[Okay, so, this was began as an initiative for Miss LB to finish her essays, and for Amarantines’ birthday (which was probably over HOURS ago, so I’m sorry~!) LB gave me the prompt “Birthday”.  I’ve hardly ever written and actually posted a fanfic. Fair warning. >_> BUT, I tried, and kind of liked the results, SO!

Happy Birthday Amarantines! And, good luck with your papers, LadyB!]

Bakura’s Birthday

The Spirit of the Ring doesn’t remember his birthday.  When you’ve lived for longer than some empires last, he supposes this is a forgivable error.  Marik does not feel the same.

“Bakura, what do you mean you don’t remember your birthday?” The blond man stopped flipping through his cookbook to purse his lips at Bakura irritably. “How am I supposed to help you celebrate your birthday if I don’t even know when it is?”

“You aren’t.”                                                                                            

“Aren’t what?”

“Supposed to. I’ve told you before- there’s very little point in such a frivolous use of time. Being born isn’t a particularly enormous accomplishment- it’s done every day by people of little to no intelligence or skill.”

Marik glared. “We celebrated my birthday. And I hate celebrating my birthday.” His hands stroked the book’s spine, “I only went along with it because you said we could celebrate yours too. Besides- I want cake.”

Bakura rolled his eyes, a sneer curling his lips “If this is just an excuse to eat cake, then just buy the bloody cake. You don’t need a special event just to eat dessert.”

Marik’s arm flicked out and dealt a stinging slap to Bakura’s arm with the cookbook “I eat what I want, when I want— this is not about the cake.”

Bakura stared at Marik, and appeared to be sucking the inside of his cheek. “September 2^nd.”

“What?”

“My birthday. It’s on the second of September.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t just suddenly remember. You’re just trying to make me drop this so that I’ll-”

“It’s his birthday” Bakura intoned, jabbing a finger at his own chest “and that ought to be close enough.”

“Absolutely not.” Marik shook his head vehemently “You may be piggybacking on his body, but his birthday is separate.” There was a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face.

Bakura had the definite impression Marik was thinking of his own dark spirit, born in blood on the Egyptian’s 10^th horrible year in the world.

From somewhere deep inside himself, Bakura felt Ryou look up irritably from his meditation.

“Agreed. You are not adding that to the list of things you ‘borrow’ from me. Besides,” the boy continued “if you don’t remember or come up with some other solution, he’ll just keep this up, and I have plans with Yugi and the others later.” The boy seemed to do some disembodied spiritual version of ‘stretching’ as he went on “And Honda promised me a ride on his bike to get there, so I’m definitely not missing that.”

Then Ryou did something inside their head that temporarily dazzled Bakura’s vision with splinters of sparkling silver light and a vague pain.  This was the boy’s version of a warning.

While resigned to having a mental roommate of sorts, Ryou had set about learning better control of their body through meditation, spiritual theory, and anatomy.  Bakura still had the edge, as was to be expected from his years of experience in controlling others; but what Ryou learned he kept to himself, carefully partitioned off in his own quiet corner— and the power gap was growing uncomfortably small for the Spirit’s liking.

“FINE” he snarled. “Give me a few minutes with the computer.”

Marik stared at him. “The…why do you-”

Bakura’s hand twitched in irritation “You want to know my birthday. Regardless of the fact that I could not honestly care less, I am willing to attempt to recover it from the bowels of this planet’s godforsaken history. Shut up. Get out of my way. Leave me alone with the computer.” He clenched a fist around his shirt’s material in a semblance of patience and waited for Marik to pass through the room to the kitchen, then settled in at the desk.

Honestly, he blamed Marik’s nosy sister for this.  Every week, during Marik and she’s little chats on the phone, they would talk about how things were going in their lives. Occasionally Marik would mention some little thing he missed from home, usually to do with food, and recently he had mentioned growing irritated with the lack of decent recipes he could find.

Isis and Rishid had sent them a cookbook in the latest package to come to their door. The letters inside these packages had first been addressed politely to “Marik and his gentleman friend” since the Ishtars knew Marik was “living with someone”, but as the thieves didn’t touch labels, Marik’s family had been unsure how to address the unknown person in their brother’s life.  Isis had found that a great deal easier once she divined who the “gentleman friend” was.  By hearing me laughing in the background, while they talked, no doubt Bakura thought sarcastically.

After that, the salutations on the letters inside the packages had grown increasingly creative. If Bakura had to pick one, his current running favorite was “Dear darling younger brother and pasty unclean heretical abomination”. He’d spat his tea good three feet when Marik had read it aloud, cackling.

If he thought that Isis’ apparent disapproval bothered Marik in any way, he’d have written a short, descriptive letter back. (Or hipchecked Marik away from the phone the next time his sister called and spent a few very short, very descriptive moments speaking with her.) But Marik wasn’t bothered. If anything, he seemed delighted that there was something he could still do that merely annoyed his sister, but didn’t worry her.  Bakura suspected Isis knew this and intentionally played up the aggrieved older sister.

