Cries of Kul Elna

[For clarification, the Thief King/Akefia in this is known as Baki because when he appeared in modern times (due to a yet-to-be-written series of events...), Bakura wasn't too thrilled about him having the same name so it was shortened.]

                                                                                         ...

Baki walked up the winding stairwell of the palace until he was standing on the outside loft, overlooking a crowd that was gathered beneath him. Spreading his arms apart caused a tumultuous roar from the people looking his way. He smiled, smug, and felt his heart pound upon hearing sounds of adoration seeping into his ears. His hands moved to the railing and he clutched onto it, which silenced the crowd.

"My people," he began, his voice strong and prideful, very much like his own, but different as if it didn't belong to him. "It is now the time to attack!" The crowd cheered. "Kul Elna will go down!"

Suddenly, he was leading an array of soldiers into a small village whereupon they attacked without remorse. Soon enough, Kul Elna was burning, her people following suit as they were killed mercilessly. Then Baki the Pharaoh was engulfed in flames, the fire licking his skin as if tasting him. He screamed out but his terror was drowned out by the smoke sucking away his breath.

                                                                                         ...

The ancient Egyptian flailed among his sheets until he flung himself up into a sitting position and gave out a long chorus of screams he was incapable of stopping. They were loud enough to cause the neighbor's dog to start barking. Still, he screamed and thrashed about.

                                                                                         ...

Marik woke with a start in his own room, his eyes wide and head buzzing. He sat up in bed and looked toward the door, knowing fully well which room the screams were pouring out of. He licked his lips before biting the lower one, not sure if he would be the best one for this job or if he should even attempt such a feat. The ex-thief king was proud and stubborn just like Bakura. Marik knew neither of them would want to let weakness show. But at least with Bakura, he understood him more to know how to help him. It was different with Bakura's past self.

"Bakura?"

He was well aware of Bakura clinging onto him. He lightly shook his shoulder, hoping to wake him. If anyone understood Baki's pain the most, it was him. But getting Bakura to wake was like pushing an elephant upstairs.

Bakura grumbled in his sleep. He had been having a perfectly pleasant dream about launching everyone he had ever been in a group project with into space. He heard screaming as he woke up and for a moment, wasn't sure if he was still dreaming or not. That moment ended as the screams continued and he recognized them as Baki's. Everyone in the household seemed to have a distinct style of screaming after waking up from nightmares induced by past trauma.

"It's Baki," Marik needlessly said. His hand moved to Bakura's hair and his fingers played with the strands. He pushed Bakura's bangs out of his face only for them to go right back. "Either he had a really bad dream or someone ate his cheesecake." He knew that even Baki wouldn't scream like that over a lost dessert, but he felt like saying it anyway. "You should go to him."

Bakura had in fact eaten Baki's cheesecake, but Baki didn't know that yet. The pale man yawned and rubbed his eyes as he processed what Marik had said. All five of them dealt with nightmares (some more than others) and had become fairly good at comforting each other afterwards. Baki, however, could be exceedingly difficult to console. When he was clearly experiencing some distress, he wasn't quick to accept soothing words and would sometimes lash out in anger. This usually caused Bakura to lash right back.

"Why not you Marik?" Bakura turned his head to look at him, "You're better at that kind of thing." Even as he asked he knew the answer. Bakura was the one who understood Baki the best out of all them, or at least that's what he was told. There were days where Bakura couldn't believe they had ever been the same person.

                                                                                         ...

Baki's throat was growing hoarse from screaming, but he kept going as segments of the dream kept tugging at him. Logically, he knew that the Pharaoh really hadn't sent his men out to destroy his village, but it didn't matter. While he was capable of acting rationally around Atem and Yugi, there was always a burning sensation in his eyes when he'd look at them. After so many years of believing it was the Pharaoh, it was hard not to think otherwise. The dream was made worse because he had been the Pharaoh. He had many nightmares about Kul Elna, but never through gleeful eyes. His fingers gripped tightly onto the sheets and sweat poured down in waves all over his body.

                                                                                         ...

