Okay, so it's been a while but I've finally written this! A bit ago I was asked by run-for-your-life-hikari to write a Thiefshipping fanfic with some lyrics from a song she liked. I was more than happy to oblige (because we need more Thiefshipping dangit!) and so I wrote this! I hope you like it run-for-you-life-hikari, and sorry it took so long!
Summary: It started out as a game. At night they would have their fun and in the morning Marik would wake up, followed shortly by Bakura. Both would get out of bed and then it would be back to business. It became something more, but in the end nothing matter because a game is just a game.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or the song Bruises and Bitemarks by Good With Grenades
You bring the ropes and chains
I'll bring the pills and games
I can show you pain
And make you say my name
You will believe my lies
That I'm not like other guys
It started out as a game. Marik was still unsure of all the details as to how it had begun, but he knew that much. One minute he'd been plotting with his partner-in-crime on how exactly to take down little Yuugi in the Battle City finals, and in the next Bakura was taking his clothes off with his teeth.
He'd woken up the next day feeling somewhat sore and vaguely recognizing the handprint bruises adorning his slender hips. Beside him was Bakura, sleeping peacefully.
Marik's first reaction was of repulse and an urge to scream to the world in frenzied horror that he could not have done what he thought he'd done. His second was much less melodramatic, and it was that things could have turned out worse. Much worse.
The normally irate spirit of the Sennen Ring actually looked peaceful and at rest while sleeping, more like his host than Marik had ever seen before. His mane of silvery hair was fanned out around the pillow and his back, and his creamy expanse of skin also bore bruises from the night before. He made quiet murmuring noises that were so uncharacteristically out of place Marik had almost burst out in laughter. No, he'd thought as his eyes trailed appreciatively up and down the prone form of his companion, things really could have been much worse.
Bakura had woken up soon after that, grinned at him lecherously, and asked if he wanted to go another round. Marik had known right then that he should have said no, that neither of them should start something like this because without a doubt it would not turn out well, but at this point the idea that this was just a game had already presented itself in the minds of both teens. Bruises and bitemarks and nothing more. He said sure, and the game had begun.
From that point on they played. The mornings would be strictly business and planning, and only once in a while would Bakura drag him off to a nearby empty room (or closet if it was convenient) for a "break", or try to seduce him while he was doing something important. The mornings were strictly business, but at night they would have their fun. And in the following morning Marik would first wake up, then Bakura, and it would be back to business again. They ate breakfast while planning and then did whatever else required their time and attention to make sure that their plans would succeed and move forward smoothly. And then would come nightfall, and they would play again.
The game they played was one of winning and losing. Bakura won if he could seduce Marik into his bed, Marik won if he could successfully reject Bakura's advances. Marik lost most of these matches (he'd said it before and he would say it again –Bakura was a sexy man-slut and could seduce the wallpaper off the damn wall), but he didn't really care because after all, it was just a game. And sometimes the best strategy turned out to be a losing one.
It was fun. It was fun and so it continued. Perhaps if it hadn't been things would have turned out differently, but it was fun and as a result it progressed forward. Fun was something that Marik needed, something that would for once keep his mind away from the fast approaching duel that would finally allow him his revenge on the Pharaoh. He needed everything to be perfect, not for his mind to collapse under stress and start double- and triple-checking himself again and again for even the tiniest of mistakes. His nights with Bakura were good for this reason, and he was sure that Bakura had his own motives behind them as well. That was all fine, so things continued. After all, hadn't the whole basis of their partnership been formed on each of them using the other for his own personal gain and needs? This game was just a modified version of the one they'd been playing from the very beginning.
One night Bakura suggested they try something different. Out of curiosity Marik agreed to it. Now there were props to go with their fun. Not surprisingly, Bakura had many props. Ropes and chains and whips and knives to only mention a few. And the "props" only made it more fun, more intense. ("I always knew you were just as much of a kinky bastard as I was," Bakura would joke).
Then it all changed. Bakura got a little too carried away one night with his props, and in the morning, instead of going straight to breakfast, Marik had to clean and bandage some of the wounds he'd acquired during the night. Bakura slept through it all, oblivious of the winces or quiet pained noises he had made. When he did wake, Marik hadn't bothered to tell him that his body ached and hurt. He didn't want to seem like a baby in the spirit's cruel eyes.
It soon after became apparent to Marik that the game had evolved. Now winning and losing didn't matter. Now it was about pain. How much you could hurt the other and how much hurt you could endure until you broke. The one rule in this game was that there were no rules. Anything was allowed as long as it could cause physical pain or mental anguish. Marik didn't like it. This new game was cruel and dangerous and he didn't like it. He didn't like pain, hadn't when he was younger and still didn't now. But Bakura, Bakura was obsessed with pain. He was happiest when blood and screams were involved and it was catching. Marik did not like pain but he loved to see how alive Bakura was at night. He loved to see those cruel brown eyes dance with madness and power, and he loved to hear Bakura's bloodcurdling laughter echo in his ears. He loved to feel Bakura's unnaturally sharp canines pierce the tender flesh of his neck, and he loved the pink tongue that lapped up his own blood. He loved how well his crimson life force matched with Bakura's creamy alabaster skin. Bakura had chained and carved not only his physical body but his spirit as well, and now no matter how much he didn't like the pain it was too hard for him to break free of his bondage and to erase those marks.
