact that he had literally ‘felt’ the other teen’s eyes on him at times. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why . . . couldn’t he just look in a mirror? What was so interesting about him?

Retreating to his room before his sister started asking questions about school that he really didn’t want to answer, he sank down onto his bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling absently. It still didn’t feel like a haven . . . but then again, nothing did anymore. He couldn’t replace some of the poster’s they been forced to leave behind this time, and they hadn’t had the time to buy replacements for the other things that had been left. The room looked pretty dismal at the moment, truth be told. A carpet that looked like it might once have been blue, now faded to a dismal, dingy grey. Ragged blue curtains that had definitely seen better years . . . peeling cream colored walls . . . yeah, it was definitely not what he would call a haven. But it was better than nothing . . . and at least it was his.
No father to come in the middle of the night, no locks that did absolutely nothing to protect him . . .

He shuddered violently, sitting upright in the bed before moving to the window to stare out at the darkening sky. Night was coming . . . he would be compelled to turn the lights on soon. Complete darkness terrified him, with good reason. It had always been so dark when Father came . . .

With a soft sigh, he turned from the window and even darker memories, to his portable CD player, turning on some Enigma to try to relax. Laying back down on the bed, he concentrated on keeping his mind blank, until he fell into a deep slumber that for once was void of nightmares.


*--------*--------*--------*--------*


Across town, another blonde Egyptian lay in a very different bed, listening to very different music for a very similar reason.

He couldn’t get Malik out of his head . . . he’d been trying for two weeks now. As intriguing as the mystery surrounding the new student was, it didn’t warrant this odd infatuation. He wasn’t like this . . . he didn’t simply find someone interesting and set out to know everything about them. It was too easy for them to hurt him . . . and besides, if his own parents couldn’t love him, how could anyone else?

There was the entire crux of the problem, in a nutshell. He was beginning to suspect that this strange infatuation was something more, and that wasn’t right. He was a demon child, a hell-spawned brat . . . he’d certainly had it beaten into him often enough by his old man. Yeah, he had friends . . . friends who were just as dark as he was, with the exception of Yugi and Ryou. But friends didn’t love you . . . they only accepted you. And if his own parents hadn’t been able to love him, how could anyone else?

Yeah, Bakura and the others had told him they loved him numerous times . . . but those were just words. Then again, he didn’t really know what love was. He’d never experienced it.

It had to be the mystery he represented . . . once that was solved, this weird feeling would go away and he could get back to life as normal . . . apart of the group, but separate from the world. That was the way he liked it.

Too bad there was this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that was telling him he wasn’t as happy with the way things were as he wanted himself to be.