When Angels Cry 7- The Infuriating Innocence of Atemu


Yaoi/shonen-ai. If you don't like, please don't read. Flames will be extinguished with great prejudice due to the fact that it is bushfire season and I hate bushfires. Many Australians do.

---------------------------------------------

Rated for bloody descriptions of battle, torture and later limes. (You know I can't resist!) Considering a lemon in due time... ;)

---------------------------------------------

Dedicated to my reviewers!

Nusku

Cavialover

YugiTheDarkPharaoh

Shadow Cat17

Basima

Shadow over Egypt

I meant to have this out on Christmas, but things happened (family stuff) and I didn't get around to typing it till today (though I had the hand-written version ready before Christmas.) Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and best wishes for the New Year!

Oh, and it seems that I've created a whole new shipping! In collaboration with several of my readers (Basima and Shadow over Egypt) we've made a name for this shipping (and I'm definitely putting it on my 'to-write' list!)

Aquashipping!

Aqua, for Dartz's hair, and also another word for blue, thus tying in Kaiba's eyes! \o/ The other relevant names were already taken- Dragonshipping's Yami/Joey and Oceanshipping was taken by Yu-Gi-Oh GX... --;

Enjoy the chapter

:D

Ireina


What hurts the most
Is being so close
And having so much to say
And watching you walk away


-What Hurts the Most- Rascal Flatts

---------------------------------------------

"The demon we sent in was uncovered, Lady."

"What? How?" A slight frown creased coldly elegant features and the Lady's wings gave a slight twitch, the only signs of her concern. That demon had been supposed to keep an eye on the boy's movements and had been sent in as soon as the golden tenshi had been assassinated- the only way she could foresee the demon being uncovered within mere hours was…

"Another angel was present, Milady…" The angel at her feet gulped. "Not one of yours though. The demon… well, it was only a lower-level imp, and well… It couldn't resist the blood-lust."

'A regrettable trait.' she thought to herself with an annoyed sigh. All demons possessed the instinct to attack, maim and kill any angel they sensed in any way, save the higher-level demons. It was the reason She gave her orders only directly to these higher-ranking ones and left them to pass on her orders to the imps and such. Of course she could easily just destroy the imps if they attacked her, but frankly that was a waste of energy.

"Do we know this angels identity? We must identify and weed out any possibility of being detected before we are powerful enough to reveal ourselves."

"No, Milady." The frown on her face deepened. "But the demon did manage to cut off a lock of their hair… When the Retrieval group was sent in to remove the imp, one of ours managed to collect it without being seen."

She sat forward at that. "Bring it to me." she ordered, eyes glinting. Soon she would know just who had been defying the Treaty and setting foot in the Mortal Realm without due process- and possibly eliminate another threat. And if it was who she thought it was…

"As you wish, Lady." The male angel bowed, exiting the surprisingly bright and tastefully decorated room.

---------------------------------------------

Softly three pairs of feet lightly touched the ground, Marik unceremoniously dumping his burden on the ground in front of him with a thump (effortlessly removing Atemu's arms from around his neck in the process)

"Itai!" yelped the dark-skinned teen. Bakura twitched as he fought the reflexive urge to check on his charge, instead closing his eyes and turning his head slightly down, feeling the bite of nail into flesh as he clenched his fist.

This commotion only served to emphasize Seto's great annoyance/distraction to Dartz, for the mortal only tightened his grip and slumbered on, nuzzling closer to the blue-winged angel, whose face gained a barely noticeable tint of rose.

"Marik! Dammit, there was no need for that!" yelled Atemu, standing with a wince before muttering under his breath; "This is why I hate flying…"

"Whatever. We should go inside rather than standing around out here and waiting to be attacked." dead-panned Marik, unlocking the door before closing his eyes as a small glow covered the door-handle and it opened, the spell holding it locked dissolving at his touch.

Shooting a glare at the dark angel with the spiky sandy hair Atemu nodded reluctantly, before following the others over the threshold.

---------------------------------------------

"Some new rules for you- I want you and the sleeping one to stay out of that room. Understand?" ordered Marik.

Atemu bristled combatively. "Why?" he challenged, not liking just being ordered to do something for no apparent reason.

