Fic - Rose Petals - 1/1

[evandar]

Title: Rose Petals

Author: Evandar

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!

Rating: PG-13

Warning: AU - War of the Roses, inspired by Duelist of the Roses, historical inaccuracies, off-screen character death, magical realism, anxiety, ominous flirting, courtly love

Pairing: Yami Bakura/Ghost Kotsuzuka

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! and I am making no profit from this story.

Summary: He’s not sure what has happened to earn him an audience with the new King. He didn’t ask for one. He’d accepted his fate only to be dragged out of his cell, forcibly bathed, and then dragged into a room where the King seems to eclipse all other presences. Even the guards still holding his arms are barely noticeable in comparison.

Ghost is offered a chance to redeem himself following the War, and in the process, attracts the attention of one of the King's knights. Bakura is powerful, sinister, and completely terrifying - and yet Ghost has always adored unloveable things.

AN: This was written for the ygorarepairs Mini Bang, which was a reverse bang this year. I was assigned to the incredibly talented MirPuzzle who was incredibly helpful and supportive throughout the entire process. Her art is gorgeous and can be found here at Bluesky - please send all of the praise!



The Tower is full of ghosts, some more recent than others. Ghost tries not to listen to them; there’s nothing he can do to help them from his cell, not without gaining more suspicion and worse punishment. But it’s hard. The young Princes are sobbing and crying for their mother on a different floor. A guard paces outside of Ghost’s cell with an arrow through his neck and gore smeared on his face and hands and armour.

He can’t even look out of the window. The pitiful crack of London it reveals includes the gallows, and that’s where some of his comrades are lingering. Lord Kaiba’s once confident stride reduced to shuffling steps as he looks for his head.

He’d tried to leave. Once the tide of the war had turned, he’d tried to escape with some of the others, but Keith had sold them out to the Lancastrian forces and instead of breathing free air on Dutch soil, they’d all been dragged to the Tower in chains instead. He doesn’t know where the others are. They’d been shoved into separate cells, and after the third day, even Keith, who had been shouting about treachery, had gone quiet. He doesn’t think that he’s dead. He thinks that he’d know if his friends were dead – even the one who betrayed him.

He thinks that way. He does. But despite the light coming into his cell from the window, he’s finding it hard to keep track of how long he’s been here. Instead of looking at the ghosts, he follows the path of the sun as it moves across the floor of his cell; he counts the stones; he befriends the spider that weaves its web in one of the corners.

He wishes that King Richard never fell.

…

King Yugi is shorter than Ghost thought he would be, and the crown seems to settle heavily on his brow.

He’s not sure what has happened to earn him an audience with the new King. He didn’t ask for one. He’d accepted his fate only to be dragged out of his cell, forcibly bathed, and then dragged into a room where the King seems to eclipse all other presences. Even the guards still holding his arms are barely noticeable in comparison.

“Ghost Kotsuzuka,” the King says. He doesn’t need to speak loudly. “Necromancer to Edward and Richard both.” It’s not a question.

Ghost bows his head. “Yes, your majesty.”

“Your duties were not listed in the files of the… previous administration.”

Ghost swallows. “I, uh. Gathered information, your majesty. Who had died. Where. When. Whose presence was on what battlefield. And I – I helped the dead to rest after.”

The King cups his chin in his hand and stares down at him thoughtfully. Ghost wants to hide – wishes he was as his namesake and could just walk through the wall or sink through the floor and escape.

“Are there many restless dead?” the King asks.

Ghost tries not to gape at him. Implying the King is an idiot will only expedite his execution, and… Well. The King isn’t an idiot. It is a stupid question, though.

“Those who die bloody deaths or who leave behind unfinished business always linger, your majesty,” he says. “And battles are filled with bloody deaths and miserable ends.”

He doesn’t mention the Princes still wailing for their mother, their voices echoing through the stone.

The King hums. “My wife is haunted,” he says eventually. “If she can be put at ease, and if my kingdom’s dead are able to be given rest, then there is place for a necromancer in my court.”

