AN: I'm sorry for the long wait; life got in the way. :( Thank you if you're still sticking around!
Thank you very much for the reviews! I'm not certain now whether I sent replies to them (and I feel stupid doing so twice – especially since I suspect I'd write almost exactly the same thing twice, and I'd like to maintain the illusion that I'm not actually a robot...). If not, I apologise!
See chapter one for disclaimer.
Without further ado:
Chapter Twelve
(-)
He could feel Bakura's breath in his neck throughout the ride back to a street not far from their hotel; and even more acutely inside when he unlocked their door, warm and close, like a predator; or a lover. And that was deliberate, had to be, though to what purpose he wasn't sure. Part of him realised that he wanted it either way.
The long, empty corridor of their hotel had been dark; their room, with its wide windows Malik had chosen it for, seemed even brighter by contrast, and maybe the light made Malik act with even more energy when, as soon as the door had fallen closed behind them, he whirled round and pushed Bakura against the wall by the door with force.
Bakura held still, glanced briefly at the hands on his shoulders, one after the other, then back up at him.
There was a pause; Malik flexed his fingers slightly, put more weight unto his arms to hold Bakura down with more strength; Bakura tensed and relaxed under his hold, but made no movement to break it; instead he leant his head forwards slightly and said in a low voice:
"We're been tiptoeing around this for some time."
He looked cautious even as he said this, as if he wasn't sure of it himself, but with the last words he'd learn very close, his lips inches away; so Malik kissed him. Just a brief graze of lips against lips at first and, briefly, Malik thought of Ryou, but then Bakura kissed back, wet and warm, and closed his eyes while Malik stared, half in shock – he hadn't been certain that Bakura had meant this until this very moment, though he was suddenly surprisingly certain about himself – and relaxed his grip.
Bakura sucked on his tongue with intent, and pushed him off; for a moment, they tried to hold on contact, lips locked; then Bakura gave up, their kiss breaking as the spirit swiftly turned them around and moved his body flush against his to hold him in place: the millennium ring's pointers jingled. Malik, after the first shock, tried to push the thief off, but Bakura held on, elbows planted right and left of him, body unmovable; there had to be a trick to it.
Bakura's grin was positively feral and the familiarity of it made Malik relax and smile as well. He kissed back when Bakura searched for his lips again, slowly this time, and felt arousal that seemed to start somewhere deep within. He leant back against the wall and breathed in deeply.
"You're ridiculous," he told the thief, even as he bucked up very slightly, for contact, not escape. He knew that condescendence annoyed Bakura even if the thief liked to pretend otherwise; and he wondered if that was new, or if he just hadn't noticed the first time they'd been associates. And, because it was a way to get back the upper hand: "We have a really expensive bed, you know." Bakura raised an eyebrow, then smiled even wider; it was an odd thought to imagine him being worried about rejection. "Well?"
To his surprise – to his disappointment, if he were honest – Bakura immediately let go, and, after a tug on his arm, moved towards aforementioned bed, where he stopped, turned, and raised his eyebrows; Malik narrowed his eyes and followed, in slow, easy steps; and it was gratifying to find that the thief was intently watching him, yet at the same time distracted enough for him to catch him by surprise when he briskly speed up with the last steps and, pushing him down, made both of them tumble onto the bed, a little harder than planned. Bakura let escape an undignified "ouf", and Malik chose to lick and bite faintly on the pale exposed neck which happened to be right under his mouth; the Bakura stilled at that, relaxed briefly before he made an attempt to throw him off, but Malik held on this time, put his whole body's weight into it – though that was for friction as much as anything else.
"You're better at fighting than at stealing," he mocked, when Bakura moved his head to give him an annoyed look, powerless.
"You got your motorbike, didn't you?" the thief threw back.
"What, are you planning to summon a monster to this?" Malik murmured.
Bakura's eyes narrowed dangerously at that, and then he smirked, and Malik just had time to wonder if he was really going to –
– and then Bakura was gone.
He noticed it in the sudden stiffness of the body beneath him, realising only in retrospective how perfectly it had, despite the apparent fight, been fitting against him, and then in the wide-eyed look that was suddenly in Ryou's eyes.