And the pain only got worse. When they finished Bakura had taken to saying things like "I love you." It didn't take a genius to know that he was lying. When he said it his lips would curl into a fiendish sneer, and the words never came out full of warmth and passion like they should. They were cruel and deadly cold and venomous, and Marik knew that if he believed them they would poison him. No, it didn't take a genius to know that he was lying and that this was just a new branch of their game, but he couldn't stop his heart from pounding all the same. And he knew that it was stupid, because this was just another of Bakura's mind games and nothing else. It didn't mean anything more to the cold spirit, it was all just a game, as it had always been. Just a convenient way to have fun.
Marik told this to himself again and again in the morning as he began the task of cleaning the increasingly worse amount of injuries he'd gained from the night before. (By this point in time the task had succeeded in becoming so long that Bakura woke halfway through the procedure. He did hear the noises and winces of discomfort but he didn't seem to care. On more than one occasion Marik had caught him smirking.) It became a mantra for him, something that he repeated daily and tried to make himself believe.
The problem was that it was no longer fun. If such activities still had been, then Marik had not a doubt in his mind that he wouldn't have been so troubled by what was occurring between them But when the pain had come the fun had ran like a frightened puppy with its tail between its legs to hide behind a couch, and neither hide nor hair had been spotted of it since then.
With this new type of game Marik could never win. Playing dirty was perfectly acceptable in this game, and while Marik was especially skilled at playing dirty, Bakura was unbeatable. The spirit was cruel and merciless and worst of all, didn't care. He liked the pain bestowed upon him and thrived with his mind games. Nothing Marik did bothered him. As far as he knew, his opponent had no memories to be used against him and had never told him otherwise, and he did not care in the least if his host was injured or used as blackmail. If anything, it made the game more interesting.
He was inhuman. But Marik, Marik was very human. He had never been comfortable with the idea of pain, and unlike his opponent, he did have memories to be used against him, none of which were good. Of course Bakura had noticed the scars that were carved into his back the very first night they'd had sex. And of course he had been curious about them. For all of Marik's determination not to speak of them, Bakura pulled the information out of him easily enough, along with the story of his wretched past. And Bakura loved to use that information against him without the slightest provocation. More often than not Marik awoke from terrible nightmares featuring his father, the likes of which he hadn't had since he'd been young. If Bakura noticed, he never said a thing. Marik doubted that he even would have. Because it was all a game, and Bakura needed to win.
Somewhere along the lines he realized that this had to stop. The game had become dangerous and painful, and only Bakura was still having fun. He had resisted for some time, but then night found him once again on his side of the bed, naked, sweat mingling with the blood on his bruised and torn skin. Even in his tired and weary state he had still been able to feel the deep humiliation at being so easily defeated The demonish spirit himself then had leaned over and whispered those three words into his ear, and Marik belatedly realized that he had begun to believe those words, even as they fell from sneered lips with such hateful intensity and dripping with venom.
He'd been sucked in by deceitful lies, he'd been poisoned by the very thing he'd tried so hard to resist. He had fallen prey to Bakura's mind games and now he needed them just as much as he needed the pain. The world had turned upside-down and now he needed those things to make him feel alive. Not even the thought of his fast-approaching duel for revenge on the Pharaoh sparked the same fires of life in his heart. He had fallen in love with the devil himself.
And perhaps the worst part was that none of it mattered. This was only a game that they played and nothing more. It would never become more for someone like Bakura. It couldn't. He didn't think Bakura had the capacity for such feelings. Marik's own emotions did not matter.
It wasn't until his carefully constructed plan had fallen apart and he'd been kicked out of his own body by his dark half that Marik truly was able to understand the position he was in. He had no one else to turn to and so he had gone to Bakura to help him defeat his other and regain control of his body. Bakura had agreed (Marik wasn't too surprised to find out that even after everything the two of them had been through, he still wouldn't do a favor without a little incentive first), and Marik found himself in Bakura's head. For the first time he was truly able to understand the heartless spirit and know what he knew.
He learned many things while he was inside Bakura's mind. Maybe that was the reason the two of them had lost to his darker half. The urge to explore was too great, and he spent more time uncovering Bakura's secrets than he did watching the duel. It was that curiosity that revealed to him Bakura's thoughts and just how right he'd been the entire time.
He saw that the spirit actually was in full possession of his memories and he saw those memories and understood that Bakura's past was every bit as horrible as his own. He saw how Bakura had come to reside inside the Sennen Ring and what he planned to do with the rest of the Sennen Items. And he saw that all of the years spent trapped inside his golden prison had allowed the pain and rage the spirit felt to come to a boil, and that in turn had transformed Bakura into a baser, more primitive creature and twisted his emotions and thoughts into a terrifying madness. Bakura would never be able to understand the feelings Marik felt because he was no longer capable of such things himself. No longer capable of love. Bakura's emotions were limited to an understanding of pain because it was the only way for him to feel like he was still alive. Their game would only ever be a game because it was what Bakura understood and felt. Bruises and bitemarks and nothing more.