Summary:
Two hundred Years Ago...Yami Motou was a young man named Atemu Van Darkholm who on a dark and story night, falling asleep by the fire awakens to find a breathtakingly handsome man with blazing russet eyes and hair white and wild as a winter storm holding a knife to his throat.
What happened next would change both their lives for the next two hundred years…
Been a hot minute since I updated this one...moving sucks.
This first draft of this was VERY difficult to write...simply put, darkshipping is RIDICULOUSLY easy to write once Bakura and Atem are together but actually GETTING them together is like pulling vampire teeth-pun intended.
Fortunately this was VERY easy to edit ;)
Disclaimer: Azizi and Nalori Touzoku, aka Bakura's parents were created by my good friend and Darkshipping Queen OrochiDragon-14 who I've had the privilege of knowing since she started writing FanFics and who made me love Darkshipping :) the characters are hers but they are my headcannon parents for Bakura
Warnings for Steamy Darkshipping vampire lemon and Atem in a gorgeous Gothic dress!
Song: The Necropolis of Former Lovers-Voltaire (I LOVE this song!)
Part IV: Necropolis of Former Lovers
I
We walked together through a garden everyday
It seemed a place of peace, it did for me anyway
—Aurelio Voltaire, The Necropolis of Former Lovers
As one brother was upstairs embracing his lack of virginity, the other was downstairs attempting to commit murder.
Atem spent that night the way he always did when the symphony of the storm orchestrated outside—curled up in the reading room on his favorite armchair, book in hand and a glass of his favorite cognac. A fire burned cheerfully rebellious against the c`ld and wet outside. The rhythmic patter of rain on the roofs and window: a soothing lullaby accompanied by gentle rocketing rolls of thunder and the crackle of the fire. Streaks of lighting flashing like fireworks in the wide windows were interspersed with sips of the amber liquor and swashbuckling adventures were interrupted by the beautiful, dangerous dancing of the fire. Atem had always loved fire for that reason: the heat that was both beautiful and burned, the light that both cast shadows and chased the darkness away. The warmth that both soothed and destroyed. It was a mirrored reflection.
He relaxed into his favorite armchair, the book opened across his chest and allowed the warmth of the fire's heat to blanket him in a haze of relaxation and the orchestra of the storm to settle his troubles. On most nights, Yugi would join him and fall asleep across the couch beneath the window, blanketed in whatever colorfully flamboyant and dramatically embroidered coat took Atem's fancy that day, but his younger brother had turned in early, lulled to sleep by the storm's lullaby. The man who call himself their father was also far away from the house this night imposing on the generosity of some false friends who thought himself a man of means and too stupid to see they were his wife's and thus he had no claim to them. The absence of the unscrupulous bastard lifted a fog of uncertainty and chaos that often fell over the house when he was here, determined to establish himself as Lord in the absence of his late wife. He had rarely set foot here since she died and when he did he rarely stayed long, usually only to host a fancy party or a business venture, and never at night for reasons that had nothing to do with respecting her decision to leave both the house and her fortune to her two sons.
Her ghost haunted these halls: a phantom protector of the two children she'd adored in life and a vengeful specter against the man who sought to steal what was hers. His absence calmed her spirit and once more the house felt like a home.
Drowned in the warmth of that memory, Atem's eyes felt heavy, the warmth of the fire and house enveloping him in a cocoon of silken heat and he could've drifted off to sleep. He would have in that moment—had he not felt the cold press of steel against his neck.
Shocked awake, Atem lifted his face feeling the bite of a blade to his throat. And looked up into wild, breathtakingly beautiful burgundy eyes. Like blood spilt from a wound allowed to dry and hardened and yet they sparkled and burned like the dying embers of a fire, just before new flames exploded from the ashes and were highlighted by pale white scars.
II
Don't wake the beast while she's asleep
Don't dig for demons underneath
In this necropolis where former lovers lay
Don't try so hard to dig that hole for your own grave
—Aurelio Voltaire, Necropolis of Former Lovers
Bakura did not find the brat upstairs in one of the glorious over-sized rooms (though the furnishings were not as expensive as he would've expected). Embracing the challenge, the thief stole through the house silent as a predator: searching, hunting.
And how perfect that he should find his prey alone in an empty room, asleep with a book on his chest and a glass of cognac: alone and defenseless. He approached on bold, silent steps, the carpet swallowing the sound of his boots. With deliberate, swaggering slowness he slipped around the armchair, catching a glimpse of the boy whose spilled blood would avenge the murder of everyone and everything he ever loved.
If you pursue your plans this night, you will both find your heart's desire.
Indeed, Bakura thought with a demonic smirk. He would. He certainly would.
Drawing his blade from his boot, he faced the boy, planning to slit his sleeping throat—and hesitated paralyzed by the beauty that slept.
He looked nothing like his father. Caramel skin pulled tight over an austere, angular face spoke of deserts origins far beyond the European aristocracy, though not as dark as Bakura's own burnt ochre skin or the umber of Marik's. He boasted a fine figure beneath the black britches and red silk dress shirt, ironically plain compared to the boisterous and flamboyant wardrobe he'd spied him wearing. Long fingers wrapping around the book and cognac glass were stained with ink at the tips, the tell-tale sign of a writer engaging in their craft: all things that served to threaten Bakura's murderous opinion of him, but it was that face that stopped his undead heart from beating.
