"Boo."
Marik looked up from his scrolls with a start and found himself looking into the Thief King's upside-down face.
"You're not funny," Marik told him, deadpan, as Bakura climbed down from the ledge he had been ganging off. He landed upright on his feet with ease.
"It's not my fault if you have no sense of humor," Bakura shrugged with a grin. "So, what boring duties can you shirk so that we can have some fun today, hmm?"
"Actually," Marik interjected, pushing past him with an armful of papyrus scrolls, "I have work I need to get done today."
"What else is new?" Bakura yawned, leaning against a rickety wooden desk.
"I'm serious," Marik glared. He set each scroll in their proper place on a clay shelf built into the wall. "If I don't finish this Isis will kill me. You know the celebration is next month. Everyone is stressed because of preparations."
Bakura rolled his eyes. "Forget Ra and the Pharaoh, I've got something to show you!"
Marik turned to face the Thief King, a stern look on his face and his arms crossed. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't come in here speaking blasphemy."
The thief rolled his eyes again. They had had that conversation enough times in the past for him to not want to repeat it. He walked over to Marik and rested his hands on the scribe's arms. "Come on, I took the time to come all the way down here to see you," he said. "The least you can do is come see what I've got to show you." Marik didn't look impressed. "It'll only take a few minutes," he added with a smile.
After a few moments of studying the man's face, Marik finally broke his gaze and sighed. "Fine," he said. "Ten minutes. That's it."
Bakura grinned and wasted no time pulling the scribe up the stairs, through some hallways and out the back entrance of the temple. There weren't many people around that end of the building when there weren't events being held, and it was technically only allowed to priests and scribes or those with special permission anyway. Marik often wondered suspiciously how exactly Bakura had gotten so good at navigating the place.
They went through the back door, into a small garden, and over a short brick wall, where a camel loaded with bags and jugs sat on the ground, minding it's own business. Bakura let Marik go and looked in one of the bags attached to the camel's side, eventually picking out something small that glinted in the sunlight.
He brought it back over to Marik and held the object up, letting it dangle from a thin chain. It was a pendant in the shape of a scarab beetle, made from silver and rare crystal with a purple hue. "I got this from a traveler in Heliopolis. He said it had magical properties that would keep the wearer safe," he said proudly. "Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful," Marik commented, leaning forward to inspect it further. It was indeed very beautiful, and finely crafted. Marik was sure the part about it having magical properties was false, but that didn't take away from its aesthetic appeal. "But…"
"But?' Bakura asked.
Marik stood up straight again. "Well, what's so special about it? Going by what you say I can only assume you 'acquire' things like this all the time, but you almost never show them to me," he pointed out.
Bakura smirked and examined the pendant himself with a fond look. "To tell the truth I've had this for quite a while, because it reminded me of you."
Marik arched his eyebrows, unsure of how a scarab beetle necklace could possibly remind the thief of him.
"The color," Bakura explained with an amused smile. "It matches your eyes."
"Oh," Marik said, feeling slightly flattered.
"Anyway, I thought I'd give it to you now. You'll probably need it's protection more than I will," the Thief King said, securing it around Marik's neck.
"Really…" the scribe said, looking at the pendant with an unfathomable look on his face as he tried to parse the exact meaning of Bakura's words. "You're going to put your plan into action soon, aren't you?"
"Why, whatever would make you think that?" Bakura asked, but his excited tone gave him away.
"You're going to get yourself killed," the scribe told him with certainty, looking into his eyes.
Bakura merely laughed. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he teased. "Really, though, don't worry about me. I've got everything planned out. There's no way I'm going to fail."
Marik ignored him. "Don't expect me to take care of your body once you're dead," he said, crossing his arms again.
The Thief King kept smiling unabashedly at him. "I'll expect nothing of the sort," he assured him and pulled him into a light kiss. The scribe allowed it for a moment, then pushed away with a frown. Bakura knew that he didn't like it when he took light of those types of things, but it hadn't stopped him yet.
"I have to finish my work," Marik told him, glancing at the ground.
"Fine, fine, I understand. You don't appreciate my company," Bakura said sarcastically. "I suppose I'll see you…whenever I see you, then." The thief's visits were never a set thing, as sometimes he was on the other side of the city or on the other side of Egypt depending on where his plotting took him.
"Yeah," Marik nodded. He placed a quick kiss on Bakura's cheek before pulling back again. "…Be careful, okay?"
Bakura smirked. "Whatever."
