Warning: Lots of swearing and cussing. Some implications of abuse if you look at it that way.
Pairing: Darkshipping (Yami Bakura / Yami Yuugi)
Author Note: I don't have much to say. I guess this is an AU, because both Atem and Bakura have their own bodies and live on their own. It's just kind of based on the fan cannon that brings them all back after the series ends. The thing that Bakura wants to know isn't actually that important to the story, its just a basis for an argument. Also, I head cannon shadow magic as the ability to control the "shadows" which are kind of like creatures of their own. But it still has magical effects like any other fantasy power. My prompt for this was just the image of some one grabbing another person's wrist to stop them from going, I don't know how it became this.
Disclaimer: My scientific deduction concludes that I DON'T OWN YU-GI-OH! Shocker, I know.
...~~~***~~~...
"I don't have to fucking tell you, okay?! Just piss off!" Yami screamed.
That was the third time he'd said that now, and with each succession the statement grew louder and angrier. With this repetition the words stung like acid and roared like thunder, shaking the tumbler, forgotten on the counter, and creating little ripples within.
"You do have to tell me. And you will tell me." Bakura growled, his command wrought of steely entitlement.
Yami's features transformed into a half sneer, half glare at that remark, "You can't decide my actions for me, you fucking egomaniac! I have free will, or have you forgotten? Are you just that self-absorbed that you think you can just decide every fucking detail of someone else's life!?"
Something akin to fire flashed in Bakura's eyes, lighting up murky depths drowned in shadows. He took a single step forward, slowly and calmly reducing the distance between them. Yami twitched involuntarily at the action, but stood his ground. He was in the right, so Bakura could go fuck himself.
"Don't you dare try intimidating me, you piece of shit! If you think that you can just flaunt some sort of bloody authority around and have me fall at your feet, you're fucking wrong! I'm not weak, like you think, so stop acting like I am!"
Flaming brown eyes narrowed and a thin white eyebrow rose simultaneously. Bakura took another step closer: slowly, calmly. Until he and Yami were a hairsbreadth apart. Slightly taller and of a slightly larger build, he managed to give the impression of towering over his shorter companion, burning gaze turned full-blast on Yami's own defiant glare.
Yami tensed at Bakura's approach, but stubbornly showed no other signs of weakness. The rules were simple, whoever chickened out first lost. Unfortunately, Yami had acute disadvantages in physical strength and the ability to intimidate. Had it been anyone else, his chances of sending his opponent running for the hills, simply by turning his deadly eyes on them, were very high. But with Bakura, glaring and summoning the forces of hell was much less impressive. The forces of hell being their shared talent and all.
So, there they stood for a few seconds of silence; glaring.
Heat was practically radiating off Yami at this point, his anger building more and more as the tension progressed. He swallowed the many outbursts that sprung to his lips, not willing to give Bakura the victory of staying calm and silent longer.
Bakura, sensing his tightly wound restraint, leaned in further, until his ragged bangs were brushing lightly against Yami's forehead. This new development perturbed Yami to the point of almost breaking, but his steady, faithful self-restraint reeled him in again. Taking a deep breath he looked into Bakura's icy stare unflinchingly, silently berating his attempt at intimidation.
It would only take a tiny push to break him now, and Bakura knew that. So accordingly, he lodged his leg in between Yami's thighs, and pushed himself up roughly against his companion; all, of course, with the speed of an exceptionally talented thief.
That did it.
"You fucking douche bag!" Yami exploded, "Stop being a mother-fucking asshole, and trying to push me around!"
Yami leapt back, narrowly avoiding a collision with the counter. He took a few more steps back to put some extra distance between himself and tempting physical confrontation, his muscles taut defensively. Stupidity never ruled him, even at the worst of times, so despite his flaring anger he took precautions to avoid a fist-fight he would most likely lose.
Safely six feet away from Bakura, Yami curled his lip in a snarl. Many insults and petty comments tingled on the tip of his tongue, but he curbed them all with an accomplished sense of control. Instead, he settled for fuming while keeping a very careful eye on Bakura, lest he try anything else.
Bakura scowled at Yami's behaviour. He wanted fire and screaming and an all out explosion, not this measured indignation. If he managed to get Yami off balance enough to insight a burst of mania, then he had gained control of the argument. But when Yami was still biding his time like an injured fox, the control was out of his hands.
"Tell me. Now. You are mine, so you will do as I say."
Letting the words fall like a bomb, Bakura waited for a reaction he knew off by heart.
"Yours?! YOURS?! I'm not yours, thief! I'm not property! Don't you dare order me as if I were your servant!"
Like clockwork.
