I make a solemn vow this day that the next thing I publish will be the next chapter of Complicity or may all my bread fail to rise.

Procrastination AU again. This time, we go far back into the past and discover that the more things change the more they stay the same. Specifically in regards to Bakura being a jackass. Will there ever be an installment exploring what exactly goes down in the kitchen? Maybe. Random HC that Malik dislikes blood, specifically bleeding. Even more specifically, blood trailing over his skin.

Unbeta'd, my mistakes have frostbite.

It's snowing the day they bring Bakura back, a frightening blizzard that's had Domino City frozen solid for almost a week. In retrospect, it's the only reason they don't lose him in the first ten minutes.

Ryou's the one who floats the idea one day, casually, like he's wondering if Malik would rather have hot chocolate or tea. Malik sits in silence, as does Atem and Yugi. None of them were prepared for it - they'd just been debating if the god cards should be interred in a museum or put back in Yugi's deck, passing the time while they waited to see if Rishid and Isis' flight over would be cancelled again or not.

Atem, surprisingly, is the first to agree. Yugi asks when and if they need to bring any supplies. Malik says nothing, because he doesn't quite believe it and won't until Bakura is warm and breathing in front of them.

Yugi also wonders how, because Ryou sounds rather confident he can do it. This wouldn't be like the resurrection of Atem, which was helped along by literal divine intervention. The gods were sick and tired of watching him pine after his still living friends, and so didn't hesitate to push him forward when Yugi had halfheartedly performed a ritual out of pure curiosity. His dead ones were happy to let him go - after all, they knew they'd see him again. Ryou simply says he can.

None of them ask why, and none of them would. (Bakura's the only one who does, and Ryou has no answer for him.)

On the next new moon, at the start of the witching hour, they begin on Yugi's living room floor. Two layers of salt circles with a triangle in the center, made of mallow leaves and rowan twigs sprinkled with tobacco ash. A teaspoon's worth of Ryou's blood on a glass plate that everyone pretends isn't there, and a white cotton string which he ties around his little finger, leaving one end trailing. A small wooden carving of the Thief King, painted and clothed in red felt, detailed down to the scar on his face.

Ryou lays down in one corner, the carving carefully placed in another by Yugi. The hand with the string reaches out into the final corner, which holds the plate. The string stains red and Ryou passes out. Kaiba, who'd been successfully bribed into helping out with a duel and a tournament entry each from Yugi and Atem, recites something in Latin from a piece of paper that Ryou wrote. He's monotone and clearly not believing a word he's saying as he does so, but that doesn't matter - the call of a High Priest is impossible to ignore, even if he's not been remotely priest-like for three thousand years.

There's no crackle of lightning, no blast of cold. The lights don't suddenly flicker on. Not a flash or a bang or even a puff of smoke and Yugi will quietly complain that he feels kinda cheated later. One moment, there is nothing. The next, there is Bakura, who will take a lot of convincing to believe there's much difference.

He awakens before Ryou and sits up. He blinks, slowly and deliberately. He looks around and sees everyone, but doesn't seem to really see them.

"This is the dumbest one yet," he says, his voice cracked and rough. Bakura tries to stand, but Ryou's dead weight pulls him back - the trailing bloodied end of the string is now wrapped around his own finger. He looks down at Ryou and what little life was in his eyes drained out. "Not funny."

"I know you probably won't believe us but this is no dream, nor an illusion," Atem states. "We brought you back."

"Are we sure it's him?" Yugi whispers.

"Oh shut up, you're not even trying to be original anymore. What is it this time? 'To atone for my sins', or 'To pay back my soul's debt'? Fuck off. I don't owe you shit."

"Yeah, that's him," Malik answers and at his voice Bakura flinches and looks like he hates himself for doing it.

Kaiba cricks his shoulders and turns to Yugi. "Are we done here?"

"Oh! Right, not yet. I was supposed to do this once he came back," Yugi remembers. He crosses the salt barriers and gently cuts the thread connecting Bakura and Ryou with a small knife and Bakura gasps. Like all the air was suddenly sucked out of his lungs.

"Alright, that's new," he croaks out once he gets his breath back. "Half point for surprising me."

Kaiba rolls his eyes. "Monday, eight PM, my office," he orders as he leaves, pointing at Yugi while he does so who nods absentmindedly as he tries to wake Ryou. "If you're late you start with a one thousand life point penalty."

"Might as well drop three thousand, then you might actually stand a chance against him," Atem boasts.

"Four thousand."

"Six thousand! Right Yugi?"

"Sure, whatever," Yugi murmurs. As they laid the circles out Ryou had said that he might take a while to come back around afterwards. Anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, depending on how much life energy he had to manipulate to find and restore Bakura. Forever wasn't spoken, but somewhere deep in his gut Yugi knew it had been a possibility Ryou hadn't told him.

He desperately wanted it to be minutes.

"Is he dead?" Bakura asks, suddenly next to him.

Yugi checks his pulse, then leans down to listen to Ryou's chest. "No, but he's out cold."

"If you think this is just a trick, why do you care?" Malik asks, moving so close he can almost touch Bakura as he backs away from Atem and Seto's spat.

Bakura flinches again, then shrugs as if it never happened. "Gets it over with quicker, I guess. Once I figure out it's an illusion it's probably not as fun anymore..." He trails off as he spots a bottle of water, abandoned by the couch. "Gimme that."