It takes a moment for his words to fully sink in. It’s an offer: a generous one, given that it means Ghost may keep his life and regain some of his freedom. He’s not foolish enough to believe that he will regain all of it – a Yorkist like him will be under suspicion until the day he draws his last breath, and the ability to hasten that day is held entirely at King Yugi’s discretion. But...

There’s little he won’t do for a chance to get out of this Tower with his head still attached. Bowing to a Lancastrian King – a usurper – is the least of it.

“Your majesty is most generous,” he says shakily. “I will not fail you, my king.”

The King hums again. “No,” he says. “You won’t.”

…

The Queen is, indeed, haunted, but no more than anyone else. She is, however, Ghost’s priority after being released from the Tower. He draws the shades of her family away from her, talks and tends to them, and leaves her haunted only by her grief instead of her brothers.

Then, he gradually begins to deal with the others.

He doesn’t return home to Exeter. He has too much work to do and he wants to keep his head by doing to the King’s satisfaction. He accepts rooms in the palace and learns not to draw attention as he haunts its hallways, talking to the dead and soothing their anger and distress. Some of them don’t know that they’re dead; those are the hardest.

He keeps to himself. He makes appearances when the King demands it, and he slowly befriends the castle’s dead.

He knows that other necromancers might do things more quickly, more aggressively, but Ghost isn’t one of them. Fortunately, necromancers are rare enough that his powers are the only reason he wasn’t executed along with the rest of the Rose Crusaders, so the likelihood of King Yugi finding a replacement for him is small.

He thinks.

He hopes.

He clings to that hope with everything he has until, one day in November, he watches a ghost fade into shimmering light and turns only to find himself being observed.

A knight – a living one, dressed in red armour instead of more courtly clothes. Long white hair frames his face: he’s handsome and utterly, completely terrifying. Ghost knows him. He’s spent months hearing this man’s name from seemingly half the ghosts he’s spoken to. Mortimer, some call him; others, Bakura. All of them: the Devil.

He watches as red eyes fix on the last, glimmering specs of the ghost’s essence, shimmering like dust motes in the sun, and he knows with horrible certainty that Bakura can see the dead as clearly as Ghost himself is able. And that ability – that Sight - begins a countdown on the rest of Ghost’s existence. He has a deadline now – a finite amount of time before King Yugi realises how truly expendable he is: a former enemy lurking within his walls, no longer the only source of his rare powers.

Bakura’s gaze lands on him. Ghost offers an awkward, tremulous smile and tries not to flee. He can – he has spoken to enough ghosts to know of hidden passages. Passages that could take him to the river, and then to the sea, and then to distant shores where he will be away from those eyes.

But he tried that before and look what happened. True, Keith is dead now and can’t betray him again, but… He can. If Bakura can see the dead, then he should also be able to hear them.

He can barely focus on anything over the racing of his thoughts and the pounding of his heart, but he’s dimly aware of a slow smile creeping over Bakura’s face; of him getting closer. He looks like a cat patiently stalking a mouse, and Ghost doesn’t like his chances.

“Is there – I – can I help you, sir?” he asks.

Bakura pauses. His head tilts. The smile widens just enough to reveal a hint of a fang, and Ghost – quite against his own wishes – feels a spike of curiosity. White hair and red eyes can be explained away. Some children, he knows, are born that way, though rarely do they survive the suspicions of their relatives. But fangs as well? That points to some inhuman ancestry somewhere in Bakura’s bloodline.

Why is he thinking about this? Why is he not making excuses and heading as quickly as he can in the opposite direction?

“I didn’t know they could do that,” Bakura says. His voice is low and oddly pleasant for a man with such a fearsome reputation.

“Do… pardon?”

Bakura indicates the last, few glimmering motes of soul by waggling gloved fingers in their direction.

“Oh,” Ghost says. “They disperse when they move on.”

He didn’t know that? How did he not know that? Ghost finds himself reevaluating his assumptions – perhaps King Yugi is keeping him around because the necromancer he already had to hand had somehow missed out on any sort of magical education? Is that even possible for someone of possibly inhuman descent?