Marik bit his lip again and looked down. "Not with him." He briefly smiled sadly at his boyfriend. "I can hum to you and kiss your head and tell you I love you. I can't do that with him if I don't want him getting the wrong impression." He paused, lost in thought for a moment. "That can't happen with you. Besides, he would see my comfort as babying him."

"If your comfort is babying, then I wonder what he sees mine as." Bakura wasn't really looking for an answer and was already getting out of the bed. He brushed his hand through Marik's hair once before going down the hall to Baki's room.

"Good luck," Marik whispered after Bakura left the room. He lied back down and looked up at the ceiling, silently cursing the gods for gifting all of the Bakuras such nightmarish lives, even if Ryo's pain could never match that of ninety-nine souls being extinguished without ever knowing it was coming. Thinking about it brought tears to Marik's eyes as he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
             
                                                                                         ...

Bakura didn't bother knocking since the door was slightly ajar, and instead just pushed it open with his shoulder as he entered. He had been expecting some physical distress, but nothing of this level of hysteria. He'd never seen Baki this bad after a distressing dream before. Bakura wasn't too sure about the "after" though. Baki appeared to still be in the throes of his nightmarish dreamscape. Not knowing what else to do, he gripped Baki by his shoulders and tried to shake him back to reality.

Baki felt firm hands grip onto his shoulders, the last of his screams seemed to ebb into a dry moan until he was almost whimpering. His usually tanned hands were pale from clutching the sheets for dear life. He closed his eyes, but this was a mistake as the dream threatened to pull him back. Upon opening them, he grabbed onto Bakura's upper arms near the elbows. He had meant to shove him off, but couldn't get himself to let go. His shoulders and arms relaxed, but his grip remained strong on Bakura's arms.

Bakura had been expecting Baki to push him to the floor when the other man grabbed him. He had braced himself for what he considered an inevitability, but was surprised when the panicking man relaxed against him instead. Thus, he decided to go with a typical soothing method. He rubbed small circles on Baki's shoulders.

"You're awake, you're awake. It was just a dream."

He knew this sort of assurance was the type needed after any of their hyper-real nightmares. Baki would probably start snapping at Bakura any minute now for "babying" him and Bakura was fine with that. He hated to see the person he once was reduced to a whimpering wreck. Bakura hated feeling that way and Baki hated it even more.

Reality was slowly starting to take hold once more and the smoke engulfing Baki evaporated into a fine mist. He blinked hard to rid of the hot tears in his eyes. While clutched onto Bakura, he panted like he had just been running a marathon. He hadn't been looking at Bakura before, but when the back rubs began, his eyes made his way to the other's dark, brown ones. Baki knew he would understand the pain that constantly plagued him. He wanted to pour out his feelings to the other man - his future self - and to be wrap his arms round him and never let go.

But he could never allow that. Besides, he had already put his cowardice on full display. He vaguely wondered if Bakura was silently pitying him. He didn't want pity and thinking about that possibility only caused a low growl to escape from his throat. In that instant, his eyes grew hard and he roughly shook the other man off of him.

Without missing a beat, Bakura crossed his arms and took a step back from Baki. If it had escalated to the point of Baki openly sobbing in front of him, he wasn't sure what he'd do. He could only feel relief as the now angry man glared at him. Anger was much easier to deal with.

"So I take it you had a bad dream?"

It was a pretty obvious question, yet Bakura asked it anyway. It would give Baki the chance to deny it if he so chose and pretend that he hadn't woken up almost everyone in the apartment with his terrified screams. On the other hand, if Baki wanted, he could also use the question to actually talk about his traumas. Either way was fine as far as Bakura was concerned. Although Baki denying the whole thing and subsequently kicking Bakura out would solve the problem of the shorter man having to comfort Baki without the latter biting his face off...

"Feff," came the gruff reply.

