Disclaimer: I don't own it.
Warning: swearing, shounen-ai, boyxboy, blah blah.
A/N: yeah...so i haven't been doing a whole lot on this site...and this story has been floating around my laptop for awhile so I figured, what the hell? yeah, I know, I should be updating my other fics...but anyway, hope you enjoy! Please leave a review!
Title: When Darkness Calls
Chapter 1: Incorrigible
Summary: Bakura receives a phone call from Yami to warn him of something terrible about to happen…
The phone was ringing. Bakura swore to Ra if it was another telewhatsit he was going to send the sorry bastard to the shadow realm. He knew he was supposed to be cutting down on that but what Ryou didn't know couldn't hurt him right?
" 'Ello?" Bakura growled.
"Hello Bakura," a smooth voice on the other end of the phone said. Bakura's eyes narrowed.
"What the hell do you want, Pharaoh?" he snarled, more because he wanted to than he hated Yami. When Yugi and Ryou had made them promise not to kill each other they'd become friends of sorts. It was a strange relationship that no one but they understood, except, he suspected, for Yugi and Ryou.
"I was just calling to warn you that Ryou and the others are planning a surprise birthday for you," Yami said coolly. All hostility was forgotten in that moment.
"What?! How do they know when my birthday is? I never told them!" Bakura practically yelled.
"They just made one up and it's tomorrow at your house around two." Bakura cursed his hikari silently, so that's why he'd been so secretive lately.
"Why'd you warn me?" Bakura asked. It was his version of a thank you and Yami knew it.
"Because I know how you don't like to be reminded…" he trailed off. They both knew what he meant. Birthdays meant getting older, or in their case not. It had been five years since they'd gotten their own bodies. Their hikaris had graduated from high school, gone to college. Marik had gone back to Egypt with Malik. Isis was working at the museum but was going back next month. Mai and Joey had gotten married, Ryou and Yugi had started dating. Mokuba had a girlfriend in high school, Kaiba was, well, Kaiba only not a teenage billionaire anymore, now he was 'most eligible bachelor of the year' for three years running. (Bakura pitied him.) Everything around them was changing, moving on. Except for the yamis who were exactly the same as when they'd first come out of the items.
"Are we ever going to die?" Bakura asked Yami a tad bitter. Yami laughed cynically.
"I don't know." They were both silent. Finally Bakura broke the quiet.
"Fuck this, if Ryou thinks he can spring this on me he's got another think coming. Is Yugi going to make you go?" he asked.
"Most likely, but since you're not going to be there I'm sure it won't last long."
"But if I'm not there they might just try to cover for it and say it's your birthday party," Bakura pointed out.
"Shit," Yami muttered.
"So come with me," Bakura said.
"What?"
"We'll play hooky together, I can get out of the house without Ryou noticing, I'm sure you can do the same?"
"Of course, I'm no thief king but I can get away," Yami said. Bakura didn't have to be looking at him to see the expression of arrogant determination on his face.
"Great, we'll meet at the docks at twelve and go from there," Bakura said.
"It's a date," Yami alleged and hung up. Bakura hung up the phone thinking over Yami's last words. A date, huh? He pictured Yami in his trade mark leather outfit and smiled. He liked the sound of that.
Yami was already at the docks by the time Bakura got there. He was looking out over the ocean and didn't see Bakura. The thief grinned, he was making this too easy. Going into stealth mode, mentally playing the mission impossible theme song he approached the pharaoh from behind.
"Hello Bakura," the ruler said just as Bakura was about to jump on him. The white haired man frowned at his spoiled fun.
"How'd you know?" he asked petulantly.
Yami turned and smiled at him, leaning back on the dock railing like he was posing. Bakura had to work to keep his jaw from dropping. He'd know the pharaoh was handsome but usually it was down played. Now he knew Yami had dressed to impress and impressed he was. The tight leather pants were the usual black but the shirt wasn't a matching hue, it was a crimson the same shade as his eyes. And now that he looked closely Yami had put on more kohl than usual so the black of his thick eye lashes was more noticeable and therefore his eyes, like rubies framed with ebony.
He looked Bakura up and down appreciatively in turn. Today he'd chosen a little more than the usual jeans and t-shirt, instead going for leather pants that made his long legs that much longer and a black button up shirt embroidered with a silver dragon. It was partially unbuttoned for a nice view of his pale toned chest. His long hair was tied back in a pony tail. Yami looked closely at his ear where a small sapphire stone glittered in the sunlight.
