The proper thiefshipping goodness starts from this chapter onwards. Sorry to have made you wait. The deathshipping will come in the next couple of chapters.
The next couple of days are spent preparing for the coming journey. There's a lot to do; Cleo, who thankfully survived the fire, is strong, but even she can't carry three of us at once, so we need more horses, plus there are supplies to purchase, maps to be drawn up, the list goes on. Bakura hasn't exactly taken charge, but he seems to have a good grasp of what to do and when. He sent Ryou and I out to the stables to look over the horses, so we could choose our own. It didn't take long for us to decide; Ryou immediately fell in love with a piebald, while I went with a roan, both female. He called his Amie, and I called mine Isis. We paid for them, and said we'd come back for them the day we were due to leave.
Ryou's back has healed well. He's a little stiff, not used to the layers of scar tissue, but he's doing well, and doesn't seem to suffer any lasting pain like I do with my own scars. I've been helping him rub oil into the wounds, like my sister used to do with mine, to soften them and ease the stiffness. He really likes to be touched, which is quite amusing. The first time he let me rub him down, he'd uttered such blissful moans that Bakura was convinced something a little more erotic had been taking place, until he poked his head round the door to see what we were doing. Then he'd fallen about laughing, but that was fine. It was good to hear him laugh again.
Bakura himself has been going over the maps and drawing out the route we should take. It seems simple enough; all we have to do is follow the Nile northwards. There are numerous villages dotted along its banks, so we'll hopefully have no trouble getting hold of supplies, and the river will provide water.
"Why Kul Elna?" I ask Ryou, the day before we leave.
It's late evening, and we're sparring in Yuji's front yard. Ryou isn't bad with a blade, but as he prefers to use magic, he has a tendency to hang back and use ranged staves. This also makes him quite the dab hand with bladed staves, when the occasion calls for it, and recently he took up Amane's glaive, teaching himself the techniques she herself would fight with. Currently, we're using bo, metal-ringed pole weapons, and the way they are wielded is like an art form in itself. Many of our weapons were damaged in the fire, so we've had to source extra. It's a good thing that last job paid well.
Ryou wipes sweat from his brow and sets his bo aside, sitting down on the ground and motioning for me to join him. "You'd think there were nothing left there, wouldn't you?" he says, swigging from a nearby bottle of water. "It's not like we need to tie up loose ends, or get closure, or anything like that. No, it's mostly because it's easier to get to Zorc from there, and also, we've been hearing rumours that a rebel army has been amassing there. We're intrigued, especially considering who we hear is at the head of the lot."
"And who would that be?" I ask.
"An old rival of Tou's. Way back when, Kemet had a royal family, but when the darkness came, most of them were the first to fall. The prince managed to escape with his priests when he was just a boy, and we've come across him a few times over the years, on jobs and such. He's a few years older than me, but younger than Tou."
"I know about some of the royal line," I say thoughtfully, rubbing my chin. "My cult did hero-worship one of them, after all. It's weird, though…none of us know his name. They say nobody wrote it down when he was alive, so when he passed, he was just forgotten."
"Mm…they used to place a lot of importance on that," Ryou nods. "He was probably an ancestor of Atem's – oh, that's his name, by the way. The prince, I mean. I'd try to pronounce his surname, but I'd just make a fool of myself."
"Akhenamkhanen," comes an amused voice from behind us. Bakura sidles up, still engrossed in his map, but somehow manages to sit down without treading on us in the process. "Atem Akhenamkhanen," he repeats. "One of the best beastmasters I ever saw, but he's also an arrogant piece of shit with a stupid haircut. I've had the misfortune of working alongside him at least once."
"He really isn't that bad," Ryou sighs.
"Yeah, he fucking is. Last time you saw him, you were twelve years old, so you won't even remember. I ran into him about two, maybe three years back, and he hasn't changed. Still an arrogant piece of shit."
Ryou rubs a hand over his face, exasperated. "Whatever you say, Tou. Don't you be saying that to his face when you next see him. He is a prince, after all."
"Oh, I'll say all that to him and more," Bakura grins. "He can take it, believe me. I've had quite the argument with his Majesty in the past. I always win, of course." He sets the map down on the ground and points to a spot north of us. "Right…this is where we're going. No use following the Nile the whole way though, as it'll be rife with bandits and god knows what else. Nah, we'll have to divert every now and then, but we won't go too far away from it. Useful resources along the banks, so we don't want to deprive ourselves of them. Take us a week to get to Kul Elna, tops."
I nod, peering over the map. "Sounds good."
"Are you prepared?" Bakura asks me. "This isn't going to be any old trip, Marik. It's fucking dangerous out there, and if you're following us, you're doing it with the intent of hitching a ride with the rebels. They want to take down the darkness for good, and that means a lot of us could die, me, you, and Ryou included."