Yami threw himself away from the situation like he'd been burned. Determined to avoid this confrontation, he began stomping towards the door. But before he'd taken three steps, his pride had him turning back, eyes shooting daggers, fists clenched, tongue writhing.
"You self-righteous, arrogant, low-born, immoral filth! What I do with my time is my business, not yours! How dare you assume?! HOW DARE YOU!? You can't run my life, I'm not your fucking slave, happy to be locked up until you want something to screw! Do you really think that you can just order me whenever you bloody well like, no matter what you damned order is, and I'll just fucking agree!? DO YOU?! Well, you're wrong! Completely, entirely wrong! I'll do what I want, say what I want, see who I want, go where I want, think what I want – AND BLOODY TELL YOU WHAT I BLOODY WANT TO! SO JUST PISS THE FUCK OFF YOU GIANT DOUCHE!"
With that final crescendo, he was standing mere inches from Bakura. Yami's white hot breath puffed out erratically in the following silence, a thing made lively by the heated stare between himself and the opposition.
Silence ticked by heavily. The motionless, speechless battle between Bakura and Yami raged on. For nearly five solid minutes neither dared to even blink lest they destroy the weighted contact between them. Emotions and unsaid things sparked electrically from one to the other in crackling waves of suppressed rage.
Bakura's eyes were endless pits of burning resentment. This entire fight hadn't gone as he'd planned it. Oh, he knew there would be screaming and anger; he knew, so he'd gone on the premise that he would be able to predict each circumstance. But this... This. This wasn't how it usually went, this wasn't how it was supposed to go. There was so much silence that he didn't know what to do with. Yami was so sure that he was in the right, he was so sure that he felt he didn't even need to justify it. That was what really pissed Bakura off, that Yami wasn't even bothering to really defend his argument. He was just standing there, staring at him like it was Bakura who should be conceding...
Well that was bullshit! He wasn't the one that should be breaking down – that was what Yami should be doing. HE was the one who deserved answers! HE was the one who deserved compliance! How was it Yami's place to demand anything from him? HE was the one who should be ordering obedience!
It was funny in a way, just how quickly his self-restraint snapped. The argument had started more than an hour ago, and that whole time Bakura had managed to contain himself: determined to remain in complete control of the situation. But in the space of seven minutes it was all gone. Teased and singed and finally burned up in the air between them.
Yami, on the other hand, had come to a few resolutions. There was no point in arguing this with the thief, he was too stubborn to accept anyone's answer but his own. If Bakura was so intent on having things his way, then he could go rot. There was no way he was going to put up with this pig-headed, futile argument anymore when it was so obviously going nowhere. He knew what Bakura wanted from him, acceptance, obedience; but there was no way, even in the very jaws of Ammut, that he would ever humiliate himself like that.
So, just as Bakura had worked himself into a fit of petulant rage, Yami was about to stalk out the door with no intention of returning. Yami whirled around on his heel and made a beeline for the exit, using as much force as his natural gracefulness would allow.
"And just where the hell do you think you're going?!" Bakura's voice, but not icy like before. This was a low, throaty snarl. Thunderous, yet so quiet.
Yami turned his head just enough to catch a glimpse of blinding white hair before turning back again.
"Out. Don't wait up."
He was just about cross the threshold into beautiful, beautiful freedom; his foot mere inches from the doorway, when the air around him shifted.
"I don't think so."
Bakura's hot breath jetted past his ear in a hiss while simultaneously a hand wrapped itself around his forearm. Yami jerked back angrily, but the hold was iron. The thief, who had appeared like quicksilver at his back, wrenched on the captured arm until Yami was forcefully spun to face him.
"You're not going anywhere until I say you can."
Normally, Yami would have laughed and sneered at that. Normally, he would have raised an eyebrow with a snort and mocked Bakura for his immaturity. But instead, he went shock still.
Fear, like some sort of mocking imp, tickled Yami's spine with the first impression of terror. He wasn't scared of Bakura, he was never scared of Bakura. He was a mighty king, a magic wielder without peer, the very ruler of the shadows. Nothing as trivial as the developing threat in Bakura's voice could phase him. And yet...
There was danger looming. He knew that Bakura's was strong as well, by no means some weak mortal; he was, as Yami was, a spirit steeped in the magic of darkness. But Bakura didn't have the relentless self-control he did, he was a loose cannon. If his rage broke, there would be no stopping it; not when he had so much control over the situation. So then: escape. Escape was the only option here. And it had to be utilized fast, before it disappeared.