There hadn't been any malice in Bakura's tone, not a single word laced with sarcasm, but the sentence put Baki on edge anyway. He felt like he was being patronized even if the reality suggested differently. He threw the blankets off the bed since they had become sweltering after he'd begun sweating. The bottoms of his feet touched one another and he leaned over a little, placing his hands over his ankles and lightly massaging them.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he added at last, a bitter snap in his voice. He secretly wished he could be less hostile around those that were trying to help him.

Bakura was only a little peeved that Baki hadn't gone with one of the anticipated options, especially the second one. He also felt there was no real call for that snappy remark. Well, if it was a fight Baki wanted, it was a fight Baki was going to get.

"No, I asked 'did you have a bad dream' because I didn't want an answer. Because why does anyone ever ask questions if not to never receive an answer?"

His own sarcasm was a little uncalled for, but Baki had to realize that in this home no one's business ever stayed their own for long. 'Of course he didn't think I sincerely wanted to know, and I'm not surprised that he assumes the opposite,' Bakura thought to himself. 'I'm definitely not Ryo and hardly anyone believes that I honestly want to help when someone I care about is struggling.'

Baki looked up as the other spoke and appeared thoughtful for a moment, but his expression changed quickly as images of the dream began to creep back into his thoughts. He bit down a little too hard upon his lip and drew blood. Echoes of the Pharaoh's voice -his voice - had murmured into his ear. His eyes widened in the same manner they had been in earlier and his nostrils flared. The trickle of blood remained unwiped. He tasted copper on his tongue, but he didn't care. It would appear that he and Bakura were back at square one.

"I..." He was afraid to speak further lest the wrong voice come out.

Bakura's glare vanished as soon as Baki's hard expression was replaced with one of fear. The nightmare must have been especially bad if the tanner man was losing control and letting his "weaker" emotions show.

"You know, you can talk to me about this," Bakura said with a sigh as he sat on the mattress. "I went through everything you went through. Our nightmares aren't so different. There's no need to pretend that I couldn't possibly understand what you're feeling right now." His spoke his next words softer as if he was only saying them to assure himself. "Being afraid isn't the worst thing in the world."

The broader man nodded loosely, but if it was to show he was ready to discuss this, it was uncertain. He couldn't have said it better himself, even if he and Bakura were really one and the same. Two souls lost to time only to be brought back again at different points with personalities so different, but so similar that they often clashed. It was way too easy for Baki to let Bakura's words anger him. Much of the blame over his family's loss was cast on himself, and Bakura was as much himself as he was. Confusing, but it made perfect sense to him. It took all he had for Baki to muster up the courage to continue speaking.

"I...I am not so sure you have had the dream I did. It was..." He paused, letting out a sigh. "It was...different this time."

"Different how?"

Bakura was ready to get right to the meat of the matter whether Baki was or not. He had no idea what the nature of this dream could have been if it wasn't related to Kul Elna. He could say a lot about the nightmares in this house, but he couldn't call them inconsistent. It made things easier to a certain extent.

When Marik said he had the initiation dream, Bakura knew exactly which one he was talking about. The same went for the crash dream and the Zorc dream (that one could sometimes be trickier because almost all of them had dealt with that event and received emotional scars.) The first thing Bakura thought of when he heard Baki say "different" was that it was Zorc related and shit was about to go down again. He chased that thought away quickly. Zorc was gone, never to come back and to think otherwise left a bad taste in Bakura's mouth.

Baki could understand the pain his roommates all had, but because he had come late to the game, that understanding only went so far. He hadn't been there when Zorc manifested from the depths of Melvin's mind for example. Of all the household traumas, that was one that truly tied all of them together, all of them except for Baki who had essentially dealt with Zorc alone thousands of years prior. Right now however, the master of Darkness wasn't even a blip on his radar. He mulled over Bakura's question as though he could taste it, much like the blood that was still dribbling down his chin.

"It was about Kul Elna, always is." He looked down at his feet again, the skin glowing red from his persistent rubbing. "But like I said, it was different." Baki may have finally started to relent, but he wasn't about to make it easy.

Bakura nodded mutely. He hadn't really expected anything besides a Kul Elna dream and was glad in a way that it wasn't a new trauma. As much as the memories of his village's destruction burned him, it was something he could handle and relate to.