"Is that an earring?" he asked. Bakura nodded. Yami laughed and pulled aside his bangs revealing his own ear where two gold hoops hung from his lobe and a red stone shown in his cartilage.
"Nice," Bakura said. "Where'd you have it done?"
"That place down town by the pet store, Pete's I think. You?"
"The tattoo parlor on the avenue, Rama's."
"No way, that's where I got my tattoo," Yami said.
"Your what?" Bakura asked taken aback. Instead of answering Yami lowered the side of his pants to his hip revealing a black dragon entwined around a red ankh. Bakura inspected it critically.
"They do nice work, maybe I'll have to go there sometime," he said. He looked into Yami's eyes as the pharaoh pulled the clothing back in place to cover it. "Does Yugi know you have it?" he asked. Ryou had mentioned a few times Yugi's views on body art. Yami shook his head smiling sheepishly.
"He'd have a cow."
"From what I hear the shrimp would have a whole farm," Bakura muttered. Yami laughed but went to his hikari's defense.
"Yugi's the same height as Ryou," he said then added, "almost."
"So he's taller than you?" Bakura said.
"I guess…"
"So that would make you the shrimp now," he concluded. He laughed at the expression of indignation on Yami's face.
"What I wouldn't give for a growth spurt," Yami muttered.
"Yeah, well, fat chance of that. We're pretty much stuck the way we are until doomsday."
"Thank you Mr. Ray of Sunshine. I think someone's got the birthday blues."
"It's not my birthday!"
"Really now, when is?" Yami asked curiously.
"You tell me yours first," Bakura challenged. That way if Yami decided to tell his aibou Bakura would have equal leverage.
"During the season when the Nile floods, the day before the festival of Ma'at. When's yours?"
"The second day of the third week of the rainy season," Bakura retorted.
"So that would make you, what, twenty-four?" Yami said. Bakura nodded.
"And you were sixteen when we…were sealed. Funny, you don't look like a teenager."
"And you don't look like an Egyptian."
They looked in silence out over the water. "Am I the only one who finds it sad that we're the only ones who know each other's real birthdays? I mean, can understand really the time frame and do the math?" Yami asked. Bakura looked over the water sadly.
"You know what the sick thing is? People would kill to be in our shoes, forever young. Everyone wants the fountain of youth."
"Everybody wants to rule the world," Yami sang softly. Bakura looked at him strangely. Suddenly the spiky haired teen jumped up. "We're depressing ourselves here, let's go do something."
"Like what?" Bakura asked. Maybe he wanted to wallow for awhile. But Yami wasn't having it.
"You said you wanted to check out the place where I got my dragon? Let's go. Maybe I'll get another one too."
"Are you kidding me?" Bakura said. "I do not have enough money for a tattoo on me. And like hell I'm going back to the house and risk getting caught by the friendship party brigade."
"I've got it covered," Yami said. Bakura shook his head.
"I am not going to end up owing you anything."
"Tch, like I'd waste my money on you," Yami snorted. Bakura looked confused until Yami pulled out a credit card, customized with a picture of a Blue Eyes White Dragon.
"You stole Kaiba's credit card!?" Bakura gaped.
"I prefer the term temporarily borrowed," Yami grinned. "Now let's go."
A half an hour later they were at the tattoo parlor in downtown Domino. Bakura had to admit the art was some of the best he'd ever seen. And the woman who was the artist knew what she was doing.
Yami went first, he'd picked out weeks ago what tattoo he wanted; a flaming eye of Horus at the small of his back. Bakura laughed as he watched Yami grimace in pain at different points of the procedure. Then it was his turn. He'd picked a king cobra wrapped around a skull for his right shoulder. Now it was Yami's turn to laugh at his discomfort.
"I don't think we can go home until we've washed off," Bakura said as they walked out of the parlor. "We smell like blood and ink."
"I don't think they'd notice," Yami said. "But I like the part that involves you with no shirt." Bakura raised an eyebrow.
"And how much did you hang out with Marik and Malik before they left?" Bakura would have never guessed the pharaoh was such a flirt on his own, he had to have help.
"I'm pretty good with come-ons, but that's about all the farther I get," he admitted.
"Are you telling me that the great handsome pharaoh of all Egypt, the man who made women faint with his charm, is a virgin?"