With speed he reserved for special occasions, Yami summoned a torrent of shadows to crash directly into Bakura's stomach; unleashing their full power on the unsuspecting thief. Ringing screams and crackling erupted from the stream of shadowy creatures as they wound a path through the air, dancing and writhing in a masochistic display. Bakura was thrown back by sheer force, gliding soundlessly through the air before crashing into a wall.
His limp body tumbled to the ground and landed in a heap of painfully tangled limbs. Bakura groaned slightly as he was momentarily stunned, and for that single moment, Yami thought that he was home free. He turned to the doorway again with the intention of sprinting out, but a sound distracted him. Some shuffling started up from where the thief had landed, and then, as abruptly as Yami's shadows had flown, the familiar screams of darkness were filling the apartment.
The shadows slammed directly into Yami's shoulder, and would have sent him plummeting on his side had they not circled around and struck his back. In the end, he was sprawled face-first on the ground, features twisted in pain.
Dark magic left an indescribable burning, or maybe it was something else, but whatever it was that it did, the pain was unbearable in the spots it had been. Of course, Yami already knew of this pain, every shadow game is played in a constant state of the same thing. But when the shadows are sharpened and rallied by someone as skilled and old as Bakura, the pain is a million times worse. Like comparing a thorn prick to being boiled in oil.
So, by that standard, the thing that Yami was feeling was equivalent to being crushed by white hot iron, over and over. He let out a repressed hiss and curled in on himself for a moment in recoil.
Meanwhile, Bakura had finally gotten upright and was getting to work on crossing the room. Single-minded, like he always got when he flew off the handle, single-minded. The only thing that managed to form a coherent thought was the phrase "I deserve respect." followed closely by an incomplete "I will use force." He was halfway to Yami on his twisted, stinging legs, when said pharaoh stirred and began to rise.
It took a lot of effort to get past all the pain and anger, to focus entirely on escaping; but it had to be done. Yami ignored every sensation minus his sense of balance so that he could manage to run from the room before Bakura finally made it over to him. As he got to his feet, the world spun dizzily, but he just blocked it out and kept going: raise the left foot and put in forward, ectetera.
One step, two steps, three steps, four. Everything else was black in Yami's vision except for the open apartment doorway. Like a beacon of light, it drew him forward even in his daze of pain (Bakura's attack had been exceptionally brutal) and as one of his feet crossed the threshold, he felt a sort of pride. He was just about to pull his other leg outside, when a sound dragged him from his trance.
Crash.
Fireworks were going off inside Yami's head. He whipped his gaze back frantically, searching for whatever it was that had made the sound, trying to force his body to recover faster, and he saw no one, no one at all. There was a chair strewn across the floor and the glass he'd forgotten on the counter was in pieces beside it; but there wasn't a soul around. Yami's pulse jolted.
He was doomed, and he knew it, but with the last bit of adrenaline he had pumping in his blood, he forced his body to run. Against the shackles of shadow magic residue, moving was like trying to sprint in a full suit of rusted armor. Yami's lungs burned and his body shook with every forced step; but his efforts did manage to get him nearly to the building's stairs. It was that last bit of hope before the downfall, the brilliant sunset before the dark night. Seeing the stairwell so close, offering such an escape; yet being so unbelievably far from it. Tragic really.
Fingers, cold as ice, wrapped almost gently around Yami's quivering wrist.
And everything else followed in order.
"What'd I tell you about leaving?" Bakura asked sweetly. Then with a violent tug on the hostage limb, he rested his lips against his ear and hissed, "Know your place."
Yami held back a cry of pain as Bakura twisted his wrist to almost breaking and shoved it up between his shoulder blades. The thief had recovered fast thanks to how moderate the hit he'd taken was; now, Yami regretted not going all out.
"You and I, my pretty little Pharaoh, are going to have to reestablish some rules." Bakura whispered, getting up right behind him and squeezing the already throbbing wrist until Yami gasped.
Yami tried to twist out of the grip any way he could, but he was still reeling from the shadow magic and Bakura was right on the verge of breaking his wrist. In the end, all he managed to do was let Bakura get flush up against him and to get his other arm caught in a similar predicament to the first. It was too late anyway, the thief was in a rage; nothing could be done. Yami knew that, but it did nothing to comfort him.
"When you own something, it does what you want it to," Bakura's mouth was resting against Yami's ear again, sending warm, wet breath against his skin, "I don't think you fully understand that."
Yami tried to jerk his head away, but Bakura just growled and twisted his wrist until he stopped moving.
"You are mine," The thief snarled, "Mine."
Then he shoved Yami down the hallway, still holding his wrists, and back into the apartment. Without taking his eyes off the Pharaoh, he closed the door and locked it tight.
...~~~***~~~...
Cheers ;)