"Malik?"
"Oh God – Ryou." He scrambled backward and off him in shock, feeling cold and ridiculous and above all –
Ryou sat up, still looking confused, and tousled and disoriented.
"What's...?"
There was no warning, no discernable change and then suddenly Bakura was pouncing on him and had him pinned to the bed by both shoulder and was grinning victoriously.
"Get off," Malik snapped immediately, trying to push him aside; Bakura didn't move an inch. "Get off!" he hissed again, and shoved the spirit with both arms and with full force now.
In his surprise, Bakura held on violently for a moment, before he allowed himself to be pushed back and went to sit back on Malik's upper legs.
"What's – don't be such a sore loser," he snarled back, amusement gone.
"If you don't move I'll make you," Malik snapped, and demonstratively closed his fist around the millennium rod that was still hanging from his belt.
If he'd given it any thought, he would have realised that threatening him with shadow magic was probably not the most effective way to get the spirit to comply; but he wasn't thinking. The realisation of what he'd almost done has suddenly hit him; having sex with Bakura, not even thinking of Ryou – was that any different, any better than raping his unconscious body?
The faint glow on Bakura's chest brought him back to his senses to say, still harsh:
"This isn't your body. You have no right." Bakura's eyes widened, and at another moment, Malik might have been proud: it wasn't easy to catch him by surprise enough for him to let it show. "Now get off me!"
Bakura narrowed his eyes at him, but this time complied, and rolled over and sat, cross-legged, near the edge of the bed. Malik immediately drew his legs up to his body and draped his arms around himself in a defensive gesture, hand still firmly closed around the rod; not that he really expected Bakura to attack him; he just felt the need for comfort, and magic and power and his own body were better than nothing.
"The body is mine," Bakura said, cold and precise, after a brief silence.
Malik breathed in and out slowly to calm himself: as unpleasant as the resulting feeling was, he was much angrier with himself than with Bakura. And he wasn't in the mood for discussing it.
"Look, just leave it be, okay?" He hid his head behind his knees. "I shouldn't have started this."
Bakura looked at him speculatively for a moment; at another time, this might have worried Malik; now, he just stared into space and waited.
"So," said Bakura slowly. "If I weren't possessing this body...?"
That did make Malik pay attention; he wasn't sure why, but he found the idea of Bakura possessing someone else horrifying...
"What are - ?"
Bakura smirked.
"Follow me," he said, and the ring glowed bright blue; Malik barely had time to see Ryou's body fall down sideward unto the bed when suddenly he felt the tug on his old connection with Ryou that he had established during Battle City; in his surprise – and maybe curious, after all – he gave in to it.
He didn't find himself in the bluish mist of nothingness where he had once met his partner in crime when they were separated yet needed to talk; instead, he was standing in a brightly lit room with stone walls, on a tick yellow carpet; the place was stuffed full of things, book-shelves only half filled with books, the other half being taken up by weird junk, painted plastic and wooden figurines of extravagantly dressed characters holding staffs or swords or spurting long beards, board games, various painting or handcrafting utensils; photographs too, one of which caught his eye immediately because he recognised everyone on it: Ryou, standing surrounded by Yuugi, Anzu, Honda and Jounouchi. The sight made him uncomfortable; he looked away.
Ryou was sitting on a large bed, next to a worn-looking toy tiger, one leg dangling down by the bed's side, and looking at him with wide eyes; and Bakura was standing, arms crossed and looking both smug and challenging, by the room's only door.
"What –" Malik began, though he was beginning to guess what this place had to be.
"This is my host's soul-room," Bakura confirmed, and strolled towards him with confident steps. "My body has as much reality as yours here." He tilted his head back, challenging.
Malik stared back, then turned towards Ryou, who had not moved and was looking back and forth between them, an unreadable expression on his face.
"He's staying here," Bakura added, categorical, and reached out towards him to pull a bit at the thread that joined the two parts of his light jacket; Malik hadn't even noticed that he was wearing the same clothes as in Battle City here. Bakura's finger traced light circles on the bare skin of his chest, and Malik briskly found himself wanting again, with more than pure lust. "Ignore him," Bakura added, and softly: "If you want."