At that the Thief King got back on his camel and Marik jumped back over the wall and they parted ways once again, unsure of what exactly the future held. In once case confident, in the other uneasy, only time would tell which was justified.
The news came like a stab in the gut.
"The Pharaoh and the Thief King…are both dead!"
It took a few moments for Marik to come back to reality after the sinking feeling of despair that had suddenly overtaken him. "What did you say?" he asked, hoping he had heard wrong, but knowing that was impossible.
"The Pharaoh and Thief King… They had a huge battle outside the palace," a choked up and trembling messenger struggled to explain. "They were both killed!"
The scribe took a shaky breath. "Where is my sister?" he asked.
"At the palace, with all the other Item holders," the messenger said quickly.
Marik didn't waste any more time with pointless talking. He left the emotionally volatile messenger where he stood and rushed to the stables to get a horse, then was off in the direction of the palace.
The building looked like a devastatingly powerful sandstorm had recently passed through. Everything was broken. It almost didn't look like the palace anymore. The sight of it made Marik sick, not because of any affinity with the previously majestic building, but because the sigh of it confirmed everything. There was no way either kings had survived this.
The scribe maneuvered his way around the ruble, finally finding an unblocked entrance to a part of the building that was still standing. He raced as fast as he safely could to the throne room, hoping that the officials would be there.
They were. Some were clustered together, whispering heatedly, and some were sitting off to the side, looking sick. His sister was one of the latter.
The sound of the horse's hooves against the marble floor startled them all into silence. He dismounted and walked toward the now empty throne. His sister stood to meet him.
"Brother," she said simply, embracing him.
He endured it for only a moment. "What happened?" he demanded.
She let go. "Our brave Pharaoh put down that treacherous thief," she said bitterly, "and sacrificed his throne to do it."
"What do you mean, his 'throne'?" Marik asked, looking at the others in the room warily.
Isis looked back to the physical throne, and Marik noticed the Pharaoh's puzzle resting in it. "His highness's soul has been sealed away," she said. "And now our family has a new duty. But we will discuss that later."
Alarm bells were going off in his head at that statement, but he had more important questions. "What of the Thief King's soul?"
Isis looked away, pain in her eyes. "Pray that it's being eaten by alligators," she said bitterly.
Marik wanted to scream. It wasn't like he didn't know this would happen. He had warned Bakura plenty of times, and had always been told not to worry about it, that he would be just fine. Maybe a small, stupid part of himself had actually believed the thief, but realistically he had always known what the end result would be. That didn't make it any easier to deal with.
The scribe straightened up and got a hold of himself. He would grieve later; now he had more important things to tend to. He left his sister and approached the group of men who had been whispering amongst themselves. They seemed to be missing some from their ranks, but he only needed one. "Seto," he said, looking the priest coldly in the eyes.
The priest returned the look. "What do you want, scribe?"
"His body," Marik said resolutely.
Seto blinked, confusion evident on his face. "What gives you the right to the body of a pharaoh?" he demanded.
"Not that body," Marik growled. "The Thief King's. He deserves a proper burial."
Where confusion had once been, outrage replaced it. "He deserves nothing of the sort," he said, standing. "He deserves to be fed to the Nile creatures!"
"Let the gods do the judging," Marik said piercingly. "I want his body."
The two stared each other down for several moments, everyone else in the room seemingly holding their breaths. Finally, the priest broke Marik's gaze. There were many things to be taken care of now fighting with the scribe just wasted time.
"It's in one of the front rooms," he said, suddenly indifferent. "Servants will deliver it to your residence later today."
Marik nodded and turned to leave. as he passed Isis, she gave him a lost look, still struggling to figure out what had just gone on and why. He knew there would be talk because of this. People would probably be suspicious. He didn't care. He had been fraternizing with the enemy, and now he was doing the one thing he said he wouldn't: taking care of that fool's body.
He climbed on his horse and rode back through the palace, glancing in each room as he passed. It didn't take long to find the one he was looking for. There was a light, smeared train of blood on the floor, signifying that he had been dragged here. The body lay there in the middle of the room, sloppily covered up with his own coat. Marik dismounted again, and tentatively walked over
He dropped to his knees beside it, getting blood on his legs but not caring. He reached out his hand, hesitated, then grabbed the coat and pulled it back, revealing the thief's face and chest. Relatively speaking, it could have been worse, especially considering how much damage had been done to the palace. There was a gaping wound in the middle of his chest—Marik couldn't identify the weapon—and his face, shoulders, and arms were badly scratched, but he was still very much recognizable. Marik gave a bitter laugh; his face still wore his usual confident smirk, even in death. It was almost as if he was trying to tell Marik something. He quickly put that out of his head.