A slender white hand was laid on his shoulder. "Malik's… in there." Bakura said, leaning down to his hear and whispering so the other black-winged man couldn't hear him.

Without realising it, Atemu shivered at the tickling sensation. Noticing this, Bakura cursed his impulse that had brought him so close to the mortal, removing his hand and forcing himself to step back. 'If I don't keep that under control, he'll be hurt even more if he realises what his reactions mean.' he thought, referring to the desire to be near the younger male.

"That's right… He… hasn't been buried yet?" Atemu asked automatically turning to Bakura, apparently unnoticing of the (now black-winged) angel's hurried retreat.

"He was only brought back here an hour or so ago. He's not long… well departed." (1) Bakura replied in a clipped tone.

"The letter didn't mention when…" Atemu's eyes widened as an idea occurred to him. He knew angels had a phenomenal healing capacity. He also knew that humans could be revived even if clinically dead soon after the fact… "If it was only that long then… being an angel… should mean the window of time to resuscitate him would be larger…" He grabbed Bakura's pale hands in his caramel-hued ones. "I need to wake up Seto!" he exclaimed before tugging Bakura after him as he followed the path Dartz had taken. "Even if he's a Divine Being we won't have long before it's impossible to revive him…" he told himself under his breath.

Bakura shook his head to clear it of the daze the spontaneous contact with Atemu had induced and, (once his mouth caught up to his brain) he asked; "Wait, what? Revive? You mean you think you can…"

"Maybe, if we hurry! But I'll need Seto's help, he's always been a genius of some kind, he'll have a vague idea what we need to do."

Bakura again shook his head disbelievingly and followed the younger mortal (though it was not as though the other had given him a real choice in the matter) If, if they could revive Malik it would mean so much to Marik- the gold-winged tenshi's death had hit the fallen one hard- Bakura would never have picked those two for a potential couple but…

Malik's revival wouldn't just mean a lot to Marik either. Malik had been his closest if not his only friend for so many years now, and the angel had struck up a close friendship with Ryou and Dartz also.

---------------------------------------------

The winged man was startled out of his musings when Atemu called out; "Seto?! Where are… Dartz? What the…" the mortal gasped, and Bakura tried vainly to stifle his laughter at the strange and yet amusing sight in front of him.

The poor man was trying to remove a certain brunette's arm from his neck (without causing damage) with a furious glare and spots of bright red blooming on his normally pale (though not white as Bakura's) cheeks. He was muttering under his breath, switching between furious orders to let him go in Japanese and what sounded suspiciously like cursing judging by the tone of his voice in a strange language that neither Bakura (nor Atemu, judging from his face) understood.

"Let me go you utterly irritating mortal!" he suddenly yelled in Japanese, several strands of hair coming loose from their clasp as he stomped his foot in an uncharacteristically childish fashion.

Clamping his fist to his mouth in order to stifle his amusement at the usually lofty and complacent Dartz losing his temper in such a spectacular fashion, Atemu said; "You er… let him fall asleep. Didn't you?"

Dartz turned towards the doorway, an utterly evil expression on his face. "Oh no, Yami, he's holding me close to him because he just can't resist my charms." snapped the frazzled (and not a little embarrassed) man with the blue wings currently twitching violently from sheer annoyance.

"That… ha-ha… used to be a habit of his." giggled Atemu. "You'll have to wake him up or he won't let you go."

"What do you think I've been trying to do?!" Dartz said, following his words with another half-hearted attempt to make the other release him, letting out several words that Bakura had a hunch he should be grateful Atemu couldn't understand.

"You… oh god! were trying to make him let… ha-ha! you go, not wake him." corrected Atemu, laughing through his entire statement.

Dartz blinked, looking down at the obstinately clinging sleeper around his neck. "If all my yelling did not cause him to awaken, what will prove effective?" he asked wearily, a note of curiosity permeating his voice.

At this Atemu failed to keep himself from laughing for a good five minutes. Dartz and Bakura failed to see what was so funny about Dartz's statement until Atemu saw fit to clarify.

"The only thing that woke him up when we were young... was Aunt giving him a wake-up kiss. I don't know… whether or not it'll still work, you being well, you and not Aunt…" he told them with a heavily amused face, the odd chuckle slipping out every now and then as he spoke.