"How was it different this time? I can't figure out how that dream could be made any worse..."

He didn't mention his own variation on the dream - the one where he stops the soldiers, but the village is destroyed anyway. He was trying to help Baki, not mull through his own night terrors.

"It...I..."

Baki clenched his teeth and could feel his neck and face grow hot, though it wasn't embarrassment he was feeling. His pupils flickered to the left and right as he searched for an answer he could give Bakura. He really wasn't sure how to put into words what he'd experienced. 'I was the Pharaoh? The Pharaoh was me? ...No, that's not right either. We were one and the same? Closer, but it's still not right.' The confusion playing upon his thoughts showed up on his face and he balled his hands into fists and buried his forehead in them, rubbing his temples as he did so.

"He was speaking through me," he finally said, omitting details despite his desire to make Bakura understand what happened. "And I was him? But not him. The palace...crowd...speech..." He looked to Bakura, his eyes pleading for him to grasp what he was trying to say.

Baki acting as the Pharaoh and causing the death of his family in his dream was definitely one way for it to be worse.

"I think I understand what you mean." Bakura said quietly after a moment or two. "It must have been like you were the one saying those things, but also like you were watching from outside it."

Baki's roommates had explained how the massacre had actually happened and that the Pharaoh had nothing to do with it. It seemed as if his subconscious would not let go of his perception of past events.

He nodded slowly, his eyes flicking downward and closing, unable to meet Bakura's gaze anymore. He let out a long, shuddering sigh. His left arm dropped to his side and hung limply. A small part of him felt like vomiting, but he breathed in and out a few times to prevent this.

"Just like that," he managed to croak out. "Just like that. I...him...we were smiling, proud to know that in moments we would have Kul Elna at our mercy. And it felt good. It..."

He suddenly became very angry and a string of ancient curses were released from his mouth. He turned away from Bakura and planted his feet on the carpet with his hands gripping tightly to the mattress. He stared hard at the ground and looked like he would punch something at a moment's notice. Bakura hoped that that something wouldn't be his face.

"It was a dream Baki. Dreams are weird and can make you feel weird things. We both know you would never want that, that it never happened like that."

He resumed his earlier ministrations of rubbing Baki's back with his hand. He was too tired to know what else to try. What he did know was that Baki looked to be on the verge of crying, and that the proud man would do anything to keep from weeping in front of Bakura.

Baki grunted and shook Bakura off with his shoulder.

"I don't deserve comfort," he snarled.

He fully understood that it had been a dream and dreams worked in strange ways, but he also believed that they could be messages - signs even - from the gods. Though the gods had abandoned him during the times he needed them most, there was still a large part of him that couldn't let go of old traditions and values. The subject wasn't one he typically discussed with Bakura so he didn't always know where the other stood on these issues. What little he did know told him Bakura wasn't so keen on holding them in any kind of good light.

"What do you mean you 'don't deserve comfort'!?" Bakura all but shouted. "We had nothing to do with how our people were massacred!"

Pronouns between them could be confusing. After all, they were once the same person. Now there were thousands of years between them mentally. Bakura had enough trouble with his own guilt to want to hold onto Baki's as well. It really did feel like Baki was accusing Bakura even as he accused himself.

Baki didn't want to explain, didn't want to talk about all the pain he and Bakura shared. All he wanted was to drift off into a sleep devoid of dreams and shadows. But he knew it couldn't be that easy. It was never that easy. He raised his fist and slammed it onto the mattress, which was less satisfying that he would've liked it to be. He was angry with Bakura but he was even angrier at himself for having such a dream in the first place. He stood and swung around with his arms outstretched accusingly.

"Tell me why I dreamed I was the Pharaoh then! Tell me why I felt so good about something I shouldn't!? THAT does NOT deserve comfort!" He bellowed, not caring if the entire complex heard him. The dog next door whined again.

"Do I look like some sort of dream interpreter to you?" Bakura demanded angrily.

He had known that an argument was inevitable the moment he entered the room.