"Don't be silly," I reply. "I meant it when I said I'd go with you. I'm not going to turn tail and run to safety now, not now I've experienced life out here. It's making me feel alive. Dangerous or not, I want that feeling to stay. And I want to be with you…and Ryou, of course. I won't leave you to fight out there alone."
Ryou smiles at that, but it's Bakura's expression that really captures my gaze. Soft, surprised, almost…tender. Then his usual smirk takes over and he flips his braid over his shoulder, chuckling. "Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you've got everything together, okay? I'm turning in for the night, you guys should probably do the same soon." Pushing himself up, he swipes the map and rolls it up before going back to the house.
"I guess he's right," Ryou murmurs, watching him go. "We'll be heading out pretty early." He rolls his shoulders, wincing, as he gets to his feet. "Thanks for sparring with me tonight, Marik. We did pretty well, I think."
I nod in agreement, smiling. "Yeah. You're good with the bo. It'll be interesting to see how you fight with it in a real battle."
"I won't cross my fingers for one anytime soon," he laughs, extending his hand to me. "Come on, let's go inside."
The boiler is on full blast when we tumble wearily into the house, its bright blue flame heating up the metal container above it. Yuji is standing over the stove in the kitchen, stirring a pot of bubbling stew, and he glances up momentarily when we approach. "Figured you'd be hungry by the time you finished sparring," he says. "I know you'll be going to bed soon, but you should eat first. You've got a long journey ahead of you from tomorrow. Boiler's on, too, so you can shower before you sleep."
Ryou flops down into a chair by the table, rubbing his eyes. "You're like an angel sent from heaven, Yuji," he yawns. "I'm going to miss you so much, and not just because you're an awesome cook."
He laughs lightly at that. "Well, I don't know about that, but I certainly try."
I slide into a chair beside Ryou and rest my forehead on the worn, scratched wood of the table. I'm utterly exhausted. So much has had to be done in the last few days that I'm ready to drop any moment, but still, I can also feel a strange thrill at the prospect of riding out with my friends to fight against the army of the dark. My time as a mercenary was short, but the skills I've picked up will come in useful on the road.
Yuji slides two bowls towards us and places the empty cooking pot in the sink before grabbing his own bowl and sitting opposite Ryou. "All ready to go then?" he asks.
"Just about," Ryou replies. "I can't think of anything else that needs to be done."
Yuji dips some bread into his stew, looking thoughtful. "I kind of envy you," he says quietly, "heading out and pursuing that dream of yours. Still, you know where your place is, and mine's here. This town needs protecting, so it's better that I stay."
"Will you miss Tou?"
"Honestly, the way he's been recently, I don't think I'm likely to miss him at all. Well, bits of him. Not the sour face though." Yuji grins, and Ryou giggles behind his hand. Yuji's eyes flash towards me, and I pause with my spoon in my mouth, blinking at him. "Marik…you'll take care of him, right?"
I take a moment to swallow and put my spoon down. "I don't think Kura really needs taking care of," I reply. "He's more than capable of defending himself."
"No, not like that. You know what I mean – oh, I guess you don't. Ah, never mind…forget I said anything." Yuji looks a little flustered as he returns to his food.
I am really confused right now, but I can feel my cheeks heating up in a slight blush, feeling like I probably should know what he means. I bolt down my food quickly and hurry upstairs to wash the day's grime away.
Yuji's shower is a little primitive, and the water pressure is temperamental at best, but the tavern only had a rickety old bathtub, and we just wiped ourselves down with a wet cloth in the tombs, so the shower beats them by far. I don't stay in long, just enough to scrub my skin clean and rinse my hair, then hop out so there's enough water for Ryou. Wrapping a towel round my waist and another round my hair, I slip across the landing to my room, floorboards creaking under my feet. I can't hear Bakura anywhere, so I guess he must be asleep.
My back feels okay tonight, but I should put some oil on it if we're going to be riding a lot tomorrow. I don't want to seize up and be in a lot of pain, if it means our progress will be hampered. There's a bottle of it lying on the bed, a new kind that I picked up in the local store a few days ago, and I've yet to try it out. Removing the towel from my waist, I sit down heavily on the bed and pick up the bottle, sloshing its contents around contemplatively. Might as well try it now.
Then a knock on the door makes me jump, dropping the oil and nearly falling off the bed. "…Marik?" Bakura's voice floats through the wood. "You decent in there?"
"Um, give me a minute." I jump off the bed and grab the nearest pair of trousers, stumbling into them. "Okay, you can come in now."