In sleep, the sharp angles of his chin and the chiseled cheekbones were surprisingly soft, smoothed by relaxation and calm, though he did not smile. The golden forelock of his bangs fell lazily over his slender brows and lashes, thick and full as a raven's plumage. Ink black hair streaked with dark red and gold blazed atop his head in a regal crown shape though that allegory did not seem to fit him. Rather it burned like fire, a black fire of secrets and shadows and the dancing firelight painted it with the rainbow darkness of sterling feathers. The shadows bouncing off his face gave him a look of peace and almost calm, safety. The sleeping innocence of one who never knew what it was like to starve, or sleep in the cold and open, or what it was like to fear the dark and all its unknowns.
Just as quickly as the boy's beauty stunned him, it infuriated him. Bakura summoned his rage and it burned hot and vengeful in his gut like acid, devouring his entire being in a furious, hot pain that sizzled and stung until there was nothing left but rage—and the desire to end it. Summoning all his hatred and rage, all his grief and pain, all his desperation and despair he willed it into his hand and pressed the blade into the boy's throat.
He awakened with a start, a satisfied smirk nearly split Bakura's mad face in two, eager and determined to see the fear blooming across the pompous brat's face: to see that proud façade crumble into cowardly cries and desperate pleas to spare his life, to watch as the false bravado faded from his eyes and that last flicker of dying hope before Bakura slit his throat and watched the life drain out of him before he devoured it. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to listen to his desperate screams for help, watch him squirm and crumble into a crying cowardly heap, to listen to him weep and beg and plead for mercy when his assailant himself had been shown absolutely none. It had been his lullaby for so long, Bakura wanted nothing more than to listen to it in life expecting it to be as sweet and refreshing as it was in his dreams.
The boy did none of that.
Instead, there was only a momentary jolt of wakefulness and a widening of surprise in his eyes. Eyes that were the most beautiful and amazing thing Bakura had ever seen. They glowed in the darkness, rich and red as rubies, but flickered as though firelight were trapped within them. The combination of light and shadows spoke of secrets all his own. But there were no screams, no pleads, no begging, no fear reflected into those endless red orbs, merely a silent, resolved calm that infuriated Bakura more than arrogant laughter or false bravado ever could.
The bold, brazen things infuriated him further by taking on not the timid, submissive expression that he had expected, but a smoldering defiance, like rising embers just before they burst into a roaring red flame. They glared at him fearlessly: a mixture of defiance and resolve that narrowed his eyes, slanted his brows and tugged his lips in a neutral line. Bold, brilliant and beautiful even in the face of immediate death. Dear God, Bakura had never seen anything so magnificent in all his life.
"Who are you?" The demand rolled off his lips with a low, dangerous calm. The liquid baritone smooth and low with a pitch of rising heat: the roar of a fire devouring a log, a warm whisky by the hearth. Even Bakura found himself hesitant under the command of that unrivaled sound. "What are you doing in my house, vagabond?"
His eyes lowered with the demand and all of Bakura's rage returned and resurfaced in indignant defiance of the command. "I don't owe you an explanation," he hissed low, and dangerously calm letting all his fervor and fury bleed into his words and felt a small tingle of pride when he felt the other tremble under his words.
Just as quickly it vanished and the boy's fire returned: a red roaring flame that blazed bold with enraged defiance. "The Hell you do not!" His fingers clenched the chair so tightly it scratched the fibers. Fearless rebellion burned those ruby eyes bright as flames. "You break into my house, you hold a blade to my throat, threatening my life, when I have never met or seen you before until this night, and from the look in your eyes it is clear you intend to kill me. I demand to know why?" Almost propelled upwards by the force of his own anger roaring to life, the boy's hands clenched into fists, but he must've felt the bite of the blade against his skin for he regained control and sat back down, but the willfulness did not diminish. Merely, it waited, patient, like a lioness preparing for the right moment to pounce in order to guarantee a kill.
Suddenly, taken aback by the sudden outburst, it was a miracle of Bakura's own will that he did not stumble, that his knife hand remained steady, that the shock did not resonate on his face though he was certain his mask had cracked more than once. This was not the cowardly, spoiled whelp he'd fantasized about killing. This bold, strong, resilient creature that radiated fire and fury, whose eyes shined with the indomitable will of a survivor—it was a look Bakura knew all too well, for he'd seen it every time he gleamed his reflection.
It made Bakura's blood boil.
No, he steeled himself against the sudden wave of empathic emotions. He would not sympathize with this…this…this boy. This stupid, selfish brat…
"Why?" he snapped, forgetting the blade completely and lunged forward to grab the boy's throat in his calloused hand. "You fucking little brat! You have the audacity to ask me that!"
The boy's throat was warm in his hand, the skin smooth, the veins just barely able to be felt under darkened skin. A sick gratified thrill filled him at the horror tinged with fear overcoming the boy's face when he lunged, his hands and arms moved to pin themselves besides him, as if trying to disappear into it. And yet at the same time there was a pull in his chest that he could not explain: a small tinge of guilt and pain, barely a whisper. He ignored it entirely, and yet even as he held the boy immobile in his hands, felt him struggle, he found he could not apply the necessary pressure in order to deprive his throat of air. The boy's struggles were brief, and Bakura felt him relax in the embrace: that calm resilience returning to his expression despite the pounding heart audible in Bakura's ears. Stupid, naïve brat! Did he really think Bakura wouldn't kill him?
"Yes," the boy whispered, his voice rough from Bakura's grip, and strangely…apologetic. "What did I do to you to make you wish me dead?"
