Thanks to Sitabethel and ChaosRocket for beta'ing this! Thanks also to Distracted Dream for a great fanmix, which you can find here: [ user/distracteddream/playlist/5IqrNeGlHo3Btwo6qO9b3a?si=L9hMYYPr], and to girahimu_sama for the beautiful fanart, which you can find here: [ post/164881758001/my-drawing-for-superubersteffys-fic-a-new-kind-of].
Bakura listened to the whispers of power and murmurs of cruel intent as the Darkness stirred to life around him. He knew what the rise in excitement indicated, but he couldn't summon the energy to care. Instead, he allowed his eyes to remain closed, as if he slept, pretending for a moment he merely dreamed. Then the Shadows coalesced-he could feel the drop in pressure, the shift in gravity-and spoke.
"What, no hello?"
Bakura lazily opened one eye in acknowledgement and scrutinized the figure before him. "Ryou? Really? You must be running out of ideas."
Ryou's pale face-twin to Bakura's current visage-smirked down at him, his eyes flooded a glowing, unearthly red. Other than the eyes and the expression, which couldn't have been less like his ex-host, the illusion was well done. Not that it was particularly difficult to pull off. After all, Zorc had spent as much time sharing headspace with Ryou as Bakura had.
"I grow weary of our usual games. You seem to have lost all fight; your apathy takes all the fun out of torturing you."
"What's to fight for? I'm trapped in this shithole with you for eternity since the Pharoah's true death sealed us in, and I've lost all connection to the Ring, so no loophole this time. With the Pharaoh gone, I've got no enemy to pursue, and with my fellow villagers released from their curse and passed on, my mission is over. And on top of it all, no matter how much you torture and eviscerate me, I can't die, seeing as how I'm already dead. So what exactly do you expect me to fight for?"
Physical agony-if a bodiless spirit could claim to feel such a sensation-consumed Bakura, as if invisible flames engulfed him, but other than a reflexive grunt he showed no reaction. It was only pain after all, and he'd experienced too much pain for far too long for it to affect him much.
Zorc twisted Ryou's face in a snarl, his ember eyes narrowing as the pain fizzled out.
"Nothing! You give me NOTHING!"
"I already told you," Bakura huffed dully from the 'ground.' "I have nothing left to give."
Zorc roared, which sounded bizarre in Ryou's normally soft voice. "Then perhaps we just need to find the right motivation."
In a blink Ryou was gone, his image replaced with a doppelgänger of the hated Pharaoh Atem, and Bakura snorted.
"Nice try, but I couldn't give two shits about that Sphinx-fucker."
The Pharaoh smirked down at him before melding into another familiar figure.
The desiccated image of his mother was one of Zorc's favorites. Once it had devastated Bakura, just as Zorc forcing Bakura to relive the burning of his village once had, but Bakura had made peace with that day once the curse had been lifted and his family freed. So with the survivor's guilt these images had once preyed upon resolved, only the faintest twinges of grief and loneliness stirred in his chest.
"Really Zorc, your attempts are getting-desperate…"
He trailed off as his mother's ruined form melted into the next. Burnt and ravaged skin healed to reform whole-flawless, nut-brown strung tight over fuller arms and broad shoulders, all well-defined and hard with muscle. The face thinned and sharpened, the hair shortening and lightening in an instant, an ancient alchemy transforming charcoal into pure, priceless gold. The last thing to change was the eyes, which had lost their demonic glow to complete the illusion. Instead of ruby, Bakura's clay eyes met vibrant amethyst, and the triumphant smirk Zorc spread across thin lips for once added credibility to the lie instead of giving it away.
"Looks like I found a winner."
X
Bakura's breath caught at the voice, and he shook his head, denying the illusion before it could ensnare him.
"What makes you think this face is going to get any more out of me than all the others you've tried?"
"It already has."
Zorc stepped closer, his hips swaying slightly, and Bakura licked his lips unthinkingly.
"I hate to break it to you, but the feelings this face invokes aren't the sort that lend themselves well to torture."
"This won't be like our other games."
The Shadows wrapped around Bakura and took on substance, forming into a chair-one he was suddenly tied to.
"What the hell?!"