Bakura pokes his head round the door, smirking when he sees me standing there, shirtless, with a towel round my head and probably looking rather bashful. "You look like a girl with that thing on your head," he chuckles.
"Gee, thanks," I mutter, rolling my eyes. "Do you need something, Kura?"
"Not really. I just, uh…can't sleep too well on my own now, as it turns out. Thought I'd come and bug you for a bit."
"I thought you said we should get some rest?" I sigh, pulling the towel from my hair and running my fingers through it in a futile attempt at neatening it. "Alright, just let me put some oil on my back first. I'll be ten minutes or so." I bend down to pick up the oil, my back giving a little stab of discomfort as I do so.
Bakura eyes the bottle in my hand, frowning. "Are you in pain?"
"No, but it's better if I oil the scars while my skin is soft from washing."
"…Is it difficult to reach everywhere?"
"Sometimes, depending on how stiff I am. I'm used to it now though."
"Do you want me to help?"
I blink, surprised. "I'm sorry?"
"I said, do you want me to help?" Bakura shrugs, as if he's not bothered whether I say yes or no. "I've touched your back before. It's not like it disgusts me or anything."
"Um…" I stammer, feeling my cheeks heat up again. Letting him touch my scars for curiosity's sake is one thing, but letting him smooth oil over my skin is something else altogether.
But then again, I've been helping Ryou with his own scars, so I guess this is no different…
Except there's…there's definitely something between Bakura and I, that I don't have with Ryou. Something more intimate. I don't know what it means though. I've never felt anything like this before, and it's confusing me so much.
The prospect of a rub down does appeal to me though…
Hmm…
"Okay then."
Bakura flashes me his trademark smirk. "Awesome. Lie on your stomach and I'll get to work."
I can't believe I'm doing this. I must be crazy. But he has made me feel more emotions in the mere months that I've known him than anyone in the tombs could in eight whole years. I'm losing myself to this flood of feeling, but I don't want to pull back. It's…it's good. I want to feel it all.
So after a small moment of hesitation, I slide back onto the bed and roll over, placing my arms under my head and closing my eyes. A few seconds later, I feel the mattress depress beside me, and a deep, pleasant tingle runs down my spine when Bakura's fingers gently brush my hair to the side, away from my back and neck. "You're shaking," Bakura laughs. "Are you nervous?"
"No," I mutter. "It felt strange when you moved my hair."
"Good strange, or bad strange?"
"Ryou calls it the ASMR effect."
"Ah…that's good strange." I hear the cap on the bottle of oil being opened and the faint glug of the liquid as he pours some into his hands. "I'm going to put this on you now, okay?"
"Mm-hm."
The first touch of Bakura's cool hands to my back makes me twitch, but when he starts to spread the oil over my scars, I feel almost instantaneous relaxation. He isn't just applying the oil, he's massaging it in, and it feels wonderful. A soft gasp escapes me, followed by a heavy exhale. "Is this okay?" Bakura asks. I nod, and I can almost sense the smirk on his face as he continues to work the oil into my skin.
There's silence for a while, only my heavy breaths breaking the quiet, or Bakura pausing to slosh a little more oil into his hands. After a while, I speak, softly and feeling comfortable beyond measure. "Do you think this is inappropriate?"
Bakura's hands stop moving a moment. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I – ah!" Bakura's wandering fingers hit a spot on my shoulder that makes me flinch. "Ow! Careful!"
"Sorry. Must be a knot. Hang on a sec, I'll sort it." His fingers press into the spot, holding still, and it's uncomfortable for a few seconds, then it feels like it's unravelling and before I can stop myself, I utter a groan of satisfaction. Bakura laughs, going back to smoothing over my skin. "You were saying?"
"Oh, um…well, yeah…after everything you've been through with Yuji, is it not…weird…that we're doing this?"
Bakura shrugs. "I don't know why you're concerned. There's never been anything serious between me and him. Never was, never will be."
"Still…it's his house, and we've been sleeping in the same bed, and…I don't know if it's right."
Bakura doesn't reply for a while. When he does, his voice is low and controlled. "Can I confess something to you, Marik?"
"Sure."
"I get…confused when I'm around you. Like…like everything we do, I feel like I want more from, but it's weird, because you're like a little brother to me now, but at the same time, I…" He gives a nervous laugh. "I don't really know where I'm going with this."
My eyes are still closed, my body doesn't react, but my heart begins to thud rapidly. "I…think I feel the same way," I murmur into my arms, not even daring to raise my head. "And I'm confused because my emotions are dulled since my initiation…I don't know what any of this is or why I'm feeling it. It doesn't feel wrong, but it doesn't exactly feel right either."
Bakura's stroking slows down gradually, till he comes to a stop at the small of my back. "I think you're done now. How's that?"
