Bakura always trusted his gut. As a young thief in Egypt, his instincts had told him when to avoid guards and traps. Although, these days, his intuition was mostly used to wake from a dead sleep when Marik was having a nightmare so he could ease his lover back to sleep.

His eyes shot open. They didn't have to adjust because Marik always kept the light on. Bakura turned towards him, expecting Marik's copper brow to be furrowed in a nightmare, but Marik's face stayed serene as he lay on his side, keeping his back exposed to the open air and a light sheet instead of pressing it against the mattress. Bakura brushed golden bangs away from Marik's face and closed his eyes, trying to go back to sleep, but the nagging, troubled feeling continued to gnaw at his chest.

Bakura slipped out of bed and left the room. Creeping down the hallway, he heard an angry growl coming from the other bedroom. Bakura stopped and listened at the door before entering. Marik had brought Bakura back from the Shadows with magic, but at a cost- his own darker half returned with Bakura. Marik had felt responsible for him, so he stayed in the spare bedroom, hiding in the shadowy corners, growling at anyone who tried to go near him, and stealing food at night so he could avoid being seen.

But Bakura trusted his instinct, so after a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside. The sheets were torn to rags and strewn about the room. Marik's darker self was tearing into a pillow with teeth and nails- feathers floated around him and landed in his wild hair.

Bakura noticed Marik's other half's eyes were red-rimmed. Perhaps from the feathers, but Bakura thought it was more than that. He'd seen Marik's eyes, the exact same lavender, look just so in the middle of the night after some old, faded memory rose up in his mind and tormented him as he tried to sleep.

Bakura walked up to Marik's shadowed-self, reaching out his hand. Marik's double noticed Bakura. He snarled and locked both of his hands onto Bakura's throat, staring at him. Bakura didn't respond. He stood lax, focusing all his attention on breathing despite the pressure on his windpipe. He stared at Marik's darker half for another moment, and then reached out his hand again, plucking a feather from one of the golden spikes. It was hard not to see Marik in the doppelganger's face. Marik tended to hide all the pain and rage he still felt, but Bakura had seen in when they were alone together, and he saw it now. He dropped the feather and rested his hand on the other's bronzed shoulder, just grazing to top scars with his pale fingertips.

Marik's double gasped and stepped away. He glared at Bakura, hating him, but Bakura was calm, silent, and grave as he walked back up to Marik's other half. He grabbed his arm and dragged him to the bed, laying them both down so that Bakura laid against the mattress and Marik's double lay on top of his chest. He smoothed his fingers along the scars, just as he always did for Marik after a nightmare.

The double growled, but it broke into a whine and then he was clutching Bakura, making small, shrill, broken noises against Bakura's chest. One of Bakura's hands stayed soothing the double's back while Bakura's other hand groomed the feathers out of the double's hair. It surprised Bakura, that the double's hair was as soft as Marik's despite the defiant spikes.

The door creaked, Bakura's crimson eyes darted to the entrance. He saw Marik and frowned. For some reason he felt as if he betrayed Marik, holding the shadow that once killed them, but it'd been raw instinct to do so.

Marik's expression was complex. He looked around and Bakura realized it was dark in the room except for the street light filtering through the broken blinds. A lamp sat on the nightstand near the bed, the shade was shredded but the bulb was intact so Bakura turned the light on, inviting Marik into the room.

He came and sat on the opposite side of the bed, looking at his other half still- not weeping- but near wheezing against Bakura's chest. Then he stared at Bakura. Bakura shrugged, shaking his head. Marik saw Bakura's fingers reading the scars like braille. He reached down himself, touching the wings of the Ra icon. His double flinched at the touch, as if it burned, but then settled and quieted, giving a soft exhale and a whimper as he fell back asleep.

Marik gave Bakura another look and Bakura returned it, as if neither of them knew what to do. Marik settled next to his double, his and Bakura's fingers dancing together, brushing together even as they brushed the scars that were Marik's but not Marik's.

They fell asleep like that, not knowing what else to do.

He awoke with an intake of breath, sharp, sudden, and painful. He didn't remember much about the night before except the dream where he wasn't able to kill the old man. He wasn't strong enough to hold the Rod, he wasn't strong enough to fight back, and he'd been cut and burned all over again, but that time it was his entire body carved with glyphs and not just his back. He'd sprung out of bed and tore at anything he saw, needing to kill him again, needing to kill him again! But he was dead, dead, murdered in the tomb he tried to trap Marik (them) in, and he couldn't kill his father again.