“Move on?” Bakura asks. “You aren’t keeping them, then?”

There’s an implication there: not only that such a thing is what he would do, but also that he’d been expecting it of Ghost. But for what? To raise an army against the King? Treason? More treason than he’s already been declared guilty of?

“No,” he chokes out. “I’m not. I’m helping them. Um. Is there anything else?”

He inches back as much as he’s able to without being obvious about how desperately he wants to flee. It probably doesn’t work, given that Bakura shakes his head and lets him go, but he nods politely and takes his leave as swiftly and politely as possible. Politely in that he doesn’t run. He does hide, however, making himself even more scarce than usual over the next few days.

It’s intended as a deterrent. He’s caught Bakura’s eye and the best way to lose it is to be as boring as possible. He knows that: it’s always worked for him before.

Only…

When he emerges, Bakura is there. In court. Not in his armour, but in the fine clothes of a courtier, positioned as an advisor to the King himself. Worse: he’s everywhere. Everywhere Ghost turns, he’s there. He’s around every corner; down every corridor. They seem to pass on the stairs a hundred times a day. And always – always – those blood-red eyes are fixed on him.

Ghost doesn’t know what to do.

He packs a small bag with his most valuable possessions and what money he can spare and he keeps it ready to flee with at any moment. He waits and watches for any sign of his impending fall from whatever favour he’s gained for himself. When he works, he tries his hardest to be as quiet and as secretive as possible: if Bakura, with his apparently minimal magical education, is capable of taking his place, then Ghost has to ensure that he can’t hasten his replacement by giving him any tips or tricks. He wishes he could start to take the secret passageways that he’s been led to by the dead, if only for the reprieve it would give him from Bakura’s endless staring, but his position is too tenuous for him to start moving around that secretly. He has to be seen if he’s not to attract any more suspicion than he already has, and scuttling through passages he’s not supposed to know about won’t help with that.

It's an alien thing, this much attention. Even with the Rose Crusaders, he’d been able to keep a low profile. They’d found him useful, certainly – as useful as King Yugi does now – and he’d been able to count some of them amongst his friends. For a while, at least.

But receiving attention from a man as handsome as Bakura? If it wasn’t for the fear – the knowledge – that he doesn’t have much time left, then he’d be flattered. Confused, still, but flattered. Even with his impending demise hanging over him, it’s hard not to be. Especially when Bakura doesn’t hide his interest in front of others. He’s open about it; he watches Ghost even at feasts, regardless of who may be watching.

Ghost wishes he wouldn’t. It’s starting to draw attention.

The guards are watching him too, now. More than they had for weeks. Jounouchi and Honda – the King’s closest bodyguards – seem to think he’s about to unleash a horde of zombies on them at any given moment and what if Bakura told them he would?

He doesn’t run, even though every instinct tells him to. Instead, he works harder. And harder. He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats – only making time for meals because of how obvious it would be if he suddenly stopped attending them after gaining the scrutiny of one of the King’s advisors. He sends spirit after spirit on into the afterlife until there are none left.

Not a single one.

The castle, for the first time since its foundations were laid, has only living residents.

For the first time since his introduction to court, Ghost seeks an audience with the King. He reports his success and, as he’d hoped – prayed, even – he’s granted leave to return to Exeter.

There are conditions, of course, but he doesn’t care. He is free of the scrutiny and the whispers and the never-ending presence of Bakura on his heels.

He can go home.

…

The house is quiet. Empty aside from the few shades that have lingered over the years. The servants fled when he was arrested, and a few of them took their chances with whatever valuables were small enough to flee with. Ghost doesn’t blame them: he’d taken his own chances, too. Instead, he wishes them luck with shifting items with such a notable family crest on them, particularly in the aftermath of the war. His mother’s family may have been extensive enough to have members on both sides of the conflict, but the more famous ones will always be associated with his Plantagenet cousins.