Malik stepped back. He was saying – Wasn't this a worse violation, all things considered? He looked back at Ryou for help, but Ryou was looking at Bakura now, and there seemed to be a silent communication passing between them, for suddenly Bakura moved, in the same confident strides, towards the bed, leant over Ryou, tilted his head back and kisses him.
Seeing them both, separately, at once had been strange enough; this... Ryou certainly didn't seem to mind: he brought his arms up and around the spirit's neck; Malik stared, transfixed, at their joined lips which were moving with every sign of passion, making a wet, sucking sound in the process, and he felt something clench within him. Funny how he'd never fully realised that his anger at the way the spirit would speak about his host probably came down to jealousy, and not just to him liking Ryou better; he wasn't sure about that; but seeing them now, it was easy to feel left out.
Bakura was the one who broke the kiss; he straightened up; Ryou's arms fell down, and Ryou followed his dark's gaze when Bakura looked back at Malik, an eyebrow raised, as if in challenge.
"Have you done this before?" Malik asked.
It was difficult to imagine that they hadn't seeing how easily they seemed to fall into it, but you never knew with these two; and he felt that maybe Ryou at least might have told him.
On the other hand, maybe that would explain a lot about the odd kind of intimacy they seemed to share despite the disagreements, and Ryou's lack of simple animosity; or maybe it made it all more nonsensical, Malik wasn't sure at the moment.
"Mind you own business," said Bakura, in a rather kind voice, while coming back towards him. "Well?"
Malik caught his wrist, swiftly when Bakura raised it to touch his check, and then caressed up and down his inner arm with his thumb; but he was looking at Ryou. He wondered again if the spirit was afraid of rejection; it was difficult to imagine, even if you put it down to pride rather than love – or even lust – yet he had shown to be more human than Malik had thought...
"What about your soul-room?" he asked, and not only because of Ryou; he was curious.
"No," Bakura said. "But if you want," he added, in a dangerous tone, and this time Malik looked back at him, "we can take this to our previous meeting place; if you think you can handle that much magic while having sex..."
Bakura actually saying it was oddly relaxing; still, Malik glared at him briefly: the challenge alone, the insinuation that he couldn't handle projecting himself into the nothingness skilfully enough called for a change of plans, but – if he was honest, Bakura was probably right to have his doubts. Last time, they'd been doing nothing but talk.
He let go of Bakura's hand, and, walking round him calmly, went to Ryou, who was still watching them silently; there was a faint blush colouring his cheeks. Here, maintaining physical reality and contact with the two of them took no effort at all, as if this were truly his body, taking existence within Ryou's mind, if you overlooked the impromptu clothes-change.
Ryou stood up as he approached; Bakura followed behind him, but made no move to stop him, so Malik deliberately ignored him, and looked Ryou square in the eyes instead, surprised by the sudden feeling of tenderness that flooded through him: never had his affection been so clear in his own mind...
"Are you –" he began, and stopped, and tried again. "I would, if you –" He took a deep breath. "Would you mind?"
Ryou lowered his eyes, glanced back up, sucked his lower lip in between his teeth; swallowed; the room seemed a bit hotter all the sudden; Malik couldn't tell if this was Ryou's feelings influencing it or just his own nervousness. Bakura, he could tell, was standing right behind him. He wondered if Ryou could even answer honestly – but he'd seemed puzzled by the very idea of the spirit hurting him...
"Only if you –" Ryou began, paused, added: "If you want to ignore me."
Malik sucked in his breath, and he felt himself smiling before he knew it.
"I really don't," he said, and if he hadn't been sure before, Ryou's answering smile – as timidly hopeful and glad as his must be – would have made him.
Behind him, Bakura said nothing, just draped both arms around him and kissed the back of his neck.
(End of chapter twelve.)
I've had this bit in my head for so long that's it's even more difficult than usual to judge the product, so, you know, I love comments, as always. ^^
In the next chapter, more progress is made with Evil Plans than with relationships (they're probably skipped some important bits here). And it has been pointed out to me that we haven't had Ryou's point of view in a while, so it'll remedy that. Hopefully.