Red exploded behind Bakura's eyes coupled with a maniacal laughter. He leaned forward, looming dangerously over his captive like the monster of every child's nightmare. "You want to know why , Atemu Van Darkholm, yes, you stupid brat, I know your name! I've been watching you and your so-called sainted father ," he spat the word like it was dirt on his tongue or venom. "You want to know what you did?"
The hiss was so low and dangerous, he looked ready to burst with the rage of it and, indeed, rage rolled off him in waves, despite the tiny twinge in his heart like a voice warning him against it, but Bakura ignored it, and released the full force of his anger upon his victim. His hands shook but did not squeeze. He leaned close enough to stare wild-eyed into those god damned beautiful ruby orbs that seemed to hold such sway over him…even now, shaking with rage and vengeance and the screams of his loved ones roaring in his mind, looking into the emotion burning unapologetically in those eyes…the voices quieted.
He laughed like a madman, his voice choked with laughter and what could've been sobs. "You are alive . That is your sin. You. Are. Alive while my family is dead! Because of your father! You know who I am? I am Bakura Tozokou! The King of Thieves! Son of Azizi and Nalori Tozokou, the Nomachs of the Kul Eluna Vampyre clan! My home in the heart of the desert far from here was a paradise born of isolation. We were known as the Vampyre , yes, little boy, we were the creatures of your myths and stories though far superior to the ones your fiction created to stroke your egos. We were creatures of night, like all desert kin. We were hunters and thieves, perhaps we were not moral but we were still people, we still deserved to live. " He choked on those words, emotion so thick and palpable squeezed his throat.
The exasperation and emotion exhausted him taxing his will beyond the limits of its power, but now that the grief was upon him, he could not stop it, only endure it, embrace it, ride through it until there was nothing left but purpose. "My father was the Nomach or leader, my mother was his Second in Command. My older sister was the princess and I, though much younger, was the prince who one day would've inherited my father's position—but then, he came." His voice cracked on that word, fire and acid spitting from his lips like some ancient reptilian monster. A small, sadistic part of him delighted at the boy's horrified shiver, at the wheels spinning in those glowing ember eyes. The realization, as they fell into place and stole all the confidence from the boy's face.
"He killed them," he said. "Your family…my father killed them to get what it was he wanted." A dark understanding—but not surprise—shadowed the boy's face, but the shattered bravado brought Bakura no pleasure. The boy's face fell forward, despite the grip Bakura's hand had on his throat. "That's what he does. He takes what he wants, regardless of who he has to hurt and what he has to destroy." Those caramel hands fisted in rage, derision dripping off his each and every words, his disgust so palpable his body shook with it.
It shocked him, and Bakura had no response for it.
And then the boy chuckled: a harsh, bitter, humorless sound. "If you truly wanted my father dead that badly," he lifted his face, his expression twisted into one of spite, his smile savage. "All you had to do was ask me."
Bakura's grip loosened in his shock but he did not let go.
"Hell," the boy, Atem, retorted with a bark of laughter. "Were he here, or ever here, I would've shown you to his room. You'd be doing me a favor killing him." And then that smile slid into a smirk that split his face. "And for the record, Bakura," he purred the thief's name. "You don't have a man caught when you have his throat." Bakura arched a visible brow, slightly intrigued by the cocky, confident grin splitting the boy's face in two: a challenge and a triumph. "You do when you have his hands."
And then Bakura felt it: the cold, barely audible prick of steel against his gut. Pressing into the flesh through the thin material of the shirt beneath his coat. Eyes widening with the shock of being outwitted rather than true fear, Bakura lowered his gaze and found the side of a blade poised, steadily in Atem's hand: ready to strike and slice. When he lifted his face he saw Atem's face: a neutral line of his lips daring the other to challenge him.
A snort escaped Bakura's lips then he threw his head back in a glorious laugh.
Atem's expression flashed and Bakura radiated in it. "Very clever, little Princess," he spat the title, all derision. " Very clever indeed." His grip tightened and he felt the blade dig deeper into his skin. Leaning forward, Bakura whispered low, dark, dangerous and gentle as a lover. "I almost believed you."
A blow, swift and sudden slammed into his gut, stealing all his breath and forcing his grip to release.
III
But you saw tigers lurking just beyond the fences
And tear up those paper cats, they're nothing more
Than your defenses
— Aurelio Voltaire, The Necropolis of Former Lovers
With a well-angled burst of adrenaline Atem drove his knee up into Bakura's gut. Overcome by the shock rather than the pain, Bakura stumbled back, Atem seized the opportunity and shoved the bastard away and leapt over him aiming for the door, but the vampire would not be undone. With a savage, animalistic roar that paralyzed Atem for a single second and that was all it took, Bakura lunged for him, caught the boy in his grip and rolled them across the floor.
Atem refused to submit: he fought like a wildcat, throwing punches and kicks with deadly accuracy, even Bakura with his vampire speed and the superior reflexes of a thief had difficulty dodging them. He finally gaged the pattern of the red-head's attacks and managed to catch his wrist, swerve to avoid another strike and pin his arm behind his back, but Atem would not submit and slammed his head back forcing Bakura to retreat. Atem whirled on his heels and delivered another sharp punch towards the vampire's cheek. He dodged it swiftly, slipped between the other's spread arms and grinned. Catching him off guard, Bakura drank in his look of surprise before he grabbed the other's wrists and shoved him to the floor with a powerful thud, knocking the breath from him.
Though pinned beneath Bakura's superior weight, his hands pinioned above his head, the other looming menacingly over him, Atem glared at him: bold and fiery and defiant and unrelenting. Dear God, even in defeat he was spectacular. It took all of Bakura's will to hate him at that moment. To steel himself against the pounding in his heart and the rise of unfamiliar emotions determined to overcome his grief.
