Hello again! Here we are with chapter four! Some things to mention first: This chapter is angsty! And M-rated for vague talkings about adult relations between two men. (And here I was in the last chapter saying I had no idea if I'd put anything like that in these, pfft.) Another thing to mention, and I probably should have said it before, but it slipped my mind. All of these chapters are separate oneshots! They are NOT connected unless I specifically tell you that they are! Hope that clears up some confusion! Also, don't know if it matters at all, but this is anime-based, only I totally haven't actually seen the end of Yu-Gi-Oh (stopped watching like halfway through season four), so it most definitely does not follow that at all.

So chapter four! This is by far my favorite so far X3 Which is funny, because for the longest time I had no idea what to write for it. I got a good idea for five, so I'd started working on that one before this one XP But I finally thought of something, and I love it, so here it is!

Disclaimer: Black-Neko-Chan does not own Yu-Gi-Oh nor the song "Friday."

Chapter Four: Seein' Everything, The Time Is Goin'

It was raining. It had been doing so for the past four days, and although a more optimistic man than himself may have hoped it would let up, it hadn't. The skies had taken it upon themselves to open up wider than ever to release torrents of icy rain. A wise man would have sought shelter from the onslaught, but he remained where he was. The weather had frozen his limbs to the point where he could no longer even feel the droplets on his skin, other than a brief, tingling sensation, and the reddening of pale flesh. A fool would have at least had the sense to wear a jacket, but he adorned himself with nothing but the clothes on his back.

"You're going to catch cold at this rate."

The other male took up a stance next to him. He, the first noticed with a measure of irritancy, was dressed in a heavy brown coat, and wore a hood over his head. Brown eyes slid away from the newcomer and back to the object he'd been glaring at for the past two hours. The other was no longer deemed important.

"Will you at least say something? If you won't put on some appropriate clothing, at least let me know that you're still alive!"

"Shut up," The first muttered. Not because he cared about reassuring the other as to the nature of his health, or that he even cared that the other was worried. He did it because the voice of his companion was grating. He shattered the solitude of the moment by his very presence alone. The cacophony of his words was too much to take added on top of his intrusion.

"Will you just please go inside already? Please? I'm begging you!"

There had been silence for at least twenty minutes, long enough to almost allow himself to forget the other's presence completely. But then he had opened his mouth again and begun to babble more useless drivel that the first man would not listen to. The plea stayed with him, however, and for a moment he considered. He could no longer feel the cold, and although his feet had began to ache and protest all the standing he'd done thus far, he knew they could hold up for much longer than they were letting on. He would not leave because he was too weak to continue his vigil. But there was the plea. It was the begging, begging that sounded only a few inches away from distress, and that caused him to contemplate. The other begged and pleaded about as much as he did. For him to do so now meant something. And that something almost bade him to leave, and come indoors from the cold. But as his eyes slithered back to the monument in front of him, he knew that no begging would move him now.

"Bakura! Godammit, answer me!"

Marik grabbed his shoulders, harshly wrenching him away from the marker and forcing their eyes to meet. His hand rose and punched the blonde a split-second later, making the hood covering him fly off, and blond hair fly back before settling neatly around tanned skin. A moment later, it was drenched by the rain and ran like golden rivers down that same skin. Marik's head lolled forward, and he brought a hand to his reddening cheek, rubbing it slowly. A grimace adorned his mouth, but there was no surprise, just resignation.

"I'm not fucking done yet!" Bakura roared, furious. His eyes burned and his fist itched to hit the blonde again, and again, and again, and to never stop hitting him until he'd beaten that beautiful, sun-kissed face into a mushy pile of pulp and gristle, and then he would hit him again.

"Everyone else has already gone! We're the only fools still standing out here, getting drenched in the rain!" Marik yelled.

"Then leave." And he turned back around, forgetting that the other was there. The cold surged up around him and stole all the heat his body had generated from the sudden outburst, and then he was numb again, his eyes bore listless into the stone.

"I'm not leaving without you."

The declaration stood by itself in the silence, curiously detached from its owner. All the other words had faded away into the same oblivion they'd come from easily enough, because they had never really been important or mattered in the first place. Just nonsensical words stringed together, aimed at producing from him some reaction. But this string stayed put. Instead of fading away, it practically danced in front of his eyes, dragging and directing his rapt attention straight towards it.

It was a statement made completely out of character. Pregnant with concern and worry, and showing a steadfast loyalty that had never been bothered with before. Loyalty had no place in their line of work. It was eat or be eaten, and the only reason they'd ever worked together in the first place was for mutual gain. The moment the other had nothing to offer, the partnership ended. That was the way things worked between the two. Commitment wasn't for people like them. Bakura had thought Marik knew that.