And then Bakura had sauntered into the room like the fucking bastard that he was, and he was going to kill the thief, had his hand nice and sweet on his windpipe, but then everything got blurry. He wasn't used to being touched, not touched like a human, but Bakura had held him like he always held Marik, and then Marik himself had joined, and it was . . . it was . . .

It was confusing him.

And now he lay awake in their embrace, Bakura's arm around him and Marik nuzzled between his shoulder blades, and he was confused.

The wind had been knives of ice during Battle City, invigorating, almost alive as it chilled him.

He'd burned them into the Shadows.

Marik hated him.

They were holding him now.

He could set the house on fire- burn them again without Shadow Magic there to ever save them- just dead Bakura and dead Marik in ashes.

But they were holding him now.

Why wasn't he looking for matches?

Because they were holding him now.

Why couldn't he kill them anymore? He felt like he'd lost to power to kill them.

Because they were holding, holding, holding him sweetly like he was human.

It hurt. He liked to be hurt with a knife, but this was different, this was too much, too deep, too cruel and at the same time coveted.

He thoughts crashed, fragile waves against ancient stone craigs. His thoughts deconstructed to clear precise images. Night sky. Blimp. Duel. Flames. Bakura's hair flowing down his sleeping chest. The torn lampshade. A stray feather blowing in a little eddy of air conditioning current.

What was he now?

Marik's other heart, but not Marik.

And would they let him stay like this or would they disappear back into their own room, leaving him alone to his own thoughts and shadows again?

His fingers dug into Bakura's white mane. "Don't . . . don't . . . don't."

The thief stirred, white eyelashes fluttering as they opened. Bakura glanced at him (who was he? He didn't know himself), and Bakura's fingers returned to the scars on his back, stroking in calming, even measures. "Go back to sleep." He shut his eyes as if it were so simple.

"I don't know who I am," he said. He because he was nameless.

"Steal a name. That's what I did," Bakura answered, half asleep and nuzzling against the double's forehead where the Eye of Ra once glowed.

Marik woke up a little confused because he wasn't in his room and he was holding a body that wasn't Bakura's. When he opened his eyes, his own marred back greeted him and he remembered the night before.

"You have to clean this up. You can't just get pissed and destroy things anymore. That's not how people act."

Marik was a little started when the form beside him turned around so he could look at Marik. It was like looking into a mirror that lead to an alternate universe, and here was Marik and not Marik at the same time.

"And if I clean up the room then I'm acting like a person?"

"Uh . . . yeah?" Marik wasn't sure how to respond. The question seemed odd.

"And if I steal a name, and act like a person, you'll stay?"

Marik frowned, confused. "Stay?"

"Nevermind." He scrambled over Bakura to escape the bed and started grabbing and bunching up sections of shredded sheets.

"What the fuck, Marik," Bakura muttered when Marik's double crawled over him.

"I'm not Marik," he said. "I'm Kek. If I'm going to steal a name, it should be from a god, right?"

Marik shook his head. "I've never heard of that god."

"Old one." Bakura rubbed his face, forcing himself to wake up.

Marik stared down at his hands. "I'm sorry. I should have named you."

"Did you just apologize? You never apologize to me." Bakura snorted.

"Shut-up, Bakura."

"I don't want an apology," Kek muttered, trying to shove all the sheets into a small waste-bin and failing. "I want . . . I want . . ." He found he couldn't express himself, he didn't know enough about feelings to express his own. "I want you to stay."

"Stay where?" Marik asked. "Where do you think I'm going to go?"

"Back to your own room," Kek said.

Marik's brow furrowed. "What's wrong with my room?"

Kek fidgeted, twisting a strip of sheet into a rope. "I'll be here by myself again, and then I'll want to cut everything up again, I liked when . . . " he looked away, dropping the rope and pulling at a strip of hair. "He pulled a feather from my hair."

Marik shot a look to Bakura, wondering if Bakura understood a damn thing his other half was rambling about. Bakura smirked, raising a white eyebrow. "Come here, Kek."

"Why?"

"I think I missed a feather."

Kek started combing through his hair. Marik didn't see anything in it, but he knew Bakura was up to something so he stayed quiet. Kek growled, but walked up to Bakura. Bakura pulled him down to the bed. He crashed over Bakura and Marik both, then Bakura was running his fingers through Kek's hair with one hand and palming his chest with the other.

Kek's mouth dropped low. His cheeks blushed to a color that Marik didn't know their complexion could get to.