"There are so many different kinds of torture. You have no idea what I'm capable of."
"After our first stint together, I'd say I have a pretty good idea."
An amused hum reverberated in the doppelgänger's throat as he circled the chair, his fingers skimming lightly up Bakura's arm, across his back, and down the front of his blue and white striped tee. Bakura shivered and Zorc chuckled, the throaty sound so reminiscent of Bakura's old partner that it made his stomach and heart clench.
"Hmm...You know, I'm actually a little surprised at you, pet. If I hadn't destroyed your soul millennia ago, I'd almost think you felt something for this boy."
"It's called lust, Zorc. In case you forgot, I've been celibate for thousands of years."
"Is that all it is? Let's put that to the test, shall we?"
In a flash Zorc was on him, straddling his lap and kissing him with lips and tongue. Bakura struggled to pull back, but Zorc's grip on his hair combined with the bindings-which felt like air but had all the give and durability of steel-held him at bay. He could feel the Darkness sinking into him, seeking, and gooseflesh peppered his skin when he felt Zorc enter his mind.
"No," Bakura moaned into the kiss.
Sealed memories sprang to the forefront of his thoughts: memories of hair a purer gold than the Millennium Items, and eyes far more dangerous. Every illicit fantasy he'd had about Marik surfaced, but those weren't the thoughts Bakura was concerned about-those thoughts came next. He saw fleeting dreams of foregone revenge and peaceful nights wrapped in arms as warm and comforting as fresh baked bread, fancies of breakfast together and long, meaningful conversations-of truly getting to know another human being on a deeper level.
Hopes of loving and being wanted in return.
Zorc sat back and sighed, drinking it all in.
"So many emotions. I thought I broke you of those ages ago."
A manipulative grin cut across Zorc's borrowed lips, his amethyst eyes narrowing. The look alone had Bakura's breath speeding up with a mix of fear and misplaced desire.
"He must have been special. In no time at all he inspired you to rediscover the humanity I'd worked so hard to strip away."
"Ryou did that, during our tabletop session with Yugi and his groupies."
Zorc tilted Marik's head thoughtfully. "True, but you only felt protective of the host. That was mostly harmless. It wasn't until you began to grow attached to the Tomb Keeper that you considered betraying me. Remember?"
Bakura swallowed, all his memories of Battle City bombarding him: meeting Marik, and Bakura's rash decision to work together, despite never having worked in tandem with anyone in his existence; Marik turning to him in his darkest hour; the fierce and inexplicable regret when Ra's attack engulfed them, burning Marik's spirit to the Shadows; the unshakable sense of empathy and kinship Bakura felt when he saw the Pharaoh's Memories savagely etched into Marik's back. He avoided thinking of these things most of the time, keeping them locked deep in his mind where Zorc couldn't get to them. Now, like a sandstorm, they assaulted him all at once, a whirlwind of nostalgia that left him feeling hollow and raw.
The memories hurt, far worse than dashed hopes and pointless dreams and unfulfilled fantasies. Because the memories were real.
Bakura flinched as bronze fingers wiped salt from his cheeks, then stared in disgust as Zorc sucked them clean. An uncomfortable mix of revulsion and arousal writhed in Bakura's belly, the confused emotions only deepening when those same hands started working languid circles into his thighs. Bakura tried to close his legs, but not-ropes held them captive to the legs of the chair.
"Zorc…" he ground out, jerking to try and buck the hands off. "Stop. This is pointless."
"I disagree." Zorc leaned close, his mouth toying with Bakura's ear, and Bakura was suddenly overwhelmed by the authenticity of the illusion.
Unlike when he'd pretended to be Ryou, and the Pharaoh, and even Bakura's mother, Zorc hadn't skimped on subtleties this time. He didn't just look and sound like Marik; every detail was perfect: the scent of musk, cumin, and expensive perfume was spot on; the attractive air of warring self-assuredness and self-depreciation was evident with every smirk and snort of amusement; the undeniable gravity Marik carried with him pulled at Bakura as if it were real.
A groan betrayed him as Zorc's fingers teased over the tented zipper of Bakura's jeans.