Marik shuffled beside him, but he did not try and touch him again. Smart enough to have learned his lesson the first time. He did not want to be disturbed. Of all times, this was when he desired a moment to himself. On any other day he would devote himself to Marik's inanities, but this was his.

"Bakura…"

He was starting up again. The talking had whittled away to nothing, but now it was gearing up once more as Marik proved to again not grasp the importance that he be here.

"You don't understand, do you, Marik?" Bakura questioned, sarcasm evident on his tongue. He knew that Marik did not. But still he asked the question, breaking the silence he himself desired. Marik was visibly surprised to hear his companion speak. His head raised up, violet eyes showing the confusion that Bakura had known would be evident.

"Wha…? No, no, I don't," Marik said. His lips decided on a frown, and his body turned involuntarily toward his sopping companion. "I don't understand why you'd want to mourn him. You wanted him dead, after all. So what's there to remain here for?"

He sounded cocky, so sure of himself, as he said the words, and that infuriated Bakura. His mouth twitched and then formed a snarl, and his hands bunched together at his side. Marik was ignorant, so stupid. He'd wanted him dead too, and he didn't even understand. He didn't see it the way Bakura did, but yet he sounded so damn sure of himself, like he knew exactly what he was saying when he told Bakura to come inside.

"I'm not mourning him! I'm mourning what I've lost," Bakura spat. Marik remained silent, sensing that the other man was not yet done. The rain continued to fall just as hard now as it had three hours ago, when he'd first shown up in front of the marker. The gray clouds overheard turned the graveyard a darker shade of dismal monochrome. Even the flowers that had been placed on the tomb were as sodden as the two visitors, the rain drowning them all without discrimination. The place was deserted due to the weather, even though the scent of fresh dirt still pervaded the air.

"Cancer. Who'd have thought something like that would have finally shut him up for good?" Bakura muttered, smiling at the new grave sardonically. He kicked the bouquet of flowers off the mound of dirt with sporadic viciousness, and watched as they flew away from one another. The paper wrappings landed in a patch of wet grass, but all the flowers fluttered prettily down into a large puddle, and sank to the bottom to decay in the mud.

"But it did!" He continued, as if he'd never stopped. "It fucking did, and now there's nothing left for me here. Nothing to fucking do but exist. Same damn thing I've been doing for thousands of years. At least before I had a goal in mind. Now there's just wet dirt, and a rotting carcass."

"And what's wrong with that? Now there's nothing to hold you back, or tie you down. The world didn't all of a sudden shut down and leave you, Bakura. Without him, you can do whatever the hell you want," Marik argued. A bit of fire had entered his voice, and Bakura broke away from the flowers to see him staring at the grave. His soft lips were twisted into a half-grimace, and his eyes sparkled diamond hard.

"You're an idiot," Bakura scoffed, turning away. For a moment, he'd almost thought that Marik had understood. That he'd been at least close to the same revelation he'd had, that he could sense that now, everything was wrong. But the blonde was just as oblivious now as he was before. Maybe to him, it felt like a weight had been lifted quite literally off his back, but he was just a mortal. He hadn't lived for as long as the spirit had, or hated as much as he. He could easily go on with his life, maybe do something to finally make his brother and sister proud of him instead of squandering through it all beside his old partner.

"What am I supposed to do, now that he's gone? He was my whole reason for being here! There wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think of him, and how I wanted to kill him! And now I can't do that! I can't do anything anymore!" The pale teen screamed.

"Bakura—" Marik started, becoming active. His hands rose to perhaps restrain his companion again, but he didn't get far. Bakura shot away from the other angrily, and continued his outburst.

"I wanted to kill him! My entire life, I've wanted to kill him! He destroyed my home and killed all of my family and friends! He killed me! The only thing I lived for was to get my revenge and kill him, and now I can't, because he had to be so—fucking—selfless! and allow himself to die alongside the prat! Even the damn Sennen Items don't matter anymore! I only fucking wanted them so I could finally beat him and take my revenge!" He snarled. He was on a role now, pacing back and forth, wringing his hands together to distract himself from placing them around Marik's neck and snapping it, so great was his anger.

"Oh, I'd had a great plan! I was going to win them all and send their owners to the Shadow Realm to rot. And then when I had all but the damn Puzzle, I'd challenge him and use all the powers at my disposal to beat him. But I'd wait to kill him. I'd let him watch as I took over this place and killed his friends one by one in front of him, while he could only stand there helpless and listen to their screams and begs. And then I'd keep him there for a few hundred years, let him slowly break and realize that he'll never again beat me. Let the pain he feels and the despair sink in, the same way it sank in to me. And then I'd kill him.