"Marik," Bakura said, glancing up even as he turned Marik's other half into a whimpering mess. "I think your other half is a little attention-starved."

Marik couldn't stop staring. There was something crude and arousing about watching Bakura toy with his mirror image. Marik would have never acted so needy in bed, and watching his other self arch into Bakura's touch, and sigh, and blush was like watching a bizarre fantasy. Marik found himself reaching out and twisting Kek's nipple poking up from his bare chest.

Kek screamed in a way that Marik knew meant that he wanted more, and Marik knew that's what the scream meant because it was the same scream Marik would have let out in the same situation. Marik continued to twist and tease Kek's nipple. Marik noticed Bakura's face growing flushed as well as he watched.

"Enjoying what you see, Bakura?" Marik smirked.

Bakura snapped out of the trance he'd slipped into. "Watching the two of you? Who wouldn't enjoy that?"

The smirk stayed on Marik's face. "Hey, Kek?"

"Hmmm?" He asked without words, still hyper aware of Marik's thumb and finger toying with his nipple.

"Want to give Bakura a show?"

He sat up, looking at Marik and then to Bakura and then back to Marik. "I . . . I can touch you?"

Marik slipped out of the sweatpants he used as sleepwear. "Anywhere you want."

Kek stared at Marik with a curious, longing look. "It's really okay? Anywhere? I can touch you like you touch Bakura?"

Marik answered by dragging his fingers down Kek's chest. Then Kek sprang forward, knocking Marik into the mattress and trying to have Marik all at once. His hands ran up and down Marik's body, grabbing at everything he could hold. His mouth began at Marik's lips and then traveled, neck, throat, chest, arms, everywhere, everywhere, and Marik never expected how into the thought of sleeping with himself was until he felt his own strength pressed against his body.

"N-not on my back," Marik stuttered, enjoying everything about the moment except the feeling of the mattress on his skin.

Kek cradled Marik into his arms, rubbing the irritation away from Marik's skin. He started nipping at the side of Marik's neck, and Marik glanced over to the side to see how Bakura was doing. He knelt in place, crimson eyes wide and mouth slack and he stared at them. Marik grabbed the back of Bakura's head and pulled him in to kiss him. His other half yanked Bakura by the hair to pull him away and do the same. Then they both had Bakura pinned down, throwing off his boxers, clawing at his thighs, leaving bruises along his ribs and chest from love bites.

Bakura struggled to sit up, held down by the weight of two advancing bodies. "Hold on . . . gimme a moment . . . I'll get the lube."

Marik let up, but Kek didn't seem to understand. He grabbed Bakura's hair and pinned his chest down to keep Bakura from getting up while sucking on his throat. Bakura's eyes rolled back and his face flushed. He didn't have the words to protest, so Marik decided to help out. He grabbed his former dark half by the hair and pulled him off of Bakura. Kek growled, but Marik shut him up by biting his top lip.

He seemed to melt from both the attention and mild pain of the bite. Bakura shook his head to collect himself and scurried out of the bed.

"Don't do anything too hot without me- I want to watch!" He called over his shoulder as he dashed out of the room.

But Marik didn't have much of a choice. The bite excited his other self, and no sooner had Bakura left the room then Kek grabbed Marik's cock and stroked it with rough, fast flicks of his wrist. It caught Marik off guard. His eyelashes twitched as he pressed his forehead against Kek's shoulder and moaned.

He could hear Bakura screaming before he even re-entered the room. "Dammit- that's exactly what I didn't want you doing without me!"

Marik moaned again in reply. He wasn't exactly in charge of the situation, which was a first for him in the bedroom. Normally he'd be pissed at the lack of control, but since he and his other half essentially shared a copy of the same body, Kek already knew exactly how Marik wanted to be touched, and Marik couldn't protest because he was too into it. He noticed the smirk on Bakura's face, however, and noticed that Bakura was taking mental notes of everything Kek did and how Marik reacted.

Bakura lay on the bed again. Kek shoved Marik down on top of Bakura so that Marik and Bakura faced each other. Bakura poured some lube into his hand and offered some to Kek. "Copy me," Bakura said before wiggling a finger into Marik's ass.

