Lee: Hello again!

Disclaimer: No matter how much I dream; fantasise or wish to own these characters- I don't.

Lee: Yes, it's all out, I truly am a fanatic Bakura, Ryou, Malik and Marik fan girl, but hey, can you blame me? D However I'm also a fanatic fan girl about Linkin Park, not to mention holidays- which was great by the way! I went for a whole two weeks! In the hot sun! I knew I wouldn't be within ten inches of the internet so I decided I would take my notepad. However I forgot that, so had to spend a couple of Euros on a new one. Then I typed it up when I got home and this is the result! Hope you enjoy, especially after all the waiting.

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The Era of Adversity

Chapter 2: Ardour

Malik awoke abruptly; his dreams had been merely memories of the night befor.e - skin on skin, lips on lips and sweat-kissed cries- but they were enough to awaken him. His lavender eyes blinked, attempting to focus what seemed a bed scattered with limbs. His body was naked and wet, aching and raw, his hair was limp and one earring was missing. Despite it, he felt radiant. (Lee: I love that bit.) His nostrils were met with smoke and the sound of inhaling was unmistakable. He leant up and saw Bakura facing away from him, sat on the edge of the bed with a small cigarette between two fingers; he was leant forward with one elbow on his thigh, inhaling the cigarette constantly. The bed creaked under Malik's weight as he slipped his leg from under Marik's head and encircled Bakura's waist in his arms, kissing and nibbling his ear before slipping his legs around him also. Malik's eyelids fell droopy, a side-lopped grin materializing on his face. For him, ecstasy was being this close to Bakura. He was like a craving, not entirely on the mind, but a subconscious addiction.

"What do you want?" The darker one said in his shady, husky voice. His cigarette grew considerably smaller with every gulp of it he took; it was turning to a stump rather quick.

"You," came Malik's sincere reply. Bakura did not deliver speech; instead he bent down and put out the small cigarette on the dull carpet below him. This gained a petty tut from Malik who ran his long fingernails down the pale skin, watching with glee the way goose bumps appeared over every inch of shimmering, white flesh. Bakura snarled, revealing glass like fangs, as the nails dug deeper. "I'm going back to bed," Bakura stated, standing up and wandering around the bed to a spot Marik wasn't sprawled over. "Well I'm going out," Malik countered, while searching through a set of drawers, then tugging a pair of black trousers up his legs.

"Where?" Bakura demanded, who was now entangled within Marik's sleeping limbs.

"I don't know."

"Well don't expect me to come rescue you," Bakura said, perfidious to his words.

"I won't." Malik smiled, gazing at his two assets slumped on the bed, before pulling on a shirt, taking a quick glance in the mirror and then leaving.

"I still don't think this was a good idea, Ryou," whispered Yugi, his eyes bulging with fright as they heard a distant scream beyond the murky street they were hurrying down, "Shouldn't we have invited Honda and Anzu? Then there'd be more of us…"

"Yugi, you've heard everything that goes on. That would just be putting more of us in danger." replied Ryou, quite matter-of-factly for the matter at hand. Yugi and Ryou had hurried to the closest shop, which had been broken into a few nights ago and was now derelict, in order to get some food to avoid starvation. Sure, home was the safest place, but it was no use if there was nothing to eat or drink; so fate had it that Ryou and Yugi had decided to dash to the shop and back, letting their friends safely stay at home.

"Yes, but if there were four of us, it would be less frightening; maybe the creatures would even stay away from us!" squeaked Yugi.

"A group of ten were killed two streets away. Only six and a half bodies were found. I think we will draw less attention to ourselves like this," Ryou shifted one of his plastic bags to his other arm, the handle imprinting itself on his fragile finger.

"I'm so scared Ryou. Why did this happen? Why did the Pharaoh have to go?"

"It's okay, Yugi, everything will be okay. You'll see." Ryou don his best reassuring voice, but it was tricky just to believe himself. It wasn't as if it was just a nightmare and that they were about to wake up at anytime; it could have been plausible had they not been having nightmares already. Whoever heard of nightmares inside nightmares? You couldn't sleep if you were already asleep.

"I just… I just wish it would stop," They had stopped walking along the pavement now and were huddled together, the shopping bags on the floor. Tears streamed down Yugi's face, but he made no sound; Ryou looked forlorn, his glowing white hair a massive contrast to the dark sky and equally dark road. The two stood, trembling together and mumbling worries and complaints.

Suddenly, Ryou span around, footsteps pricking his ears. He had been hearing them faintly a while ago, but decided not to mention anything to Yugi and cause him more woe. The footsteps were slow, but loud and close by. Yugi began to hear them too, he simply whimpered and shook worse than ever. His wan friend held onto him tightly, not willing to move. Before their very eyes, a boy appeared from the shadows surrounding them. He was a bit older and taller than them, with long, fair hair and a strange credulous gaze that looked inapt. His eyes had black markings and his body was remarkably tanned. He looked callow, but not at all out of place against the shadows. He fixed his diaphanous look upon Ryou, tracing an outline of him. What he spoke of sounded genuine, but malicious. "You shouldn't walk upon these streets. What you cannot see can still hurt you. Fiends are masters of your new world and they're not going away." Malik ogled at the white haired boy while he spoke. When he saw him at first, he was going to shout to Bakura and tell him that he was fine, but when the youngster with the delicate face and tamed hair and sympathetic eyes had turned around he was utterly bewildered. Nevertheless, the boy had something about him, the same eccentric core- although the exact opposite- that Bakura had. Bakura was everything this boy was not; the boy had everything Bakura lacked. This seemed to be accurate in their outward appearance too. Malik grew zealous about the boy; he was so enticing! He had an awkward desire to take him back to the apartment he shared with Bakura and Marik.

Bakura and Marik!

Would they like this teenager as much as he did? Or would they just rip him to pieces, like all the other leisure humans he had shared with them? Perhaps he should keep this flimsy mortal for himself, but there was nowhere to store him.

"Tell me your name." instructed Malik, indicating Ryou.

Ryou was wary of this stranger, even though he appeared so risk-free. It was the way he had said 'Fiends are masters of your world' as if he was not a part of it. But Ryou knew he wasn't hallucinating about this… this being because Yugi was in panic by the side of him. And he couldn't be one of these Fiends he mentioned, because he assumed they were ugly, or with horns. Something to indicate they weren't human. The male that stood in front of them looked perfectly human. Perhaps a little too perfect.

"Well?" Malik said curtly.

"I-I'm Ryou,"

"Ryou…" Malik savoured the name, as if rolling it off his tongue again and again. Okay, so he'd give Bakura and Marik a chance. Not without elucidating his zeal for the human first, just to make sure they understood his wishes for them not to obliterate Ryou.

"What is your name?" asked Ryou, trying to keep frailty and disrespect from his voice.

Malik smirked, which was unusual even for him. "My name is Malik. You will get to know more about me later, my juvenile friend."

Then he vanished.

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Lee: Chapter three should be up soon! As soon as I know what you think!

Castigate, PLEASE!

Ryou: Reviews are so lovely.

Malik: So is that purple button. Doesn't it just scream at you to click it?