"Is this why you want me dead?" Atem asked suddenly, his stance no less indomitable, but his voice was gentle, determined. "Because of my father ?" Again he spat that word. "And because I am his son?"
"YES!" Bakura roared in his face. " And no," he added, laughing a sinister mad man's laugh: a humorless laugh of pain and grief and anguish and the hollowness of a man who had lost everything. "I want you dead because killing him would be too simple. He does not deserve a quick death. He does not deserve the peace my family knows now. What he deserves is to live . He deserves to hold the corpses of his loved ones in his arms while he alone survives. To live as I have lived every day alone and without them, to live with the painful knowledge that I will never see them again. He deserves to feel that pain, that anguish! To suffer as we have suffered! To know what it is like to live in a world where everyone and everything you love is gone! That is what he deserves!"
"Then you are a fool!" Atem snapped, stunning the man above him into silence.
Atem panted with the force of his rage, punctured each word with his indignation. "I. Am. Not . My. Father. And I am not responsible for his sins." His every word was a hiss of declaration, a command as if willing the universe, and yet it was laced with an anguished guilt Bakura knew all too well. "You think I do not know what kind of Monster he is? That I have not seen the lengths he will go to get what he wants? That I, myself, have not felt the weights of his sins since the day of my birth? His blood is a taint within me and nothing more. I don't give one wit if you want him dead or not! He has never been a father to us—" he hesitated, catching himself, his eyes shinier than usual. "To me." Bakura caught the correction but did not question it. "If he were here, if he were ever here at night, I would give you the key to his bed chambers and go back to my book."
There was no doubt or lie in his voice. Only brutal, honest truth.
"He has no wealth, no title, no status. This house is…was my mother's and she left it to me in her will. He can make no claim upon it not even with my death. But then if he did he would lose his precious heir ," Atem spat that word too, referring to himself as a thing, a dress on a hanger, an ornament on the shelf. "His only hope would be to control us and believe me when I say he would use my brother against me if he thought doing so would work in his favor, but neither Yugi nor I would let him." Atem paused, bore straight into those burgundy eyes, blazing with so many emotions: shock, denial, rage, grief, horror possibly even…delight?
Atem sighed, allowing the last of his emotions to spill into his words, and with them brought about the full measure of the vagabond's defeat. "Killing us would not cause him pain…not in the way you and I would want him to. It would only make things easier for him—removing what he considers an annoyance."
For one perpetual, paralyzing moment they just stayed there: still and silent, staring into the other's eyes. Atem's fading ruby darkening to cerise with sympathy, Bakura's wide and wild with all manner of emotions. His hands trembled as he released his grip, shaking fingers uncurling around the boy's wrists.
Slowly, he pulled himself back onto his knees. He wasn't surprised when Atem did not hesitate to scramble away, but to his own surprise, he did not move to escape, merely collecting himself. Bakura cast his eyes heavenward, desperate for an answer: his expression a raging war of defeat and denial.
"Are you saying…" His words were ghostly apparitions, fluttering disembodied from his voice like his spirit was abandoning his corporeal flesh in his grief. "That all of my planning, all of training, all of my pain and suffering, all of my hopes and dreams, my vengeance , the only thing that has kept me alive for nearly ten years has all been…" he paused, hesitated, as if unwilling to put the truth out there into the world. As if keeping it trapped there would prevent it from becoming a reality.
Fate was not so kind. "In vain?"
Sadness danced in Atem's eyes, his lips and uneasy frown. "If your vengeance was to hurt my father, then no, not yet. But if your only plan was to hurt him by hurting my brother and me, then, yes. It has."
Then what was the point of all of this? Bakura's spirit raged as he sat there, looking blankly at the carpet, feeling as if the whole world had titled and turned inside out. For so long he had been a weapon of vengeance, the instrument of his loved one's pain, their only chance at justice. But just like that one sharp-tongued little spitfire had torn those hopes and dreams asunder and revealed them for what they really were: mad musings. The thoughts of an angry, grief-stricken child who could not bear acceptance. But…no…how? Why? She had said hadn't he? The witch, the seer had promised, hadn't she?
What am I to do now?
"You live," Atem whispered and Bakura shot up. Had he said that out loud? Facing him, he found the boy already standing, offering him a hand. Him, the man who had come here to murder the brazen idiot? That same brazen idiot who was now offering him his hand as though they were friends?
"You hold on to their memory, and you find a new purpose to live, for yourself—and for them." Atem clenched his fist as he spoke, the quiet strength behind his words, so dramatic in difference to his usual bold confidence that Bakura knew at once he spoke from true experience, from loss, from a place perhaps not as dark as Bakura's but no less traumatic in its grief.
He took the hand, allowed himself to stand. Stared. Stared at the spectacular brazen little brat who had undone a decade worth of revenge planning. The sharp-tongued little spitfire who outwitted a decade worth of vengeance with a few harsh, honest words. The stunningly snarky creature whose sad smile offered hope and whose beautiful ruby eyes and bold, confident smirk, set his blood on fire.
Even now, spectacular in his grief, he offered a cocky grin. "I meant it when I said I would help you kill my father, if that will help you. I don't condone murder, but if it means than man cannot hurt anyone else, I will not lose sleep to a troubled conscious."
Marvelous. Fucking marvelous .
And just like that the final piece clicked into place.