"You've been so lonely your whole life," Marik's voice commiserated against his ear. "Don't you want to know how it feels to be accepted? What it's like to let someone get close? Don't you want to know...what it feels like to hold him? I can give you that."
"Fuck off," Bakura rasped.
Zorc pulled back an inch and looked Bakura over.
"I think you're going to enjoy this game."
"I already don't."
"But the game has barely started."
Zorc stood and strolled around behind Bakura's chair, out of his line of sight, but a moment later Bakura felt hot lips on his neck. They trailed up to work the sensitive area behind his ear, and Bakura struggled to remember this was not Marik. His manifested body wasn't interested in listening though. It liked the feel of bronze hands toying with his chest through his shirt, the body-warmed scent drifting around him like an opium cloud. Bakura's breathing grew ragged as trickles of sensation built in his gut.
"Mmm, you look good tied to that chair," Marik's voice purred.
"Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."
He knew he shouldn't beg, that that would only incite the demon to torture him further, but the words left his mouth before he could censor them.
"Come on, Bakura. It could be so good if you let it."
A hand slipped beneath his shirt to thumb his nipple in slow circles.
"I'm not going to ask for that. You're not Marik, and I refuse to play your sick game."
A derisive snort tickled his neck. Another warm thumb wriggled into his pants and massaged the tender juncture where groin met hips, and Bakura's dick throbbed.
"But I want you," Marik's voice moaned, mouthing Bakura's ear. "I've missed you so much."
"Zorc, I said stop!"
"Say my name, Bakura," Zorc challenged.
Bakura shook his head. The hands stilled and Zorc hissed.
"I could just take you-possibly as the Pharaoh? Would you like that better?"
"If you wanted to force me you'd have done so already," Bakura jeered. "Some sick part of you wants me complicit in the act, and I won't give you that. I won't settle for an illusion."
Zorc came around in front of Bakura, teeth bared. "Fine, if you don't like this illusion, perhaps another will hold your interest more."
Suddenly Bakura was in a tomb, sandstone walls and floors painted orange and gold with the flickering light of a brazier and dozens of candles. The room was stifling, and Bakura instantly felt sweat gathering at his temples and where his shirt clung to him.
A crude stone altar was centered in the small chamber, its top and sides stained with what looked ominously like old blood under the accumulated dust. Ropes were affixed to pegs on each corner, all likewise dyed with the blood of past victims. A sudden chill settled along Bakura's spine despite the heat, and a frisson of panic had him starting when footsteps shuffled near the door.
A man carrying a knife, bandages, and some sort of salve strode in and placed them on a small table near the alter. There seemed to be more coals than actual flame in the brazier, and Bakura was grateful when the man didn't build it back up.
The stranger was dressed plainly in a hooded robe of coarse, beige cloth. His face resembled Aknadin's, but Bakura noticed he didn't have the Millennium Eye. Other gold gleamed in the depths of the hood, and when he focused his eyes, Bakura could make out a familiar pair of earrings.
"Wait, is that…?" Bakura stared at the stranger, and the longer he looked, the more the resemblance became undeniable. "That's Marik's father, isn't it?"
"How perceptive," Zorc drawled from beside him, his form still that of Marik.
"But this isn't my memory."
"You aren't the only pathetic soul I can extract memories from."
Bakura returned his attention to the Tomb Keeper, who seemed oblivious to their conversation as he used the knife to stir the coals. Then a voice arose in the distance before drawing near, its pleas accompanied by steady footsteps. Bakura instinctively knew what he was about to witness, the dread in his gut compounding even before a ten year old Marik was dragged wailing into the room.
"No! Father, please! Please don't do this."
Tears and snot streamed down the boy's face as he was brought before his father. The Tomb Keeper slapped him, and Marik lowered his head, sniffling quietly.
"That is no way for a future Tomb Keeper to act." Even reflected with the flames of countless candles, the elder Ishtar's gaze held no heat. "Secure him."
Marik protested and fought, nearly escaping his two captors, but the two men inevitably overpowered him. They fastened his wrists and ankles to the altar, so tight he couldn't even struggle. Then a bone wrapped in more rope was forced between his teeth and tied behind his head.