Eventually, he knows, the Nevilles will stabilise. With their fortune to back them, they always have and always will. But that doesn’t mean pawnbrokers are going to be keen on acquiring their artefacts any time soon.

He sets about hiring new staff. Nothing extravagant, but enough to keep the place clean and provide him with meals three times a day. He hires landscapers to strip the gardens of his mother’s prized white roses, and he’s momentarily glad that her spirit has long since passed on when he witnesses the carnage from an upstairs window. She would have hated this. She’d always been so proud of their royal connections, of having kings and princes for nephews. Her pride in them had been part of why he’d joined the Rose Crusaders, to try and grasp part of that pride for himself as well as defend the throne from a usurper.

She would have been disappointed in him for bowing his head and, therefore, keeping it attached instead of dying for his cousin’s cause.

It’s just as well that she’s moved on.

The ghosts that do haunt the manor seem pleased enough that Ghost has come back to them, and he takes that as approval for his actions - for bending the knee to save his skin. Not that he really does much now that he’s home again. After months of paranoid busywork at the palace, he’s not sure what to do with himself now that he has space to breathe. He no longer has friends to write to, nor does he have much in the way of family. Certainly, there are none close enough to want anything to do with him, and none that he personally dislikes enough to get caught up in his current tenuous position. He has a library full of books, but none of them thrill him the way that they used to. Not even the grimoires, whose contents he memorised long ago. Walks in the garden now make him feel guilty; he hates riding and horses often refuse to carry him anyway.

He'd wanted so much to be away from the palace and out from under Bakura’s constant stares that he’d somehow managed to forget how alone he is. He feels it now: the isolation. It’s maddening. It makes him feel almost as dead as his ancestors, as though one day he might just give up his corporeal form and start walking through walls instead of just drifting aimlessly from room to room.

He almost misses Bakura, even. The knight terrifies him, but at least the pounding of his heart reminded him that he was still alive.

And nothing… bad came of his interest. Nothing that he knows of, at least.

He watches as the seasons change. Winter draws in, bringing with it storms and freezing winds. The gardeners he’s hired tell him that not all of the new roses he’s had planted might survive. He doesn’t care.

The roses inside the house are still blooming, but only just. The last white blooms on the whole estate, tucked away like a guilty secret.

He’s half-tempted to return to court just to have something to distract him, but he’s not quite at the point where he’s ready to risk his neck again, and the King’s patience will have a limit. Ghost is safe when he’s forgotten. He knows that. But he also feels like he’s losing his mind.

He plucks one of those last white roses and stares blankly out at the bruise-dark clouds. Rain smears across the glass. He taps the rose against his lips, breathing in its faint scent, and weighs his options. Stay here, in exile, and lose what little of himself he still has? Or return to court and try to make himself useful, risking the inevitable consequences of having the King’s attention? Bakura’s attention.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Lightning flashes. He counts the seconds before the thunder. He watches the clouds.

He’s breathing, but he knows better than anyone that the dead sometimes forget their state.

He rips his gaze from the sky and looks speculatively down at the rose in his hand. At its thorns. He raises a hand to prick one of his fingers – can he still even feel anything, if he died without noticing? – when a hand curls around his hip.

His mind blanks.

Warmth seeps through his clothing as strong fingers curve around the sharp jut of bone. He chokes on air, head snapping up, and he catches a glimpse of a familiar reflection in the glass before he flinches out of that grasp and stares up at the intruder.

Bakura looks entirely too entertained by his reaction.

He’s also far, far too close. He has a hand braced against the window above Ghost’s head, boxing him in. He’s dressed in full armour, and his hair is dripping rainwater onto the blood-red metal. He’s grinning, revealing those long, sharp teeth, and his eyes are fixed on Ghost’s face.

Ghost shrinks back, bringing his hand up to try and make some space between them, but all that does is result in Ghost shoving the rose in his face. The white rose – as if Bakura, one of King Yugi’s knights, needed any sort of reminder of Ghost’s former loyalties.

Ghost starts to lower it, wondering insanely if throwing himself out of the window would be a less painful death than execution at the Tower, only to freeze in place when Bakura leans in and bites down onto one of the petals.