Dartz gave him an affronted look of utter horror. "Are you telling me I'm supposed to kiss him awake?" he demanded.

"It'd wake me up- though only to kick your ass." smirked Bakura, laughing at the death-glare he received from his friend.

Atemu gave a slight nod, too busy trying not to laugh.

The ancient blue-winged angel gave a suspicious glare to the mortal. "If it'll get him off me, I suppose it is not a great chore." he said reluctantly, adjusting his hold on the brunette in his arms and swiftly pecking him on the lips. "Now would you wake up, Seto-kun?" he ordered, the pink colour returning to his cheeks with a vengeful glee.

"You realise you didn't need to kiss him on the lips? I'd imagine a peck on the cheek would've done the job, y'know." Bakura told him, another smirk adorning his features, while a more mischievous version of the same smirk featured on Atemu's face.

Dartz had no time to give the scathing reply he so dearly wished to, for almost immediately after their lips had met the brown-haired teen stirred, releasing his death-grip and blinking crystalline blue eyes blearily as he stretched like a cat in the angel's arms.

He looked up at Dartz's golden eyes and merely arched a brow as he asked; "Why the hell am I in the arms of the yellow-eyed gentleman who so kindly ran me over in the halls yesterday?" in a still half-asleep voice.

"Seto, come! There's someone we need you to help us with- you know CPR, right?" Atemu asked, sobering up at the reminder of his original purpose in searching for his older cousin.

"Of course, but why..."
"No time. Dartz let him down. Oh, and Bakura, are you or is Dartz better at healing or whatever it is you angels do?"

"I'm a fallen angel now Atemu- I can't heal anymore save with herbs and medicine."

Atemu frowned. "When did you fall? Why…? Oh never mind, you can tell me later, Dartz, you ought to come with us."

Forgetting the burden he'd been trying to rid himself of for the past half an hour, Dartz frowned. "What happened? Is someone else hurt? And what does C.P.R stand for?" he asked.

"Let me down you fool, time is of the essence when it comes to reviving someone without a heart-beat." ordered Seto, immediately grasping the gravity of the situation, slapping the angel's shoulder lightly and struggling.

"But how could you revive someone with no heartbeat? Angels do have the ability if the soul isn't long departed, but how mortals could do it…" asked a still-confused Dartz, obeying the request and releasing the mortal in his arms.

Ignoring him, Atemu grabbed Seto's wrist and sprinted to the room Marik had expressly ordered them not to go into.

---------------------------------------------

The door was unlocked, as thought the dark angel had honestly expected them to obey him. Shoving the door open, ruby and sapphire locked onto the pitiful form lying on the small bed in the room.

"Something tore off his right wing- likely demons and he was found hanging from a tree by the other wing, which had gotten impaled on a branch as he fell." came the soft voice of Bakura behind them.

Seto clamped a hand to his mouth at the severed wing, still bloody and mangled lying lifelessly on the floor with a small puddle of silvery tinted liquid underneath the severed end (of what he didn't care to think about) on the floor beside the bed. Atemu merely gulped before gritting his teeth. He'd seen far worse on Bakura's back when the Tears had infected the many wounds. Didn't make it any less gruesome, but it was easier for him to deal with it than Seto appeared to be finding it.

"Don't look at the wing, let's just get to work. You get started on the chest compressions Seto and I'll start the rescue breaths." ordered the ruby-eyed teen, moving forward. Nodding, Seto appeared to pull himself together and also moved toward Malik.

"What are you doing?" asked Bakura incredulously as he saw Atemu lean into Malik as though to kiss the lifeless tenshi after tilting his head back and lifting his chin.

It was Seto who answered between counting his compressions. "He's breathing for this man- the idea is to start his lungs into their reflexive response of exhaling. It's supposed to help his lungs to re-start themselves while getting oxygen into his body. What I'm doing is forcing his heart to push blood through his system- though a good electric shock would be more helpful to actually re-start it…" Seto grunted.

"Lightning is the origin of this electricity is it not?" asked Dartz interestedly.

"In a way, but now isn't the time for Twenty Questions."