"But I can't do that anymore, can I, Marik?" He questioned sarcastically, finally ceasing his pacing motions. He stood in front of the grave once more and glared at it with all the hatred his dead heart could muster. "I can't do anything anymore, because he went and died! He had to kick me down and beat me again by doing the very thing I've been wanting him to do for years, only he kept me from accomplishing it! And you're going to tell me that there's still something left to do in this blasted place? Fuck you, Marik!" He raged. "And fuck him too!"

He lashed out at the gravestone behind him and punched it squarely in the middle. The stone was new and did not give in the slightest. The blood from his freshly-split knuckles mixed with the pouring rain and streamed down the letters engraved on the stone. The "G," "I," and "M" ran red for a few seconds before the rain washed it away. Bakura's shoulders heaved as he breathed raggedly. He heard Marik shuffle behind him, and then a tanned hand was against his and pulling him away from the grave.

He let himself be touched, didn't fight against it this time. His anger and energy fell back to a dormant slumber, and he let his hate seep through his eyes as he stared unmoving at the headstone. His body was suddenly enveloped in warmth as Marik pulled him to his chest. The coat that the other man wore was taken off and placed around Bakura's own skinny frame. Almost right away, with the rain no longer numbing his skin to the chill, Bakura felt just how cold he was. His body trembled, and his legs felt very weak now. He sneezed, and raised his arms to wrap around himself for more warmth. Ryou's body was unable to handle such temperatures. The only thing he'd accomplished in the length of time he'd been outside was to give himself a bad cold.

"Bakura, let's go inside Bakura. Let's get out of the cold, and get you changed into some new clothes. You're soaking wet. Come on Bakura, come on. There's nothing else to do here. Let's go," Marik was saying somewhere above his ear. The blonde's teeth chattered noisily as the rain hurriedly fell to soak him as well.

"What's the point? We're villains, Marik. There's nothing for us to do now. We were never going to win, or live grand, purposeful lives. Our role in the scheme of things is meaningless. He gets to die the hero's death, remaining beside the one he cared about right up until the very end. When he was buried, everyone came to grieve, and then they went to their warm houses and stopped mourning because they knew that he had wanted to go this way, and that he was happy. You'll live your life right up until you die and decay in the earth, and no one will be there to see you pass. And once Ryou dies, I'll be stuck in the Ring to continue my parasitic existence. Only even that no longer matters. We've been reduced to fragmented half-visions that no one can bother to see quite clearly. So what does it matter, Marik? What does it even matter anymore?" He asked quietly. And Marik paused in his tugging to get the spirit someplace warm, out of the rain and cold. He was finally seeing it now, wasn't he? Because that was what it came down to. With the death of the king, they became useless and unnecessary. Same thing they'd always been from the beginning, only now they would be forgotten as well. Insult to injury. But that was the way of it.

"That's not true," Marik argued, although Bakura could tell from his voice that his heart was no longer in it. Not like when he'd been fighting to get Bakura to listen to him. "We can still be the villains. We can still cause havoc and kill and maim. There's nothing to stop us from doing that."

"Of course. Dignity, who needs it?" Bakura scoffed, drawing himself into the coat tighter.

"I'm serious, Bakura! It doesn't have to be that way!"

"But it will. It will. There's no point to it all anymore. Why rage when there's no longer a king to rage against? Half the excitement of it all was in the lose, and coming up with a new plan to succeed in the future. So you can do all of the things you said if you want, but you won't. Neither will I. It's all meaningless now. His final victory. I bet he's laughing his ass off," He said, with another glance to the solitary tombstone. Marik's arms wrapped around him tighter, trembling so much now that Bakura could feel them through the large coat. He thought the Egyptian might have another argument, but he'd already given up. With another call of his name, he led the paler man away from the grave and to his car.

Marik had traded in the motorcycle for a more reliable mode of transportation years ago. He'd said that the bike was for those younger than him. It was the old, dilapidated black car that Bakura was led to, and helped inside. He sat shivering in the passenger seat as Marik fiddled with the engine, trying to get it to start. There was a hole in the worn leather seat by his right thigh, and to him it looked like a yawning, gaping mouth. He watched as the water from his jeans streamed into it, turning the stuffing a darker mustard yellow.

Marik got the engine started and took a seat with a wet flop. For a short bit, he sat with his head bent back against the seat. His blonde hair would had fluttered nicely down behind him had it not been stuck to his forehead and cheeks. Water still dripped from it, and Bakura found himself distracted by a droplet as it rolled down smooth, tanned skin. Then Marik looked to him, and he raised his eyes to meet lilac. The man looked about ready to speak, but a frown came over his face, and he redirected his gaze to the window and pulled out of the parking lot.

"I'm taking you back to my house. If I drop you off by yourself, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if you marched your way back up here," Marik said. Bakura nodded half-heartedly, having expected such an outcome already. Today was a different day for the both of them, and for Marik, that meant being strangely companionable when before he wouldn't have minded so much. Or at least not acted on it.

