Never Rid of You

Spoilers: Some.
Pairings: Malik x Mariku
Lemon in this chapter: In a completely innocent way, yes.
Chapter: (4/8?)

People are probably going to strangle me for this, but I've added in a side-story to this chapter. If you don't want to read it as a prologue to the next fic, just skip when see see the ~Elsewhere~.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! nor the characters involved in this work of fiction. This has been written without motive for profit or violation of copyrighted material, and the writer has only created this work for personal amusement to be shared with others. Yay. That saves my ass. Again.

On with the fic!!


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Drifting Away

"Yours is bigger than mine."

Rishid's head raised at hearing that from the blond boy seated on a stone slab across from him. A light splash came as the boy kicked his feet. "I beg your pardon, Master Malik?"

The boy pointed first to the man, then himself. Hazel eyes blinked before it struck him, thereafter stammering for an explanation as the rag circled his own shoulder.

"O-oh... That's because I'm older than you. I'm much bigger than you are. You're still very young, Master Malik. Don't worry." With that the man went back to scrubbing himself, leaving Malik to sit there miserably, if not in awe.

....At this rate he had a lot of growing to do.

He still wasn't used to being watched as he bathed. He had hoped that, being eight, he was old enough to wash himself, especially after their father had deigned him mature enough for the ritual of the tomb keeper.

It made him uncomfortable, and the other him seethe. Deep inside the boy, in the Room they shared, Me remained seated against the wall and sighed. The other him was always so much more... solid, around his siblings. He drew strength from them, as Me drew strength from Malik's hurt. He wasn't hurt, around them, and so, he was almost starved for those darker creases in the disheveled fabric of his being.

It was making the passage of time almost unbearable, and more than anything he wanted the boy back with him in their haven, all to himself. All to himself to corrupt.

...He would just have to take those belovibliiblings away. It wouldn't be too difficult... Worrying so much for them, Malik would do anything to make them happy. ...He would see to that personally.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~58 Days Left~

"You're spoiled, you know..."

Sat in the sand with arms around his knees was Malik, staring off to the endlessly blue sky. So long he'd craved to bathe in that warmth, the light that cast sun silk strands almost white like the hot disk that coursed the sky in the lazy morning.

"I am not..."

Inside the Soul Room, the pair held each other. The eight candles sitting high on their perches put out. The water lurked and whispered about them, the taller wrapped about the shorter as they sat naked on the steps of the abyssful pool.

"They worry so much for you," Me murmured to his ear, mercury lavender hues thick with something Malik could not identify. Cruelty was not a thing he was intimately familiar with, enough so that he could know it when he saw it. "You're such a burden to them. Here, they prepare the body of your father for the next world, and you osit sit there like a heap of Nile's silt, doing nothing but stealing Ra's light for yourself."

...Malik hadn't thought of it quite like that. Memories flooded in as the other continued. Arms about him fastened tight, feeding on the grief that began to pang his lighter half, hoarding it to himself and leaving only a numb to begin pooling in the other's gut.

His voice, as the smaller had classified a mix of honey wine that bathed a wicked blade, continued to rasp against his ear and make cheeks warm. "You wanted to see the surface world. Pleaded, begged, and wouldn't climb down from their leg even as they tried to shoo you off from the idea. They gave you what you wanted - and Rishid was punished for it! Because you did not follow the will of the Pharaoh," he added, voice dropping to a whisper that was felt more in Malik's chest than in the breath at his ear, "your father was punished. You were his responsibility, and you disobeyed.

"Now, your brother and sister both must grieve, watch his body, while you play out in the sun. Such a stupid, pathetic, needy boy you are."

"W-...what should I do?" Desperate eyes stared off to the hieroglyphics that sat on the wall, his breath a flutter much like his pulse.

It was exactly the question Me had been waiting for.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~35 Days Left~

Isis sighed as she watched the sunset. Her baby brother was out there as well, seated on a felled slope of wall. His hair was stained a fiery orange from the decent of the gilded disk at the horizon, the atmosphere around it a bloody hue that haloed and thus cast his form to only a shadow otherwise. Nervously, fingers came up to the Tauk that sat on her neck.

If what I have foreseen is true, he will not be the tender Malik I once knew much longer...

"...He's stopped talking to me," came a deep alto from behind her, making her jump and stomach twist. Turning partially, she found Rishid and let go of her breath. Lighter orbs only greeted her solemnly, and then drifted to the boy sitting out on the rocks. "...It's like he doesn't acknowledge us anymore."

"Like a thick blanket was tossed over him, slowly taking away his air..." When only tense silence greeted her she shifted her weight against the stone wall.

They shared a spot in the cooler shade of the stairs, and she had watched her brother for the past hours. Just like the past weeks he refused to acknowledge them unless he somehow deemed it important to do so. It was beginning to upset her that he was drifting further and further away from them.

