#feyfic

The most recent thing he remembers, if he really tries, is leaving home with Him. 

Those sharp nails rested against his wrist, guiding him through a door he didn’t recognize to somewhere he didn’t know. Only knew that He would be there. And that he would follow. 

He remembers hearing knocking, which was ridiculous because it was no one's home. He heard hinges creak and a slam which made no sense as the doorway was open already, he was halfway through it.

And just when he stepped through and left for good - he thinks he remembers hearing someone say his name.

-----

He enters the room with yawns and stretches. There is no need to wait for breakfast because they who serve Him have already brought it out. He eats simply - mostly bread and fruits, sometimes cheese. It’s the other plate, his plate, that’s graced with a full breakfast.

“Good morning, ‘Kura.”

He says this every morning and hasn't once forgotten to. He pets him gently every time, and before ‘Kura can complain about the treatment, He kisses him softly on the temple. And everything filters out but a twisted bliss at the attention, and the knowledge that this is all very, very wrong.

-----

He can’t forget the first bath he’d had here. The experience bled into weeks of scratching and howling and bleeding. 

“I don’t understand - your skin has layers too, doesn’t it?” He’d murmured while examining Bakura’s red, swollen skin. He pulled - ripped  - at what looked like a splinter but came out like a barb, as if it dug itself into his muscle, under the skin itself and latched itself to the underside. Bakura howled, tore himself away, swearing and yelling over a yelp and a flurry of ‘sorry, sorry, I’m sorry!’. Clutching his arm, feeling the blood between his fingers and the pain, the itch of all the others underneath. When he rubs or scratches it hurts. 

[Big Gap, never wrote connective tissue]

“I found out how to fix this!” He’d said triumphantly. “I did more reading about human sanitary practices and went out and got this!” With that, he’s handed a small box, and the fiendish Fey before him smiles. “It’s called ‘soap’.”

-----

 [timeskip and gap]

“You were perfectly content being fed and cuddled and played with,” He says. “You didn’t - you still haven’t even asked my name.”

Bakura stares from the bed.

Then He tells him. 

“It’s Ryou.”

------

His name is not ‘Kura. Ryou just calls him that - sometimes he’ll use the ‘Ba’ first, mostly when he - Ba-kura, making Bakura - is in trouble.

[Very large gap]

“I hadn’t eaten because of you,” Bakura growls hoarsely. When He looks away, shoulders hunching in shame, he finds a nugget of satisfaction. 

“I said I was sorry,” He murmurs. 

“Sorry?” Bakura scoffs. “That’s it? You’re sorry?”

“And it won’t happen again.”

“Oh, ya pinky-promise?”

His head tilts. “Pinky?”

[Another gap - told you I barely connected this]

Bakura wakes up to a platter of food. He must be delusional - it looks and smells like it’s actually cooked.

“You like your meat rare, right?” asks a familiar voice - He sits beside him and smiles. “I, ah, didn’t bother to do it myself this time… it was from that place we went to.” 

He just prettied it up with the platter and silverware. Whatever implication that has is tossed to the wayside in favor of eating.

It’s cooked, seasoned, and warm. Bakura could cry.

“But I also got- um,” Ryou’s fingers press together, sheepishly. “I got a book for cooking. So I can get better at it.”

Bakura slows down. He still chews, of course, but he’s trying to focus on Ryou now.

“You know, when I left you that day to come home and get your room ready, I’d - I’d felt so confident about this whole thing. I read all the books, and I got the enrichment and equipment and pet-safe furniture… but the second I couldn’t get back I was practically shedding with worry. I - hadn’t even considered what would happen if you would ever be away from me for too long.” He stops, taking a lingering look at Diabound. “And then,” a slow, fond smile crosses his face. “And then I remembered how much you knew about Diabound’s needs and I thought - ‘did ‘Kura know what to do when he was in this position’?”

“...” Bakura turns back to his food. “Snakes can go without food for up to two months - but they need water much more frequently.”

“And you were working on a time limit to get out of there,” Ryou’s voice is fond - too fond. “That’s why you did what you did.”

Bakura’s quiet.

