A/N: Okay, another one-shot. This time some darkshipping fluffiness. This was originally a Valentines day fic, but I was too busy to write it then, so I wrote it now.

Lotus

"Bakuraaa!"

Bakura heard his hikari's yelling all the way downstairs. He sighed, shut the TV he had been watching, and went to see his hikari.

Ryou laid in the bed, and his eyes were directed to Bakura the moment he opened the door.

But before Ryou could say anything, Bakura started babbling:

"God you're so whiny Ryou! A little fever and you just have to skip school, and you just have to lay in bed all day, and I just have to take care of you! You're as helpless as a drowned puppy. And wipe that smirk off your face! It's not funny, and it's not cute. It's just sad. Drowned puppies are sad. And, okay, maybe a little funny, if you think about it..."

Ryou laughed, and tapped the chair next to his bed, wanting Bakura to sit down. After staring angrily at the chair, like Ryou's fever was all it's fault, he finally did.

"I helped you when you were sick, "Ryou reminded. "And let me tell you, you were just as bad as I am."

Bakura humphed and asked:

"What do you want this time?"

"I'm bored, and I can't sleep. Can you tell me a story?" Ryou asked.

Bakura raised his eyebrows.

"A story? Well, you have some weirds requests. What kind of a story would that have to be?"

"A happy one," Ryou said. "No killing."

Bakura chuckled.

"Okay, then. I will tell you a happy story. Listen closely."

And Bakura started telling his story, every word flowed out of his mouth from his memories, and Ryou listened closely, not letting a single word be left unheard.

"It was back in Ancient Egypt, when I was a thief.

We had this tradition there. Every year, when flowers bloomed, children and lovers everywhere picked one flower and exchanged it with each other. To lovers, exchanging of flowers was a sign of eternal love. To children it was a start of a friendship. That's how we got friends back then.

I never had attended to this tradition before. But when I was eleven, mom took me to the city, to Thebes. From there the Pharaoh ruled all Egypt.

Mom had some business to do there. She gave me a lotus, a white flower, and said that I should go find myself a friend and then give him the lotus. I should get back before the nightfall, she reminded me.

I took the flower, it was almost as tall as me, gave my mom a kiss on the cheek and ran away to make friends.

It was harder than I thought. It was harder than it should be. I didn't know the city. And everyone I saw already had a friend. When I tried to approach the local kids, they ignored me, or ran away.

Even though they didn't know me, or where I came from, I understand why. I wasn't a normal kid. I guess deep inside they knew that I wasn't like them, I was a son of thief, someone you should avoid. And I looked pretty weird too. No normal kid in whole Egypt had white long hair like me.

I couldn't find anyone, who would accept my flower, accept my friendship, accept me. I was getting tired, really tired. And I had only one hour or so, before I should get back.

I was slowly giving up. I thought I should give the flower back to mom and say that thieves doesn't need friends.

I was turning to the direction I came from, when I heard someone whining miserably in the shadows of one of the houses.

Curious as I was, I sneaked closer to see what made the sound.

It was a dog.

Small brown dog laid in the shadows. I immediately saw what was wrong with it, its paw was weirdly twisted, maybe it was broken, and it was probably thirsty too.

I walked to it.

The dog raised his gaze when it heard me approaching, for a moment we stared at each other. Brown-eyed thief and dog.

I held out my hand, and offered the flower to the dog. It was the only friend I could get.

It liked my present. It licked my hand as a thanks. I smiled to it.

I was looking at its paw, wondering how I'd fix it, and what should I do with the dog after that.

I was so concerned about the dog I didn't notice the man behind me, until he crabbed my shirt's collar and lifted me up.

I let out a small yelp. The dog tilted its head, before it got up, and shaking only a little walked away. It left me. My friend, it left me.

I was now staring at the man. He was probably from Nubia, so dark was the shade of his skin. The man examined me form head to toes, and I couldn't do nothing.

'What you think you're doing to my dog, kid?' He asked with a weird accent.

'Nothing!' I yelled and struggled to get free, but it was no use. The man's grip was tight.

'Don't lie!' The man said. 'If you lie, I'm going to give you to the guards, and they will take you to the Pharaoh's prison and you will be there forever, rotting there all alone!'

It was actually an empty threat, the man could not do anything to me. But I was eleven years old, imagine how it felt, and of course I believed. I was thief, and every good thief had heard stories about the horrors of prisons. I was really scared.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I bit him. And pretty hard too. I had sharp teeth, like wild dog's, my mom once said.

The man shrieked in pain and dropped me.

On my way down, my hands, I have no idea why or how, found their way to a small pouch that hang from the mans waist. It felt heavy, so I took it.

The same moment my bare feet touched the ground I started running. The man yelled after me.

I ran, as fast as I could. When I lost the man, I stopped, panting.

I decided to get back to mom, I didn't care about making friends anymore.

Before I could do that a voice behind me said:

'I saw it all.'

My face reddened, and I spun around. Someone had saw me stealing from that man. I hid the pouch behind my back and stared at the person in front of me, who had talked. He was a boy, a little younger and a little smaller than me. That's all I really remember about him. And he was holding a lotus too, his lotus was blue.

'So do you have a friend yet?' he asked shyly.

