Author's Note: Marik is Yami no Malik and Bakura is Yami no Bakura. This is dedicated to Otakugyrl, my latest convert to psychoshipping.

Kleptomania With A Whole New Twist

Clinging to Bakura for dear life with one hand, the other hand holding tightly to the piece of cloth that served for reins, completely convinced of his own upcoming death, Marik had only one thought on his mind which he voiced quite clearly, "WHY would you steal an elephant if you don't even know how to ride it!"

"It was there!" Bakura shouted back, ducking down a little as a tree branch came towards with them - for such a large animals, elephants certainly could move very fast.

"Your kleptomania is going to get us KILLED!" Marik ducked as well and the elephant continued stampeding through the forest, trampling everything in its path and Marik added, "Killled and TRAMPLED so that they won't even recognize our bodies!"

"Blame it on the Pharaoh." Bakura yelled back.

"HOW! Much as I hate him, he's not even in this country! How is it your fault that you judst stole a large mammal that you can't even control!" A little less frantically and a little more smugly, Marik added, "You can't blame him for everything - you need to start taking responsiblity for your actions at some point."

Bakura made a mental note to himself to yell at Malik once again for sending Marik to those 'psyochological evaluations' and explained, "If he didn't have my Ring, I could just freeze the beast!"

"And if you had anything even approaching intelligence, you could have refrained from stealing it in the first place!" Marik was never getting on an elephant again. Nope. Never. And possibly not ever riding anything again with Bakura.

Bakura was of the same mind, but still tried to defend himself, "I'm a thief! I steal things! It's what thieves do!"

"You're an idiot! You committ idiocies! That's what idiots do!" Marik mimicked, quite convinced that they were bring followed by a group of monkeys that were laughing at them. Or maybe the forest just had a lot of monkeys? Either way, it was getting on his nerves - bad enough they had to deal with a runaway elephant but an audience of entertained monkeys as well?

"I didn't see you complaining when I suggested it!" Bakura shot back.

"That's because, for some utterly bizarre reason, I had enough faith in you that I didn't think you'd suggest stealing an animal you can't even steer!" Marik yelled in response as the elephant somehow managed to actually pick up speed.

Yanking fruitlessly at the rope which was apparently the harness and reins combined, Bakura responded, "It only has a piece of rope around its neck - I didn't think it would be this difficult, just to yank to stop and hit to go!"

Thinking that over, Marik suggested in a manner nowhere near calm, "What about words?"

Bakura blinked. Marik wanted to pick now to discuss diction? Frustrated, he snapped back, "What about them!"

Convinced that he was in the right, Marik asked smugly, "Aren't there some magic words?"

With a snort of amusement at that, Bakura mocked, "What, like 'please'? Now you're starting to sound like my host and-"

Marik whapped him on the head to shut him up, then promptly regretted it as he almost fell off the elephant. Grabbing onto Bakura again, he hotly retorted, "No, you idiot! Like 'Halt' or 'Whoa there!' or something."

"Oh..." Getting what Marik meant, Bakura thought it over for a little, then gave the cloth a hard tug, "MUSH!"

That earned Bakura another hit from a severely annoyed Marik, "YOU IDIOT! Mush is to go FASTER and it only works on Alaskan sleigh dogs! Does this look like an Alaskan sleigh dog to you!"

Definitely exasperated at getting hit, Bakura played dense deliberately as he answered, "How should I know? I've never seen one."

"You-" Fuming, Marik cut himself off as the elephant ran full-tilt into a river. A cold, yucky, dirty river. With them still on its back. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

His cry of shocked anger was promptly echoed by Bakura, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!".

The elephant blinked lazily, starting to float on its side and having apparently calmed down. Why were those humans still yelling? Honestly, they were such an excitable species.

Making a face at the feel of the river water soaking him right through to his skin (nothing that brown could be natural) Bakura nevertheless took advantage of the opportunity to point out to Marik, "Now's our chance to swim for shore and get free!"

Marik would have responded 'way ahead of you' but he was already swimming. With a pout, Bakura swam after him, dragging himself up onto the riverbank eventually and collapsing near Marik with a sigh. Turning to face the other with a smirk, he teased, "See Marik? That wasn't so bad. We're both still alive."

Glaring, Marik stated in a tone that made it clear he wasn't prepared to argue about this, "I am never riding anything with you again. Ever."

Smirk turning to a mock-pout, Bakura shifted a little closer to his partner and ran a hand down Marik's jaw, half-purring, "Well, how about riding me then?"

"That pun was so bad that it extinguished any desire that I might have felt for you." Marik deadpanned, jerking away from the other's touch.

Bakura smirked, reaching out again, "Don't tell me you're not on an adrenalin rush from that..."

"Don't tell me that you seriously think that I'm going to give in." Marik imitated the other's tone, then smirked back. "At least, not unless those monkeys stop watching us."

And that is why when the rest of the group finally found them, Marik was sunbathing lazily and when asked where Bakura was, merely pointed at the trees from which the sounds of enraged cursing could be heard as Bakura found himself tied to the tree-trunk and being fed fruit by monkeys that had apparently decided to make him their God.

...apparently monkey-killing, like elephant-theft, was just one of those areas in which ancient Egyptian thiefs didn't specialize.