Yami winked at him, "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"I think I would."
"Too bad," Yami laughed. "So how badly does yours hurt?" he said changing the subject.
"Not too bad, yours?"
"Less than the last one," he said. "I guess it gets better the second time."
"Oh trust me, it does," Bakura said giving Yami a suggestive look. Yami rolled his eyes at the thief.
"Right, I'll keep that in mind."
"So where are we going now?" Bakura asked.
"We can't go anywhere we've been before, they might be looking for us," Yami said.
"So no card shops, leather stores, or Kaiba land. That leaves us with what?"
Yami shrugged, "I don't know, let's go somewhere new."
"Alright, how about that new bar that's opening tonight downtown?" Bakura asked.
"I thought I was a minor," Yami said.
"I think if you've been sixteen for the past three millennia we can make an exception. Besides, you look older, otherwise the woman at the tattoo parlor would have given you some bull shit about getting your parents permission or something."
"I guess you've got a point," Yami said thinking it over.
"As opposed to you, who has several," Bakura said grinning evilly. He tugged playfully on Yami's hair.
"That was low," Yami groaned. "Remind me to send you to the shadow realm later."
"Like I won't just come back in a day," Bakura snickered, "Really, don't you ever learn?"
"Actually I've always been curious as to how you manage to escape every time," Yami said. They started walking towards the center of town; Bakura was leading since he knew where he was going.
"Well I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you," he said.
"Suuure," Yami drawled as they stopped at a cross walk.
"I'm serious!" Bakura said but he was laughing as he did. The light turned green and they walked across the street. A comfortable silence over took them as they strolled along the avenue. The admiring glances they received went widely unnoticed. Bakura had to laugh as a very handsome red head actually waved at Yami. The bewildered pharaoh waved back at the man.
"Do I know him?" he mouthed to Bakura. Bakura was good for once, he didn't say yes. He didn't even burst out laughing like he was tempted to. All he did was shrug noncommittally.
"You are the king of games, I suppose that comes with a bit of celebrity." Yami shuddered.
"I hope I don't have anymore stalkers for awhile," he said sincerely. Bakura couldn't hold back anymore.
"Why don't you just send them to the shadow realm?" he asked. Yami glowered at him.
"Many reasons, but mostly because Yugi says no," he said. Bakura snorted as they started across the street.
"Really, you were the damn pharaoh of all Egypt, the son of the gods himself come to earth, where the hell's your back-"
A car screeched to a halt, inches from hitting the albino. Without even hesitating Bakura slammed both his hands on the hood of the car.
"ASSHOLE! WATCH THE HELL WHERE YOU'RE FUCKING GOING!" he yelled much to Yami's chagrin. The car honked angrily back at him but Bakura continued across the street. A few passerby witnessed the incident and looked curiously at the white haired man and who had caused such a fuss. Yami kept his eyes fixed carefully ahead and couldn't decide whether he wanted disappear or fall on the ground laughing.
"Like I was saying, you need to reach into your hikari's purse and get your balls back." Bakura had finally gotten Yami used to his crudity so the pharaoh didn't even blink anymore at the casual dropping of words and insults that would leave others cringing.
"I'll keep that in mind," he said chuckling silently.
"Do."
"I'd like to point out however, that Yugi doesn't carry a purse," Yami said. "That's Ryou."
"It's a 'backpack'," Bakura said motioning with his fingers around the word. Yami laughed and Bakura smiled with him.
They came eventually to the club. The green lettering on the front proudly proclaimed its title Nightmare. The tall windows on either side of the entrance were surprisingly uncluttered with the neon signs that littered most bars. And the line wasn't as long as they thought, only about half a block. Bakura still wasn't happy.
"This bites," he muttered as the line took another small step forward.
"My meetings with the Roman diplomat went faster than this," Yami agreed bored. He tried not to notice the glances Bakura was receiving from the group of young women just ahead of them.
"How do you feel about cheating a little?" Bakura asked slyly.
"What do you have in mind?" Yami asked skeptically. Bakura winked at him. Yami felt a rush of shadow magic and the next thing he knew he and Bakura were about halfway to the entrance.
"And you don't think people have noticed?" he asked the thief king dryly.
"I did a little memory erasing," Bakura informed him trying for innocent and failing horribly.
"You know what the word incorrigible means, right?" Yami asked him.
"No, what?"
"You."
Tada! Let me know what you think!
-edward