Bakura watched the rain through the window of the car. It turned the whole world wet and dreary, and when his breathe fogged up the glass enough that it made seeing impossible, he thought that the view hadn't changed all that much anyways. He continued to stare. He could sense that Marik was uncomfortable with the silence, but the blonde acted like he were much too engaged in driving back to his place to make petty conversation.

"You're right, Bakura."

He spoke when they'd reached his shabby apartment, not even waiting until the both of them had taken off their shoes and gotten out of their wet clothing. Marik stood there, dripping onto the carpet of his floor, and he proclaimed that Bakura was right.

"You're right. I won't do any of the things that I said. But the world didn't just end. And we haven't become meaningless. We're still here. We still exist," Marik said, looking Bakura straight in the eye. He was attempting to say something, to convey some emotion that he either could not, or would not put into words. He was struggling, struggling because he knew he didn't get it right, and maybe, because he knew it didn't matter either way. Because it didn't. And if he didn't know that, then Marik was more of a fool than Bakura thought.

Marik gave up on his words, decided to explain himself in the only way he really knew how. He kissed Bakura straight on the lips, and as his mouth moved desperately eager against the paler one's, Bakura almost wanted to laugh. But his tongue was occupied now, and his thoughts were for the time being making themselves scarce as wet clothes were pulled off and left to dampen the carpet.

It was fumbling, it was awkward, and neither knew what they were doing. It was wet and it was painful, and the only thing Bakura could put into it was hate, hate, because it was the only thing he had felt for so long, and now it really was the only thing he could feel.

There had been a time when Marik was beautiful to him, when he'd enjoyed his presence so much that he almost went an entire day without feeling that broiling hatred in his pit. There'd been a time when he'd secretly wanted nothing more than to spend the day planning the Pharaoh's demise with the Egyptian, and dreamt about spending the night with him in the way they finally were now. There'd been a time when he'd felt all those foreign emotions that hadn't been hatred bubbling inside of him, completely new and yet oddly familiar all at once, though he hadn't experienced them in centuries. There'd been a time when he almost felt saved. But that was all foolish, silly stuff, the kind of thing someone like Ryou would dream about and deserve. All he felt now was cold, and his hatred. He'd gotten one thing he had longed for, and it didn't even matter because the end he'd been chasing was now lost to him forever. Bakura found it hilarious. While the two of them fumbled in the dark, while Marik moaned and pressed his body fervently against Bakura's own, the only thing the white-haired man could think to do was laugh.

Marik collapsed beside him, sweat now replacing the water, but still as equally drenched. He sighed and closed his eyes, but it was not the sigh of a well-sated man coming from post-coitus. Blood speckled the expanse of sheets between them, and Bakura imagined that were he to have actually seen Marik's face during the entire thing, the blonde would have worn a grimace. As it were, all he'd concentrated on was blonde hair and tanned skin, but in the ever-present recollection of gravestones and flowers, those things hadn't stood a chance at remaining in his memory.

"Bakura…"

He wondered, absently, if Marik felt better or worse for having displayed himself like that? Had he thought that if he opened himself up and gave into his desires, he would somehow win Bakura's heart over, instead of see it continue to long for those that had died? Had Marik thought that at once, he would realize there was no point in hating what could no longer exist to be hated, and remain in the blonde's bed, beside him, until his life were up? Had he thought these things? Were they what prompted him to act the way he did?

"Bakura I… I don't… What I want to say is that… I don't like seeing you that way, and you're right about everything but I don't… I don't like hearing you say those things and I… fuck!"

If they were, then he really was an idiot, wasn't he? Marik should have realized by now, if he'd ever known him at all, that his heart had always remained alive but for one person, and one person only. Maybe at some time it had threatened to feel for another, but when the one he lusted revenge over died, Bakura's heart gave up and died as well. Melodramatic, but true enough, being put into words. And if Marik had thought that maybe he could change this, well that just made it even more so.

"Damn it Bakura, what I want to say is that I love you!"

There was that urge to laugh again, rising, bubbling up, threatening to overcome him. How would Marik react to that, he wondered derisively. He remained lying on his back, staring at the plaster peeling off the ceiling, but from the corner of his eye he could see Marik sitting up, struggling with some nonsensical words that were just as useless now as when he'd spoke them at the graveyard. He hadn't been listening then, either.

"Well, say something at least!"

"What?"

That Marik was a fool? That he would never have gotten what he wanted from the beginning? Somehow, Bakura felt like the Egyptian knew it all already.

Kay, that's it! Sorry if it was confusing at all. If you've got a question, just ask away! Hope you liked it! Please review, and thank you!