Marik gasped, realizing that Bakura was prepping him. It wasn't that he hadn't bottomed before- it was the sudden realization that he was about to let his other half take him. He glanced over his shoulder. Kek's lavender eyes watched intently as Bakura prepped Marik, adding a second finger and then a third. Meanwhile, he prepped Bakura with the same careful attention that Bakura used to prep Marik. Marik closed his eyes for a moment, trying to process how he felt. His lower belly quivered, mostly from excitement and a little from nerves. He'd often fantasized about it- about fucking himself- he never thought he'd get such an odd chance to actually do it, though. Somewhere in his head he knew he should be averse to the idea. It was vain and he didn't exactly have a good history with this half of himself, but at the same time he seemed like a good way to make a sort of odd piece with himself. Unconventional, perhaps, but the entire situation was unconventional.

Bakura pushed in a forth finger and Marik's brow furrowed. "Ah, Bakura?"

"Trust me," Bakura said, panting himself from getting fisted by Marik's other half. "You need to extra prep. He isn't me."

That made Marik's belly a little extra queasy, but Marik only smirked. "Well, you never seem to mind, so I'm sure I can handle it."

Bakura chuckled, kissing Marik's collarbone. "If you insist."

He pulled his hand away and Kek did the same to him. Marik situated himself inside Bakura first, and waiting for Kek to mimic him. However, unlike Marik, Kek had never done anything of the sort before. Even with the lube, he had some trouble pushing his way into Marik's body. Marik clenched his teeth and dug his nails into Bakura's shoulders.

Bakura, meanwhile, was still lacing soft kisses along Marik's collarbone and tracing the glyphs on Marik's back. With the calm, soothing way Bakura acted, Marik got the strong suspicion that he'd been just as awkward at first.

He gave Kek a moment to experiment, pulling out and jerking roughly back in. Marik focused on the feeling of Bakura's heat around him. He waited for Kek to prepare another clumsy thrust, and used the momentum to plunge into Bakura's body. Bakura purred, spreading his legs a little wider to give Marik more room.

Kek's rhythm was awkward, and it threw Marik off his usual beat.

"I . . . um . . ." his darkness stuttered, as if to apologize for his own inexperience.

"Faster!" Marik commanded him in a ruthless tone.

It worked. With an indignant snort, Kek slammed into Marik hard and clean. Marik's mouth opened in a wordless cry of pleasure from the proper thrust.

"More!"

Then they got a working rhythm going. Marik's body (and Kek's body) wasn't designed to go slow or careful in bed. It was a greedy, selfish, torrid form that needed someone like Bakura who thrived on rough treatment. And, at that moment, Bakura was shouting, and cursing, and praising them both all at once.

Marik swore he'd outlast his other half, but with Bakura writhing below him, Marik only lasted ten minutes before he was spilling everything he had into Bakura's body. As soon as Marik pulled out, Kek nudged him higher up Bakura's body, so he could take Marik's place.

Marik ground down against Bakura's erection even as Kek pounded into Bakura's ass. Marik grabbed two fistfulls of hair and yanked as hard as he could, bringing their faces centimeters apart. "How does it feel, Bakura? To be fucked by two of me?"

Kek snorted from behind, but all Bakura could do was call out broken syllables. Hearing Bakura wail made Marik wish he could fuck him all over again.

His double seemed to enjoy the sound as well. He squeezed his eyes shut, and twisted his mouth into a knot before muttering. "You need . . . to hurry . . . dammit . . ."

Marik gave Bakura a single kiss, hands still netted into his lush, white hair. "Hear that? We can't resist you, Bakura, better come fast before we have to finish you off by hand instead."

With that Marik ground against Bakura's erection with fast, light movements of his own body. He saw the lube lying beside them and squirted a dab onto Bakura's erection so he could slip over it more quickly. Bakura's face was red as crimson velvet, his mouth wide and begging for more. Then Marik felt the slick warmth spreading between their stomachs and he settled to a stop so he could drag slow, languid kisses from Bakura's compliant mouth. Behind them he heard Kek calling out as well. He curled in on himself afterward, staring at them as if he were afraid to touch them.

For the first time, Marik truly pitied his other half. He took his shadow's hand, coaxing him to lay down in between Bakura and Marik. His double seemed to have no trouble laying on his back, even drenched in sweat, so Marik settled him down and then he himself lay on his side. Bakura rolled over and snuggled with the closest body, which happened to be Kek's. Marik circled his fingers along Kek's temples, watching his face as he stared at the ceiling in thought.

Marik's other self glanced at him. "Are you going to stay?"

"For a while," Marik answered.

"What about tonight?"

"Our bed's bigger," Bakura muttered as he fell asleep.

"Don't worry." Marik chuckled at Kek's distressed look. "We'll leave the door open from now on."