My mouth opened. I was surprised by the question, I thought that the boy would start talking about the stealing. Instead he had asked me about friends. Friends! I felt like laughing, but instead I just shook my head.

The boy smiled and offered me his flower.

'Friends?' he asked hopefully.

'But I don't have anything to give you back,' I argued. When I saw the disappointed look on his face, I felt just a little bad. Luckily I got an idea.

'Wait a sec,' I said and turned around. I opened the pouch I stole. Like I had thought it was full of coins. One coin caught my eye. It was golden and it didn't look like any other coin I had seen. It definitely wasn't Egyptian. It could have been valuable, but I didn't care. I took it and gave it to the boy. He gave me his flower in return.

'We're friends now,' he said and smiled.

I nodded, holding his flower close to my chest. We looked at each other for a while. Then I noticed how the sun was already setting.

'I gotta go!' I yelled in a rush of panic, and ran away.

'Wait!' he screamed after me, but I didn't stop."

Bakura looked at Ryou.

"There, you had your story. Happy now?" he asked

Ryou nodded, and closed his eyes. Soon he was fast asleep.

Bakura got up and left the room.

But the Ryou didn't hear the real ending of the story.

The flower. The lotus. Blue lotus, the boy had given.

It withered. At first one petal fell off, and then another, and another.

The flower suffered.

And when the final petal fell off, the flower died.

It died at the same time as Bakura's mom, and his dad, and his sisters, and his whole family.

The flower died at the same time with Kul Elna.

And Bakura forgot the promise of friendship.

Ryou went to school next day. He felt all better.

"Glad to see you're healthy," Yugi said to him during lunch break.

"Yeah, my fever's all gone," Ryou said and laughed." Bakura nursed it away."

"Really?" Yami asked. "How?"

"He told me a story."

"A story?" Yugi asked, not believing his ears.

Ryou nodded.

"Yeah, wanna hear it?"

"Sure!"

And Ryou started telling the story. He used the same words as Bakura, for he remembered every single one of them. Both Ryou and Bakura were great at telling stories. Their stories flowed, captured the listener. Yami and Yugi listened to the story, really fascinated. Their eyes did never leave Ryou, when they absorbed every word.

And Ryou told the story as he had heard it.

Bakura laid on the couch, eyes closed, enjoying the sun, like a cat. His white hair glimmered in sunlight, and a small smile was on his face.

He lazily opened one of his eyes, when Yami entered. Then he decided that he didn't care, and closed it.

Yami walked to the couch. For a long time, he just studied Bakura's peaceful face.

"Ryou told us a story yesterday," Yami said.

Bakura didn't answer, just changed his position a little.

"A story you told him," Yami continued.

Bakura opened his eyes again, and stared at Yami. When he was sure, Yami wasn't lying, he asked:

"And..?"

"I liked the story."

"Glad you enjoyed," Bakura murmured.

"And it made me think."

Bakura just rolled over, and didn't answer.

Yami leaned against the back of the couch and looked at the half-sleeping yami in front of him.

"I searched, and searched," he told, though Bakura wasn't listening. "Until I found it."

Yami held out his hand, and let something on a chain tough Bakura's cheek.

Bakura felt, the coldness of metal on his cheek. From the corner of his eyes he noticed the glimmering of the gold. He turned his head and looked at it. A small, old golden coin hang from the chain, Yami was still holding. The coin was something Bakura had seen only once before. It could be valuable and it definitely wasn't Egyptian. Bakura's finger touched the cold metal, faltering only a little.

The brown eyes were turned to face Yami.

"You were...?"

"I was," Yami admitted, nodding.

Then suddenly Bakura lost all interested, without a reason. He turned his face away, and let go of the coin.

Yami held the coin in his hand, and stared at it.

"The flower you gave to me is long dead," Bakura murmured.

"I don't care,"Yami said. He put his hand to Bakura's chin and turned it so the yami was forced to face him, the brown eyes were forced to look into his crimson ones. "I kept your coin. Do you think I would have saved it if it meant nothing to me? You were the first person who accepted my friendship. I was a Pharaoh, I didn't have a lot of people like that."

"We're enemies," Bakura said, and looked away.

Yami smiled.

"We were once friends, why can't we be friends again?"

Bakura didn't answer.

"I won't leave, until you tell me a reason."

Bakura sighed.

"You were my first friend outside Kul Elna, the only friend I had in Thebes. But the flower is dead. When the flower is dead, it's over. That's how the it goes. We didn't see each other after that one time. We are not friends! The flower is dead. You can't change that."

Yami smiled charmingly.

"Oh but I can."

Yami leaned over Bakura and gave him a soft and quick kiss.

Bakura looked at Yami, confused look crossed his face.

"The flower can bloom again," Yami said. "If you want."

Yami offered the coin to Bakura again. Bakura's eyes followed the soft movement of the coin, his face reflected on the surface of it. A soft smile appeared on his lips. He raised himself a little, put his fingers around the coin, tilted his head and whispered:

"Maybe I want then."

Yami grinned, and kissed Bakura again, this time longer, more passionate. He let go of the coin and proceeded to deepen the kiss, putting his arms around Bakura.

Bakura held to the golden coin. He smirked against Yami's lips.

Maybe he should buy him a lotus some day.