I push myself up and give an experimental stretch. "Much better. Thanks, Kura."
"You're welcome, Marik." When I look at him, I notice a pink blush on his tanned cheeks. I can't help but think it looks cute on him. The fact that he's saying my name a lot more now is nice too. He doesn't call me "kid" at all anymore.
And suddenly it hits me. I realise what it is that I'm feeling.
I cross my legs and drop my gaze, chewing on my bottom lip. "Kura…I think I might be falling in love with you, but I'm…I'm so confused. I've gone for so long without my emotions that I've forgotten what love feels like."
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bakura cock his head to the side slightly. "Is that so?" he asks, his tone as neutral as if I were telling him the sky is blue.
"I…don't know. My head is all over the place right now."
A rough, calloused hand slides gently into my own, and that makes me look up again. Bakura is smirking as usual, but there's a softness in his eyes, his posture relaxed. "Time for another confession, I think," he murmurs.
"Oh?"
"Marik, I definitely feel the same way, but after losing my parents, and then Amane…fuck, you have to understand, this is hard for me. It's hard for me to give my love to anybody. Ryou's all I have left now, and I can't lose him too, it would tear me to fucking pieces, and then I think I'd just cut my throat, so I wouldn't be alone in this world. Darkness isn't worth fighting if I haven't got him by my side. That's what I've always said to myself, anyway. Sure, I've slept with a few guys, but I've never let myself feel anything for them…then you came along and turned all that on its damn fucking stupid head."
He's nervous too, I can see it, and my head is spinning with all this outpouring of feeling from him and from myself. Pulling my hand away, I stand up to cross the room and flick the light out; Bakura gets the message immediately and pulls back the covers, climbing into bed, and I slip in beside him. There's enough light from a dim streetlamp outside that I don't feel uneasy. "Thanks," he laughs shakily. "This is a lot easier to say when I can't see your reaction."
"Kura, your hair is all over the pillow," I complain, flicking a few stray strands over his shoulders. He lifts his head up to rake his hands over his scalp, pushing his messy silver mane back so I can put my own head down. That done, his arms wind around me and he pulls himself close, nestling his head into my chest as he always does when we sleep alongside each other. I thought his need for nightly comfort would have diminished by now, but it seems he craves it even more these days, either that or he's simply gotten used to having someone beside him. I can't say I'm complaining though. He's a comfortable bed-sharer, and doesn't steal the blankets.
"You're young," Bakura says softly once we're settled down, "older than Yuji, but still, you're one of the youngest I've ever had my eye on, and I've had to tread carefully because of your lack of emotion, but it's getting harder. Even Ryou said to me last night that he's been seeing signs for a while, and he's far from dense, so it must be obvious as fuck to everyone else."
"I'll say," I laugh. "You've been clinging to me for weeks."
"Shut up."
"You're the one coming out with the speech!"
"Oh, should I shut up then?"
"No, carry on, please."
Bakura snorts, amused. "I'm going to end up rambling if I carry on, but you get the message, right? I…think I'm falling in love with you too, but I'm so fucking scared to let myself love anyone, after everything that I've been through. I don't even know how to."
"Then we're one and the same."
Bakura looks up at me, and there's just enough light in the room for me to see his glittering eyes, like tourmaline waiting to be mined from its rocky prison. "Should we find out together?" he whispers.
I nod, preparing myself. "Let's do it."
I've never kissed anyone before, nor even thought about it much, but the moment Bakura's lips touch mine, it's like I've known how to do this my whole life. He's shifted to hover over me, not quite on top of me, but enough of his body weight is pressing on my chest to send a delightful sparkle of warmth down my spine. Our lips work together softly, pressing together, opening and closing, and the contented sigh Bakura makes into my mouth is like heaven itself.
This is right. It feels so…so perfect. Like it's what I've needed the whole time we've been growing closer. And I don't want it to stop. My arms loop round Bakura's neck, tugging him closer, and he responds by sliding a hand into my hair, tilting my head back so he can kiss me deeper.
All too soon, it's over, Bakura pulling away and wiping his lips on the back of his hand. I'm breathless, trying to process what just happened, taking in the enormous flood of emotion that's overcome me. I realise it's happiness, sheer happiness. I haven't felt this way in so long.
Gods, Bakura, what have you done to me?
"We should get some sleep," he says, rubbing his eyes. "We've got an early start tomorrow."
I don't really trust myself to say anything, so I just nod and let him settle back down beside me. My heart is hammering, my brain whirring at a million miles an hour, but that's okay, because I've finally figured out where my place is in this godforsaken world of darkness.
Blade in hand, on the road, in Ryou's company, in Bakura's arms. That's what I want my life to be.
It's official. I'm in love.