Rishid was silent on the subject, but given his proven record of being happy about nearly anything that made his brother content, it could be assumed he had no qualms about who was currently sharing Marik’s house. And life. And bed. Bed. Yes…bed.

Bakura glowered at the kitchen door then resumed his previous activities at the computer.

He spent a few minutes running down the time of the nameless pharaoh finally that tyrannical tri-colored fool is useful for something then trawled through a few dozen sites that speculated and debated about birthrates and such other dry-as-dust data. He stopped.

Kul Elna had been a town of marginalized shadows that preferred their secrets kept that way- even before they’d been wiped from all history. It wasn’t as though there would have been a surviving town record by any miracle or long-shot in the first place.

He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk, trying to find his original line of reasoning for this search, and struck on the idea of historical events.

The next step would be to root through his memories and see if the people in town had referred to his year of birth as being the same as some huge sandstorm, or “10 years after the beginning of the reign or so-and-so” then refining it to “during the season when the sands shift in that direction” and from there down to some other bloody historical marker that separated the day of his birth from any other in the village and well, no. Just. No. He didn’t feel like doing it. He wasn’t going to do it. No.

~~~

“July 31^st.”

Marik set the glass of water down beside Bakura and crossed his arms. “July …31^st. And how did you come to that conclusion?” It had been a good 15 to 25 minutes since he had left Bakura alone in the living room, and the Spirit now seemed a lot less like a hissing cat that had been dropped into water. Which was not to say that the Thief hadn’t decided to merely make something up.

Bakura, scowling, launched into an explanation for the date he’d said, citing the difficulty he’d had tracking down the right memories and the problems inherent with both that and what vague bits of unreliable information he’d been able to gather from the incomplete records he currently had access to online. He figured Marik was buying it, and took this time to sneak a look at the droplet of water that must have dripped onto the tan man when he was getting Bakura’s water. The water slid down Marik’s stomach, and had almost reached his waistline when Bakura managed to drag his eyes away and return his attention to his purposely long-winded explanation. Hopefully if he made it sound arduous and boring enough then Marik would never want to hear all the details again.

He looked back up at Marik’s eyes, but they had strayed away from his to look down at the desk. He suddenly felt cold- he’d been killing time for awhile- had he left the Tetris game open? But when he followed Marik’s gaze, the answer was much, much worse- his left hand was writing independently of his will. Ryou. That little—

He grabbed his own hand, but before he could read what the other occupant of the body had used it to write, or destroy it, Marik had snatched up the paper and slipped off with a vicious little smile on his face to the kitchen.

I’m going to ruin your plans for the next month Little Host.

“Are you really?” Ryou’s tone of voice was eerily reminiscent of someone who enjoyed filing their nails or reloading their guns while staring at people. “I somehow doubt that” Bakura’s arm twitched painfully “Very, very much.” Bakura’s vision blacked out entirely, and the last thing he heard was an unnerving little laugh floating through the space approximately located between his ears.

~~~

When he awoke, it was the next day, and he was laid out on the couch with Marik on his chest, snoring lightly with a content little smile on his face. His clothes were changed, and judging by the smell of them, Ryou had spent a good deal of time the day before in the presence of Honda and his motorcycle. Bakura sniffed again. And his aftershave. He started to sniff again before deciding he had absolutely no desire to know what else of Honda’s Ryou smelled like. Ugh.

Shoving Marik off of himself moodily he stood up and made for the kitchen. Food first, shower next, burn the brat’s clothes in revenge for yesterday third, and ravish Marik last. Yes. Good. Plans for the day were set.

Upon entering the kitchen, he stopped and stared. There was a cake cooling on the counter. Beside it was a bowl of figs. Mouth barely cracked open, Bakura stared at this unusual set of objects, and then shook his head to clear it. Well, he supposed he could burn the clothes after ravishing Marik.

He turned to the fridge to take out the water pitcher and stopped again. There was a steak sitting there on a plate- one of vegetarian Marik Ishtar’s pretty little china plates- pooling blood all the hell over it.

It was huge.

            Well, he supposed he could also shower after ravishing Marik. While reaching for the drawer where they kept some of the knives, Bakura’s eye fell on a piece of paper sitting on the counter. He read it. He abandoned the knife and shut the fridge door.

            Come to think of it, food would have to wait too. The Spirit of the Ring had other appetites to satisfy. And he wanted his presents now. He left the kitchen, heading towards the couch in a silent stalking gait, leaving behind the note from the day before on the counter. The note Ryou had scrawled to Marik while he spun his bullshit birthday explanation:

            He’s making it all up. Don’t believe a word of it. I hear everything he thinks if I want to these days, and he gave up after about half the steps he’s telling you. The date he told you is the date you two met, because before that he hadn’t bothered to think about celebrating anything other than death for over 1,000 years. Just ignore his nonsense, accept it as the best you’ll get and maybe feel a little flattered.

Written below that in Marik’s tidy script was the following reply

I’m fully aware of what day that is, but thank you Ryou. It’s not what I would have chosen, but there you have it.  I guess I’ll have to just pick another day for our anniversary. Have a lovely day out with Honda.

The birthday cake had cooled off long before Marik or Bakura got anywhere near it that day.