For once I'm able to answer my reviews since it's a multi-part fic. Just so you guys all know, your reviews make the Sam feel happy and I grin when I get them. … And there is the recommended dose of corniness for the day.
Rayemars: Heh, I'm glad you liked it ^_^ You'll make my ego get too big though. And I do call him Bakura in other parts of the fic – I usually make it a point to use both names, since everybody else just uses Ryou. ^_~
Chibizoo: If you influenced me it was subconsciously. Or are you referring to the fact that everybody dies and the ending's ambiguous? (yes, I'm still upset over Club 0013, even if it was an excellent fic.) But I hadn't read Club 0013 when I wrote this, so I don't know.
Chevira Lowe: ^_^ You flatter me. Heh, I'm the same way with the certain group of authors I'll read – so much of the stuff on ff.net isn't very good at all. I just hope this part is up to standard. ::sweatdrop::
Saria and Indigo: Thank you guys muchly! ^_^
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And just so everybody knows, this is a TWT. Does not work with the timeline of YuGiOh in any way. And this take is completely unrelated to the first one.
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To the victor go the spoils.
Spoil, verb; To corrupt, to cause to go bad. He spoils her with his influence.
Spoils Take Two
Marik sat on his motorcycle with his arms crossed, resting on the handlebars and supporting his chin. His light purple eyes stared off into space, half-lidded and not focusing on anything. He heard the door to the garage open, and then somebody walking towards him and not bothering to silence their footfalls. He didn't care. Only one other person would come here to bother him, and from the sound of the sneakers hitting the concrete floor, it was that one person.
They said if you lived with somebody long enough you grew to recognize the sound of their walk. Marik didn't live with Yami Bakura; his partner in crime had the home of his human host. Still, the Egyptian teenager knew the white-haired boy's step, and didn't turn his head to look at the thief.
Yami Bakura stopped a ways from the bike and stood, waiting. He didn't like to be ignored, but still had an unnatural amount of patience. Marik, on the other hand, couldn't stand to be kept waiting, and after five minutes or so of staring at a blank wall, he turned his head to face Bakura. With the motion a few blond strands of hair fell from his shoulder to hang in the air.
"What?" Marik asked. His voice was annoyed, but that was the norm. Yami Bakura didn't react to his tone, merely shrugged.
"I was bored. Started thinking about things, and decided I'd come bother you," he said. He stood relaxed, weight on his left leg, hands in the pockets of Bakura's jeans. He fiddled with the yen pieces he found in one pocket.
"Well?" The voice was, again, annoyed, but the eyes had lost their bored and blank look.
Yami Bakura shifted, distributing his weight evenly on both legs. He dropped the yen back into the jean pocket. Marik became more aware that it was a serious issue, and sat up straight to listen.
"Why do we bother with the Yami no Games?" The silver-haired thief asked.
Marik allowed one corner of his mouth to twitch upward in his trademarked lunatic grin. "That's all?" He asked. One hand flicked his blond hair back over his shoulder. "That's easy." He paused, testing his partner's patience, before continuing on, "if we just went in and attacked, screw the Games, we'd have a good chance of winning."
Yami Bakura nodded, and spoke again. His voice was not the usual angry taunting tone; it was neutral. "That was the reason I thought of, too." Then the anger returned to his voice. "But I stopped thinking about it after I figured that out. I don't like that reason."
Marik nodded. "It's called denial, and I'm not talking about the river." That comment earned him a snort. "But really. What would Yuugi and the other morons do without us to spice up their lives?" He asked sarcastically and leaned back in the bike's seat, hands dropping from the handlebars to rest on his knees.
"What kind of a question is that? I'm not here to entertain them." The thief snorted again.
Marik shook his head lightly, blond tresses swishing with the motion. "I didn't think I'd have to spell it out for you," he said, knowing that he was possibly the only person who could say something like that to the robber that and still be alive. Yami Bakura's fists were clenching, though.
"Get to your point, if you have one," he growled, and Marik saw that his teeth were clenched as well.
"You do it for the challenge," Marik stated, contrastingly calm. "That's what you seek in life, the thrill and the challenge, and it doesn't matter that you lose because it's still fun to play." He waited, knowing that he'd need to give the pale one time to retort vocally, else he'd retaliate in other ways. When no reply came, he picked up where he'd left off. "And then, if we won, what would we do? Chances are we'd kill each other if the other team was gone."
Marik expected some half-assed comment about his sister's visions into the future, and a taunt of 'did he know that for a fact,' but his expectations went unfulfilled. The tomb robber said nothing still, and after a moment, inhaled and exhaled audibly. "What about Pegasus?" He asked. Though his face was neutral, his voice was once again teasing and angry, although it wasn't true anger. It never was, until he dropped the taunting facet and only anger was audible. Marik allowed his muscles to un-tense. "He's rather dead because of me, I'd say," Yami Bakura persisted.
The tan boy nodded. "But you knew that Yuugi was still there to play with."
"So," the white-haired one started, "we keep suffering defeat after humiliating defeat, because we've got nothing better to do and without us it'd be boring as hell."
Marik shrugged. "Yep. We, my friend, are the most vital part of the plot."
After a long, not-uncomfortable silence in which each antagonist was involved in his own thoughts, Yami Bakura spoke up again, smirking. "Doesn't change the fact that dying still hurts like a bitch."