"It didn't mean anything! It was just a messed up nightmare. And I'll damn well comfort anyone I bloody want!"

If Bakura had been Ryo, he wouldn't have been shouting right then. Ryo always seemed to know the soothing words necessary for calming anyone down. Unluckily for Bakura however, Ryo was not in the apartment at present to offer assistance.

"Go ahead, wake the whole damn building if you feel like it. I'm going to make some tea."

With that, Bakura stood up and stalked out the door. If Baki wasn't going to listen to him, then what was the point in him staying at all?

                                                                                         ...

"'Kura?" Marik lifted his head drowsily when the commotion began. "Wha….what's goin'…on?"

He shook the lump of blankets next to him until he woke up enough to remember his boyfriend had left the bed earlier to talk to Baki. His head hit the pillow again and he closed his eyes. He could only hope that the two Bakuras would work out whatever was ailing them.

                                                                                         ...

Baki was left speechless when Bakura walked out of the room. Logically he realized that it was pointless for Bakura to stay when he was being difficult, but he still didn't want to be alone, not after being reduced to a shriveled heap of a man only half an hour ago. He waited until he heard the refrigerator open before slowly moving into the hall toward the kitchen.

He was aware of every creak and groan his feet made with every step upon the plush carpet beneath him. The kitchen seemed to loom in front of him as stepped in. He swore quietly once carpet gave way to tile. It was particularly cold tonight.

Bakura grumbled moodily as he pulled the milk out of the fridge.

"Try to help him? He doesn't want comfort. I don't know what Marik was thinking sending me in there. I'm no good at it."

His quiet ranting continued as he grabbed a mug and stared sullenly at the kettle. It was taking extra long to heat up, almost as if it were mocking him.

"Why put so much weight in dreams? We'd all be a lot better off if they didn't bother us so much."

Whereas Ryo kept most of his ranting and ramblings in his head, Bakura was the exact opposite. He could rant about nothing to no one for ages.

Baki stood quietly watching Bakura from where he was. When Bakura didn't know he was being watched, he tended to express his feelings much more than he would with other people present. While these moments were good for understanding Bakura's true thoughts, they were bad for the exact same reason. Baki's shoulders sagged upon hearing how much trouble he was causing Bakura at such a late hour. He didn't want to cause problems for people, not really, but he still demanded a certain amount of persistence on their part.

"C'mon already!" Bakura hissed at the lazy kettle.

He wouldn't have cared much under normal circumstances, but he was already pissed off and the taking-too-long tea pot wasn't helping. He wasn't sure why he was so angry. Maybe it was because Baki's dream reminded him of his own pain. Marik's presence in his life every day certainly helped, but there was always going to be lingering hurt. The kettle finally shrieked and Bakura poured it over his cup. He looked at it and then pulled another one out.

"I might not be able to comfort people like Ryo, but I can make tea just as well as he can." He could almost hear Ryo's voice in his head extrapolating on how tea is good for any situation.

It was at these words that Baki walked to the table and took a seat.

"You do make good tea," he said quietly and with the smallest of smiles.

He still bore a pained expression on his face, but the smell of tea was calming even if it was far from his drink of choice. He tended to prefer hardier substances such as beer and hot chocolate, though not necessarily at the same time.

Bakura jolted. He hadn't noticed Baki come in, and thought he would have to go back to the room to bring him some tea.

"Hmph, all it is is boiling water."

He gathered the tea items and walked over to the table. Everyone in the house took their tea differently so he would just let Baki handle that himself. Bakura sat down and ran a hand through his hair. He willed his tea to steep faster - knowing he wouldn't have to say anything if his lips were on a mug.

Baki gratefully took the tea up in his hands and sipped well before it was properly steeped. This always infuriated Ryo, but Baki would only laugh his head off and walk away. He really didn't mind a watery tea. He also didn't appreciate too many added ingredients. As addicted to sugar as he'd become, he still preferred his sweet tooth to stop at beverages. He set the mug down and held it loosely in his hands.

