[Closed]

[shiromadoushi]

Characters: Bakura & L
Location: Death City Heights 7th floor
Rating: Well, it has L in it so... PG-13?
Time: 3/22, after Kid's class.
Description: L looks like hell. More than usual. Cue Bakura worrying and acting as L's caretaker. Because someone has to...



Bakura had barely been home long enough to take off his shoes and set down his groceries (and new assortment of first aid supplies) before going back out into the hall to knock on the door across from his.

"Ryuzaki-kun? It's me... are you in?"

Comments

[shiromadoushi]

"This is nothing at all like you and Light!"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Tell me how it's different, go on... and no stupid reasons, like 'he literally lived inside me.' That goes without saying."

[shiromadoushi]

"How is something like that a stupid reason?!" Bakura demanded. "Everything about it is different!"

[dead_black_eyes]

"Just because the catalyst was different does not mean that no one else in the history of the world has felt the same way. Get over yourself."

[shiromadoushi]

"The same for you!" Bakura snapped before realizing just how agitated he had gotten and turning away sharply. "I'm not saying it's unique in the world, just that it's nothing at all like what you think it is...." he clarified, almost mumbling unhappily.

[dead_black_eyes]

"I wasn't possessed through some magical artifact. That doesn't mean for a second that he wasn't living inside me, and that's what you're too young or too stupid to understand."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura was unhappily quiet a long moment. "Light-kun got to know you the way you get to know others, right? Dissecting what he could, prying for what he couldn't, cracking a complex code and spinning a web from tiny scraps of information... He viewed you as a challenge, the same as you viewed him, right?" he asked in a quiet, soft voice. "You chose him as your target and forced your way in..."

He trailed off quietly, looking off into the distance at nothing at all. "That's what's different..."

[dead_black_eyes]

L glowered.

"So you're saying that he's the victim. That I'm the aggressor, that I'm like your stupid, gaudy ring."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked. "I'm saying that you're both the same..." he pointed out, a touch unsure.

[dead_black_eyes]

"You just said that I chose him as a target and forced my way in. You used the word 'forced,'" L asserted fiercely. "That isn't what you said about him. Clearly, we are not 'the same'. You sympathize with him."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked again. "I don't know how he's like, Ryuzaki-kun... I don't know how anything started between you..." he pointed out, still a bit unsure and getting the feeling like he was treading on dangerous waters. "I only sympathized when I didn't realize what he'd done..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"So what it comes down to is this: do you believe that I'm wrong for doing what I've done?"

[shiromadoushi]

Again, confused blinking. This was a very loaded question... after all, it wasn't as if Bakura knew the extent of things that Ryuzaki had done, not even a 10th of it!. He was very sure that Ryuzaki had gone about things the wrong way with trying to force Light to acknowledge him the way he wanted to be, but that wasn't what was being talked about here, right...?

"...No...?"

[dead_black_eyes]

L very seldom asked questions that weren't loaded, to be entirely fair.

"It's really like talking to a brick wall..." He sighed.

[shiromadoushi]

"Who's the idiot there, the one asking the wall or the wall who can't answer?" Bakura returned with a sigh. "You always ask impossible questions... I don't know what went on in your world, Ryuzaki-kun... only a little piece of it... how on Earth can I say anything about it?"

[dead_black_eyes]

L paused to think about it, answering the question about as maturely as one might expect.

"The wall, definitely."

[shiromadoushi]

...Of course he would say that. Of course.

"You're only saying that so you won't have to call yourself stupid...." Bakura countered before shaking his head slightly. "What are you looking to hear, Ryuzaki-kun? Are you expecting that I think you're a horrible person?"

[dead_black_eyes]

"I'm just expecting that you wouldn't say it so clearly."

[shiromadoushi]

"How many times do I have to say that I don't think that before you'll believe me...?" Bakura asked softly.

[dead_black_eyes]

"You can say it as many times as you'd like, or not. It's really your choice. But it won't be true until I am, in fact, not a horrible person."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura sighed softly. "There's a difference between being a jerk and being horrible... Unless you've become a mass murderer or gone around arbitrarily hurting people for the thrill of it or something like that, you aren't a horrible person..."

Not even Kaiba was a horrible person, and Kaiba, as far as Bakura was concerned, was worse than Ryuzaki in so many ways. He'd been told enough about Death-T and knew enough about Kaiba's reputation in the business world (and heard Jounouchi ranting about him enough times) that he was sure that he had a decent idea. But Kaiba was fair (mostly) and what he was willing to do to try and save his brother...

And Ryuzaki hadn't even built a theme park to kill a 16 year old boy. He would have had to do something reeeeally big to change Bakura's opinion that he wasn't horrible.

[dead_black_eyes]

"Your standards," L chuckled. "I cannot tell you how many terrible people your laughably low standards would pardon..."

[shiromadoushi]

"I said or something like that...!" Bakura protested with a slight scowl. "And I meant for you in specific..."

[dead_black_eyes]

"So that's what it would take for me, especial? Bakura, I don't know whether to be amused or appalled that you hold me to different standards than everyone else. This is how monsters are made, don't you know that?"

[shiromadoushi]

There was that feeling again, one that was far too common when dealing with Ryuzaki (and the Ring's voice, if he were being honest) that he was in over his head and had made too many mistakes to get back on track. Everything was out of his control and tumbling in a direction he didn't want to go.

He hated that feeling...

"There's no way I could list every thing that would make a person horrible... You're just a jerk, Ryuzaki-kun. Kaiba-kun's done worse than you have chasing after the other Yuugi-kun and I don't call him a horrible person either! There's more to you than your obsession with Light..."