“You’d do anything to make sure she was safe and happy and… and it took me until you were in pain to even recognize you couldn’t even clean yourself.” His hands fist in his lap. “...I’m… I’m so sorry for how I’ve been,” Ryou says softly. “I’ve been trying to make a home for you, but… knowing about Humans doesn’t mean I know enough about the differences between us.”

[Large Gap]

“But I’m a damn adult with a damn lease and a damn job to feed my damn snake,” Bakura snaps. “I did all of that on my own, and I’ll do it all a-damn-gain on my own once I’m out of your needy fffucking grip!”

He looks at him, wide eyed, mouth dropped into a small oval. Those eyes, infinite and bottomless, search him. Well, they can search all they like for whatever they like. There’s nothing pathetic about him.

“All on your own?” Ryou says, His voice slow, tinged with the soft timbre of pity as if Bakura ever needed that. “Was no one else there?” 

Bakura snarls at the hand coming to his cheek, “I”m an adult-,” but when it rests, his words stay locked behind his teeth, his breath held prisoner in his lungs. 

“Adults hunt in packs,” Ryou says. “They work and play and rear children together. What monsters let their cub suffer like that?”

Bakura doesn’t falter, won’t fall for this creatures’ act. It needs to be an act, if only for Himself. There’s only so much ignorance you can exhibit before it’s simply malice.  “I don’t need your pity-” 

He stops. His brow unfurrows at the rightmost wet streak on Ryou’s face, jaw loosening as he watches this wretched Fey tear up. 

“Did you hear yourself?” He asks. “Why do you talk about living like it’s a prize?”

“It was,” he says, through firm teeth. Nevermind his shaky memories of where he’d lived, who he’d known - he knew he had found his own path, got his own money, dug himself upwards and forwards. He didn’t succumb to the various options to fail like those around him. He’s allowed to be proud of that. “I earned it.”

The hand slides back, light nails dancing slow against his skin, resting against the flat of his neck. His thumb brushes softly beneath his ear. 

“You were always entitled to a good life. You still are.” Bakura’s doomed, the other hand comes too, cradles the opposite side and drags him forward till their foreheads touch. “And I want to give you a life you can live.”

“I can’t-” He’s breathless, searching for something, anything. A thought to cling to, a reason to disagree. “I can’t…” He drowns in the color of the earth, the smell of its dust after rain wafts from His skin. 

“Tell me everything you need,” Ryou says softly, almost too softly. Almost like He loves him. 

Bakura drops the knife. Ryou doesn’t look, as though it was never important to begin with.

“I’m hungry,” The words fall out. “I need meat. And eggs and starch and-”

“Make a list,” Ryou interrupts him. “You’ll have everything you ask for.”

“I need to-” His tongue runs dry. “I can’t clean myself-”

“Well, that’s an easy fix,” Ryou chuckles, “everything in this home is mine - everything is touched by myself, at all times. And since everything you need must remind you of me--”

No, he doesn’t understand, Bakura grips him by the shoulders, drags Him in, he needs to understand. “I can’t bathe.”

“...Ah.” Ryou realizes. “You can’t….”

And that…

“Is that… related to something else? Poor thing.” Ryou pulls him closer. Bakura follows His lead without much choice - Ryou tilts his head for him without much resistance. “You can always ask.” 

It’s a soft kiss, one that tastes like pomegranates and the smell of harvest. His hands move back across his jaw and cheek; a thumb grazes the bottom of his bottom lip. Bakura feels all of it, his focus divided between ten fingers, each individual fingertip drawing a unique path along his neck, down his chest, and he’s compelled - there no other word for it - to bring Him closer, kiss Him deeper, slip his own tongue across His lip and hear him gasp and sigh like a nymph.

“I had fun last time,” Ryou speaks softly, but not quiet. Hypnotic, it beckons him to trail his mouth down Ryou’s neck. “Did you?” Bakura nods. “You asked me then to be my only pet - do you remember?”

Bakura mumbles an excuse against His warm collarbone, “that was playful banter.”

“There was some truth to it,” Ryou’s hands slip into his hair. Soft strokes and little massages with his fingertips lull him closer, coax his hands to find His skin. “You said ‘if you treat them all like’ -” He’s cut off by His own little moan, muffled by tightly-pursed lips - He’s enjoying this, Bakura can feel that fact against his thigh. “I haven’t filled my end of that bargain.” 

