Life After Death: Part 10

[stardust8]

Chapter 20

    “Hey Ryou, there’s a letter for you,” Yugi said, placing the mail on the counter.

    Ryou was in the kitchen making them a late breakfast omelette. His hair was up in a bandana to keep it from getting in the food and he concentrated on the pan, making sure the omelette had a perfect fluffy texture. Yugi wasn’t that great of a chef but he loved watching Ryou cook. He was great at cleanup though. It had been two years since they began dating and a month since their marriage. Yugi couldn’t believe how long it had taken Ryou to realize their potential, but it was worth it.

    Ryou quickly flipped the omelette and picked up the letter. He frowned.

    “What is it?” Yugi asked.

    Ryou’s hands started shaking as he opened the official looking envelope. He stared at the short note and his eyes watered.

    “Oh my gosh, Ryou, you’re crying. What’s going on?”

    Ryou handed him the note and sat down on a kitchen stool.

    Yugi quickly read aloud the short impersonal letter.

Bakura Ryou,

We, the Egyptian Air Defense Forces, regret to inform you that your step-brother, Marik Ishtar, is deceased. He died immediately upon impact of his jet’s collision with the ground while on his sixth mission, the previous successes of which have helped keep Egypt safe. We’re sorry for your loss.

    Yugi immediately rushed to Ryou’s side. He wrapped his arms around him and tried to support his husband as best he could. Ryou shook with grief and they stayed that way until the omelette started to burn.

Epilogue

    Ryou and Yugi waved goodbye to their nine year old daughter, Kura Marika Mutou, as she boarded the bus for her first overnight camp. They had adopted her seven years ago and she was thriving under their parental care.

    “Do you think she’ll be okay? I know my first night at summer camp was rough,” Ryou asked.

    “I know she’ll be. She’s spunky; I think she gets that from her step-uncle.”

    “Yugi!” Ryou said, pretending to be mad at his husband.

    Once they adopted Kura and honored Marik through Kura’s middle name, it became a running joke to blame any bad or especially Marik-esque traits on Kura’s ‘step-uncle’ as the letter so described Ryou’s relationship to him. It was obvious why Marik had lied about Ryou since the military only sent those letters to next of kin, as well as the fact Ishizu and Odion didn’t have Ryou’s address.

    “What? I think he’d be pleased with how we memorialized him,” Yugi protested.

    Ryou rolled his eyes.

    “I’m sure he’d be so pleased with us making his name into a girl’s name.”

    “I think he’d love it! I can see him in the stars, smiling down at us–”

    “Has Kura been making you watch ‘The Lion King’ again?”

    Yugi laughed, “Only eight times this past week.”

    Ryou laughed, and they headed towards home after the bus rattled away towards the countryside.

……………………….

    In a different sort of countryside, Marik woke up from his crash on a soft bed of reeds. He looked up at a harvest moon and a starry night. He felt trickling water around his toes. Could it be?

    He laughed freely. He didn’t know how it happened, but he’d reached the Field of Reeds. He supposed he was in Egypt, but not the modern day Egypt he knew. He jumped around the reeds like a child and felt so alive that he didn’t care he looked like an fool.
   
    His joy was short-lived when he heard a splash and felt a knife at his throat. He whipped his head around to see a face familiar, yet foreign all at once.

    “What the fuck, Bakura? They let you in here, and with a knife?”

    Bakura, or Thief King Bakura, as Bakura told him he was infamously known as in his former days, gave Marik the classic Bakura smirk. He didn’t let up on the knife.

    “I was starting to think you’d forgotten me.”

    “Go to hell. You have no idea how much I’ve suffered because of you.”

    “Too late, Marik. Osiris already decided my fate.”

    “Fuck off,” Marik said, trying to keep the smile threatening to erupt off his face. He couldn’t believe Bakura was here too. That they could be reunited at last. It couldn’t be real.

    He felt Bakura’s hard member against his thigh and realized they were both naked.

    “But seriously, who let you have a knife?” Marik asked.

    “No one, I make my own rules here,” he purred into Marik’s ear.

    “We’ll see about that.”

    In a whirl, Marik elbowed his ribs and knocked the knife away. He fell with Bakura into the tall reeds and they made love to last a lifetime.

The End

……………………….

Wasn't sure where to put this, but here are all the notes I have about this fanfic.

Background

I remember finishing the 5th season of DM and feeling sad because of course Bakura was going to die being the main villain, but the plot never acknowledges how this isn't a happy day for everyone and I was left hurting thinking about how Marik has to go on without anyone who understood/connected with him as deeply as Bakura. The writers just left him there with that blank look on his face for a couple episodes at least. So when I saw Tara Bloomfield's art, 'The Loss of Bakura', it broke my heart again, and I felt I just had to give Marik's story a resolution. View the beautiful painting here on Shaami’s deviantart site: http://shaami.deviantart.com/art/The-Loss-of-Bakura-597429872. Writing this story was actually really cathartic and I feel I can rest easy knowing Marik and Ryou were alright. I had written a detailed outline but there was so much that I didn’t plan for, it just happened as I wrote. Basically I loved writing this because of how easily the story came even though it was filled with so much pain and I hope you enjoy!

Notes

changes from canon - Bakura and Marik were lovers but never said the words

I have read some of the manga, but to me, Yu-gi-oh! was always the characters I grew up with from the English dub so the characters have dub names but feel free to call them what you want

Headcanon - Marik has a good vocabulary because all he had for fun in the tomb were dusty tomes/scrolls. The only access to the outside world he got was when Ishizu snuck random books home. He enjoys reading and in the manga he’s smart too unlike his dumb but lovable YGOTAS counterpart

the dialogue I took of their initial meeting was directly from the cheesy English dub

the painting they see in the hallway is Picasso's ‘Guernica’

hqp was a common beer drunk by all in ancient Egypt

crop top design from 'Writings and Wanderlust' blog image who got it from somewhere they didn't cite. Link here: http://writingsandwanderlust.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/frank.jpg

layman joke - property of Little Kuriboh from his YGOTAS universe

yaki soba - a Japanese fried buckwheat noodle stir fry

onigiri - a Japanese rice ball usually filled with something

besara - an Egyptian frugal fava bean dish/dip covered with browned onions and garlic

American tourists stereotype - I didn't mean to dump on Americans being one myself, but I've been abroad and there are so many entitled and needy American tourists it always made me sympathize with the tour guide

Yugi's gift - I was trying to research whether people brought host gifts to parties and got mixed answers so I just went with it. Plus, Yugi feels a little guilty so that's part of it

Field of Reeds - the mirror afterlife in ancient Egyptian mythology if Osiris judges the soul to not be heavier than a feather, otherwise you get eaten