Mr. Ishtar pulled the knife from the heat, the blade glowing like Zorc's eyes. The room filled with agonized screams and the metallic whiff of fresh blood as the first incision was made. Marik's head bowed back, his screams echoing off the chamber walls despite the bit.
Bakura's chair sat so that Marik and his father both faced him. Bakura turned his head as Marik's soulful cries washed over him, saturated with fear and pain and sorrow. It was the same cry that had haunted Kul Elna for three thousand years, and Bakura felt once again like a helpless seven-year-old, powerless to do anything but watch and listen as others suffered in the Pharaoh's name.
A hand forced Bakura's face forward once more. "You will watch."
He knew if he disobeyed, Zorc would simply come up with something even worse, so he did watch, and felt his already tattered soul breaking all over again. The pain and fear were too raw on young Marik's face, and Bakura felt unbidden tears paint his cheeks to match the boy's. Cut after cut after cut he cried out, even after his voice grew course from use, and Bakura wanted to scream along with him.
How long did it go on for? Two hours? Three? Longer? Bakura couldn't tell, each second bleeding into the next as steadily as Marik bled onto the altar. So Bakura counted in screams and sobs, until he lost the will to count any higher. Yet the cycle of cut, scream, heat knife, sob kept going.
But Marik's misery wasn't the only thing weighing on Bakura's heart. As he watched Marik's father heat the knife for an innumerable time, Bakura noticed the man was smiling, as if he were engaging in his favorite hobby rather than torturing his own son. Then Bakura thought perhaps the two were one in the same, and a rage as hot as the one he'd felt toward the Pharaoh ignited in Bakura's chest.
The knife was carving into Marik once more, and Bakura's attention pulled back to him when he noticed a change in the boy's shouts. Instead of the fearful, pleading screams from before, each cry was unfiltered rage and pain. The tension in Marik's face was pure loathing and hatred, and Bakura knew it was Marik's alter ego that glared blindly at him.
"...Marik…" he breathed. The atmosphere surrounding him seemed to compress, to weigh on him.
Marik's alter jerked against his bonds hard enough to bruise his wrists.
"Lie still!" Tomb Keeper Ishtar warned. Marik's body jerked again with a growl. Setting the knife aside, the elder Ishtar fisted his hair and yanked his head back viciously.
Bakura hissed, jerking against his own bonds.
"If you cause even one cut to be out of place, this initiation will be the least of your worries," the older man barked. He forced Marik's head back down before picking the knife back up.
More cuts, more screams, until, overcome with blood loss and pain, Marik fell mercifully unconscious.
"Weakling," the Tomb Keeper spat, eyes transfixed to the blood sizzling on the knife as he heated it anew.
Bakura bit back a curse the man wouldn't have heard anyway.
"So sad," Zorc sighed. He stood with his arms crossed, as if he were merely watching a spectator sport.
"Don't pretend you feel empathy for him," Bakura growled.
"I meant your sentiment. You used to be so strong, so proud, so-"
"Soulless?"
Zorc turned a slick grin toward him. "Hardly that, or you wouldn't be here now. I was going to say ruthless."
"Glad to disappoint."
Bakura focused on Marik's face, peaceful in repose and blissfully unaware of his continued mutilation.
Zorc sighed loudly. "This is getting boring."
The scene shifted. They were surrounded by the same sandstone walls, only this time Marik lay on a pallet in a smaller room. His face was buried in the pillow his hands had a strangle grip on. Rishid knelt beside him, strips of linen piled on the bed.
"Ready?" he asked Marik quietly.
A shiver visibly shook Marik, but a moment later he nodded.
Rishid gently stripped away the bandages wrapped around Marik's torso. Muffled whimpers drifted up from the pillow.
Marik sobbed as Rishid cleaned and broke open his wounds anew. The sound wrenched at Bakura's already bleeding heart, and Bakura choked to keep from voicing his own agony.
"No more," Bakura croaked, streams wetting his cheeks. "Please."
He expected Zorc to ignore him, or to laugh and show him another, even worse scene, or perhaps to find a whole new means of making Bakura's existence a living nightmare. When Zorc moved in front of him and held his chin delicately between his thumb and forefinger, Bakura flinched.