The hand in his hair tightens. 

Bakura’s head is pulled back again, examined under His eye. “Do you want me to?” Bakura tries to nod - can’t, with the hand in his hair. Ryou ignores any silent pleas, His eyes boring into Bakura’s. “Say it.”

“Yes.” It falls from him, pulled by sheer presence. He feels weak. His hair is pulled again and his spine shakes.

“Did you like that?”

“Mm-hm.” No answer, no change - will He truly only accept words? “Yes?”

“Good pet.” A hum. A kiss to his chin. “You have a nasty habit of hiding what you mean - it makes things difficult sometimes.”

[For Sale. Large Gap. never connected.]

I want you to tell me what you need,” Ryou says. “Clearly. Without me needing to guess or push you.” When Bakura shakes his head, he’s taken firmly by Ryou’s hand and forced to stop - he’s surprised at the strength in Ryou’s grip. “Don’t disagree with me on this. You need to learn to ask me for what you need, I can only give you what you ask for. Stop making me force your hand.” Then, quieter, into his ear, “not everything you deserve needs to be won.”

There’s an ache in his chest - the spot where his heart would be, if he had one - alongside the ache in his dick, a swollen need from torment that can only be pleasure. Bakura growls at it, at the implications it brings.

“You’re just as strong when you ask for me,” Ryou smiles against his ear. “I think you’re stronger when you can be honest.”

Despite himself, Bakura’s breath turns ragged.

“And you’re very attractive when you want this badly,” His voice is thick, playful, “very sexy.”

And he tries, he really tries, not to lose himself in the tongue running along his ear, the long rubbing up and down his chest to sternum to belly and up and down and up again. But he can hear the cusp on which his wantonness stands. He’s sure Ryou can too.

“And if you told me, right now, that you want me to have control--”

And he does want it, wants it more and more He talks and offers, mouth dropping open when His palm presses down on his cock, once, then moves to the side to rub circles into his thigh.

“--I think it’d be cruel to call that weak. I think it’s brave.” He says with a kiss.

[Last Gap, I swear.]

The one thing He wouldn’t do is degrade. Bakura couldn’t explain the difference for various reasons.

“It just sounds like a nasty form of teasing.” And Bakura nods, frantically - yes, it’s teasing, yes it’s nasty, yes he wants- “I don’t want to talk to you like that,” Ryou said. “I want you to enjoy being good for me.” 

Bakura grits his teeth, against the derision at his wants and the cock sliding over, not in, his ass. Over and over, truly teased, no relief.

“I like that you couldn’t wait,” Ryou says again. His cock twitches and he grunts as His hand picks up again. “You’ve been so lonely, haven’t you?” He nods, rocking into His hand. All this from months untouched - he might go mad. “Tell me what you want,” Ryou speaks slowly. “Tell me what you want me to do for you.”

Confessions and fantasies spill from his mouth like drool, and he’s granted them in turn - cock gripped too tightly to cum, ass up and rutting against His hips for relief. More than he ever has from insult or shame, he cums from His praise for Bakura’s debauched and slutty -- no, from his eager, willing pleasure, words of worship for opening his chest, laying himself bare, showing everything and giving it all away.

“Good boy, ‘Kura,” Ryou purrs against his temple. With a kiss, ‘Kura’s consumed again by that ache, and instead of bracing himself against that salacious venom, he lets it spread across his nerves and limbs all the way to his head. “Good pet.” 

-----

Ryou hums while he reads. His fingers card through ‘Kura’s hair. Each gentle tug pulls it loose from behind his ear, or across the part, spilling the strands across His lap.

About the third time it falls out of place, ‘Kura grumbles, irritated at the feelings of ‘unright’ left in it’s place. Ryou chuckles softly, watching ‘Kura shake his hair back into place.

“Sorry,” Ryou smiles. “It’s just so soft now.”

‘Kura groans.

-----

His name is ‘Kura. Sometimes there’s a ‘Ba’ first, but only when he gets in trouble.