A snort escaped Bakura: a tiny, swallowed bark of realization that grew into its own series of shallow chuckles. Chuckles that rose in volume and exploded from his lips in a continual booming laughter. But unlike before it was not the humorless sardonic mad man's laughter: this was a true, hearty, ironic laugh of a man who saw all the ironies of the universe and could only find them humorous. He laughed so hard he shook from it.
The sudden burst of mirth, shocked Atem so much, he leapt back from it, startled and wide-eyed. Bakura saw that too and his humor rolled off him in jolly waves as he burst into a fit of giggles and hollers so loud, he nearly doubled-over with his laughter.
When he finally calmed down enough to breathe, he rubbed his face and mumbled "The damned witch was right." He chuckled again and stood on shaky limbs, his whole body still reeling from the force of his humor. "God Damnit."
He turned to Atem, a grin splitting his face and found the boy staring at him eyes wide: torn between bewilderment and a sort of salacious curiosity.
Bakura chuckled, elaborating. "My friend's sister has a…let's say very prophetic gift." He snorted at what he once dismissed as nonsense he now called a gift. "She told us that if we went through with our plans tonight we could find our heart's desire. I thought she meant I'd finally have my vengeance…" Bakura swallowed a snort then leered at the boy standing before him. Enjoyed the delicious shiver than ran visibly up his spine. "Seems I was wrong about that too."
Atem did not like the way Bakura was looking at him. He took a slow, hesitant step back, but Bakura took a step forward matching his retreat step for step. Gone was the vengeful grief: instead his eyes glittered with something akin to both madness and hunger, his smile curling at the corners revealing sharp fangs, a long pink tongue licked his lips. Each and every curve of his face spoke of a salacious appetite that desired to be quenched.
Atem's heart pounded. His back suddenly hit the door and he swallowed a scream as the man was suddenly on top of him, pinning his wrists to the door and staring into his shivering ruby eyes, growling at the way his hips trembled against his.
"I think...that you and I, Princess," Bakura grinned like a Cheshire cat devouring the shiver running through his trapped prey and absolutely loving the way the boy growled defiantly at the nickname. "Are going to become very, very, very good friends."
And swallows the others lips in a single, scorching kiss.
Atem's mouth and eyes shot open and Bakura did not hesitate to devour him: Atem tasted of whisky and fire and sunshine, a vivacious energy that fired Bakura's blood and urged him to press deeper against those soft, warm lips, his tongue coasting Atem's to play. The taste of Bakura's rich, coppery, earthy flavor shattered all of Atem's defenses and he melted into this kiss, his bones liquefying under the other's superior lips and tongue. Those strong arms snaked around his waist held him upright, allowing Atem to press further into the other's embrace and take as much as he was given.
When they pulled away, Atem nearly collapsed under the intensity and braced himself against the door, all the while the vampire smirked at him: all cocky smiles and confident grins. It set Atem's blood boiling: both anger and arousal spiked his being. Atem smirked in response, his eyes blazing with coquettish fire, igniting a challenge and a chase. Smirking, Bakura leaned forward to steal another kiss from the disobedient boy's lips.
And felt another sharp blow to his thigh, knocking him off balance. Still smirking, Atem dropped his knee and shoved the vampire back, sending him sprawling across the couch and pulled the door before leaving, he spun, his entire form illuminated by firelight and shadows that for a moment Bakura thought him an angel of darkness came to torment him—and that damn blasted cocking grin ignited his irritation and lust more than any vengeance plot ever could.
"Did you really think it would be that easy?" Atem arched a cocky brow and disappeared down the hall.
Bakura laughed again, his bones singing and his hunter instincts wild in his blood, fired with a desire that was for neither blood nor mayhem.
A smile slit his face.
He always did enjoy a challenge.
IV
You kicked the crosses of my exes every day
It never made you seem better than her in anyway
You read between the lines of epitaphs on graves
—Aurelio Voltaire, Necropolis of Former Lovers
Outrunning the vampire in a passionate chase through the old manor proved to be far more exercise than Atem expected. Bakura was certainly a worthy opponent and the many years playing hide and seek with Yugi in this old house with its labyrinthine corridors and secret doorways proved useful but ineffective against the hunter whose skills came vigorously to life in the wake of a new challenge—that challenge being Atem himself. Even Atem could admit, free from the mask of vengeance and rage, he found the snarky, flamboyant stranger intriguing but he would be damned if he spoke so out loud.
Then a scream echoed from upstairs.
"Yugi!" With a screech of worry, Atem bolted from his hiding place and took the steps two at a time, cursing his own stupidity. How could he not have seen this? How had he not thought of this earlier? He'd been careful in not mentioning Yugi's presence in his conversation with the mad vampire whose goal was bloodlust until it became clear he was no longer a threat. It had never occurred to him that Bakura might have an accomplice. That someone else had been sent to dispatch his beloved younger brother, the only family he had left, while he was down stairs playing cat and mouse with a lascivious vampire whose salacious smile and hungry eyes boiled his blood and set his soul on fire.
Another scream, more rapturous than fearful echoed through the ancient halls.
Thundering down the corridor and passing their childhood bedrooms on either side of the hall, he threw himself against the grand doors of the Lady's Rooms that had once belonged to their mothers—and became Yugi's when she died. The doors, blissfully unlocked, swung open yielding without resistance under the force of his love-enforced strength and he grabbed the molding to steady himself and keep from tumbling to the floor.
Two horrified screams erupted from inside.
"Yugi!" Atem cried out, shot up. His next scream froze in its throat, stunned. There was Yugi, safe and sound, his night clothes torn to shreds around his body, his face flushed with passion and his lower half sprawled across the lap of a half-naked brown-skinned, pale-haired man who Atem did not know. The position telling as they turned to him, eyes wide, and still half-moaning from their pleasure.