He doesn’t tear it, somehow. Just holds it gently between those sharp teeth, a faint smile still curving the corner of his mouth.

Ghost feels faint. What is happening? What is Bakura doing here? How did he get in???

He hasn’t done anything - anything - to draw attention from the court. His thoughts of going back had been vague and nowhere near realisation. Why would Bakura come here?

He can’t read anything from his face – from that smile. Nothing other than the kind of pleasure a cat might show shortly before it devours the mouse trapped between its paws.

Has the King discovered some hint of treachery? Developed some sort of suspicion? Did Ghost miss a spirit, and has that been taken as a sign of disloyalty?

Bakura has come to take him to the Tower – there’s no other possible reason for his being here. Is there?

Is there?

Slowly, gently, Bakura tips his head just enough to pluck the petal from the rose. It hangs from his lips, shockingly white even against the pallor of his skin, only to vanish slowly into his mouth. Devoured. Ghost’s heart slams up against his ribs, so hard that he thinks he’s going to choke on it.

For a moment, he’s absolutely sure that he’s going to pass out. He can’t breathe. Darkness swims at the edges of his vision. But even in his panic, he’s positive that fainting will make everything worse. He swallows.

“Am – am I under arrest?” he asks.

He hates how much his voice shakes. Hates it. He prefers for people to find him unnerving rather than the other way around. He thinks back to his days in the Rose Crusaders, of his posturing with his monsters; the way his opponents would shiver with fear. It didn’t work on everyone, of course, but most. Death is a common fear, and his monsters, his zombies, are a trigger for that.

He used to think he was good at scaring people. Now he knows he’s never been anything more than a novice.

Bakura blinks slowly. Catlike. “Why would you be?” he asks. “Roses aren’t enough for that. Not anymore.”

His breath smells of the rose petal he just ate.

He’s too close.

Ghost can’t take it. He can’t.

“I – no reason,” he says. But if he’s not to be arrested… “Why – why are you here, then?”

“You left,” Bakura replies.

He raises his hand and, gently, plucks the rose from Ghost’s hand. With his last shield removed, Ghost feels horrifyingly vulnerable. He can feel his cheeks heating.

“The most interesting thing in the palace,” Bakura continues, “and you left.”

“My duties were done,” Ghost chokes out. “With no ghosts left in the palace, why would the King require a necromancer? Especially when he, ah, has a subject like you on his side. Your loyalties are proven, after all, and I’m just – “

A former traitor. Or, rather, someone who’d backed the losing side. Either way, it’s something he wishes he could stop reminding Bakura of.

“I can’t do what you do,” Bakura says. He leans closer, breathing the scent of roses into the air between them. He touches Ghost’s jaw, gently, with the tips of his gloved fingers. The kid-skin is butter-soft, and Ghost feels heat spread from his face down into his belly.

“You… can’t?”

Bakura’s smile widens, revealing his fangs again. “I can tear souls from their bodies and anchor them to objects,” he says like that isn’t the ghastliest thing that Ghost has ever heard. “I can lock people into their minds as I use their bodies as puppets. I can drag the dead back into a solid-enough form that I can use them to kill their own loved ones. But I can’t talk to them. I can’t make them content, or make them move on.”

“You can’t talk to them?”

Ghost strongly suspects that he might have been entirely correct in his previous assumption about Bakura’s ancestry. To wield mastery over human souls and to be able to steal them from living bodies, but unable to communicate with them. Either Bakura himself has made a deal with a demon, or one of his parents did.

“Not like you can,” Bakura says. “It’s fascinating, what you do. You’re so kind.”

Ghost has no idea what to make of that. He has no idea what to make of any of this. Bakura’s fingers are still distractingly gentle against his jaw and the warmth in Ghost’s belly is beginning to grow uncomfortable.

“Why are you here?” he asks again, his voice coming out barely above a whisper.

“You left,” Bakura says again, “and I wanted to see you.”