Lavender sta stared ahead, wondering what kind of motorcycle he could get.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~Elsewhere~

It felt like the bed was going to swallow him up with its girth, so many times larger than himself. With the canopy drawn shut, there wasn't even enough light for him to stare with large azure hues at fingers twisting at the coverlet.

"...Nii-sama?" he heard in a squeaky whisper from what had to be the doorway. Immediately he sat up and arranged himself in the pajamas before he scrambled for a random direction.

"Oomph...!" sounded with the thump of his form to the plush carpet, his legs still snared by the thick ripples of the curtains around his bed. Picking his head up, he could see past the mess of sable bangs the mess of hair absorbing the sliver of light from the hallway. "Mokun, what is it?" he asked quietly while attempting to free himself from the trap that was his bed.

Mokuba shriveled closer against the door, somehow thinking he could sink in to it if he tried hard enough. "I can't sleep. My room's so..."

"...big," Seto finished for him comfortingly, the other boy making a nod that stirred onyx tresses. Smoothing down the front of the white satin with its buttons, he sighed. "Mokun, this is our home now."

"...House," the boy corrected meekly, a stormy blue eye large on his brother still a heap on the floor. If he wasn't so terrified right now, he would have been giggling.

A flush of confusion stained pale cheeks, the brunet boy glaring for him to explain.

The hallway was just as creepy to him, endless hallways of doors with no numbers or names, and no map for him to get familiar with. It was like those horrible dreams of corridors that went on forever. Sliding himself through the crack of the door he moved tiny hands to click it shut as silently as possible. After that he scurried along in black slippers to get to the form of his brother he could barely make out in the moonlight through the tall windows.

Cerulean hues followed him until the other boy sat down at the edge of the bed. Seto followed suit, claiming seat beside him on the mountain of fluff. Earlier, when Gozaburo had finished their basic tour and showed Seto to his room, he'd given a very clear warning:

Keep this bed clean, and we won't have any problems.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew a bed was for sleepin, sn, so why the man had gone through the effort of threatening him like that he didn't exactly know. Mokuba was the one prone to bringing late-night snacks to his covers.

...It still left him uneasy, that he'd been ordered to strip after that. Gozaburo Kaiba was one of the richest men in Japan. He found it difficult to wrap his mind around the idea that he was as twisted as to revel in watching little boys. Luckily, the instance hadn't lasted long, and he'd been allowed to change into afternoon attire for dinner.

The idea that the old man had prepared for their arrival hadn't escaped him, as all of the clothes that were in the drawers were already waiting for him. But if that was the case, why did he need someone to go with them to shop for Mokuba tomorr
T
Thoughts were stolen from him when he felt his brother's little arms try to wrap around him, only succeeding to get most of the way around and clasp to his shirt instead. "...Home is an intangible concept. A house is just where you live."

Aside from teaching his little brother to play chess, it warmed his heart to one of the few smiles he had left that his brother had gotten at least that far through the dictionary.

"...Whatever intangible means." His nose wrinkled, and Seto couldn't help but chuckle and close his arms around the bundle of warmth and black hair that was his brother. "Can't I sleep with you tonight...?"

"Mokun... You won't learn how to sleep in your own bed if you keep slipping in to mine." Fingers moved through the obsidian rat nest that was his brother's mane, something he was sure Gozaburo would make him cut soon.

"Please?" Fingers wound tighter to the soft fabric hanging on his older brother. It shimmered dully in ivory hue, and with the way the night's light through the windows played on the pajamas adorning his brother he could swear that Seto was more than just his older brother...

...He was his guardian angel.

After a shake of his head, he concluded that there was a curriculum he was going to have to learn: how to say no to his brother. "Come on then," he said in a notch of defeat, clamoring his way back to the hill of pillows and the imprint he'd made in the sheets for the couple of hours he'd been in it. Once he had himself situated, he held his arms out for his brother whom gleefully took to clutzing his stumpy way over the sea of blanket to nestle in to place against white satin and sheet.

He wasn't sure exactly how long it was, but not very he was sure, before the lids of his eyes fell heavy in the steady, thankful lull of his little brother's heartbeat.

Hours later he suppressed a screech at stinging on his eyes. Instead he only hissed, water sitting on sapphire hues as he fixed them towards the source of his grief.

A fuming Gozaburo loomed silently in the gape of curtains that the sunlight was dancing through. Nothing could ruin the day's mood, even for as much as that punishing glower was making him wonder, exactly what he'd done wrong. He was still sandwiched into the pillows, the definitive weight of his brother still snoozing away atop his chest.

"Disappointing," was all the man said. Seto was sure that his meaty hands were ready to rip the curtains right off. ...Or yank his brother away by the hair.

...He hoped Gozaburo made Mokuba cut it so short that it couldn't happen. It was too fun to play with for Seto to do it himself.