Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Chances
Rated: PG-13
Word Count: 2,188
Romance: Yami no Bakura x Malik Ishtar
Notes: This takes place in the manga, after the quarter-finals and before the duel of Yami no Bakura versus Yami no Malik. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
LJ Challenge: This was written for the 12_stories Livejournal challenge.
Summary: When you have nothing left to bargain with, nothing to give that your partner wants, and nothing at all to lose, take a chance.

Malik was not happy. Granted, he couldn't ever remember being happy anymore. His life had been nothing but various forms of anger, rage, and grief since he'd been ten years old. At the moment, however, he was even angrier than he had ever been: since he'd found out that his reasons for being angry before had been nothing but a trick. It hadn't been the Pharaoh or anyone that served him that had killed his father…

It had been himself. The dark, twisted side of himself.

But he would find a way to make up for it, at least if it could be made up for. Which meant destroying that other him. If it should happen to cost his life, then so be it.

There was only one person who could help him at the moment with what he needed to do. And only one way to get to that person.

He carefully nudged the girl's mind, getting her to take the Millennium Ring where he wanted to go. Her mind still belonged to him, even though he didn't have the Rod at the moment. She was a suitable temporary host, but he did intend to move out of her shortly. Bakura Ryou would make a much better one.

Making a bargain of any kind to the Spirit of the Millennium Ring was going to be difficult and dangerous. He had very little to offer anymore. But he would try. He had no other choice.

What could he offer? Millennium Items? The other certainly wanted those, though Malik wasn't certain of why. He could have the Rod, if Malik got his body back. He could also inform him of the new location of the Millennium Necklace. To think that it had passed to Yuugi…

No. He didn't have time to worry about that now. The Items would be his bargaining chips for the moment.

He had Anzu carefully place the Ring around the sleeping Bakura's neck and concentrated as hard as he could. It really wasn't that difficult. Perhaps it had something to do with not being in his own proper body. But he slid out of Anzu's form and into the Ring, seeking the mind of Bakura Ryou…and the Spirit that lay within that mind.

"What are you doing in here?" The voice was even colder than it had been when he had spoken through Bakura Ryou's voice. Malik couldn't see the Spirit, but he didn't need to. At least not right now.

He couldn't just come out and say that he needed help. The Spirit respected strength and cunning, not weakness. I am not weak! Malik all but snapped the words to himself, then heard a rather amused laugh from the Dark Spirit. "What's so funny?"

"So you've lost your body." The Spirit of the Ring stood before him suddenly. He was dressed just as Bakura was, but the lines of his face were harsher and his hair was wilder. In other words, he looked just as he had when they'd made their first bargain. "I suppose you've come here to beg me to help you get it back."

Malik had no idea of how the Spirit knew that, but since it was out, it was time to bargain. "Help me and I'll give you the Millennium Rod." One piece at a time. He would offer the Necklace when, or if, he had to.

Slowly the Spirit began to circle him, as a cat would a mouse. Malik glared; he didn't have a lot of time in which to work. His dark side would be going after Rishid, if not Isis, before much longer. He was probably onlywaiting for everyone to fall asleep, so he could move about more easily.

"What do you have to offer?" the Spirit said at last. "I don't work for free. Not even for partners." Hints of contempt rippled through his voice, and Malik clenched his fists even more tightly.

"I just told you the Millennium Rod. What else do you want?"

The Spirit laughed, a cruel edge now flavoring his words. "The Rod? I can get that from your other half without even trying. He's more of a child than you are." His lips curved into a wicked sort of grin. "I could teach him how not to be one, if I chose."

Malik recalled what the Spirit had said before, about admiring Malik himself for his ruthlessness. The dark side of him was even worse. It would use either Bakura or the Spirit if it so chose, even more than Malik himself already had. Somehow, the thought of the two of them coming to any kind of accomodation was worse than he could imagine at the moment.

"Then I'll tell you where the Millennium Necklace is as well." He stared into those cold brown eyes without fear. Chances like this were difficult to take. But he would do it.

"Another Item…excellent." The Spirit nodded ever so slightly, still circling Malik. He came to a stop in front of him, a thoughtful tilt to his head. "I know you must have more to offer."

The carvings on his back…the secret to the Pharaoh's destiny. He could…no. He couldn't. Not now, anyway. He had screwed up enough of his life, he would't give this secret away. "What else do you want?"

"More than you could ever give, I'm sure. But if you have nothing else to give me…perhaps you have something that I could take." The smirk was even more twisted, and Malik knew that he was running out of time. He just had nothing else that he could or would hand over. And the Spirit chose to speak in riddles.

"What are you talking about?"

The answer that he received was not one that he had expected. The Spirit placed one hand firmly on the back of Malik's head and pulled him forward, pressing his lips against Malik's own. It was the first kiss that he'd ever had in his life: the first real kiss. Isis had kissed his forehead a few times when she'd put him to bed when he was a child, but that had ended shortly after their father's murder.