"I can give him a small jolt of 'electricity' then. How powerful and where?" the aqua-haired angel said calmly, moving forward. Seto shot him a quick look from distracted blue eyes. Of course he knew the other couldn't possibly have the proper equipment, but if he could somehow get an electric jolt to this man's heart of the correct voltage it could prove to be tremendously useful…

"I'd not give a terribly strong jolt, or a weak one and it has to go straight to the heart. Though the machine is supposed to pick up how strong to make it- it measures the heart or something." he said shortly, returning his grim gaze to his work. "Not too strong remember, or you'll fry him." Atemu said, sitting up and moving away from the angel, Seto mimicking this motion.

Nodding, the ancient angel's pale hands stretched over the injured angel, and Seto saw a crackle of what seemed to be lightning arc from his hands to the non-breathing tenshi, making his body shake for a second before returning to its previous position.

Shucking aside the shock at seeing the other man summon lightning, even such a small amount (though there was probably a logical explanation for it) Seto pumped the other's chest the required numbers of times, as before regulating the pressure so as not to injure the wings; (logic dictated that there was blood coming from the wing on the floor, so hence they must genuinely be attached- an experiment with human/animal cross-cloning perhaps?)

Checking the pulse, he said: "Atemu, we'll do another minute of this, then we'll have to ask you, Dartz to shock him again." he huffed, continuing the technique.

"What's all this noise? ...What the hell are you doing to Malik?!Get away from him!" yelled an enraged Marik, attracted by the power emanating from the room (not to mention the commotion they were making)

Bakura grabbed him, forcing the larger man's arms up behind his back, avoiding his angrily fluttering black wings. "You'd best hurry with whatever it is you're doing! I can't hold him forever!" he gasped, wincing as he felt several of the still healing wounds rip open as the furious dark angel fought his grip.

Seto laid an ear to the tenshi's chest. He thought he'd seen the other's chest rise by itself, and he wanted to check. "Would you all just shut the fuck up!" he yelled, and the calculated use of the swear-word had the desired effect of causing the others to do as asked in surprise that he'd actually said it. He still couldn't hear a heart-beat (not that he'd really expected to- it would be a very faint beat if anything) lifted his head and laid his fingers on the tenshi's pulse.

Marik, Bakura and Dartz jumped at the flow of power that suddenly entered the room- it was neither angelic nor demonic- but the inherent power of a human mage that ran through the boy's fingers into the tenshi. As quickly as hit had entered the power vanished.

"That last jolt of yours worked Dartz! He's got a pulse!" the mortal exclaimed, sending a brilliant smile at the shell-shocked blue angel. 'He's completely unaware that was his doing!' thought Bakura in shock.

"…what?!" Marik asked hoarsely.

"He's got a pulse! Dartz, start your healing or we'll lose him again, and I really don't want to tempt fate again." Atemu ordered, giving another puff of air. "He's not breathing on his own even though his heart's beating so you'll have to hurry!"

---------------------------------------------

Pulling himself together Dartz immediately closed his eyes and drew up the immense power that lay in his core. Carefully he sent it through the gold-winged angel's entire body, chasing and burning away infections and re-knitting torn muscle and re-building flesh. Heedless of the toll on his body he pulled as much as he could into it, even forcing Malik's lungs to work on their own.

Light as a butterfly he touched upon the brain, checking and repairing what needed repairing from lack of oxygen. From there he moved to the injured wing, sweeping through and repairing breaks, fractures and the gaping hole, causing new flesh and feathers to form, though the new feathers were not the same golden hue, but a pale white.

Gasping, he pulled back to his own body, satisfied with a job thoroughly done- and done well. His gold eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted, the core of his power all but spent.

---------------------------------------------

Slender arms more used to typing and writing than labour of any sort caught the exhausted angel as Seto moved faster than the others would have expected from such as he.

Bakura moved to help support the weight, but Marik was simply too busy staring at the now one-winged angel whom had just sat up, staring disorientedly around him.

"…Malik…" he said softly, deep voice even hoarser than usual. "You… you're…"

"Where am I?" Malik asked in a voice weak from disuse. "I remember… pain… terrible pain… but then… I fell down, and it hurt…" he trailed off, startled at the usually stoic and somewhat cold Marik now clutching him to his chest.

"Marik?" he said half-disbelievingly as he felt what seemed to be… tearsleaking into his hair. "What happened to him?" he asked the others, surprised that the fallen angel was crying for some reason.