Malik tosses it over and Bakura takes a sip. He immediately chokes on it, coughing until his face is red. "Nice one, using actual water." he says shakily. "'Nother half point. Usually the first thing I eat or drink turns to sand, or molten metal. One time it was blood."

He wipes his face then drinks again, carefully this time. Then he lurches forward, his hand caressing Malik's cheek and Malik can't move, his entire body tensing at the touch, committing every inch of calloused skin to memory. His hand lingers on Malik's face and neither Yugi nor Malik miss the tremors, no matter how slight.

"Y'know," he stutters, his eyes flickering about wildly, looking everywhere but into Malik's eyes. "You're supposed turn to sand too, now that I've touched you. Burst into flames. Turn into a thousand snakes or start talking with my mother's voice, saying how much I failed her. Sometimes just straight up die, that happens too. Go on."

Yugi and Malik, obviously, do none of those things. As Bakura waits, he draws into himself like he's bracing for impact. Eventually he snaps. "Get it the fuck over with! You can't fool me!"

"This isn't a trick, Bakura," Yugi says as calmly as he can manage, but it doesn't work. Bakura's eyes are wild and bright with fear as he backs away, jolting as he hits the wall behind him.

"Fuck you!"

Yugi does the first thing that comes to mind and leaps at him. He hits the door with a dull thud and a lap full of Yugi and together they slide to the floor. Yugi wraps his arms around his shoulders desperately.

"This is real. I can't prove it, but it is. Please believe us, we don't want-"

Yugi shrieks as sharp pain pierces him. Bakura's biting him. He's sank his teeth into Yugi's neck like he means to tear it open, then lets go as Yugi pulls back and kicks him off, fleeing into the kitchen. Atem and Kaiba both turn back at Yugi's cry and run over. Malik helps Yugi sit back upright, pressing his hand to the wound. It's not bleeding too badly but there's definitely blood and he shakes off the spots that dash around his vision. He hands him over to Atem and shouts for one of them to keep an eye on Ryou as he chases after Bakura.

The back door in the kitchen, the one leading out into a small alley behind Yugi's grandfather's house, is wide open. Malik runs out into the snow, hissing as it whips his skin, trying to spot a flash of red in the whiteout. He was barefoot and dressed for the desert, he wouldn't last five minutes.

He looks down and sees footprints that are too small to be his own, just barely visible on the ground. They go a few steps out, then turn around and go back inside again and relief courses through him. So he's definitely somewhere in the house. Malik does a quick check as he goes back to the group - his grandfather's hopefully still asleep upstairs, his mother's on vacation in Australia. He probably wouldn't have gone back into the living room, meaning he's stuck with the kitchen and the basement as his hiding spots. It's a matter of when, not if, they'll find him.

"Yugi, you okay?" Malik asks when he returns.

"I think so," he answers, still a little stunned, his hand pressed down hard against his neck. Atem keeps his hand over Yugi's, while Kaiba looks about a few seconds away from calling the cops. Ryou's still out cold, so he distracts Kaiba by asking to help lift Ryou onto the couch.

"The antiseptic's still under the sink, right?" Atem asks. Yugi nods then winces and Malik really doesn't like the look on Atem's face, so he volunteers to go get it.

It's entirely by chance that he realizes where Bakura is. A tiny cough sneaks out from behind the fridge after he gets the first aid kit out, when he's finished washing his hands clean and checking that everything they need is inside. There's a tiny space behind it, he remembers, since the fridge is sat diagonally instead of being pushed in line with the wall's corner. He can just about see Bakura when he tries to peek at the side, huddled up with his head buried in his arms, but there's no way he'd be able to reach him - there's not even enough room for him to climb in alongside him from the top.

"Come on, I know you're there."

Nothing.

"Don't play this game Bakura, I'm really not in the mood."

"You're the one playing. I'm not gonna delude myself just to make some illusion happy," he snarls as he looks up, Yugi's blood still staining his lips, his teeth.

An idea strikes Malik. "Have any of these illusions ever lasted this long?"

"No."

"Have they ever let you touch us, or taste anything?"

"The fucker in charge is just switching up the formula, that's all. Trying to drag it out."

Malik doesn't really have an answer for that, but before he can bluff the door opens. Yugi's grandfather walks in, somehow intimidating in his fluffy robe and bunny slippers and sleepy grin. Was it the scream or did someone - likely Atem - panic and go fetch him?

"Ah, there you are Malik! Could you go back and see to my grandson for a while? I need a word with our new friend here."

On the one hand, Bakura's a very dangerous person, who probably shouldn't be left alone with a man as ancient as Yugi's grandfather. On the other hand Sugoroku Muto has probably dealt with far worse things than a scared, unarmed teenager - Yugi's told tales of his career that sound like the latest summer action flick but Malik has no trouble believing they actually happened.

"Be my guest."

Yugi's on the couch next to a still unconscious Ryou. He takes the kit off Malik with a quiet thanks, applying a wide band-aid to his neck and crunching one of those chemical ice packs in his hands. Kaiba's nowhere to be seen, having probably gone home now that his rivals are too busy worrying about each other and nobody's about to die. The summoning circle is a wreck from being trodden on and kicked around in Bakura's rush to escape, a wreck that Atem's hesitantly cleaning up like he's never used a vacuum cleaner before.

He retrieves the water bottle Bakura abandoned and takes his own sip, content to just lay back on what space is left on the couch and stare at the ceiling for a while.

Bakura's back. He's alive, even if he doesn't believe it himself.

Now what?