He jerked his head back after a few seconds, more confused and annoyed than ever. "What do you think you're doing?" He'd come here for a bargain made in cold blood, not in hot…whatever!

Though, to be honest, if this was what the Spirit wanted in exchange for help, Malik wasn't so certain if he couldn't provide. Sure, he'd never done anything like that before, and didn't exactly want to, but…the kiss hadn't been so bad, if somewhat startling.

"I was kissing you." The Spirit replied calmly, licking his lips a little. "You're not that good at it." Something about the look in his eyes sent an odd kind of thrill all through Malik, as well as the desire to take another kind of chance. He was probably going to die before the sun came up again anyway. Why not take a few chances?

"What kind of a bargain is that?" Malik took a step or two closer. "Speak some sense and perhaps we can come to a proper arrangement."

The dark spirit smiled again. "As you wish. To help you gain your body back, I'll take the Millennium Rod and Necklace." He paused only for the briefest of moments, perhaps for effect, perhaps just to decide on what he wanted. "I'll also have an hour of you."

"An hour?" Malik would have looked at any timepieces that were around, if there had been any. "My other self isn't going to wait around an hour." Everyone would be sound asleep by then, if they weren't already!

"An hour in here." Pale hands gestured about briefly to the room around them. Malik took a look; he hadn't really paid any attention to it since he'd arrived. He'd been a little more occupied trying to bargain with the Spirit. It was quiet and nearly empty save for the two of them. There was a small barred area in the back, through which he could catch a glimpse of someone else. The only other person he could imagine being there was Bakura Ryou. But he was of no use, so Malik turned his attention back to the Spirit.

"What's so different about in here?"

"It's a mind, fool." The Dark Spirit sneered at Malik's ignorance. If he hadn't needed him so badly, Malik would have just left then. No risk, no matter how thrilling, was worth being insulted over something he'd had little control over. Though he had worked towards understanding the surface world since coming out to it and he had a reasonable education. This, however, was a bit out of his league. "Time here does not work like time outside. An hour can take up only a moment or two. We have the time to do whatever I want."

Somehow, the phrasing did not surprised Malik in the slightest. Their partnership existed out of mutual benefice, not because they liked each other.

Truth to be told, some of what made the Spirit so unlikable was why Malik did like him. If 'like' was the proper word to use. His education had not included romance, sex, or anything like that. He didn't respect the Spirit. He wanted to use him as much as the Spirit used him.

Does it matter? Did what they wanted from each other matter all that much? The Spirit was only taking what they had already been doing for each other to another level.

No. It didn't matter.

"All right. You've got a bargain." He seized hold of the Spirit's wrists, though from the look on the other's face that was something that was being allowed. There was definite muscle in that shape, be it real or not. He pulled the other closer and kissed him. It wasn't a good kiss or a soft one or a gentle one. It held nothing of passion or of pleasure. It was the touching of two lips.

It also ignited something that he had paid little attention to. He recalled having read somewhere about teenage boys and something called 'hormones' but that had been set aside in favor of other studies at the time. It couldn't make that much of a difference now anyway; it had just vaguely crossed his mind. He kept on kissing, and now the Spirit was returning it, which made everything feel just a little different in some way that he couldn't quite describe.

The room had been virtually empty before, hardly anything on the walls, nothing that even resembled furniture. But as the Spirit pulled him even closer and turned him around and pushed him backwards, Malik found himself on a wide and comfortable bed the likes of which he'd never seen before. He might have wondered about it, but there was simply too much else for him to think about at the moment.

There were lips to think about that were touching parts of him he'd never thought could be touched by lips. There were hands in places where only his hands had ever been before, and to feel himself being touched by another gave an entirely new meaning to the word 'pleasure'.

"I could kill you." The Dark Spirit's voice whispered in his ear, even as his hands teased and taunted elsewhere. Malik tried to focus on what he was hearing, as opposed to what he was feeling. He was not doing very well at it. "I could snap your neck or cut your throat. And that part of you that is you would die."

Malik glared up at him; why was he talking when there were other thinsg to be doing with his mouth. "Shut up," he hissed, and pushed himself up enough to catch onto the Spirit's lips once more. If tonight was going to be his last night in the world, then he was going to put as much life into what he had time for as possible. And if it wasn't…then…he wouldn't think about what he was doing right now. His life had been one of risks, danger, and challenge since the day that he had stepped out into the sun for the first time. This was just one more.

One little hour, in a place where time meant nothing, was all that he might have. So Malik was determined to have everything that he could from that hour and from who he was there with. Who else could it have been, after all? The Pharaoh and his friends hated him. Rishid was unconscious, and could even die before much longer. The only person he had, the only ally he had, was this Spirit that would kill him in a heartbeat if he wasn't useful to him. He might well kill him anyway, for he could certainly gain the Millennium Items without him. Or so he believed at any rate.

And yet, Malik did not care about that, either. He had nothing at all to lose and everything to gain by this chance. So he took it.

The End