"You were dead Malik. Those two saved you, God alone knows how."

Lavender eyes widened in shock, hands automatically clutching at Marik's shirt. "I… died?"

"Marik, I hate to interrupt, but you'll have to help me move Dartz. The idiot used too much of his life-force to heal your Malik…" Bakura gasped, trying to keep the other winged man from landing on the floor.

"Let me take his weight, Bakura-sensei. You're injured; even I can see the blood. I can handle him, and if I need it, Atemu'll help me." Seto offered, automatically shifting to his all-capable CEO mode and taking control of the situation. "Show me where to take him."

Bakura nodded, carefully aiming his guilty eyes anywhere but at Atemu's disapprovingly upset expression. He knew full well the mortal was going to give him a royal tongue-lashing for his 'stupidly reckless stunt that endangers your own safety' as Atemu called them.

The dark angel was left alone with the one-winged angel in his arms.

---------------------------------------------

Reluctantly Marik let Malik go, ignoring the little voice telling him to never let the angel go again as he did so.

"Who… found my… body?" asked Malik awkwardly, not releasing his grip on Marik's shirt, moving closer as though seeking comfort.

Marik sighed, hands clenching into fists at the memory, at the hurt- and the rage that had torn at him when he'd realised the grievously injured tenshi was dead. " Me." he replied stiffly.

"I'd hoped it wasn't you who found me." whispered Malik, turning his head away.

"What? Why?" asked a confused Marik. This was rather a lot for the black-winged man to handle, as he was by habit a cold individual, and the series of violent emotions that had streamed through him in the past couple of hours had left him in no shape to deal with any more emotional complications.

"Because I don't like to be seen as weak." The lilac-eyed male gave him a sidelong glance from under his long lashes. "Especially… by you." he added softly and a rose-pink began to creep over his cheekbones.

"Why would that make me think you were weak? I know you're not, you're a warrior in the Abyss, and you were probably just outnumbered when they… Though if I knew who'd done that to you, the Hall of Punishment would seem like a land of sunshine and rainbows…" Marik finished in an ominously murderous voice.

"You'd really hurt them over it?"

"No." Malik turned away fully at that. Steeling himself (and hoping his hunch was correct) Marik took his chin and turned his face towards his own. "I would make them scream and beg for death before I finally killed them. I'd probably bathe in their blood afterwards. Just for the satisfaction of spilling it." he added the last with a bloodthirsty grin.

"Remind me why you never became a demon?" Malik said, now a bright red.

"I liked the feathered wings too much." admitted Marik before roughly capturing the tenshi's lips with his own.

The one-winged angel's eyes widened at the sudden kiss before he smiled into the other's lips, wrapping his arms around the fallen angel's neck and pouncing on him.

"That was… an unexpected… reaction." Marik said between kissing his way up to the angel's ear, nipping gently at the lobe as he snaked his arms around the other, face showing his wonder that he of all people was allowed to touch and caress such a perfect creature.

Malik gasped at the gentle bite. "Maybe you should pay more attention to the obvious." he grinned, subtly pushing his hips into Marik's.

"Maybe… I should."

---------------------------------------------

"Thanks for helping me… carry him. You can go now- I'll watch him until he wakes up." Seto told his cousin awkwardly. Atemu nodded, shooting a Look at Bakura, grabbing his larger hand and pulling him from the room.

Silent trepidation filled Bakura as his charge pulled him into the room to which he'd been confined while he healed, pushing him to sit on the bed wordlessly.

The dark-skinned mortal turned away from him and left the room and Bakura winced, not at the pain on his back and barely healed wings (though the pain was rather pressing) but at the guilt he felt for not listening to Atemu when he'd tried to tell him to stay in bed for another week. They'd argued over him getting up and that had been the last time he'd spoken to the younger male till now.

"Turn around."

He looked up to see the object of his thoughts standing in the doorway in front of him with a basin of water and several scraps of clean linen. Automatically he obeyed, presenting his back and wings to Atemu's scrutiny.

"I would've thought you'd have had the sense to take this off." Atemu sighed as he put the basin down and moved to kneel in front of Bakura on the bed, carefully unbuttoning his shirt. The black-winged angel drew in his breath with a hiss as dark fingers brushed his chest accidentally.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing Atemu."