Arms shaky, he rested his palm against the Thief King's cheek. It was still warm. If you didn't know, and only looked at his face, you could almost pretend that he was asleep, maybe knocked out, but still alive. Marik felt two unbidden tears slip down his face. He wiped them away with his other hand.
"You're lucky I'm a nice person, or you wouldn't be getting a burial at all," he said, trying to steady his voice. "At least now you'll have a chance at the afterlife. Even if you'll probably get eaten." He sighed, rubbing Bakura's scarred cheekbone with his thumb. "You don't just get away with killing a pharaoh."
He paused again, collecting his thoughts. "I'm never going to see you again, am I?" he asked the body, choking down a sob. He lifted his hand from the Thief King's face and clutched it at his side, taking deep breaths to steady himself. With a last hopeless look, he grabbed the hem of the coat and pulled it back over the man's face. He couldn't sit there all day; he would have a lot of work ahead of him for the next few months, and he had to find someone in Egypt who would be willing to embalm the man who had killed the Morning and the Evening Star. He didn't have time yet to cry and feel sorry for himself.
A noise from behind him brought his attention back to the real world, and he whipped his head back to see Isis standing at the doorway, watching him with a questioning look on her face. He glanced back at the body one more time before standing and walking to the doorway.
"What is the meaning of this, brother?" she demanded, stepping back to allow him room to pass.
Marik didn't look at her, but climbed back on his horse. There wasn't much he could say at this point; she could tell that he had shed tears. "It's a long story," he finally sighed. And, with a fractured heart and his lover's blood on his knees, he went home.
Four months later, Marik lived underground.
He and his family had been incredibly busy for the past months, making arrangements and carrying out building plans. A house had to be chosen, and the beginnings of catacombs constructed and stocked. There would be no expense spared in making sure the Ishtar family line would be able to survive for as long as it took for the Pharaoh to resurface. Instructions for future generations were carefully inscribed and then stored in one of the finished rooms. Companions to the family—loyal subjects who would act as servants and eventual spouses—were chosen and sworn in. The Pharaoh's tomb was finished, and his body was put inside, along with his puzzle.
It was only between these busy moments that Marik got the chance to attend to his own business. The process was slow, but it was finally all over. He was ready to put Bakura to rest.
As predicted, it had taken him some time to find an embalmer willing to take the body of the Pharaoh's "murderer", but eventually he succeeded. Instead of going through the further stress of finding a tomb or land to build one on, he simply had an extra room added to his new underground home to serve that purpose. Isis hadn't been happy, but he didn't pay her any mind.
As Marik stood in the doorway of the room that would soon hold the body of his dead lover, he wondered what Bakura might have to say about it. It certainly wasn't the burial of a king; the room was small, and there were no miniature servants around to do his bidding in the afterlife or games for him to occupy his time with. Somehow Marik thought he wouldn't mind much.
Marik took a deep breath. There was no point in putting it off any longer. He called for his servants, and four of them appeared, carrying a casket between them. Marik looked on solemnly as they entered the room and set it down. Then they left him alone again, to be with his lover one last time.
He walked over to the coffin and ran his fingers over it. "This probably isn't how you expected this to happen, is it?" he asked aloud, quietly. "I hope you realize how much trouble you've caused me." And it was true, the man had been a lot of trouble, not just in death, but ever since they had first met. Since he had begun to affiliate with the King of Thieves, Marik's life had been a series of sneaky meetings, close calls and cover-ups. "My entire life, and that of countless of my descendants, are going to be spent trying to fix the problems you caused." He almost felt he should care more than he did.
He straightened up. "Well. I suppose this is goodbye." His words were hollow and he looked at the coffin as if he expected it to respond. He felt the prickling of tears in his eyes, but he refused to cry. Not again.
He was silent for a few long moments. "I'll miss you," he finally said, sounding defeated. He brought his hand up to the coffin and deposited onto it the item that he had kept with him constantly for the past four months, a scarab beetle necklace made of silver and purple crystal. And, without another word, he exited the room and had it sealed, never again to be entered by a living soul.
A/N: I started this a long long time ago and actually finished it a while ago too but then forgot about it oops. I'll just...leave it here. As a peace offering for not doing H&S for so long. Sorry guys!