[drabble] Amphichiral Knot
Challenge Name and Number: #051, Dragons
Drabble Title: Amphichiral Knot
Word Count: 600
Warnings (if applicable): None
Pairings (if applicable): Awareshipping (Ryuuji x Ryou x Marik)
Summary: “You won’t lose anything by being with me,” he tells Ryou. “You’re afraid of that. Of losing everything.”
Author’s Notes: Abstract, sort-of post-canon.
Amphichiral Knot
The look in his eyes is almost predatory. Clouded behind that it is difficult to see from his place wrapped in a different set of arms, but Ryou looks up regardless and meets the other’s gaze. He is curious, in the same way that his curiosity drove him to investigate an ancient, cursed Egyptian artifact and a thousand different ways to overcome a possessor with his claws sunk in tight.
“We’re out of soda,” he says, despite the fact that Marik was the only one drinking it; Ryou’s own glass is filled with water. They make the fast food joint comfortable, reclining on red cushions of fake leather with empty plates settled haphazardly on formica tables, and as Ryou grasps Marik’s glass to refill it he gets another look from the black-haired, near-stranger in the corner, his perfect skin split with lines of black down one cheek and wrapped around his eyes. It’s a look Marik probably wishes he could pull off. It’s a look Ryou himself hasn’t seen in years, not since they’d run in the same circles, the dueling circles, but while in geometry one might run on forever, theirs did not.
At his own booth in the corner, Ryuuji sips a milkshake. Ryou takes the refilled soda and drinks it, finding the taste bitter. Ryuuji grins at him again as if he knows it, his face in profile, teeth slipping over his lips like fangs.
Marik needs his drink, and Ryou needs to feel less suffocated by whatever that look is making him feel. He lets it go, then, lets them all go, and each and every look vanishes into nothing, with barely an impression left in his mind.
Or so he tells himself.
--
Too quick for him to be prepared for it, and he answers the door one day to find Ryuuji standing there, leaning with one arm propped against the wall, managing to look both nonchalant and driven, with both his body posture and his eyes.
“How’d you know where I lived?” He’s changed addresses multiple times, but always still on his own, no matter how many times Marik has asked to move in with him. The current number sits at five.
“Phone book.” Short and simple, and Ryou invites him inside because it’s the polite thing to do. He watches the way Ryuuji regards his décor-he tries to hide the distasteful look towards the furnishings, but offers a photo of Ryou and Marik no such treatment.
“What are you here for?” he asks.
“You.”
Short and simple, and Ryou swallows, a thousand different protests on the verge of formation. “What?”
He can’t deny it, he wants to, but he can’t. Can’t, can’t, can’t, and each protest becomes a string that forms together into a giant knot, the strings tucked together and expanded, with no hope of ever becoming untied. “I can’t.”
“You won’t lose anything by being with me,” he tells Ryou. “You’re afraid of that. Of losing everything. You’ve lost it before. You know the feeling.” He meets Ryou’s eyes again, the contact so startling and deep, all jade green, and it’s enough to convince him. “I’ve known it too.”
Ryou excuses himself to the kitchen to get tea, and Ryuuji takes the opportunity to turn the photo face-down, pressing the glass cover into the wooden table.
--
His eyes may be green, but in his dreams they are always red, burning red like a dragon’s, curling him in and never letting go. He takes the tangle of knots and burns it to shreds, into nothing more than a vapor on the air.
Drabble Title: Amphichiral Knot
Word Count: 600
Warnings (if applicable): None
Pairings (if applicable): Awareshipping (Ryuuji x Ryou x Marik)
Summary: “You won’t lose anything by being with me,” he tells Ryou. “You’re afraid of that. Of losing everything.”
Author’s Notes: Abstract, sort-of post-canon.
Amphichiral Knot
The look in his eyes is almost predatory. Clouded behind that it is difficult to see from his place wrapped in a different set of arms, but Ryou looks up regardless and meets the other’s gaze. He is curious, in the same way that his curiosity drove him to investigate an ancient, cursed Egyptian artifact and a thousand different ways to overcome a possessor with his claws sunk in tight.
“We’re out of soda,” he says, despite the fact that Marik was the only one drinking it; Ryou’s own glass is filled with water. They make the fast food joint comfortable, reclining on red cushions of fake leather with empty plates settled haphazardly on formica tables, and as Ryou grasps Marik’s glass to refill it he gets another look from the black-haired, near-stranger in the corner, his perfect skin split with lines of black down one cheek and wrapped around his eyes. It’s a look Marik probably wishes he could pull off. It’s a look Ryou himself hasn’t seen in years, not since they’d run in the same circles, the dueling circles, but while in geometry one might run on forever, theirs did not.
At his own booth in the corner, Ryuuji sips a milkshake. Ryou takes the refilled soda and drinks it, finding the taste bitter. Ryuuji grins at him again as if he knows it, his face in profile, teeth slipping over his lips like fangs.
Marik needs his drink, and Ryou needs to feel less suffocated by whatever that look is making him feel. He lets it go, then, lets them all go, and each and every look vanishes into nothing, with barely an impression left in his mind.
Or so he tells himself.
--
Too quick for him to be prepared for it, and he answers the door one day to find Ryuuji standing there, leaning with one arm propped against the wall, managing to look both nonchalant and driven, with both his body posture and his eyes.
“How’d you know where I lived?” He’s changed addresses multiple times, but always still on his own, no matter how many times Marik has asked to move in with him. The current number sits at five.
“Phone book.” Short and simple, and Ryou invites him inside because it’s the polite thing to do. He watches the way Ryuuji regards his décor-he tries to hide the distasteful look towards the furnishings, but offers a photo of Ryou and Marik no such treatment.
“What are you here for?” he asks.
“You.”
Short and simple, and Ryou swallows, a thousand different protests on the verge of formation. “What?”
He can’t deny it, he wants to, but he can’t. Can’t, can’t, can’t, and each protest becomes a string that forms together into a giant knot, the strings tucked together and expanded, with no hope of ever becoming untied. “I can’t.”
“You won’t lose anything by being with me,” he tells Ryou. “You’re afraid of that. Of losing everything. You’ve lost it before. You know the feeling.” He meets Ryou’s eyes again, the contact so startling and deep, all jade green, and it’s enough to convince him. “I’ve known it too.”
Ryou excuses himself to the kitchen to get tea, and Ryuuji takes the opportunity to turn the photo face-down, pressing the glass cover into the wooden table.
--
His eyes may be green, but in his dreams they are always red, burning red like a dragon’s, curling him in and never letting go. He takes the tangle of knots and burns it to shreds, into nothing more than a vapor on the air.