"Then you make the best boiled water in the house," he smirked. If he couldn't be comforted in the normal way, he could at least try to mask his feelings with humor.

"Damn right I do."

Bakura was grateful that he wasn't being dragged back to "comfort-mode" just yet. Baki wouldn't have recovered that quickly based on how he had earlier reacted. His modern-day self was content to let Baki cope in his own way - for now. If the dream got brought up again, Bakura didn't think he could let it drop so easily. He even figured that Baki had gotten all his crying done after Bakura left. Since he had yet to bear witness to such a thing (from an outside perspective, no less), he had no idea how he'd react. It was one thing to see a few tears, but that's all Baki ever dared show. If anything, Bakura could either hold out a box of tissues at arm's length, or flee.

Baki took a second sip of tea and shook his head at the table. He remained silent after that as he contemplated what had happened thus far. Baki was probably unaware how volatile his emotions could be. One moment he could be in a terrifying rage and the next, desolate and suffering. The way his life was pre-modern world, it made perfect sense that his handle on emotions was shaky at best.

"How do you do it?" He finally said, once again not providing ample details.

When Bakura's tea was finally ready he poured some sugar and milk into it.

"You know how to use the kettle." He said, misunderstanding the question. "You fill it with cold water and put it on the stove." If Bakura knew what Baki meant, he was dancing around it.

'I already know Baki knows how to make tea. It's about the dream again.' His thoughts churned as he tried to figure out what to say once the other man repeated his question.

Baki's eyes darkened and he lifted his head to meet Bakura's eyes.

"Don't be stupid. You know damn well what I-" He stopped in mid-sentence and looked down slightly. "Sorry," he muttered into his tea. "I'm going to try to not be so mad about you not being able to read my mind."

He sighed and clasped his hands together, resting them on his chin and looking off to the side. His face turned back to Bakura a moment later.

"But really, how do you deal with the guilt and the pain?" He frowned deeply. "You've been around longer than me. Please tell me that one day it gets easier for me."

This was the question Bakura had been expecting and the one he didn't really know how to answer. Mostly he dealt with it by pushing it down way deep inside where it couldn't get at him. It wasn't the healthiest way of coping, but it was the Bakura way. That was the Baki way as well except Baki's emotions had always been more volatile and closer to the surface. His attention went back to the question at hand.

"By ignoring them for the most part I guess. Some days I distract myself so well that they don't hit me at all. Other days it's all I can do not to focus on how it still hurts."

It wasn't like Bakura to be so open, but he had been asked a direct question and the tea was lulling him somewhat. And after all, nighttime was made for what you can't say when the sun is up.

"I try that too," Baki replied before being quiet for a long time after that. "But you also have Marik."

For once, traces of envy weren't part of his tone when bringing up the fact that he still didn't have someone to call his own. He really hadn't been looking for the end-all-solution to his pain it seemed. That was something he knew there would never be a cure for. But talking to Bakura about it helped a little. It was nice, if not sad, that they both dealt with the hurt in similar ways. He took another sip of his tea.

"It's not the best, but it's something." Bakura shrugged and gulped down some tea. "Yeah, I don't know what I'd do without him." He paused as a tiny smile made its way to his lips. "I mean, it's hard to think about death when he's so full of life." Bakura traced the grain of the table with his fingertips. These were the words he wished he could say to Marik himself, but he had never been able to spit them out.

Baki smiled again, this time with a much warmer expression. Marik drove him crazy sometimes and he knew the same was true for Bakura, but the blonde male really could light up a room with his typically cheerful demeanor. Marik and Ryo equally shared the status of being the mom of the group, but Marik's energy and spirit were boundless.

"Ah, such truth to those words." He lifted his mug and tipped it toward Bakura. "Here's to the guy that yaps too much." He said this with the utmost affection.

Bakura was glad the subject of conversation had moved on. He knew no more how to help Baki than he knew how to help himself. He clinked his mug with Baki's and took another gulp.

"Without which this apartment would be too quiet."

"For sure," Baki replied. Then he frowned, which didn't seem good right after they had switched gears. "Except that it wouldn't be. We would still have Melvin's music blasting through the walls."