"You should know by now that I don't like being lied to." replied the mortal tartly, gently slipping his hands under the lapels of the shirt and sliding it from Bakura's pale shoulders, extra careful as he got it off the large wings the shirt was modified to fit.

At that completely innocent gesture Bakura nearly sank his abnormally sharp teeth through his lip.

"Sorry." apologised Atemu as he moved back behind the injured male, placing the bloody shirt on the side-table.

"It is not you at fault."

"Meaning?" He felt the teen begin gently cleaning his re-opened wounds even as he asked his question.

"Exactly what I said." Bakura replied shortly, valiantly attempting to ignore the sweet fire the boy was stoking inside of him.

"Why do you always dance around my questions?" Atemu sighed.

"Not all of them."

"Just the ones that matter."

Bakura was silent at that. The linen cloth made its way lower and lower down his back, carefully cleaning the few open cuts on his lower back before he heard Atemu squeeze out the cloth and set to work on his wings.

The black-feathered appendages had barely been strong enough even for such a short trip (not that he'd been about to tell anyone that- he had too much pride) and unfortunately many of the deeper cuts upon the sensitive feather-covered flesh has opened as they had flapped.

"I was fully expecting you to say that you told me this would happen." Bakura said suddenly, more to take his mind off the gently rhythmic stroking of the cloth on his wings than anything.

Atemu made no answer, gently stretching the wing he was currently attending to gain access to another cut. The owner of said wing gasped.

"Sorry."

"You didn't hurt me." Bakura reassured him grimly; grateful the other couldn't see his face. "I wasn't actually expecting you to be so gentle."

"If I didn't hurt you, why did you gasp?" wondered Atemu aloud, causing Bakura to curse inwardly at the slip. 'How can he be so perceptive in some ways, yet so dense in others? He's such an innocent!' he despaired.

"Did any of the others tell you… anything about our wings? Just in passing or something." Bakura asked, choosing his wording carefully.

"Maybe, I don't really remember offhand. Why?"

"I was merely wondering."

Silence reigned as the mortal uncharacteristically let it slide. Several more minutes passed as Atemu finished his task and the fallen angel breathed a silent sigh of relief. His relief was short-lived however as he once more felt slender fingers trailing through the soft feathers on one of the rare uninjured spots on his left wing. God it felt good. He immediately hated himself for the thought of course, but he had thought it nonetheless.

Completely unaware of the mounting desire within Bakura, Atemu's deft fingers slowly worked their way along the wing, carefully avoiding his many scattered injuries down to the point where feathers flowed into bare flesh. From there he lightly trailed his fingers across the white skin just between Bakura's wings carefully avoiding the varying cuts marring the otherwise flawless skin and softly fiddling with the smaller feathers at the base of his other wing. As soon as he did that, Bakura sucked in a rattling breath.

"Atemu…" he gasped. "No more damn it, I can't take it!"

"I'm not hurting you."

"That is the point! In fact that's exactly why I need you to stop!"

"Because it's not hurting." came the sceptical reply. Atemu's fingers were now running in tantalizingly gentle strokes across his feathers.

"Exactly! I need you to stop because you don't understand what you're doing!"

"How do you know I don't?" challenged Atemu.

Bakura turned his head. "What?" he asked disbelievingly.

Atemu's eyes were inscrutable, giving away nothing. "Your wings are very sensitive. All of your wings are. Do you think I didn't know that meant to pleasure as well as pain?"

"If you know that then you understand why I want you to stop." bit out Bakura through teeth gritted at the teasing caresses along his wings.

"Actually that's exactly why I don't understand." the other said thoughtfully, pausing for a second as he pondered. "If it feels good, why do you want me to stop?" he asked, resuming his petting.

Bakura ground his teeth. Before the younger mortal could react, the white-haired angel had moved around, pinning him to the mattress, arms above his head with his knees either side of Atemu's hips. Bakura leaned down to his ear. "Because it feels too good." he whispered, locks of silvery hair tickling the boy's face as he spoke. Atemu's eyes widened in… shock? Bakura hoped so. He couldn't resist kissing his ear, before moving down his neck, leaving a trail of butterfly kisses as he did so. "Because you're only sixteen." He lifted his head, staring sombrely into Atemu's wide ruby red eyes with his own brown tinted ones, too preoccupied with the need to shock the other to realise the emotion and sheer want showing in his eyes. "And because you're an innocent who doesn't know what he's getting into." he finished quietly, pecking Atemu on the lips before moving back, reining in his bodily instincts.

