Chapter 3 "Desire."

Sasha: Here is the re-worked chapter 3. I finally got an idea of how this chapter should have been. I apologise again for the mess that was chapter 3 before. I got some time and fully exploited my ideas. I hope it shows. Please enjoy.

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Malik opened the door the spacious house he had purchased and closed the door swiftly. It was sparsely furnished, as he didn't see the need of buying things for a house he would need only for a while. His henchmen were no where in sight; they stayed at the other end of the house, where most of the bedrooms were. There was not a sound in the house; the deadly silence something Malik preferred. The soft jingling of his earrings was the only sound, and it echoed through the great halls.

His stomach rumbled and Malik frowned. He didn't realise that he hadn't anything to eat since the lunch hour at school, and even then, he barely ate anything. Picking up the phone, he dialled the number for the local pizza place. In a bored voice, he ordered a pepperoni pizza and waited for the delivery. While he waited, his mind went immediately to Bakura. The white-haired devil had been in his thoughts since they first crossed paths. His sister Isis told him of Bakura back in Egypt, and Malik was interested in the boy from the very start. But he was disappointed to see and hear how much Bakura had softened up.

'He's lost that evil flare that made him a force to be reckoned with,' Malik thought, running his tongue over the top row of his teeth. 'But I know deep inside, he hasn't changed. People do not change.' His eyes narrowed as he remembered the source of Bakura's disappointing transformation. 'That Pharaoh is the cause of my problems. That bastard's will caused the death of my father…and now he turned the one I want most into some kind of pile of mush. I won't have it.'

Being so lost in his thoughts, Malik almost didn't hear the doorbell ring, signalling the arrival of his pizza. Malik pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning on and opened the door to reveal a boy about his age wearing the pizza place uniform holding a pizza box. "Here's your pizza. That'll be 13.95." Malik gave him the money and soon he was on his way. He shut the door and opened the box. Walking to the kitchen, Malik lifted up a slice and began munching on it as he set the box down.

Noticing a crumble of bread on the counter, Malik's eyes flared as he grabbed a cloth and swiped up the conniving crumble. His purple eyes widened a little as he realised that there was a little blob of mayonnaise beside the crumble. They narrowed to little slits as he glared at the unsuspecting blob. As he stared at it, he realised that the blob had hardened. Wetting the cloth in his hand slightly, he attacked the blob of hardened mayonnaise, pressing hard to the counter in hopes of ridding the stain from the white countertop.

As he was feverishly attacking the blob, he suddenly stopped. "I shouldn't be concentrating on this counter. I have more important things to worry about."

Walking up to his room, Malik's thoughts returned to Bakura. Reaching the room, Malik sifted through his minimal belongings to find a picture that he had drawn of Bakura from memory. With uncharacteristic gentleness, Malik's slender fingers traced the lines of Bakura's face. Coincidentally, it looked more like his light, but Malik didn't change it. It had a cross between an innocent face and the face of a murderer.

That's why Malik wanted Bakura to be his. To have someone that was so much like him, someone that understood the importance of revenge and how far one must go to achieve it. He was much like Malik himself, who was on the path of revenge against the Pharaoh. Yami Yugi was playing both him and Bakura. Malik's body tensed as he thought of what happened to his father all those years ago. He was murdered, and what for? For the Pharaoh's will? He was going to show that Pharaoh whose will was stronger.

Malik walked over to a bookshelf filled with thick books, all written in ancient Egyptian. He picked out one thick one in particular and opened it on the desk. Flipping through, he found the page he was looking for. "This ceremony…this is what I need." In reality, Malik knew that he didn't want Bakura just for his past bloodlust. Deep inside, what Malik needed was someone that knew the pain he was going through, what he always went through. Throughout his life, he had met no one that was like him, no one that understood what he was going through, save for Rishid. Even then…Rishid couldn't give him the one thing that his heart desired…and that was someone to love. Someone that you could call your own. Malik's hand rested on the desk and clenched into a fist. But someone always had to deny him his peace of mind. That person was Yami. "Pharaoh…as much as I would like too, your blood will not spill. But Bakura's…he and I we will be bonded. And you will finally feel the pain that I so greatly wish to cause upon you."

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Standing in the hallways, Yami stared at the door of his and Bakura's room. Bakura had seemed distracted and distant since yesterday and he was really concerned about him. When they had come home today, Bakura had immediately disappeared to cloister himself away in the room and hadn't been heard from since. Yami reached out and rapped lightly on the wood with his knuckles, eliciting no response from inside.

Sighing, he turned the doorknob and the door swung open silently. The room was as he had left it this morning and he glanced around first, noting idly that they should really clean up the clothes scattered about. Bakura was sitting on the hastily made bed, staring at the opposite wall with an unreadable expression on his face.

Yami crossed the room silently, never taking his eyes off Bakura who made no indication of having seen or heard Yami's entrance. Seating himself beside Bakura on the wrinkled bed sheets, he reached out and tentatively rested his hand on Bakura's leg. Still nothing. He moved in a bit closer and looked at Bakura's face, his own features creased with worry.