At the sight of Atem's paralyzed expression, Yugi shivered, mortified but not apologetic.
It took all of Atem's will not to scream—then his resolve shattered and he shouted "What the fuck are you doing, Yugi!"
Both boys jumped: Yugi hiding in the mocha-skinned boy's chest and the other frozen in shock.
Atem nearly exploded, about to pounce and tear them to pieces when there was a sudden triumphant howl of "Caught you!" behind him and his whole world uptitled with a scream.
After a stumbling moment, when Atem found himself upright again, he realized to his sheer and absolute horror and mortification that he was now draped across the arrogant vampire's shoulder with his arm tight around Atem's waist, and Atem's leather-clad rump now on display for all the world to see.
Worst of all, he discovered when he pushed himself up to look over the vampire's shoulder, was the victorious smirk splitting his face like a sharks: full of confidence and teeth. His eyes ravenous with desire and his whole expression twisted to a mask of absolute triumph.
Atem exploded. "You son of a fucking bitch!" he screamed, kicking and thrashing and pounding his fists furiously at the man's back pulled and wiggled his waist in a desperate attempt to escape and shrieked when nothing work. "Put me down this instant or I swear I'll—" A string of curses, threats and quite a few colorful insults—some in different languages—exploded from Atem's lips in an uncontrolled rage. Gone was all sense of pious as he thrashed and raged not unlike a trapped wildcat: all furious hisses and scratches and claws and fur and teeth.
Bakura rolled his eyes, spotted the two blushing teens on the bed and could only chuckle. "Well…this certainly took a turn." He shook his head and spun on his heels, advising over his shoulder. "Next time, try locking the door."
He swaggered out the door and into the hall with a wave, leaving the stunned lovers to finish their rump in private. "If you need us we'll be in the Master Bedroom."
"The fucking Hell you are!" Atem raged like an angry dragon spitting fire and double his thrashing.
A sharp, sudden swat across his ass stilled him. More from the shock than the pain, Atem stared at his captor, humiliation burning his whole face red. "Did you…just…" Too stunned to speak and too mortified to say the actual word, his tongue twisted in his mouth.
"Of course, I did." Bakura winked over his shoulder, the picture of innocence.
Atem's growl morphed into an animalistic scream and let loose an angry broken string of syllables that Bakura suspected had been English at some point in their evolution.
Bakura laughed again "Ha, you are an enigma, princess…" he whispered, the compliment taming the thrashing boy just long enough to glare at his captor. "You look like an angel," spotting the master bedroom, Bakura kicked the door open. "But you fight like a devil and swear like a fucking sailor."
Atem screeched as he was suddenly tossed onto the bed with a swift single motion. He bounced up and landed just in time to see the vampire climbing over him: his smile ravenous and his eyes bright with an emotion that, had Atem not known better, he would've called affection.
Bakura pressed their foreheads together, grin absolutely glittering. "Now let's see if you can fuck like a tigress."
To his absolute delight, Atem readily rose to the challenge.
V
I could have walked beside you endlessly
But I grew weary of the shallow graves you led me to
It's nothing short of a tragedy
—Aurelio Voltaire, Necropolis of Former Lovers
The memories and the emotions associated with them came flooding back to him in such a rush that Yami felt overwhelmed by the force of them—he was alive. He had died in another life and yet he was alive now? But then…who was he? Was he Atemu Van Darkholm, the Lady's son whose monstrous father had caused the death of his brother and himself? Or was he Yami Mutou the college arts graduate who'd live a good life traveling with his loving parents and wanted to be a Graphic Artist? And if he was both, then what did that make him now?
Questions without answers swam in his mind like angry piranhas feeding on his anxieties, until two strong arms enveloped him in a hug and held him close. The embrace, so warm, so tight, so familiar and loving and comforting that it broke Yami's heart.
"Bakura," he whispered, melting into the embrace though he could not meet the other's eyes. "You were waiting for me…all this time?"
"I'd have waited forever for you," Bakura whispered reassuringly and Yami knew it was true.
"But I'm not Atem…" his voice quivered and his body shook with apprehension. His shoulders slunk under the weight of that statement. "I…I was…I know that but...I'm not...I'm Yami Mouto. I lived an entirely different life. I'm a different person…I'm…" His heart squeezed as he spoke his next words, knowing they needed to be said. "I'm not the person you fell in love with."
"Oh, I know that," Bakura chuckled, and grinned when Yami spun to him, stunned. "I know you're not the same Atem, Atem, or…I guess Yami now. I like that, Darkness always did fit you. Anyway, the point is, it doesn't matter who you were or who you are now, you're still my Princess: my feisty, fiery spitfire of a kitten who loves to challenge me and piss me off and turn me on and tell me when I'm being a reckless idiot. If your resurrection simply means falling in love with you all over again, I can't complain."
The earnestness in his russet eyes and the small curl to his smile…
Bakura blinked, seeing those ruby eyes expand, bigger and shiner than usual, his smile a swiggly line like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Wait, why are you looked at me like—AH!"
The vampire screeched as he was suddenly pounced on by his lover barely having time to catch him before he was enveloped in a four limbed hug (impressive given the dress Atem was wearing) and suddenly attacked with kisses and fits of laughter punctured by declarations of love. Bakura barely managed to untangle the mess of limbs from around himself and seat his spry little lover back onto the altar. "God, you really haven't changed," Bakura snorted, half laughing.