Well, he tried. Atemu, you see had grabbed Bakura as soon as he released his hands, pulling the angel down to him, bodies flush against each other. The winged man's face was shocked as he realised what Atemu had done. His body began to react to the proximity of the younger male and he desperately tried not to focus on how nice the boy felt beneath him and instead tried to focus on damage control.

"Sixteen is the legal age of consent and I may be an innocent… But I can be taught." countered Atemu with a small smile as he initiated another kiss, finally understanding what was going through Bakura's head.

Bakura pulled back from the kiss in shock. 'I didn't mean for that to happen! I meant to shock him into rejecting me- not seduce him into wanting me!' he cried out mentally, before forcing himself to reply and not go back to the sweetness of Atemu's mouth.

"Atemu, I…" His protest was stopped with another kiss. He caught the boy by the shoulders and pinned him again. "I can't let you do that." 'No matter how much I may want you to.' he added mentally. "I can't let you tie yourself to me like that. I only wanted to prove a point." he improvised. He hadn't wanted to prove anything.

"Which would be?"

He gave a grimace, and for a second intense pain flickered across his features before he formed a cold gaze reminiscent of the Archangel's as she'd sentenced him. "That love and lust don't always keep the same company. And you're the sort of innocent person who would think that for that to happen means you love each other. I'm afraid that I just don't love you." he said ruthlessly, driving the verbal dagger deep, hoping, hoping that it was enough, because he didn't think he could stand this anymore.

The other deserved better, and if they were to enter that sort of relationship it would be too dangerous for anything to come of it, and Atemu would only end up hurt. Especially if what Bakura suspected came to pass. He wanted more than anything to keep his charge- no, to keep Atemu safe. It was no longer just because it was his duty to protect the boy. He thought he would rather die than allow anything to happen to the other- and he didn't want to think about why that was. He couldn't allow himself to think it, because he thought he might not be able to carry through with this if he did.

Atemu froze absolutely still as comprehension dawned. "I… I'm sorry. God, what must you think of me? Throwing myself at you like that…" Atemu said in a self-mocking voice. "You probably think I'm an idiot for not realising."

Bakura looked away to hide the sharp pain that lanced through him at the hurt and anger in the dark-skinned teen's voice. What hurt most was that even then, the anger was not aimed at him.

Atemu pushed at Bakura, though he didn't have nearly enough strength to move him. Silently the black-winged angel moved, allowing the other to sit up.

"I'm sorry. It… it won't happen again."

"Atemu…" His charge's name slipped from his lips, wishing he could soothe the pain that had caused the hurt on the teen's face. And knowing he couldn't.

---------------------------------------------

Ignoring Bakura, Atemu turned away and busied himself collecting the bandages and antiseptic stuff that Ryou had left a supply of which he'd brought from the cupboard so that he wouldn't show the treacherous tears he felt burning in his eyes. He would not cry in front of Bakura. 'God,' he thought disgustedly.'What possessed me? I should've realised he was proving a point- but… he kissed me and I couldn't seem to stop myself. I guess I finally understand what they mean when they talk about 'hormonal teenagers'. I just screwed up. Majorly screwed up. I bet he doesn't even want to talk to me now.'

He did not notice the sorrowful expression on Bakura's face.


(1.)- Yes, the events of the last two chapters occur rather close together- the angels moved quickly to inform Atemu what was going on so as to be able to protect him better- they knew that a strike so close would mean Atemu was in danger. As to the time Malik died, Ryou said in chapter 5 that he hadn't seen him in a while- Malik had been out doing a Recon mission- he was about to tell Marik what he'd found when he was intercepted before the message could even get to Marik.

I know, more ANGST and a surprising return to plot! On the up-side, I did manage to include some Bronzeshipping fluff and a rather comedic Aquashipping (Dartz/Seto) moment. I hope I didn't approach the whole Malik-comes-back-Marik-confesses thing in the wrong way... Looking forward to bringing in the final pairing soon!

Please review!

Smile:D

Ireina