"What's the matter?" he asked in a quiet tone.

"It's nothing."

"Well it has to be something, and something serious to have turned you into a zombie," Yami said logically. "Please talk to me, maybe I can help."

"You can't help. It's just something I have to deal with on my own. Okay?" Finally Bakura turned, looking into Yami's eyes. He was visibly upset and Yami leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Alright, I guess… but if you change your mind and want to talk to me about this, about anything, just find me, okay? Anytime." Bakura nodded, dropping his gaze and Yami squeezed his knee gently and ran his hand lightly up Bakura's thigh as he stood and turned to go. He turned as he opened the door. "I love you," he said with a faint smile before he turned and left, closing the door behind him. Bakura nodded, clenching his hands into fists and feeling even more miserable and confused.

"Why did you have to come back, Malik? Why couldn't you just leave me alone, stay away and let me be happy for once…?" Deciding that thinking about the blond-haired youth and his intentions would do nothing but further depress him, Bakura flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling until he fell into a dreamless sleep.

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Bakura's POV

I felt like utter crap as I woke up to find myself alone. I remembered my earlier conversation with Yami. The guilt was eating me alive, and it had only been two days at the least. He was so considerate, so trusting, and here I am shelling myself away from something that took so much emotional trauma in that basement to achieve. Malik was just playing with my mind. That's all he was doing. Damn him for knowing what really pushes my buttons. In a way, he was worse than Yami when it came to that.

Yami…thinking of him brings back the pang of guilt. I have to tell him what's been bothering me. No! I can't…how can I tell him something that I myself doesn't even understand? What will I say? I clenched the bed sheet in my left hand, knowing that my nails were digging into my palm through the thin fabric. Ryou's words of advice flooded into my head, 'you've got to trust him, Bakura. This relationship won't work if you don't trust him. Open up to him like you have to me.'

I don't think I can do that, Aibou. I don't think I could ever fully open up to someone. It's enough that I let you see who I really was, but to do it all over again, I haven't the strength. And it's just fine with me. I wasn't all for happy-go-lucky free-flowing trustiness floating around the place and it just wasn't in my nature. I got up, brushing the wrinkles out of my clothes and walked out of the room.

There wasn't much to do, and in the massive house, I barely had the patience to go and try to find Aibou, Yugi or … Yami… so I walked around in aimless circles, having no real destination and believe it or not, I wasted two hours doing this. It was dark by the time I found my way back to my room and Yami's, but when I tried to turn the knob, it was locked. "Yami," I called, "open up the door."

"No!" came the fierce reply.

I blinked several times. "Yami, open the door. It's my room as well ya know."

"Tough luck, you're not sleeping with me tonight," Yami shot back; sounding very, very pissed off. I stared blankly at the door. What was his problem all of a sudden?

"Can I ask what I did wrong?" I asked, rapping on the door.

"You know what the hell you did wrong," Yami snapped, and I noted the unfamiliar undercurrent of extreme hatred in his powerful voice. It didn't sound like him, but at the same time, it did. I felt hurt, a little angry and frustrated. I wasn't about to go and play guessing games with a PMS-ing Pharaoh. Kicking at the door with my shoe, I turned around and went down the hall to another spare room.

"What's his problem?" I muttered, feeling irrationally bitter and frustrated. Usually it doesn't take this short of a time to really get me going, but for some reason today, everything seemed to get me angry exceedingly fast. Then it hit me—he was getting back at me for not telling him what was wrong before. Instantly, the mood changed from bitterness and anger to guilt and depression.

Growling, I got up and punched the wall. The surge of pain that radiated from the contact of my fist to the wall sent shock waves running through me. I felt most of the anger flow from my fist to the wall. The 'thud' was heard most likely through most of the house, yet no one left their rooms to come and see. I don't think I would've had to explain anything anyway. I stared at the dent in the light blue painted wall, noticing the small little dents and fractures. "Why can I ever be fucking happy…" I muttered, slamming my back into the wall. I clutched my head, falling to my knees. "I should go back to my old ways … forget all this conscience crap…just go back to being a heartless bastard…you can't get hurt that way. You can't have these feelings of guilt if you don't have a heart…

"People don't change. Why have I changed, then? If people never change, but adapt to their new situations, continuing on in their old ways, why can't I do that? Ra, is this some kind of cruel joke?" I said to myself, clenching my fists again around my hair. The sharp pain that coursed through my body at the action of nearly pulling out my hair seemed to soothe me. I gripped at my hair harder, finding comfort in the sharp pain. Pain it seems, is the only thing I know, desire, and the only fucking thing that could ever comfort me…

-TBC-

Sasha: That looks much better. I'm more pleased with this. I'm not completely pleased with it, but I am not going to change any more of it. I'm going to be checking over the chapters and making changes as I see them.