“Do you need me for something?” Ghost asks. That might make sense: if there is a bigger gap between their powers than he’d initially thought, then it’s possible that Bakura might need him for something. Does he have a problem with his soul-anchors? His corpse-puppets? Ghost hopes not, but he doesn’t know what, exactly, he should hope for.

Those fingers on his jaw, the curve of Bakura’s smile, the way that the knight is still leaning over him… It’s shockingly intimate, and if Ghost was anyone else, he might think that Bakura was interested in him for another reason. But he’s unfortunately aware of his lack of physical appeal, and his close ties to multiple traitors to the throne has made him even less appealing.

“No,” Bakura replies. “I don’t need anything.” He sounds slightly irritated. He drops his hand from Ghost’s face, and Ghost can’t help the flicker of disappointment. He wants Bakura to keep touching him, he –

He gets his wish.

Strong fingers curl around his own, raising his hand so that it’s between them once more. Ghost stares, fixated by how small his hand looks when it’s engulfed in Bakura’s own. The other man is so much bigger than him; taller and broader in every way. Ghost rarely feels delicate, but he does now.

“I don’t need anything from you,” Bakura repeats, softer this time, “except for your regard. Your company.”

He raises Ghost’s hand further, brushing a kiss over his knuckles. Ghost wheezes. He feels like his heart has made one more futile attempt at escape and lodged itself in his throat.

“Is that so hard to believe?” Bakura asks.

Responses gather on Ghost’s tongue – variations of “have you actually seen me?” “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” “Have you lost your mind?” – only to wither and die when confronted with the look of absolute sincerity on Bakura’s face.

“I don’t – I – “ Ghost takes as large a breath he can. “I’m not worthy of such attention.”

Bakura scoffs. “Do you desire it?” he asks. “Don’t think of what you may or may not deserve – could you desire me?”

Ghost studies him carefully. It’s a stupid question, and yet, it’s also one that’s carefully worded. Bakura is striking and beautiful and, despite how intimidating he is, only a madman wouldn’t desire him to some extent. But he also hears what Bakura isn’t asking for, and something about that makes the last of Ghost’s lingering panic fade.

“Yes,” he says.

Something eases in Bakura’s expression. Ghost hadn’t realised how tense he was until then, and he finds himself smiling. He twists his hand free of Bakura’s grasp – Bakura lets him – and reaches up to cup Bakura’s cheek.

He’s not wearing gloves. He can feel exactly how soft Bakura’s skin is; can feel the faint ridge of an old scar under the man’s eye. Bakura turns his face into the touch, pressing another kiss to the palm of Ghost’s hand.

Bakura hadn’t asked him for love. It’s probable that he doesn’t expect it; possible that he doesn’t think he’s worthy of it, or indeed that anyone would be capable of loving him. He’s badly educated and bloodthirsty; a part-demon; the King’s monster on a leash.

He doesn’t think that Bakura meant to reveal that particular vulnerability, but now that he knows it… It’s endearing.

Ghost has always adored unlovable things.

Bakura kisses him again, breath hot on his wrist, and Ghost trembles at the touch. He shifts closer. There is still a part of him that is wary, that worries about how badly this could go for him, but that part is getting smaller and smaller with every passing moment. What does that matter? What does any of it matter when Bakura is being so gentle? When his life alone here was so empty that he’d thought he had died?

Thunder rumbles in the distance. The storm is passing, and Ghost makes up his mind. He reaches up with his free hand and cards his fingers through Bakura’s wet hair.

“I’ll have the servants draw you a bath,” he says. “You should get warm before you get sick.”

Bakura’s eyes close in something that looks like relief – or bliss, Ghost isn’t entirely sure.

“Thank you,” he says.

Ghost has no idea what he’s being thanked for: whether it’s the offer of a bath or the implication of care, but he takes it anyway. He rubs his thumb over the ridge of Bakura’s scar.

“Come,” he says. “Let’s get you more comfortable, my lord.”

He guides Bakura through the silent halls of his childhood home and contemplates that – although his remaining years may end up being brief after all – at least they won’t be dull.