"Ah, now there's the reaction I was after."
Bakura gazed listlessly past Zorc as Rishid finished his task, taking the old bandages out of the room. Marik's re-ravaged back shook with muffled cries.
"I've got other pathetic souls to see to," Zorc said at length. "But I wouldn't want you to get lonely, so I think I'll let you stay with him. We'll continue this game soon."
Zorc dissolved back into the Shadows, and the bindings and chair holding Bakura went with him. Bakura collapsed to the dusty floor, Marik's wails filling his ears.
"Marik, I'm so sorry," he sobbed to no one. He wasn't even sure what he was apologizing for, except that he felt like someone should.
So he cried with Marik. He cried because there was nothing else he could do. He cried because this was only the beginning, with no end in sight. He cried for what could have been and what would never be, and as he cried, he repeated Marik's name like a prayer, and all the while the darkness pressed in on him, smothering him in his weakened state.
All of the memories and dreams and fantasies Zorc had unearthed swarmed his mind like locusts, draining his battered soul to a hollow husk. Marik's face-his real face, the way Bakura remembered him-was all Bakura saw, and it hurt to think about.
The pressure bearing down on him grew more intense with each passing moment, until it was painful. Bakura wished he could die all over again, wished the gods would take him from here. He'd gladly face judgement, would crawl into Ammit's maw willingly if it meant an end to it all…
The pressure suddenly snapped. A strange warmth spread from Bakura's core to his extremities at the same time his stomach jerked painfully. Bakura snapped his eyes open as a sensation like free falling overwhelmed him, but his mind couldn't make sense of what he saw.
Instead of the tomb chamber, or even unending darkness, Bakura found himself surrounded by spinning colors. The sight made him nauseous. Gradually the room slowed its dance before stopping, and Bakura groaned, questioning whether it was possible to throw up when one didn't have an actual stomach.
A gasp from nearby caught his ear, and Bakura turned his head to see Zorc standing a few feet away looking gobsmacked.
"The fuck did you do to me?" Bakura moaned.
"B-Bakura?"
Something in the tone made Bakura sit up and stare back.
Marik looked older, the face filled out and matured, but no less attractive than the last time Bakura had seen him. Instead of the purple hoodie Bakura associated exclusively with Marik, he wore a too-tight black t-shirt that read "I'm sarcastic because punching people is frowned upon" over a pair of dark blue, satin sleep pants. The look was certainly different, but somehow still suited him.
"Where did you come from? What are you doing here?"
Good questions , Bakura thought, but replied instead with, "Where is here?"
"My apartment. In Domino." Marik took a hesitant step forward. Stopped.
That's when Bakura noticed a distinct quiet in his mind. For the first time in living memory, there were no tortured souls begging for salvation or retribution, no host's thoughts overshadowing his own-no Zorc. His mind was his own, and that realization was breathtaking. Then he focused on Marik again, hardly daring to hope…
For a moment, Bakura just stared. Before he'd registered the thought to even get off the floor, he was across the room, his lips on Marik's. They stayed frozen like that, then Marik jerked back and slapped Bakura in the face.
"What the fuck Bakura? You can't just drop in out of thin air- literally -and fucking kiss me without so much as an explanation!"
But Bakura wasn't listening, too busy cackling joyously, his hand still on his stinging cheek.
"This is real," he said in awe. "This is really happening."
Marik's look shifted to one of concern. "Are you alright?"
"I'm…" Bakura felt a slight cross breeze across his skin and looked down. "I-I'm naked!"
Bakura frantically reached for the nearest thing he could find to cover himself with, which happened to be a couch cushion. At least he wasn't still gloriously aroused.
Marik snorted. "Yeah, good cover."
Bakura glared at him, cheeks heating, but before he could retort, Marik was striding past him.
"Wait, where are you…?"
But Marik was already back, tossing a red pair of sleep pants similar to the ones he himself wore.
"Try these."
Bakura obeyed, slipping on the bottoms quickly and tying the strings.
"Better?"
Bakura nodded.
"Good." Marik's arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow jumped up to play hide and seek with his bangs. "Alright, seriously, Bakura. What the hell is going on?"