Bakura nodded in agreement. He hated Melvin's taste in music which was saying something because it was so varied. From show tunes to One Direction to weird alternate music that should be universally hated, Melvin played it all.

Baki chuckled lightly and stood up, planting his palms onto the table and hunching over.

"Hey Bakura, I...I want to say thank you. You've made tonight much more bearable." It came out a little forced, but it was the thought that counted after all.

Bakura blinked in surprise at Baki's gratitude. The usual routine would have been to pretend the night's events had never happened.

"You're welcome." He threw in a "don't mention it" before Baki could accuse him of being too sappy.

Ignoring Bakura, the shorter man slowly walked around the table toward the fridge. He spoke as he walked.

"In fact, I'm feeling so gracious that I think I'll let you have some of my cheesecake. Sounds really good right now. It's got care-mel on it."

His hand gripped the fridge's handle. He didn't yet know that Bakura had already eaten it.

Bakura froze where he was sitting. He had been banking on Baki not touching that cheesecake until the next day. That way he had a better chance of convincing the other man that he consumed it in his sleep. Now there was nowhere to hide and no way to get out of it.

Extra light filtered into the kitchen once Baki opened the door. He stuck his head in the fridge and scavenged around inside, looking for his beloved cheesecake. 'They really should call it cheese pie because it is pie, not cake,' he offhandedly thought.

"Huh, I can't find it." He glanced back at his friend and gave him a quizzical look before trying the freezer to see if he'd accidentally misplaced it. "Nope, still not seeing it." He scratched his head, becoming less gracious by the minute. "Where is it!?" He wheeled around to face Bakura, the fridge doors remaining wide open. "If you ate it, I swear I'm going to kill you."

"Perhaps you misplaced it? Or it was never there to begin with…" Bakura was slowly edging away from the table. It was about fifty feet to Marik's room and safety. "You know, it's a silly dessert anyway. Cheesecake? What even is that?"

Baki took a large step forward, balling up his fists in the process. He pointed angrily at Bakura. "You did eat it, didn't you? Don't try to say you didn't!" He let out a string of curses. "I was going to share that with you even before tonight happened! You, Ryo, and I were going to eat it together!" He reached back into the fridge, grabbed the leftover meatloaf, and hurled it at Bakura's shoulder. "That's for the cheesecake!" He looked like he was about to find something else to lob.

Bakura ducked down and grabbed the meatloaf from the floor. He threw it back at Baki to blind him as he made his retreat. He didn't look back.

Baki shouted something incoherent after the fleeing Bakura, but didn't pursue him. Instead, he made some effort to clean up the mess, even eating some of it, and grabbed a bunch of blankets so he could sleep on the roof under the stars. His bedroom was the last place he wanted to return to tonight.

                                                                                         ...

The next morning, Marik wrapped his arms around Bakura's waist in the bathroom, giving him a kiss on his neck.

"Mornin' Mr. Crazy Hair." He gave his boyfriend a good squeeze and rested his head near his cheek, snuggling him. "Did you find out what was bothering Baki?" Marik was eager to know all of the details and then some.

"I resent that comment. Besides Melvin always has worse bed head than all of us combined." He stared in the mirror knowing that Baki would not want what they had discussed to be shared. He gave a dismissive flick of his head. "Apparently someone ate the cheesecake he was saving for a late-night snack. You know Baki, has to be a drama queen about everything."

"Really? Well if those screams were from the loss of a cheesecake, I'm scared to know what his trauma-induced terrors would sound like." Marik gave Bakura one more hug before leaving the bathroom to help Ryo in the kitchen.

                                                                                         ...

Bakura gazed in the mirror a little longer. He didn't like lying to Marik, but things said at a kitchen table at 2 a.m. are best kept between the people that shared them. It was up to Baki to decide if he wanted his other roommates to be privy to the conversation.

He ran a hand through his hair - yet another feature that was similar to Baki's, but only just so - and walked out the door to breakfast.

                                                                                         End