"Oh, just wait," Yami grinned, sitting back voluptuously on the altar. "I've still got a few secrets of my own." He sat up, dipped his fingers between the front of Bakura's pants and dragged him forward and into a hot, passionate kiss.
He tasted just as Yami remembered: rich, coppery, and earthy like a finely aged wine and he was absolutely drunk on the taste. Those hard, heavy hands his body remembered well, rose to clap around his waist and tease up his sides, their heat burning Yami's flesh even through the silk, lace and brocade of his dress.
"Get a room you two," came a familiar bark, forcing the two to pull apart. Bakura growled and Yami, for the first time, remembered the circle of hooded figures.
"We have one," Bakura smirked, a bitter bark of sound. "So all of you should leave."
VI
Even in bed you raised the dead to speak her name
—Aurelio Voltaire, Necropolis of Former Lovers
They lowered their hoods and Yami gasped recognizing his former friends and family. "You…Isis, Rishad, Mana, Mahad, Seto…you're all here? How?"
"Perhaps that is a story for another day," Isis smiled, shooing her husband and adoptive daughter out of the halls. Seto and Kisara followed soon after.
Once they were alone again, Bakura reclaimed his lover's lips and Yami melted into the kiss, and fell back against the flat surface of the altar, Bakura slipping between his spread thighs and skirts. God, Yami tasted just as he remembered: like fire and hope and sunshine—a taste he had not sampled in nearly two hundred years and he was determined to sample it again and again and again until dawn and into the day. From the way Yami's hands fumbled and explored and ran over the grooves and valleys of his chest and muscles, his beloved little hellcat, had the exact same idea.
When he pulled away, Yami all but collapsed in his arms, bracing himself on his elbows and Bakura's arms on his waist, the only thing keeping him upright. His face a dreamy, delirious expression of pleasure and rising desire, his lips parted in lop-sided pants and even in this state, his eyes burned with a passionate, demanding fire.
Gods above, Bakura loved that face.
"Shall we go back to our room?" Bakura whispered, low and sultry in his ear, his voice dark and soft as velvet. To his delight, Yami shivered.
Yami grabbed fistfuls of his hair and hips and pulled him closer, all but crashing their bodies against each other. "I can't wait that long," he demanded and swallowed any protest Bakura might have made with another fiery kiss that burned the man's skin and set his blood on fire.
Always willing to please, the vampire obeyed and slowly climbed on top of the altar over his lover, slipping his knee in between Yami's pointed thighs, his rising legs kicking up his skirts as he slammed the heel of his boots flat on the stone. Bakura's hands quickly found the opening in the folds and slid up the boots, tantalizingly slow until he reached the strip of flesh where his boot ended and the boy's upper thigh began. Stroked the inner junction of his thigh. Delighted that Yami wore nothing underneath.
Overcome by his hunger, the vampire kissed him again, a hot heavy kiss that invoked a moan from his lover. All too quickly it ended, and Bakura set to kissing and grazing his teeth along the warm flesh of the others neck and collar bone, his nails ripping at the ribbons and roses of his bodice until the sweet, honey gold skin was exposed to him, making Atem arch. He attacked with kisses and bites and scrapes until Yami was a mewling mess beneath him.
The man's teeth on his chest and skin, his long, talented fingers callously teasing his thighs, earned a cry of delight from the other. Yami buckled his hips and dragged his nails down the other's back, desperate and eager, The pain only spurred Bakura on and those callous fingers slipped deeper down his thighs, teasing the one place Yami wishes to be touched the most.
Yami's back arched in anticipation, his hands falling off Bakura's shoulders to grip the stone sides as pleasure overwhelmed him, but still he refused to beg or plead, and his eyes flashed red and demanding and, Gods above, he was magnificent.
Despite his wavering strength, the boy sat up: arms shaking under his weight, thighs quivering and clenching tightly around Bakura's hips where his fingers teased his entrance and his arousal. Eyes blazing, he hissed. "Well? What are you waiting for?" he cocked his head, not unlike a bird.
Bakura grinned, removed his hands, earning a mewl of disappointment from his lover, and pulled out a familiar bottle from his pocket and popped it open. "Stole this from our room during our chase." He grinned and slipped a well-oiled finger beneath the folds of Yami's dress, teasing the ring of muscles guarding the source of his pleasure.
Yami swallowed a gasp, fingers tightening around the stone, as those fingers teased and taunted, then slipped inside him, one after the other: poking, probing, curling, thrusting, stretching, stroking, arching.
"You always were prepared," Yami choked on a gasp, thighs quaking around the man's hips as he struggled to lift himself on shaking arms. Bakura only smirked and thrust his fingers harder, angling them just so and earning a sharp gasp from his lover that assured him he's found it, the one place where Yami could never deny him.
"And you are much more vivacious than I remember," Bakura grinned, his smile curling at the corners and baring teeth like a shark's. It sent a shiver down Yami's spine. He shuddered with the anticipation it promised.
Yam chuckled, matching Bakura's grin with a smirk of his own. "Does it bother you?" he taunted. "That I'm not a virgin in this life." His voice took on a sudden pitch when Bakura angled his fingers just so and then removed them completely, to shove back his skirts.
"Should it?" the vampire demanded coyly, pressing his hips harder against Yami's earning a hiss from him that he fought hard to swallow. Defiant, even like this. "Why should I care who you've fucked before, when I'll be the only one you fuck from now on." He punctured that statement by undoing his pants, and pouring the last of the oil over his ready cock. "And the best."
Atem licked his hips. Then flashed a toothy grin. "Hmm…I don't know, there was this one guy I knew in college, who certainly knew his way around a—"
The rest of his sentence morphed into a scream as his wrists were suddenly ceased, pulled out from under him and pinned against his sides, forcing his back against the stone with a loud hiss as the air was knocked from his lungs. Bakura loomed over him: his face dark, his eyes possessive and predatory, and his hard, heavy hips bucking harshly against Yami's inciting a gasp from him.
Bakura curled over like a demon and growled at the way Yami smirked and shivered, even pinned beneath him and hissed. "Don't. Fucking. Tease me." And punished him with a particular hard thrust that filled him completely and struck the one spot that made him see stars. Yami responded with loud screech of "Fuck!" his back curled into a perfect arch as pain and pleasure wracked his body mercilessly.
The velvety heat enveloping his arousal was like a scorching infernal that made Bakura tremble with impatience. Offering Yami no time to recover, he dragged out his length, tantalizingly slow, drinking in the sight of Yami's hissing and squeezing his shut eyes and the way his head pulled back with a groan of absolute desire. Then he angled his hips and arched up with hard, punishing thrusts. He did it again, and again, and again with merciless speed and watched in absolute delight as his screeching, screaming cursing lover, writhed and bucked under him: quaking thighs tightening around Bakura's hips, his legs kicking outward and bracing against the stone, his hips desperate to arch up and meet the punishing speed of his thrusts, but Bakura pinned them in place with bruising strength and watched as Yami's face twisted with a mixture of shock and pain and pleasure and delirious delight. His wrists wrenching for freedom and his fingers flexing desperate for something, anything to grab but Bakura's grip was strong and he pounded into him with a strength and speed only a vampire could possess, and Yami loved every single second of it.
He'd always loved it when Bakura dominated him.
"Bakura," he managed to squeak out in a long breath, his eyes opening for just a minute, before another harsh thrust slammed them shut.
"Hmm?" the vampire, purred, arching a brow. Taking pity on his lover, he released one of his wrists and grabbed Yami's hip arching it just so that his next thrust met Yami's and thrust so deep inside of him it finally made the boy scream.
"You're mine!" Yami hissed, as possessively and passionately as Bakura took him.
Those two words broke the last of Bakura's resolve and he pounded into Yami like a demon, purposely, arching his hips to strike his most sensitive spot at different angles, spurred all the more by the constant declarations of "You're mine! You're mine! You're mine!"
Until Yami's words were a broken string of syllables and squeaks and yet he could still decipher the chant. Releasing Yami's hips, Bakura slipped a hand between the skirts, finding the evidence of his lover's own arousal: it was already hard and heavy in Bakura's hand and he squeezed it tight.
Yami screamed again. White hot light exploded behind his eyes and the coil of pleasure tightened in his gut until he could stand it no longer and he came with a scream of "Bakura!"
It was all his lover needed: his lover's heat clenching tightly around him, Bakura growled, grabbed Yami by the shoulders and kissed him hard, as his own pleasure overtook him in a blazing burst of white fire. They collapsed against the stone of the altar, shuddering as the evidence of their love drenched Bakura's chest and flooded Yami's insides.
Bakura kissed his lover again and for once Yami did not fight him, but rather wrapped his arms around Bakura's shoulders and pulled him closer, humming as Bakura's arm's wrapped around his waist and shoulders and kissed him gently. When they pulled away they stared deep into the other's eyes, content and peaceful for the first time in nearly two hundred years.
"Bakura…"Yami whispered.
"Hmm?" the vampire purred. "Yes?"
"What's with the dress?" Yami cocked an eyebrow. Yugi was the one who preferred drag, his own preferences were more colorful and flamboyant outfits certainly like smoking jackets and trench coats but never dresses—something Bakura knew too well.
The vampire grinned. "Remember how you promised me that you'd wear a dress on our wedding day?" He pushed himself up and slowly slipped out of his lover, earning a hiss of discomfort and dislike from the boy, as he stood but made no effort to fix his pants as he leaned against the altar very much like a cat with a bird in its mouth. "I'm merely holding you to that promise."
Yami blushed. He did remember that—and how he'd meant it as a joke.
He chuckled and shook his head with a groan.
"Oh come on, darling," Bakura swooped besides him, stroking his pouting cheek. "Even you can't deny it looks spectacular on you." His eyes met Yami's, their lips a whisper's breath apart.
"Of course," Yam bragged, stroking the bare skin of his open bodice, skirts a mess, and yet somehow he still managed to look regal. "I always look spectacular."
There was the arrogant brat Bakura loved to punish.
He watched as Yami hopped off the dais, grinned when his legs wobbled a bit. Yami spun to him, a coquettish smile slitting his face and his eyes half-lidded, beckoning. "But you know what I want now?" He leaned forward, walking his fingers up the muscles of Bakura's chest.
"I want…nothing more…" he purred each word, low and velvety like a predatory cat. "Then to get this dress off ."
Bakura scooped him up into his arms like a bride, grinning like a hungry lion who's just stumbled upon a feast—one he was all too eager to devour. "I think," he growled. "I like the sound of that."
They vanished in a swirl of shadows.
In retrospect I think this is my favorite chapter. I love hem all, but this one was so much fun and I had Yami and Bakura's story planned from the very beginning and as difficult as it was to write and portray correctly I truly think I nailed it and I am very proud of it :)
Especially that alter lemon ;) In short: Bakura tops but Yami/Atem is a power bottom, think on that ;)
One chapter/epilogue left!